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Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from New York University in 1935.
He began his artistic career creating scenes of the American South. Later, he worked to express the humanity he felt was lacking in the world after his experience in the US Army during World War II on the European front. He returned to Paris in 1950 and studied art history and philosophy at the Sorbonne.
Bearden's early work focused on unity and cooperation within the African-American community. After a period during the 1950s when he painted more abstractly, this theme reemerged in his collage works of the 1960s. "The New York Times" described Bearden as "the nation's foremost collagist" in his 1988 obituary. Bearden became a founding member of the Harlem-based art group known as The Spiral, formed to discuss the responsibility of the African-American artist in the civil rights movement.
Bearden was the author or coauthor of several books. He also was a songwriter, known as co-writer of the jazz classic "Sea Breeze", which was recorded by Billy Eckstine, a former high school classmate at Peabody High School, and Dizzy Gillespie. He had long supported young, emerging artists, and he and his wife established the Bearden Foundation to continue this work, as well as to support young scholars. In 1987, Bearden was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bearden's family moved with him to New York City when he was a toddler, as part of the Great Migration. He was educated in high school in Pittsburgh, and then returned to New York City. The Bearden household soon became a meeting place for major figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Romare's mother, Bessye Bearden, played an active role with the New York City Board of Education, and also served as founder and president of the Colored Women's Democratic League. She was also a New York correspondent for "The Chicago Defender", an African-American newspaper.
In 1929, he graduated from Peabody High School in Pittsburgh. He enrolled in Lincoln University, the nation's first historically black college, founded in 1854. He later transferred to Boston University where he served as art director for "Beanpot", Boston University's student humor magazine. Bearden continued his studies at New York University (NYU), where he started to focus more on his art and less on athletics, and became a lead cartoonist and art editor for "The Medley", the monthly journal of the secretive Eucleian Society at NYU. Bearden studied art, education, science, and mathematics, graduating with a degree in science and education in 1935.
He continued his artistic study under German artist George Grosz at the Art Students League in 1936 and 1937. During this period Bearden supported himself by working as a political cartoonist for African-American newspapers, including the "Baltimore Afro-American," where he published a weekly cartoon from 1935 until 1937.
Bearden grew as an artist by exploring his life experiences. His early paintings were often of scenes in the American South, and his style was strongly influenced by the Mexican muralists, especially Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. In 1935, Bearden became a case worker for the Harlem office of the New York City Department of Social Services. Throughout his career as an artist, Bearden worked as a case worker off and on to supplement his income. During World War II, Bearden joined the United States Army, serving from 1942 until 1945, largely in Europe.
After serving in the army, Bearden joined the Samuel Kootz Gallery, a commercial gallery in New York that featured avant-garde art. He produced paintings at this time in "an expressionistic, linear, semi-abstract style." He returned to Europe in 1950 to study philosophy with Gaston Bachelard and art history at the Sorbonne, under the auspices of the G.I. Bill. Bearden traveled throughout Europe, visiting Picasso and other artists.
Making major changes in his art, he started producing abstract representations of what he deemed as human, specifically scenes from the Passion of Jesus. He had evolved from what Edward Alden Jewell, a reviewer for the "New York Times", called a "debilitating focus on Regionalist and ethnic concerns" to what became known as his stylistic approach, which participated in the post-war aims of avant-garde American art. His works were exhibited at the Samuel M. Kootz gallery until it was deemed not abstract enough.
During Bearden's success in the gallery, however, he produced "Golgotha," a painting from his series of the Passion of Jesus (see Figure 1). "Golgotha" is an abstract representation of the Crucifixion. The eye of the viewer is drawn to the middle of the image first, where Bearden has rendered Christ's body. The body parts are stylized into abstract geometric shapes, yet are still too realistic to be concretely abstract; this work has a feel of early Cubism. The body is in a central position and darkly contrasted with the highlighted crowds. The crowds of people are on the left and right, and are encapsulated within large spheres of bright colors of purple and indigo. The background of the painting is depicted in lighter jewel tones dissected with linear black ink. Bearden used these colors and contrasts because of the abstract influence of the time, but also for their meanings.
Bearden wanted to explore the emotions and actions of the crowds gathered around the Crucifixion. He worked hard to "depict myths in an attempt to convey universal human values and reactions." According to Bearden, Christ's life, death, and resurrection are the greatest expressions of man's humanism, because of the idea of him that lived on through other men. It is why Bearden focuses on Christ's body first, to portray the idea of the myth, and then highlights the crowd, to show how the idea is passed on to men.
Bearden was focusing on the spiritual intent. He wanted to show ideas of humanism and thought that cannot be seen by the eye, but "must be digested by the mind". This is in accordance with his times, during which other noted artists created abstract representations of historically significant events, such as Robert Motherwell's commemoration of the Spanish Civil War, Jackson Pollock's investigation of Northwest Coast Indian art, Mark Rothko's and Barnett Newman's interpretations of Biblical stories, etc. Bearden depicted humanity through abstract expressionism after feeling he did not see it during the war. Bearden's work was less abstract than these other artists, and Sam Kootz's gallery ended its representation of him.
Bearden turned to music, co-writing the hit song "Sea Breeze", which was recorded by Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. It is still considered a jazz classic. In 1954, at age 42, Bearden married Nanette Rohan, a 27-year-old dancer from Staten Island, New York. She later became an artist and critic. The couple eventually created the Bearden Foundation to assist young artists.
In the late 1950s, Bearden's work became more abstract. He used layers of oil paint to produce muted, hidden effects. In 1956, Bearden began studying with a Chinese calligrapher, whom he credits with introducing him to new ideas about space and composition which he used in painting. He also spent much time studying famous European paintings he admired, particularly the work of the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch, and Rembrandt. He began exhibiting again in 1960. About this time he and his wife established a second home on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. In 1961, Bearden joined the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery in New York City, which would represent him for the rest of his career.
In the early 1960s in Harlem, Bearden was a founding member of the art group known as The Spiral, formed "for the purpose of discussing the commitment of the Negro artist in the present struggle for civil liberties, and as a discussion group to consider common aesthetic problems." The first meeting was held in Bearden's studio on July 5, 1963, and was attended by Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis, James Yeargans, Felrath Hines, Richard Mayhew, and William Pritchard. Woodruff was responsible for naming the group The Spiral, suggesting the way in which the Archimedean spiral ascends upward as a symbol of progress. Over time the group expanded to include Merton Simpson, Emma Amos, Reginald Gammon, Alvin Hollingsworth, Calvin Douglas, Perry Ferguson, William Majors and Earle Miller. Stylistically the group ranged from Abstract Expressionists to social protest painters.
Bearden's collage work began in 1963 or 1964. He first combined images cut from magazines and colored paper, which he would often further alter with the use of sandpaper, bleach, graphite or paint. Bearden enlarged these collages through the photostat process. Building on the momentum from a successful exhibition of his photostat pieces at the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery in 1964, Bearden was invited to do a solo exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. This heightened his public profile. Bearden's collage techniques changed over the years, and in later pieces he would use blown-up photostat photographic images, silk-screens, colored paper, and billboard pieces to create large collages on canvas and fiberboard.
In 1971, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective exhibition of Bearden's work.
His early works suggest the importance of African Americans' unity and cooperation. For instance, "The Visitation" implies the importance of collaboration of black communities by depicting intimacy between two black women who are holding hands. Bearden's vernacular realism represented in the work makes "The Visitation" noteworthy; he describes two figures in "The Visitation" somewhat realistically but does not fully follow pure realism, and distorts and exaggerates some parts of their bodies to "convey an experiential feeling or subjective disposition." Bearden said, "the Negro artists [...] must not be content with merely recording a scene as a machine. He must enter wholeheartedly into the situation he wishes to convey."
In 1942, Bearden produced "Factory Workers" (gouache on casein on brown kraft paper mounted on board), which was commissioned by "Forbes" magazine to accompany an article titled "The Negro's War". The article "examined the social and financial costs of racial discrimination during wartime and advocated for full integration of the American workplace." "Factory Workers" and its companion piece "Folk Musicians" serve as prime examples of the influence that Mexican muralists played in Bearden's early work.
Bearden had struggled with two artistic sides of himself: his background as "a student of literature and of artistic traditions, and being a black human being involves very real experiences, figurative and concrete," which was at combat with the mid-twentieth century "exploration of abstraction". His frustration with abstraction won over, as he himself described his paintings' focus as coming to a plateau. Bearden then turned to a completely different medium at a very important time for the country.
During the civil rights movement, Bearden started to experiment again, this time with forms of collage. After helping to found an artists group in support of civil rights, Bearden expressed representational and more overtly socially conscious aspects in his work. He used clippings from magazines, which in and of itself was a new medium, as glossy magazines were fairly new. He used these glossy scraps to incorporate modernity in his works, trying to show how African-American rights were moving forward, and so was his socially conscious art. In 1964, he held an exhibition he called "Projections", where he introduced his new collage style. These works were very well received and are generally considered to be his best work.
Bearden had numerous museum shows of his work since then, including a 1971 show at the Museum of Modern Art entitled "Prevalence of Ritual", an exhibition of his prints, entitled "A Graphic Odyssey" showing the work of the last fifteen years of his life; and the 2005 National Gallery of Art retrospective entitled "The Art of Romare Bearden". In 2011, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery exhibited its second show of the artist's work, "Romare Bearden (1911–1988): Collage, A Centennial Celebration", an intimate grouping of 21 collages produced between 1964 and 1983.
One of his most famous series, "Prevalence of Ritual", concentrates mostly on southern African-American life. He used these collages to show his rejection of the Harmon Foundation's (a New York City arts organization) emphasis on the idea that African Americans must reproduce their culture in their art. Bearden found this approach to be a burden on African artists, because he saw the idea as creating an emphasis on reproduction of something that already exists in the world. He used this new series to speak out against this limitation on Black artists, and to emphasize modern art.
In this series, one of the pieces is entitled "Baptism". Bearden was influenced by Francisco de Zurbarán, and based "Baptism" on Zurbarán's painting "The Virgin Protectress of the Carthusians". Bearden wanted to show how the water that is about to be poured on the subject being baptized is always moving, giving the whole collage a feel and sense of temporal flux. He wanted to express how African Americans' rights were always changing, and society itself was in a temporal flux at the time. Bearden wanted to show that nothing is fixed, and expressed this idea throughout the image: not only is the subject about to have water poured from the top, but the subject is also to be submerged in water. Every aspect of the collage is moving and will never be the same more than once, which was congruent with society at the time.
In "The Art of Romare Bearden", Ruth Fine describes his themes as "universal". "A well-read man whose friends were other artists, writers, poets and jazz musicians, Bearden mined their worlds as well as his own for topics to explore. He took his imagery from both the everyday rituals of African American rural life in the south and urban life in the north, melding those American experiences with his personal experiences and with the themes of classical literature, religion, myth, music and daily human ritual."
In 2008 a 1984 mural by Romare Bearden in the Gateway Center subway station in Pittsburgh was estimated as worth $15 million, more than the cash-strapped transit agency expected. It raised questions about how it should be cared for once it is removed before the station is demolished.
"We did not expect it to be that much," Port Authority of Allegheny County spokeswoman Judi McNeil said. "We don't have the wherewithal to be a caretaker of such a valuable piece." It would cost the agency more than $100,000 a year to insure the tile mural, McNeil said. Bearden was paid $90,000 for the project, titled "Pittsburgh Recollections." It was installed in 1984.
Before his death, Bearden claimed the collage fragments aided him to usher the past into the present: "When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter in time."
"The Return of Odysseus", one of his collage works held by the Art Institute of Chicago, exemplifies Bearden's effort to represent African-American rights in a form of collage. This collage describes one of the scenes in Homer's epic "Odyssey", in which the hero Odysseus is returning home from his long journey. The viewer's eye is first captured by the main figure, Odysseus, situated at the center of the work and reaching his hand to his wife. All the figures are black, enlarging the context of the Greek legend. This is one of the ways in which Bearden works to represent African-American rights; by replacing white characters with blacks, he attempts to defeat the rigidity of historical roles and stereotypes and open up the possibilities and potential of blacks. "Bearden may have seen Odysseus as a strong mental model for the African-American community, which had endured its own adversities and setbacks." By portraying Odysseus as black, Bearden maximizes the potential for empathy by black audiences.
Bearden said that he used collage because "he felt that art portraying the lives of African Americans did not give full value to the individual. [...] In doing so he was able to combine abstract art with real images so that people of different cultures could grasp the subject matter of the African American culture: The people. This is why his theme always exemplified people of color." In addition, he said that collage's technique of gathering several pieces together to create one assembled work "symbolizes the coming together of tradition and communities."
Romare Bearden died in New York City on March 12, 1988, due to complications from bone cancer. The "New York Times" described Bearden in its obituary as "one of America's pre-eminent artists" and "the nation's foremost collagist."
Two years after his death, the Romare Bearden Foundation was founded. This non-profit organization not only serves as Bearden's official estate, but also helps "to preserve and perpetuate the legacy of this preeminent American artist." Recently, it has begun developing grant-giving programs aimed at funding and supporting children, young (emerging) artists, and scholars.
In Charlotte, a street was named after Bearden, intersecting West Boulevard, on the west side of the city. Romare Bearden Drive is lined by the West Boulevard Public Library and rows of townhouses.
Inside the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Main Library (310 N. Tryon Street) is Bearden's mosaic, "Before Dawn". After Bearden's death, his widow selected a collage by him to be recreated in smalti (glass tiles) by Crovatto Mosaics in Spilimbergo, Italy, for the grand reopening gala (June 18, 1989) of the "new" library. She was publicly honored at the ceremony for her contribution. The reinterpreted work is tall and wide.
Ground breaking for Romare Bearden Park in Charlotte took place on September 2, 2011, and the completed park opened in late August 2013. It is situated on a parcel located in Third Ward between Church and Mint streets. The artist lived near the new park for a time as a child, at the corner of what is now MLK Boulevard and Graham Street. The park design is based on work of public artist Norie Sato. Her concepts were inspired by Bearden's multimedia collages.
DC Moore Gallery currently represents the estate of Romare Bearden. The first exhibition of his works at the gallery was in September 2008. In 2014-15, Columbia University hosted a major Smithsonian Institution travelling exhibition of Bearden's work and an accompanying series of lectures, readings, performances, and other events celebrating the artist. On display at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery on Columbia's Morningside campus, and also at Columbia's Global Centers in Paris and Istanbul, "Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey" focused on the cycle of collages and watercolors Bearden completed in 1977 based on Homer's epic poem, "The Odyssey".
In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service released a set of Forever stamps featuring four of Bearden's paintings during a first-day-of-issuance ceremony at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
In 2017, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond announced acquisition of Romare Bearden's collage, "Three Folk Musicians", as part of the museum's permanent collection. The collage, which shows two guitar players and a banjo player, is often cited in art history books. It was shown at the VMFA for the first time in February 2017 in the museum's mid- to late 20th-century galleries.
Romare Bearden is the author of:
Romare Bearden is the coauthor of: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26157 |
REO Motor Car Company
The REO Motor Car Company was a Lansing, Michigan-based company that produced automobiles and trucks from 1905 to 1975. At one point the company also manufactured buses on its truck platforms.
Ransom E. Olds was an entrepreneur who founded multiple companies in the automobile industry. In 1897 Olds founded Oldsmobile. In 1905 Olds left Oldsmobile and established a new company, REO Motor Car Company, in Lansing, Michigan. Olds had 52 percent of the stock and the titles of president and general manager. To ensure a reliable supply of parts, he organized a number of subsidiary firms like the National Coil Company, the Michigan Screw Company, and the Atlas Drop Forge Company.
Originally the company was to be called "R. E. Olds Motor Car Company," but the owner of Olds' previous company, then called Olds Motor Works, objected and threatened legal action on the grounds of likely confusion of names by consumers.
Olds then changed the name to his initials. Olds Motor Works soon adopted the popular name of its vehicles, Oldsmobile (which, along with Buick and Cadillac, became a founding division of General Motors Corporation).
The company's name was spelled alternately in all capitals REO or with only an initial capital as Reo, and the company's own literature was inconsistent in this regard, with early advertising using all capitals and later advertising using the "Reo" capitalization. The pronunciation, however, was as a single word. Lansing is home to the R. E. Olds Transportation Museum.
By 1907, REO had gross sales of $4.5 million and the company was one of the four wealthiest automobile manufacturers in the U.S. After 1908 however, despite the introduction of improved cars designed by Olds, REO's share of the automobile market decreased due in part to competition from emerging companies like Ford and General Motors.
REO added a truck manufacturing division and a Canadian plant in St Catharines, Ontario in 1910. Two years later, Olds claimed he had built the best car he could, a tourer able to seat two, four, or five, with a engine, wheelbase, and wheels, for US$1,055 (not including top, windshield, or gas tank, which were US$100 extra); self-starter was US$25 on top of that. By comparison, the Cole Series 30 and Colt Runabout were priced at US$1,500; Kirk's Yale side-entrance US$1,000; the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout went for US$650; Western's Gale Model A was US$500; a Brush Runabout US$485; the Black started at $375; and the Success hit the amazingly low US$250.
In 1915, Olds relinquished the title of general manager to his protégé Richard H. Scott, and eight years later he ended his tenure as the company's presidency as well, retaining the position of chairman of the board.
Perhaps the most famous REO episode was the 1912 Trans-Canada journey. Traveling from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver, British Columbia, in a 1912 REO special touring car, mechanic/driver Fonce V. (Jack) Haney and journalist Thomas W. Wilby made the first trip by automobile across Canada (including one short jaunt into northeastern Washington State when the Canadian roads were virtually impassable.)
From 1915 to 1925, under Scott's direction REO remained profitable. In 1923, the company sold an early recreational vehicle, called the "Motor Pullman Car." Designed by Battle Creek, Michigan newspaper editor J.H. Brown, the automobile included a drop-down sleeping extension, a built-in gas range, and a refrigerator. During 1925, however, Scott, like many of his contemporaries/competitors, began an ambitious expansion program designed to make the company more competitive with other automobile manufacturers by offering cars in different price ranges. The failure of this program and the effects of the Great Depression caused such losses that Olds ended his retirement during 1933 and assumed control of REO again, but resigned in 1934. During 1936, REO abandoned the manufacture of automobiles to concentrate on trucks.
REO's two most memorable cars were its Reo Flying Cloud introduced in 1927 and the Reo Royale 8 of 1931.
The Flying Cloud was the first car to use Lockheed's new hydraulic internal expanding brake system and featured styling by Fabio Segardi. While Ned Jordan is credited with changing the way advertising was written with his "Somewhere West of Laramie" ads for his Jordan Playboy, Reo's Flying Cloud——a name that provoked evocative images of speed and lightness——changed the way automobiles would be named in the future. It had a wheelbase. The final REO model of 1936 was a Flying Cloud.
In April 1927, Reo introduced the Wolverine brand of cars as a companion model to the Flying Cloud. With a Continental engine, artillery wheels, and a different pattern of horizontal radiator louvers from the Flying Cloud, the Wolverine was made until 1928.
The 1931 Reo Royale was a trendsetting design, introducing design elements that were a precedent for true automotive streamlining in the American market. The 8-cylinder model was sold through 1933 with minor updates. The name was used on a lower-priced 6-cylinder model through 1935. Beverly Rae Kimes, editor of the "Standard Catalog of American Cars," terms the Royale "the most fabulous Reo of all". In addition to its coachwork by Murray designed by their Amos Northup, the Royale also provided buyers with a straight-eight with a nine-bearing crankshaft, one-shot lubrication, and thermostatically-controlled radiator shutters. The Royale rode upon factory wheelbases of (Model 8-31) and (Model 8-35); a 1932 custom version rode upon a wheelbase (Model 8-52). As many as 3 Dietrich coachbuilt bodies were built on wheelbases in 1931. Beginning in 1933, the Royale also featured as an option REO's semi-automatic transmission, the Self-Shifter. The Model 8-31 was priced at $2,145. The model 8-35 was priced from $2,745 for the sedan to $3,000 for the convertible coupe. The coachbuilt cars were priced close to $6,000. A convertible Victoria was listed at $3,195 but only one is known to have been built. The 8-35 & 8-52 are considered full CCCA classics.
Although truck orders during World War II enabled it to revive somewhat, the company remained unstable in the postwar era, resulting in a bankruptcy reorganization. In 1954, the company was still underperforming, and sold its vehicle manufacturing operations (the primary asset of the company) to the Bohn Aluminum and Brass Corporation of Detroit. Three years later, in 1957, Reo's vehicle manufacturing operation became a subsidiary of the White Motor Company. White then merged REO with Diamond T Trucks in 1967 to form Diamond Reo Trucks In 1975, this company filed for bankruptcy and most of its assets were liquidated. Volvo later took over White and thus currently owns the rights to the REO brand name.
Meanwhile, after selling Reo's vehicle manufacturing operation to Bohn in 1954, management began liquidating the remainder of the company. For tax reasons a group of shareholders successfully challenged the liquidation in a proxy fight in September 1955, and forced REO to take over a tiny nuclear services company called Nuclear Consultants, Inc. in a reverse takeover. The resulting Nuclear Corporation of America, Inc., diversified and purchased other companies to become a conglomerate, spreading into an array of fields including prefabricated housing and steel joist manufacturing in addition to nuclear services. Most of these business were failures and the company was bankrupt again by 1966. After reorganizing, only the successful steel-joist business remained; the company started producing recycled steel, and eventually renamed itself Nucor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26158 |
Rehavam Ze'evi
20 June 1926 – 17 October 2001) was an Israeli general and politician who founded the right-wing nationalist Moledet party, mainly advocating population transfer.
He was assassinated by Hamdi Quran of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in retaliation for Israel's assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, the Secretary General of the PFLP.
Ze'evi was born on 20 June 1926 in Jerusalem to a religious Jewish family from the Yemin Moshe neighborhood that had lived in Jerusalem for six generations, and raised on a collective farm. He joined the Palmach in 1942, and served in the Israel Defense Forces after the creation of the State of Israel.
During his youth, Ze'evi went to school in Givat HaShlosha. One night he shaved his head, wrapped a towel round his waist and entered the food hall. The shaved head and towel around his waist was similar to Mohandas Gandhi earned him "Gandhi" as his nickname, which stuck with him for the rest of his life. The nickname is also attributed to a long Arab dress he wore during his underground days in Palmach. Ze'evi had five children, Palmach, Sayar, Masada, Tze'ela and Arava. Palmach is also a member of Moledet and competed with Binyamin Elon for the party's leadership.
In 1948, Rehavam Ze'evi was a platoon commander in the IDF. In 1964–1968, he served as Chief of the Department of Staff in the Israeli General Staff. In the late 1960s, Ze'evi formed the elite Sayeret Kharuv, an anti-terror battalion, at the time when IDF Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev had begun to focus manpower and budget on armoured tank units, resulting in huge cutbacks in infantry forces. Over the next five years he served as the Commander of the Central Military District (Hebrew: אלוף פיקוד המרכז). He retired in September 1973, but rejoined the army when the Yom Kippur War broke out on 6 October 1973. A close friend of IDF Chief of Staff David Elazar, he was appointed Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff. He retired with the rank of major-general (אלוף) in 1974.
Ze'evi, known for his concern for Israel's captured or missing soldiers, wore a military identity disc with their names on his neck.
It was revealed in 2004 that Ze'evi had been chosen to be responsible for the building of the armed forces of Singapore at a time when he was deputy head of the Operations Branch in IDF. After a secret visit in 1965, he appointed then Colonel Yaakov (Jack) Elazari to be head of the team of secret military delegation, along with then Lieutenant Colonel Yehuda Golan and other IDF officers to train and build up Singapore Armed Forces. They were nicknamed "Mexicans" during their stay in Singapore.
In 1974, Ze'evi became then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's consultant on combating terrorism. The following year he became the prime minister's adviser on matters of intelligence. Ze'evi resigned from this position in 1977, when Likud's Menachem Begin became prime minister. In 1988, Ze'evi established the Moledet (Homeland) party advocating the population transfer of Arabs from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the neighboring Arab countries.
After the Madrid Conference of 1991, Ze'evi withdrew from the Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir, remaining in the opposition for a decade. He disagreed strongly with the Labour governments of 1992–1996 (led by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres) and 1999–2001 (Ehud Barak), however, he looked favourably on the Netanyahu government of 1996–1999 and supported it from the outside.
In 1999, Moledet united with Herut – The National Movement and Tkuma into a single faction – the National Union. Following the election of Ariel Sharon in February 2001, Ze'evi joined the coalition and was appointed Tourism Minister of Israel. Just two days before his killing he tendered his resignation from the post of tourism minister.
In 1981, Ze'evi was appointed director of what was then the Israel Museum in Tel Aviv and got its name changed to the Eretz Israel Museum – the change having political connotations, given the associations with Eretz Israel. In 1987, he co-edited a series of books describing various aspects of the Land of Israel, based on artifacts from the museum. Ze'evi was famous for having one of the largest collection of books about Israel and its history.
Ze'evi was shot in the Dan Jerusalem Hotel, formerly called at the time, the Jerusalem Hyatt Hotel, in Mount Scopus on 17 October 2001 by four Palestinian gunmen. He was taken to the Hadassah Medical Center hospital where he died before 10 am. He was buried in the military cemetery in Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine took credit for the killing and stated that it was in revenge for the assassination of their secretary-general Abu Ali Mustafa, killed by Israel in August that year. Israel alleges that Ahmed Saadat ordered Ze'evi's assassination. Thousands took part in his funeral. The four gunmen, Hamdi Quran, Basel al-Asmar, Majdi Rahima Rimawi, and Ahad Olma, fled to the Palestinian National Authority. Israel placed Yasser Arafat under siege in the Ramallah compound to force the handing over of the suspects. In April 2002 the US brokered a plan where the suspects were to be jailed in Jericho instead. The four killers were arrested together with the head of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Sa'adat. They were imprisoned in a jail in Jericho and guarded by American and British forces. On 14 March 2006, the American and British guards left the jail, charging that the Palestinian Authority was not adhering to the agreement reached with Israel. Israel then launched Operation Bringing Home the Goods, in which it raided the Jericho prison and seized the five.
In December 2007, Hamdi Quran confessed in an Israeli court to assassinating Ze'evi together with Basel al-Asmar after being instructed by PFLP member Majdi Rahima Rimawi. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In August 2007, Basel al-Asmar was convicted of murder by an Israeli court. In May 2008, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
In July 2008, Majdi Rahima Rimawi was convicted of murder by an Israeli court for his part in planning the assassination. According to the verdict, Rehima was the one who supplied the gunmen with a photo of Ze'evi, details of the hotel in which he would be staying and information on the hotel layout. He was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 80 years.
In December 2008, Ahad Olma, head of the PLFP's military wing at the time of the assassination, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in instigating and planning the assassination.
In December 2008, an Israeli military court sentenced Ahmad Sa'adat, leader of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), to 30 years in prison for heading an "illegal terrorist organization" and for his responsibility for all actions carried out by his organization.
A few days after the Six Day War, Ze'evi submitted a plan for the creation of a Palestinian state called the State of Ishmael, with Nablus as its capital. He urged Israel's leaders to establish this state as soon as possible, claiming that: "Protracted Israeli military rule will expand the hate and the abyss between the residents of the West Bank and Israel, due to the objective steps that will have to be taken in order to ensure order and security."
Ze'evi later advocated the population transfer by agreement of 3.3 million residents of the West Bank and Gaza to Arab nations. He believed this could be accomplished by making life difficult, so they would relocate on their own, through use of military force during wartime, or by agreement with Arab nations. In July 1987, Ze'evi presented his ideas at a forum in Tel Aviv, describing the plan as a voluntary transfer and the only way to make peace with the Arabs. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Ze'evi proposed transferring Palestinians to the east side of the Jordan River to serve as a buffer zone against any Iraqi attempt to attack Israel.
In a radio interview in July 2001, Ze'evi stated that 180,000 Palestinians worked and lived illegally in Israel. He described them as a "cancer," and said Israel should rid itself of those who were not Israeli citizens "the same way you get rid of lice." He called for denying the vote to Arab citizens who did not serve in the army. He believed that Jordan historically belonged to the Tribes of Israel – Gad, Reuven, and Menashe. Zeevi urged Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "lay waste to the Palestinian Authority" and assassinate PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Reporting his assassination, the BBC described Ze'evi as "one of the most controversial politicians in Israel" who "repeatedly called for Arabs to be transferred out of the state and is notorious for using the line: 'Let the Arabs go back to Mecca'". Binyamin Elon, leader of the Moledet party after Ze'evi's murder, maintains that Ze'evi did not hate Arabs. Despite being accused of racism, one of Ze'evi's closest friends was the Muslim Israeli-Arab officer and war hero Amos Yarkoni. Ze'evi and Yarkoni had worked together in the IDF, and after Yarkoni's death Ze'evi loudly criticised the decision not to bury him in a military cemetery for Halakhic reasons.
In 1975, Ehud Olmert, later Prime Minister of Israel, accused Ze'evi of protecting organized crime figures. Ze'evi sued Olmert for libel but lost the case. In September 1991, while serving as Minister without Portfolio, he called then US President George H. W. Bush an "anti-Semite."
In 1997, he called then US Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk a "yehudon" (Hebrew for "Jewboy") and challenged him to a fistfight. Indyk responded by calling him a "son of a bitch". The insult was apparently because the ambassador was urging Israel to make concessions in talks with the Palestinians.
A report in 2016 by a television news magazine aired allegations that Ze'evi killed unarmed Bedouins, conspired in an attempted murder of a reporter, and raped a soldier under his command. The publication drew calls for an end to government funding for programs that honor the late minister.
In July 2005, the Knesset passed a law to commemorate Ze'evi's memory. Route 90 was renamed Gandi's Road in his honor. Eilat's promenade was named for him and there is a life-size statue of him there as well. The community settlement of Merhav Am and the West Bank settlement Ma'ale Rehav'am also bear his name. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26159 |
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 25, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing a commercially successful steamboat; the first was called (later "Clermont"). In 1807 that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers, from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of , in 62 hours. The success of his steamboat changed river traffic and trade on major American rivers.
In 1800, Fulton had been commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, leader of France, to attempt to design a submarine; he produced , the first practical submarine in history. Fulton is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the Royal Navy.
Fulton became interested in Steam engines and the idea of steamboats in 1777 when he was around age 12 and visited state delegate William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was interested in this topic. Henry had learned about inventor James Watt and his Watt steam engine on an earlier visit to England.
Robert Fulton was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1765. His father, Robert Fulton, married Mary Smith, daughter of Captain Joseph Smith and sister of Col. Lester Smith, a comparatively well off family. He had three sisters – Isabella, Elizabeth, and Mary, and a younger brother, Abraham.
For six years, he lived in Philadelphia, where he painted portraits and landscapes, drew houses and machinery, and was able to send money home to help support his mother. In 1785, Fulton bought a farm at Hopewell Township in Washington County near Pittsburgh for £80 (equivalent to $ in 2018), and moved his mother and family into it.
At the age of 23, Fulton traveled to Europe, where he would live for the next twenty years. He went to England in 1786, carrying several letters of introduction to Americans abroad from prominent individuals he had met in Philadelphia. He had already corresponded with artist Benjamin West; their fathers had been close friends. West took Fulton into his home, where Fulton lived for several years and studied painting. Fulton gained many commissions painting portraits and landscapes, which allowed him to support himself. He continued to experiment with mechanical inventions.
Fulton became caught up in the enthusiasm of the "Canal Mania". In 1793 he began developing his ideas for tugboat canals with inclined planes instead of locks. He obtained a patent for this idea in 1794 and also began working on ideas for the steam power of boats. He published a pamphlet about canals and patented a dredging machine and several other inventions. In 1794, he moved to Manchester to gain practical knowledge of English canal engineering. While there he became friendly with Robert Owen, a cotton manufacturer and early socialist. Owen agreed to finance the development and promotion of Fulton's designs for inclined planes and earth-digging machines; he was instrumental in introducing the American to a canal company, which awarded him a sub-contract. But Fulton was not successful at this practical effort and he gave up the contract after a short time.
As early as 1793, Fulton proposed plans for steam-powered vessels to both the United States and British governments. The first steamships had appeared considerably earlier. The earliest steam-powered ship, in which the engine moved oars, was built by Claude de Jouffroy in France. Called "Palmipède", it was tested on the Doubs in 1776. In 1783, de Jouffroy built , the first paddle steamer, which sailed successfully on the Saône. The first successful trial run of a steamboat in America had been made by inventor John Fitch, on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787. William Symington had successfully tried steamboats in 1788, and it seems probable that Fulton was aware of these developments.
In Britain, Fulton met the Duke of Bridgewater, Francis Egerton, whose canal, the first to be constructed in the country, was being used for trials of a steam tug. Fulton became very enthusiastic about the canals, and wrote a 1796 treatise on canal construction, suggesting improvements to locks and other features. Working for the Duke of Bridgewater between 1796 and 1799, Fulton had a boat constructed in the Duke's timber yard, under the supervision of Benjamin Powell. After installation of the machinery supplied by the engineers Bateman and Sherratt of Salford, the boat was duly christened "Bonaparte" in honour of Fulton having served under Napoleon. After expensive trials, because of the configuration of the design, the team feared the paddles might damage the clay lining of the canal and eventually abandoned the experiment. In 1801, Bridgewater instead ordered eight vessels for his canal based on , constructed by Symington.
In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, where he was well known as an inventor. He studied French and German, along with mathematics and chemistry. In Paris, Fulton met James Rumsey, an inventor from Virginia with an interest in steamboats, who in 1786 ran his own first steamboat up the Potomac River. Fulton also exhibited the first panorama painting to be shown in Paris, Pierre Prévost's "Vue de Paris depuis les Tuileries" (1800), on what is still called "Rue des Panoramas" (Panorama Street) today. While living in France, Fulton designed the first working muscle-powered submarine, , between 1793 and 1797. He also experimented with torpedoes. When tested, his submarine operated underwater for 17 minutes in 25 feet of water. He asked the government to subsidize its construction, but he was turned down twice. Eventually he approached the Minister of Marine and in 1800 was granted permission to build. The shipyard Perrier in Rouen built it, and the submarine sailed first in July 1800 on the Seine River in the same city.
In France, Fulton met Robert R. Livingston, who was appointed U.S. Ambassador to France in 1801. He also had a scientifically curious mind, and the two men decided to collaborate on building a steamboat and to try operating it on the Seine. Fulton experimented with the water resistance of various hull shapes, made drawings and models, and had a steamboat constructed. At the first trial the boat ran perfectly, but the hull was later rebuilt and strengthened. On August 9, 1803, when this boat was driven up the River Seine, it sank. The boat was long, with an beam, and made between against the current.
In 1804, Fulton switched allegiance and moved to Britain, where he was commissioned by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger to build a range of weapons for use by the Royal Navy during Napoleon's invasion scares. Among his inventions were the world's first modern naval "torpedoes" (modern "mines"). These were tested, along with several other of his inventions, during the 1804 Raid on Boulogne, but met with limited success. Although Fulton continued to develop his inventions with the British until 1806, the crushing naval victory by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar greatly reduced the risk of French invasion. Fulton was increasingly sidelined as a result.
In 1806, Fulton returned to the United States. In 1807, he and Robert R. Livingston built the first commercially successful steamboat, (later known as "Clermont"). Livingston's shipping company began using it to carry passengers between New York City and up the Hudson River to the state capital Albany. "Clermont" made the trip in 32 hours. Passengers on the maiden voyage included a lawyer Jones and his family from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. His infant daughter Alexandra Jones later served as a Union nurse on a steamboat hospital in the American Civil War.
From 1811 until his death, Fulton was a member of the Erie Canal Commission, appointed by the Governor of New York.
Fulton's final design was the floating battery . This first steam-driven warship in the world was built for the United States Navy for the War of 1812. The heavy vessel was not completed until after Fulton's death and was named in his honor.
From October 1811 to January 1812, Fulton, along with Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt (1767–1854), worked together on a joint project to build a new steamboat, , sturdy enough to take down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, Louisiana. It traveled from industrial Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it was built, with stops at Wheeling, Virginia; Cincinnati, Ohio; past the "Falls of the Ohio" at Louisville, Kentucky; to near Cairo, Illinois, and the confluence with the Mississippi River; and down past Memphis, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi, to New Orleans some by river from the Gulf of Mexico coast. This was less than a decade after the United States had acquired the Louisiana Territory from France. These rivers were not well settled, mapped, or protected. By achieving this first breakthrough voyage and also proving the ability of the steamboat to travel upstream against powerful river currents, Fulton changed the entire trade and transportation outlook for the American heartland.
Fulton was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814.
On January 8, 1808, Fulton married Harriet Livingston (1786–1824), the daughter of Walter Livingston and niece of Robert Livingston, prominent men in the Hudson River area, whose family dated to the colonial era. Harriet, who was nineteen years his junior, was well educated and was an accomplished amateur painter and musician. Together, they had four children:
Fulton died in 1815 in New York City from tuberculosis (then known as "consumption"). He had been walking home on the frozen Hudson River when one of his friends, Addis Emmet, fell through the ice. In the attempt to rescue his friend, Fulton got soaked with icy water. He is believed to have contracted pneumonia. When he got home, his sickness worsened. He was diagnosed with consumption and died at 49 years old. After his death, his widow remarried to Charles Augustus Dale on November 26, 1816.
He is buried in the Trinity Church Cemetery for Trinity Church (Episcopal) at Wall Street in New York City, near other notable Americans such as former U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin. His descendants include Cory Lidle, a former Major League Baseball pitcher.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania donated a marble statue of Fulton to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol. Fulton was also honored for his development of steamship technology in New York City's Hudson-Fulton Celebration of the Centennial in 1909. A replica of his first steam-powered steam vessel, "Clermont", was built for the occasion.
Five ships of the United States Navy have borne the name in honor of Robert Fulton.
Fulton Hall at the United States Merchant Marine Academy houses the Department of Marine Engineering and included laboratories for diesel and steam engineering, refrigeration, marine engineering, thermodynamics, materials testing, machine shop, mechanical engineering, welding, electrical machinery, control systems, electric circuits, engine room simulators and graphics.
Bronze statues of Fulton and Christopher Columbus represent commerce on the balustrade of the galleries of the Main Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. They are two of 16 historical figures, each pair representing one of the 8 pillars of civilization.
The Guatemalan government in 1910 erected a bust of Fulton in one of the parks of Guatemala City.
In 2006, Fulton was inducted into the "National Inventors Hall of Fame" in Alexandria, Virginia.
Many places in the U.S. are named for Robert Fulton, including:
20th Century-Fox's 1940 film, "Little Old New York", based on a 1920 play by Rida Johnson Young, is a fictionalized version of Fulton's life from his arrival in New York to the first sailing of "Clermont". British actor Richard Greene starred as Fulton with Brenda Joyce as Harriet Livingston. Alice Faye and Fred MacMurray played wharf friends who help Fulton overcome problems to realize his dream.
A fictionalized account of Fulton's role was produced by BBC television during the 1960s. In the first serial, "Triton" (1961, re-made in 1968), two British naval officers, Captain Belwether and Lieutenant Lamb, are involved in spying on Fulton while he is working for the French. In the sequel, "Pegasus" (1969), they are surprised to find themselves working with Fulton, played by Robert Cawdron. In the 1961 version, Fulton was played by Reed De Rouen.
A Robert Fulton cartoon character appears in "Casper the Friendly Ghost" short film titled "Red, White, and Boo."
Author James McGee used Fulton's experiments in early submarine warfare (against wooden warships) as a major plot element in his novel "Ratcatcher"
"Invasion", , the tenth novel in the "Kydd" naval warfare series by Julian Stockwin, uses Fulton and his submarine as an important plot element.
Until 2016, Disney Springs at Walt Disney World had a restaurant named Fulton's Crab House with a building in the shape of a steamboat. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26161 |
Real Time Streaming Protocol
The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is a network control protocol designed for use in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming media servers. The protocol is used for establishing and controlling media sessions between end points. Clients of media servers issue VHS-style commands, such as "play", "record" and "pause", to facilitate real-time control of the media streaming from the server to a client (Video On Demand) or from a client to the server (Voice Recording).
The transmission of streaming data itself is not a task of RTSP. Most RTSP servers use the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) in conjunction with Real-time Control Protocol (RTCP) for media stream delivery. However, some vendors implement proprietary transport protocols. The RTSP server software from RealNetworks, for example, also used RealNetworks' proprietary Real Data Transport (RDT).
RTSP was developed by RealNetworks, Netscape and Columbia University, with the first draft submitted to IETF in 1996. It was standardized by the Multiparty Multimedia Session Control Working Group (MMUSIC WG) of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and published as RFC 2326 in 1998. RTSP 2.0 published as RFC 7826 in 2016 as a replacement of RTSP 1.0. RTSP 2.0 is based on RTSP 1.0 but is not backwards compatible other than in the basic version negotiation mechanism.
While similar in some ways to HTTP, RTSP defines control sequences useful in controlling multimedia playback. While HTTP is stateless, RTSP has state; an identifier is used when needed to track concurrent sessions. Like HTTP, RTSP uses TCP to maintain an end-to-end connection and, while most RTSP control messages are sent by the client to the server, some commands travel in the other direction (i.e. from server to client).
Presented here are the basic RTSP requests. Some typical HTTP requests, like the OPTIONS request, are also available. The default transport layer port number is 554 for both TCP and UDP, the latter being rarely used for the control requests.
C->S: OPTIONS rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: DESCRIBE rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: SETUP rtsp://example.com/media.mp4/streamid=0 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: SETUP rtsp://example.com/media.mp4/streamid=1 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: PLAY rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: PAUSE rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: RECORD rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: ANNOUNCE rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: TEARDOWN rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
S->C: GET_PARAMETER rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
C->S: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: SET_PARAMETER rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 451 Invalid Parameter
S->C: REDIRECT rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
C->S: SETUP rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
C->S: PLAY rtsp://example.com/media.mp4 RTSP/1.0
S->C: RTSP/1.0 200 OK
RTSP using RTP and RTCP allows for the implementation of rate adaptation.
Many CCTV / Security cameras, often called IP Cameras, support RTSP streaming too, especially these with ONVIF profiles G, S, T. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26162 |
Real-time Transport Protocol
The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a network protocol for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applications including WebRTC, television services and web-based push-to-talk features.
RTP typically runs over User Datagram Protocol (UDP). RTP is used in conjunction with the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP). While RTP carries the media streams (e.g., audio and video), RTCP is used to monitor transmission statistics and quality of service (QoS) and aids synchronization of multiple streams. RTP is one of the technical foundations of Voice over IP and in this context is often used in conjunction with a signaling protocol such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) which establishes connections across the network.
RTP was developed by the Audio-Video Transport Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and first published in 1996 as which was then superseded by in 2003.
RTP is designed for end-to-end, real-time transfer of streaming media. The protocol provides facilities for jitter compensation and detection of packet loss and out-of-order delivery, which are common especially during UDP transmissions on an IP network. RTP allows data transfer to multiple destinations through IP multicast. RTP is regarded as the primary standard for audio/video transport in IP networks and is used with an associated profile and payload format. The design of RTP is based on the architectural principle known as application-layer framing where protocol functions are implemented in the application as opposed to in the operating system's protocol stack.
Real-time multimedia streaming applications require timely delivery of information and often can tolerate some packet loss to achieve this goal. For example, loss of a packet in audio application may result in loss of a fraction of a second of audio data, which can be made unnoticeable with suitable error concealment algorithms. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), although standardized for RTP use, is not normally used in RTP applications because TCP favors reliability over timeliness. Instead the majority of the RTP implementations are built on the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Other transport protocols specifically designed for multimedia sessions are SCTP and DCCP, although, , they are not in widespread use.
RTP was developed by the Audio/Video Transport working group of the IETF standards organization. RTP is used in conjunction with other protocols such as H.323 and RTSP. The RTP specification describes two protocols: RTP and RTCP. RTP is used for the transfer of multimedia data, and the RTCP is used to periodically send control information and QoS parameters.
The data transfer protocol, RTP, carries real-time data. Information provided by this protocol includes timestamps (for synchronization), sequence numbers (for packet loss and reordering detection) and the payload format which indicates the encoded format of the data. The control protocol, RTCP, is used for quality of service (QoS) feedback and synchronization between the media streams. The bandwidth of RTCP traffic compared to RTP is small, typically around 5%.
RTP sessions are typically initiated between communicating peers using a signaling protocol, such as H.323, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), RTSP, or Jingle (XMPP). These protocols may use the Session Description Protocol to specify the parameters for the sessions.
An RTP session is established for each multimedia stream. Audio and video streams may use separate RTP sessions, enabling a receiver to selectively receive components of a particular stream. The specification recommends that RTP port numbers are chosen to be even and that each associated RTCP port be the next higher odd number. However, a single port is chosen for RTP and RTCP in applications that multiplex the protocols. RTP and RTCP typically use unprivileged UDP ports (1024 to 65535), but may also use other transport protocols, most notably, SCTP and DCCP, as the protocol design is transport independent.
RTP is used by real-time multimedia applications such as voice over IP, audio over IP, WebRTC and Internet Protocol television
One of the design considerations for RTP is to carry a range of multimedia formats and allow new formats without revising the RTP standard. To this end, the information required by a specific application of the protocol is not included in the generic RTP header but is instead provided through separate RTP profiles and associated payload formats. For each class of application (e.g., audio, video), RTP defines a "profile" and one or more associated "payload formats". A complete specification of RTP for a particular application usage requires profile and payload format specifications.
The profile defines the codecs used to encode the payload data and their mapping to payload format codes in the "Payload Type" (PT) field of the RTP header. Each profile is accompanied by several payload format specifications, each of which describes the transport of a particular encoded data. The audio payload formats include G.711, G.723, G.726, G.729, GSM, QCELP, MP3, and DTMF, and the video payload formats include H.261, H.263, H.264, H.265 and MPEG-1/MPEG-2. The mapping of MPEG-4 audio/video streams to RTP packets is specified in , and H.263 video payloads are described in .
Examples of RTP profiles include:
RTP packets are created at the application layer and handed to the transport layer for delivery. Each unit of RTP media data created by an application begins with the RTP packet header.
The RTP header has a minimum size of 12 bytes. After the header, optional header extensions may be present. This is followed by the RTP payload, the format of which is determined by the particular class of application. The fields in the header are as follows:
A functional network-based system includes other protocols and standards in conjunction with RTP. Protocols such as SIP, Jingle, RTSP, H.225 and H.245 are used for session initiation, control and termination. Other standards, such as H.264, MPEG and H.263, are used to encode the payload data as specified by the applicable RTP profile.
An RTP sender captures the multimedia data, then encodes, frames and transmits it as RTP packets with appropriate timestamps and increasing timestamps and sequence numbers. The sender sets the "payload type" field in accordance with connection negotiation and the RTP profile in use. The RTP receiver detects missing packets and may reorder packets. It decodes the media data in the packets according to the payload type and presents the stream to its user. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26163 |
Robert Calvert
Robert Newton Calvert (9 March 1945 – 14 August 1988) was a South African writer, poet, and musician. He is principally known for his role as lyricist and member of the space rock band Hawkwind.
Calvert was born in Pretoria, South Africa and moved with his parents to England when he was two. He attended school in London and Margate. Having finished school he joined the Air Training Corps, where he became a corporal and played the trumpet for the 438 squadron band. He then went on to college in Canterbury. After leaving college, and having been denied his childhood dream of becoming a fighter pilot, he slowly acquainted himself with the UK's bohemian scene. Calvert began his career in earnest by writing poetry. In 1967 he formed the street theatre group "Street Dada Nihilismus".
At the end of the 1960s he moved to London and joined the flourishing psychedelic subculture. He soon became one of its most active members; joining, amongst other activities, "Frendz", one of the leading underground magazines of the time. During that time he acquainted himself with New Wave science fiction writers. Acclaimed author Michael Moorcock, winner of several science fiction literary awards and publisher of the influential "New Worlds" magazine, became a lifelong friend. Calvert's poems were published in "New Worlds" and other magazines. Although he was influenced by the New Wave, Calvert developed a distinct style of his own. His ability to change fluently between poetry, music and theatre allowed him to develop into a multimedia artist. Calvert then became acquainted with Dave Brock, and became the resident poet, lyricist and frontman of Hawkwind, intermittently from 1972–1979. Calvert co-wrote Hawkwind's hit single "Silver Machine", which reached No. 3 in the UK singles chart. Although Lemmy sings on the single version, this is an overdub of a live recording taken at the Roundhouse in London, with Calvert on vocals. "They tried everyone else singing it except me", Lemmy later said. Calvert also directed Hawkwind's live opus, the Space Ritual Tour.
Calvert suffered from bipolar disorder, which often caused a fractious relationship with his fellow musicians. At one point he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Despite his sometimes debilitating mental health, Calvert remained a fiercely creative, driven and multi-talented artist. During periods away from Hawkwind duties, he worked on his solo career; his creative output including albums, stage plays, poetry, and a novel. His first solo album, "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters", was released in 1974. The record is a concept album; an amalgam of music and theatre focused around the Lockheed bribery scandals. In 1975 Calvert won the Capital Radio poetry competition with his poem "Circle Line". In 1975, musician and producer Brian Eno produced and played on Calvert's second solo album, "Lucky Leif and the Longships", a concept album which looked at the history of the US and the Vikings, who crossed the Atlantic to reach America before Columbus.
As well as Michael Moorcock and Brian Eno, Calvert's collaborators included Arthur Brown, Steve Peregrin Took, Jim Capaldi, Steve Pond, Inner City Unit, Vivian Stanshall, Nektar, John Greaves, Adrian Wagner, Amon Düül II and, posthumously, Spirits Burning, Dave Brock, and Krankschaft.
Aged 43, Calvert died of a heart attack in 1988 in Ramsgate, England and was buried in Minster Cemetery near Margate. His gravestone is engraved with the line "Love's not Time's fool", from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26167 |
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, abbreviated as R&B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.
In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations.
The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. In the 1960s, several British rock bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Animals were referred to and promoted as being R&B bands; posters for the Who's residency at the Marquee Club in 1964 contained the slogan, "Maximum R&B". Their mix of rock and roll and R&B is now known as "British rhythm and blues". By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "contemporary R&B". It combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, disco, hip hop, and electronic music. Popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Prince, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey. In the 21st century, R&B has remained a popular genre, becoming more pop-oriented and alternative-influenced, with successful artists including Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Bruno Mars, SZA, Robin Thicke, and The Weeknd.
Although Jerry Wexler of "Billboard" magazine is credited with coining the term "rhythm and blues" as a musical term in the United States in 1948, the term was used in "Billboard" as early as 1943. It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world. The term "rhythm and blues" was used by "Billboard" in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, when its "Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles" chart was renamed as "Best Selling Soul Singles".
Before the "Rhythm and Blues" name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term "race music" with "sepia series".
Writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as "a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans". He has used the term "R&B" as a synonym for jump blues. However, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of R&B's stronger gospel influences. Lawrence Cohn, author of "Nothing but the Blues", writes that "rhythm and blues" was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use (in some contexts) to categorize music made by black musicians, as distinct from styles of music made by other musicians.
In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, and saxophone. Arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, and often hypnotic textures while calling attention to no individual sound. While singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, a practice associated with the modern popular music that rhythm and blues performers aspired to dominate. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords and structure.
The migration of African Americans to the urban industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s created a new market for jazz, blues, and related genres of music. These genres of music were often performed by full-time musicians, either working alone or in small groups. The precursors of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, which overlapped in the late-1920s and 1930s through the work of musicians such as the Harlem Hamfats, with their 1936 hit "Oh Red", as well as Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and T-Bone Walker. There was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone.
In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name "Blues and Rhythm". In that year, Louis Jordan dominated the top five listings of the R&B charts with three songs, and two of the top five songs were based on the boogie-woogie rhythms that had come to prominence during the 1940s. Jordan's band, the Tympany Five (formed in 1938), consisted of him on saxophone and vocals, along with musicians on trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums. Lawrence Cohn described the music as "grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues". Robert Palmer described it as "urbane, rocking, jazz-based music with a heavy, insistent beat". Jordan's music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, is now also referred to as jump blues. Already Paul Gayten, Roy Brown, and others had had hits in the style now referred to as rhythm and blues. In 1948, Wynonie Harris' remake of Brown's 1947 recording "Good Rockin' Tonight" reached number two on the charts, following band leader Sonny Thompson's "Long Gone" at number one.
In 1949, the term "Rhythm and Blues" replaced the Billboard category "Harlem Hit Parade". Also in that year, "The Huckle-Buck", recorded by band leader and saxophonist Paul Williams, was the number one R&B tune, remaining on top of the charts for nearly the entire year. Written by musician and arranger Andy Gibson, the song was described as a "dirty boogie" because it was risque and raunchy. Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers' concerts were sweaty riotous affairs that got shut down on more than one occasion. Their lyrics, by Roy Alfred (who later co-wrote the 1955 hit "(The) Rock and Roll Waltz"), were mildly sexually suggestive, and one teenager from Philadelphia said "That Hucklebuck was a very nasty dance". Also in 1949, a new version of a 1920s blues song, "Ain't Nobody's Business" was a number four hit for Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five once again made the top five with "Saturday Night Fish Fry". Many of these hit records were issued on new independent record labels, such as Savoy (founded 1942), King (founded 1943), Imperial (founded 1945), Specialty (founded 1946), Chess (founded 1947), and Atlantic (founded 1948).
African American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 1800s with the popularity of the Cuban contradanza (known outside of Cuba as the habanera). The "habanera rhythm" can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat.
For the more than a quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the Cuban genre "habanera" exerted a constant presence in African American popular music. Jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera rhythm (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz. There are examples of tresillo-like rhythms in some African American folk music such as the hand-clapping and foot-stomping patterns in ring shout, post-Civil War drum and fife music, and New Orleans second line music. Wynton Marsalis considers tresillo to be the New Orleans "clave" (although technically, the pattern is only half a clave). Tresillo is the most basic duple-pulse rhythmic cell in Sub-Saharan African music traditions, and its use in African American music is one of the clearest examples of African rhythmic retention in the United States. The use of tresillo was continuously reinforced by the consecutive waves of Cuban music, which were adopted into North American popular culture. In 1940 Bob Zurke released "Rhumboogie," a boogie-woogie with a tresillo bass line, and lyrics proudly declaring the adoption of Cuban rhythm:
Although originating in the metropolis at the mouth of the Mississippi River, New Orleans blues, with its Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traits, is distinct from the sound of the Mississippi Delta blues. In the late 1940s, New Orleans musicians were especially receptive to Cuban influences precisely at the time when R&B was first forming. The first use of tresillo in R&B occurred in New Orleans. Robert Palmer recalls:
In a 1988 interview with Palmer, Bartholomew (who had the first R&B studio band), revealed how he initially superimposed tresillo over swing rhythm:
Bartholomew referred to the Cuban son by the misnomer "rumba", a common practice of that time. Fats Domino's "Blue Monday," produced by Bartholomew, is another example of this now classic use of tresillo in R&B. Bartholomew's 1949 tresillo-based "Oh Cubanas" is an attempt to blend African American and Afro-Cuban music. The word "mambo", larger than any of the other text, is placed prominently on the record label. In his composition "Misery," New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair plays a habanera-like figure in his left hand. The deft use of triplets is a characteristic of Longhair's style.
Gerhard Kubik notes that with the exception of New Orleans, early blues lacked complex polyrhythms, and there was a "very specific absence of asymmetric time-line patterns (key patterns) in virtually all early-twentieth-century African American music... only in some New Orleans genres does a hint of simple time line patterns occasionally appear in the form of transient so-called 'stomp' patterns or stop-time chorus. These do not function in the same way as African timelines." In the late 1940s, this changed somewhat when the two-celled time line structure was brought into the blues. New Orleans musicians such as Bartholomew and Longhair incorporated Cuban instruments, as well as the clave pattern and related two-celled figures in songs such as "Carnival Day," (Bartholomew 1949) and "Mardi Gras In New Orleans" (Longhair 1949). While some of these early experiments were awkward fusions, the Afro-Cuban elements were eventually integrated fully into the New Orleans sound.
Robert Palmer reports that, in the 1940s, Professor Longhair listened to and played with musicians from the islands and "fell under the spell of Perez Prado's mambo records." He was especially enamored with Afro-Cuban music. Michael Campbell states: "Professor Longhair's influence was... far-reaching. In several of his early recordings, Professor Longhair blended Afro-Cuban rhythms with rhythm and blues. The most explicit is 'Longhair's Blues Rhumba,' where he overlays a straightforward blues with a clave rhythm." Longhair's particular style was known locally as "rumba-boogie". In his "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," the pianist employs the 2–3 clave onbeat/offbeat motif in a rumba boogie "guajeo".
The syncopated, but straight subdivision feel of Cuban music (as opposed to swung subdivisions) took root in New Orleans R&B during this time. Alexander Stewart states that the popular feel was passed along from "New Orleans—through James Brown's music, to the popular music of the 1970s," adding: "The singular style of rhythm & blues that emerged from New Orleans in the years after World War II played an important role in the development of funk. In a related development, the underlying rhythms of American popular music underwent a basic, yet the generally unacknowledged transition from triplet or shuffle feel to even or straight eighth notes. Concerning the various funk motifs, Stewart states that this model "...is different from a time line (such as clave and tresillo) in that it is not an exact pattern, but more of a loose organizing principle."
Johnny Otis released the R&B mambo "Mambo Boogie" in January 1951, featuring congas, maracas, claves, and mambo saxophone guajeos in a blues progression. Ike Turner recorded "Cubano Jump" (1954) an electric guitar instrumental, which is built around several 2–3 clave figures, adopted from the mambo. The Hawketts, in "Mardi Gras Mambo" (1955) (featuring the vocals of a young Art Neville), make a clear reference to Perez Prado in their use of his trademark "Unhh!" in the break after the introduction.
Ned Sublette states: "The electric blues cats were very well aware of Latin music, and there was definitely such a thing as "rhumba blues"; you can hear Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf playing it." He also cites Otis Rush, Ike Turner and Ray Charles, as R&B artists who employed this feel.
The use of clave in R&B coincided with the growing dominance of the backbeat, and the rising popularity of Cuban music in the U.S. In a sense, clave can be distilled down to tresillo (three-side) answered by the backbeat (two-side).
The "Bo Diddley beat" (1955) is perhaps the first true fusion of 3–2 clave and R&B/rock 'n' roll. Bo Diddley has given different accounts of the riff's origins. Sublette asserts: "In the context of the time, and especially those maracas [heard on the record], 'Bo Diddley' has to be understood as a Latin-tinged record. A rejected cut recorded at the same session was titled only 'Rhumba' on the track sheets." Johnny Otis' "Willie and the Hand Jive" (1958) is another example of this successful blend of 3–2 claves and R&B. Otis used the Cuban instruments claves and maracas on the song.
Afro-Cuban music was the conduit by which African American music was "re-Africanized," through the adoption of two-celled figures like clave and Afro-Cuban instruments like the conga drum, bongos, maracas and claves. According to John Storm Roberts, R&B became the vehicle for the return of Cuban elements into mass popular music. Ahmet Ertegun, producer for Atlantic Records, is reported to have said that "Afro-Cuban rhythms added color and excitement to the basic drive of R&B." As Ned Sublette points out though: "By the 1960s, with Cuba the object of a United States embargo that still remains in effect today, the island nation had been forgotten as a source of music. By the time people began to talk about rock and roll as having a history, Cuban music had vanished from North American consciousness."
At first, only African Americans were buying R&B discs. According to Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, sales were localized in African-American markets; there was no white sales nor white radio play. During the early 1950s, more white teenagers started to become aware of R&B and to purchase the music. For example, 40% of 1952 sales at Dolphin's of Hollywood record shop, located in an African-American area of Los Angeles, were to whites. Eventually, white teens across the country turned their music taste towards rhythm and blues.
Johnny Otis, who had signed with the Newark, New Jersey-based Savoy Records, produced many R&B hits in 1951, including: "Double Crossing Blues", "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie", all of which hit number one that year. Otis scored ten top ten hits that year. Other hits include: "Gee Baby", "Mambo Boogie" and "All Nite Long". The Clovers, a quintet consisting of a vocal quartet with accompanying guitarist, sang a distinctive-sounding combination of blues and gospel, had the number five hit of the year with "Don't You Know I Love You" on Atlantic. Also in July 1951, Cleveland, Ohio DJ Alan Freed started a late-night radio show called "The Moondog Rock Roll House Party" on WJW (850 AM). Freed's show was sponsored by Fred Mintz, whose R&B record store had a primarily African American clientele. Freed began referring to the rhythm and blues music he played as "rock and roll".
In 1951, Little Richard Penniman began recording for RCA Records in the jump blues style of late 1940s stars Roy Brown and Billy Wright. However, it was not until he prepared a demo in 1954, that caught the attention of Specialty Records, that the world would start to hear his new, uptempo, funky rhythm and blues that would catapult him to fame in 1955 and help define the sound of rock 'n' roll. A rapid succession of rhythm and blues hits followed, beginning with "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally", which would influence performers such as James Brown, Elvis Presley, and Otis Redding.
Ruth Brown on the Atlantic label, placed hits in the top five every year from 1951 through 1954: "Teardrops from My Eyes", "Five, Ten, Fifteen Hours", "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and "What a Dream". Faye Adams's "Shake a Hand" made it to number two in 1952. In 1953, the R&B record-buying public made Willie Mae Thornton's original recording of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" the number three hit that year. Ruth Brown was very prominent among female R&B stars; her popularity was most likely derived because of "her deeply rooted vocal delivery in African American tradition"
That same year The Orioles, a doo-wop group, had the #4 hit of the year with "Crying in the Chapel".
Fats Domino made the top 30 of the pop charts in 1952 and 1953, then the top 10 with "Ain't That a Shame". Ray Charles came to national prominence in 1955 with "I Got a Woman". Big Bill Broonzy said of Charles' music: "He's mixing the blues with the spirituals... I know that's wrong."
In 1954 the Chords' "Sh-Boom" became the first hit to cross over from the R&B chart to hit the top 10 early in the year. Late in the year, and into 1955, "Hearts of Stone" by the Charms made the top 20.
At Chess Records in the spring of 1955, Bo Diddley's debut record "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" climbed to number two on the R&B charts and popularized Bo Diddley's own original rhythm and blues clave-based vamp that would become a mainstay in rock and roll.
At the urging of Leonard Chess at Chess Records, Chuck Berry had reworked a country fiddle tune with a long history, entitled "Ida Red". The resulting "Maybellene" was not only a number three hit on the R&B charts in 1955, but also reached into the top 30 on the pop charts. Alan Freed, who had moved to the much larger market of New York City in 1954, helped the record become popular with white teenagers. Freed had been given part of the writers' credit by Chess in return for his promotional activities; a common practice at the time.
In 1956, an R&B "Top Stars of '56" tour took place, with headliners Al Hibbler, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and Carl Perkins, whose "Blue Suede Shoes" was very popular with R&B music buyers. Some of the performers completing the bill were Chuck Berry, Cathy Carr, Shirley & Lee, Della Reese, the Cleftones, and the Spaniels with Illinois Jacquet's Big Rockin' Rhythm Band. Cities visited by the tour included Columbia, South Carolina, Annapolis, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, New York and other cities. In Columbia the concert ended with a near riot as Perkins began his first song as the closing act. Perkins is quoted as saying, "It was dangerous. Lot of kids got hurt.". In Annapolis 70,000 to 50,000 people tried to attend a sold-out performance with 8,000 seats. Roads were clogged for seven hours.
Filmmakers took advantage of the popularity of "rhythm and blues" musicians as "rock n roll" musicians beginning in 1956. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, the Treniers, the Platters, the Flamingos, all made it onto the big screen.
Two Elvis Presley records made the R&B top five in 1957: "Jailhouse Rock"/"Treat Me Nice" at number one, and "All Shook Up" at number five, an unprecedented acceptance of a non-African American artist into a music category known for being created by blacks. Nat King Cole, also a jazz pianist who had two hits on the pop charts in the early 1950s ("Mona Lisa" at number two in 1950 and "Too Young" at number one in 1951), had a record in the top five in the R&B charts in 1958, "Looking Back"/"Do I Like It".
In 1959, two black-owned record labels, one of which would become hugely successful, made their debut: Sam Cooke's Sar, and Berry Gordy's Motown Records. Brook Benton was at the top of the R&B charts in 1959 and 1960 with one number-one and two number-two hits. Benton had a certain warmth in his voice that attracted a wide variety of listeners, and his ballads led to comparisons with performers such as
Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Lloyd Price, who in 1952 had a number one hit with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" regained predominance with a version of "Stagger Lee" at number one and "Personality" at number five for in 1959.
The white bandleader of the Bill Black Combo, Bill Black, who had helped start Elvis Presley's career and was Elvis's bassist in the 1950s, was popular with black listeners. Ninety percent of his record sales were from black people, and his "Smokie, Part 2" (1959) rose to the number one position on black music charts. He was once told that "a lot of those stations still think you're a black group because the sound feels funky and black." Hi Records did not feature pictures of the Combo on early records.
Sam Cooke's number five hit "Chain Gang" is indicative of R&B in 1960, as is pop rocker Chubby Checker's number five hit "The Twist". By the early 1960s, the music industry category previously known as rhythm and blues was being called soul music, and similar music by white artists was labeled blue eyed soul. Motown Records had its first million-selling single in 1960 with the Miracles' "Shop Around", and in 1961, Stax Records had its first hit with Carla Thomas' "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)". Stax's next major hit, The Mar-Keys' instrumental "Last Night" (also released in 1961) introduced the rawer Memphis soul sound for which Stax became known. In Jamaica, R&B influenced the development of ska. In 1969 black culture and rhythm and blues reached another great achievement when the Grammys first added the Rhythm and Blues category, giving academic recognition to the category.
By the 1970s, the term "rhythm and blues" was being used as a blanket term for soul, funk, and disco. Around the same time, mods band influenced by R&B The Who played Motown hit "Heat Wave". In the 70s, Philadelphia International (featuring The O'Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Jerry Bell, Archie Bell & The Drells and Billy Paul) and Hi Records (featuring Al Green, O. V. Wright and Ann Peebles) got R&B hits.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, hip-hop started to capture the imagination of America's youth. R&B started to become homogenized, with a group of high-profile producers responsible for most R&B hits. It was hard for R&B artists of the era to sell their music or even have their music heard because of the rise of hip-hop, but some adopted a "hip-hop" image, were marketed as such, and often featured rappers on their songs. Newer artists such as Usher, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, TLC, Aaliyah, Destiny's Child, Tevin Campbell and Mary J. Blige, enjoyed success. L.A. Reid, the CEO of LaFace Records, was responsible for some of R&B's greatest successes in the 1990s in the form of Usher, TLC and Toni Braxton. Later, Reid successfully marketed Boyz II Men. In 2004, 80% of the songs that topped the R&B charts, were also on top of the Hot 100. That period was the all-time peak for R&B and hip hop on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and on Top 40 Radio. From about 2005 to 2013, R&B sales declined. However; since 2010 Hip-Hop has started to take from the R&B sound choosing to adopt a softer smoother sound incorporating that of traditional R&B with rappers such as Drake who has opened an entire new door for the genre. This sound has gained in popularity and created great controversy for both hip-hop and R&B in how to identify it.
British rhythm and blues and blues rock developed in the early 1960s, largely as a response to the recordings of American artists, often brought over by African American servicemen stationed in Britain, or seamen visiting ports such as London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Belfast. Many bands, particularly in the developing London club scene, tried to emulate black rhythm and blues performers, resulting in a "rawer" or "grittier" sound than the more popular "beat groups". Initially developing out of the jazz, skiffle and blues club scenes, early artists tended to focus on major blues performers and standard forms, particularly blues rock musician Alexis Korner, who acted with members of the Rolling Stones, Colosseum, the Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, and the Graham Bond Organisation. Although this interest in the blues would influence major British rock musicians, including Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, John Mayall, Free, and Cream adopted an interest in a wider range of rhythm and blues styles.
The Rolling Stones and other beat groups became second most popular UK bands (after the Beatles) and led the "British Invasion" of the US pop charts. The Rolling Stones covered Bobby Womack & the Valentinos song It's All Over Now", and that song gave them their first UK number one in 1964. Under the influence of blues and R&B bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals, and more jazz-influenced bands like the Graham Bond Organisation and Zoot Money had blue-eyed soul albums. White R&B musicians included Steve Winwood, Frankie Miller, Scott Walker & the Walker Brothers, the Animals from Newcastle and Spencer Davis Group and Van Morrison & Them from Belfast were popular in the UK. None of these bands played exclusively rhythm and blues, but it remained at the core of their early albums.
The music of the British mod subculture grew out of rhythm and blues and later soul, performed by artists that were not available to the small London clubs where the scene originated. As a result, a number of bands emerged to fill this gap, including Small Faces, and most successfully the Who. About 1966 The Who moved from attempting to emulate American R&B to producing songs that reflected the Mod lifestyle. Many of these bands enjoyed national success in the UK, but found it difficult to break into the American music market.
The British R&B bands produced music which was very different in tone from that of African-American artists, often with more emphasis on guitars and sometimes with greater energy. They have been criticized for exploiting the massive catalogue of African-American music, but it has also been noted that they both popularized that music, bringing it to British, world and in some cases American audiences, and helped to build the reputation of existing and past rhythm and blues artists. Most of these bands rapidly moved on from recording and performing American standards to writing and recording their own music, often leaving their R&B roots behind. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26168 |
René Laennec
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (; 17 February 1781 – 13 August 1826) was a French physician and musician. His skill of carving his own wooden flutes led him to invent the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker. He pioneered its usage in diagnosing various chest conditions.
He became a lecturer at the Collège de France in 1822 and professor of medicine in 1823. His final appointments were that of head of the medical clinic at the Hôpital de la Charité and professor at the Collège de France. He died of tuberculosis in 1826 at the age of 45.
Laennec was born in Quimper (Brittany). His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five years old, and he went to live with his great-uncle the Abbé Laennec (a priest). As a child, Laennec became ill with lassitude and repeated instances of pyrexia. Laennec was also thought to have asthma. At the age of twelve, he proceeded to Nantes, where his uncle, Guillaime-François Laennec, worked in the faculty of medicine at the university. Laennec was a gifted student. He learned English and German and began his medical studies under his uncle's direction.
His father (a lawyer) later discouraged him from continuing as a doctor and René then had a period of time where he took long walks in the country, danced, studied Greek and wrote poetry. However, in 1799 he returned to study. Laennec studied medicine at the University of Paris under several famous physicians, including Dupuytren and Jean-Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarets. There he was trained to use sound as a diagnostic aid. Corvisart advocated the re-introduction of percussion during the French Revolution.
René Laennec wrote the classic treatise "De l'Auscultation Médiate", published in August 1819 The preface reads:
In 1816, He was consulted by a young woman laboring under general symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail on account of the great degree of fatness. The other method just mentioned direct auscultation being rendered inadmissible by the age and sex of the patient, I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact in acoustics, ... the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other. Immediately, on this suggestion, I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my ear.
Laennec had discovered that the new stethoscope was superior to the normally used method of placing the ear over the chest, particularly if the patient was overweight. A stethoscope also avoided the embarrassment of placing the ear against the chest of a woman.
Laennec is said to have seen schoolchildren playing with long, hollow sticks in the days leading up to his innovation.
The children held their ear to one end of the stick while the opposite end was scratched with a pin, the stick transmitted and amplified the scratch. His skill as a flautist may also have inspired him. He built his first instrument as a 25 cm by 2.5 cm hollow wooden cylinder, which he later refined to comprise three detachable parts. The refined design featured a funnel-shaped cavity to augment the sound, separable from the body of the stethoscope.
His clinical work allowed him to follow chest patients from bedside to the autopsy table. He was therefore able to correlate sounds captured by his new instruments with specific pathological changes in the chest, in effect pioneering a new non-invasive diagnostic tool. Pulmonary phthisis, for example, was one ailment he could more clearly identify using his knowledge of typical and atypical chest sounds. Laennec was the first to classify and discuss the terms rales, rhonchi, crepitance, and egophony – terms that doctors now use on a daily basis during physical exams and diagnoses. Laënnec presented his findings and research on the stethoscope to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and in 1819 he published his masterpiece, "De l’auscultation médiate ou Traité du Diagnostic des Maladies des Poumon et du Coeur", 8 in two volumes.
Laennec coined the phrase "mediate auscultation" (indirect listening), as opposed to the popular practice at the time of directly placing the ear on the chest (immediate auscultation). He named his instrument the stethoscope, from the Greek words "στήθος[stethos]" (chest), and "σκοπός[skopos]" (examination).
The stethoscope quickly gained popularity as "De l'Auscultation Médiate" was translated and distributed across France, England, Italy and Germany in the early 1820s. However, not all doctors readily embraced the new stethoscope. Although the "New England Journal of Medicine" reported the invention of the stethoscope two years later in 1821, as late as 1885, a professor of medicine stated, "He that hath ears to hear, let him use his ears and not a stethoscope." Even the founder of the American Heart Association, L. A. Connor (1866–1950) carried a silk handkerchief with him to place on the wall of the chest for ear auscultation.
Laennec often referred to the stethoscope as "the cylinder," and as he neared death only a few years later, he bequeathed his own stethoscope to his nephew, referring to it as "the greatest legacy of my life."
The modern binaural stethoscope with two earpieces was invented in 1851 by Arthur Leared of Ireland. George Cammann perfected the design of the instrument for commercial production in 1852, which has become the standard ever since.
He developed the understanding of peritonitis and cirrhosis. Although the disease of cirrhosis was known, Laennec gave cirrhosis its name, using the Greek word ("kirrhos", tawny) that referred to the tawny, yellow nodules characteristic of the disease.
He coined the term melanoma and described metastases of melanoma to the lungs. In 1804, while still a medical student, he was the first person to lecture on melanoma. This lecture was subsequently published in 1805. Laennec actually used the term 'melanose,' which he derived from the Greek ("mela", "melan") for "black." Over the years, there were bitter exchanges between Laennec and Dupuytren, the latter objecting that there was no mention of his work in this area and his role in its discovery.
He also studied tuberculosis. Coincidentally, his nephew, Mériadec Laennec, is said to have diagnosed tuberculosis in Laennec using Laennec’s stethoscope. Laennec wrote "A Treatise on the Disease of the Chest," in which he focused on diseases of the chest such as "Phthisis pulmonalis" and diagnostics such as "Pectoriloquy". He discussed the symptoms of Phthisis pulmonalis and what parts of the body it affects. It was written in an academic manner for learning purposes.
Laennec advocated objective scientific observation. Professor Benjamin Ward Richardson stated in "Disciples of Aesculapius" that "the true student of medicine reads Laennec's treatise on mediate auscultation and the use of the stethoscope once in two years at least as long as he is in practice. It ranks with the original work of Vesalius, Harvey and Hippocrates."
Laennec "was intensely religious and was a devout Catholic all his life". He was noted as a very kind man and his charity to the poor became proverbial. Austin Flint, the 1884 president of the American Medical Association, said that "Laennec's life affords a striking instance among others disproving the vulgar error that the pursuit of science is unfavourable to religious faith."
In Sir John Forbes' annotated translation of Laennec's treatise, it is reported:
A Rene Laennec appears in Rudyard Kipling's "Rewards and Fairies", the second of two books where two children, Dan and Una, encounter past inhabitants of England. In the short section "Marlake Witches", set during the Napoleonic Wars, Una meets a consumptive young lady who speaks of being treated by a French doctor, a prisoner on parole, one Rene Laennec. This prisoner discusses with a local herbalist the use of 'wooden trumpets' for listening to patients' chests, much to the distrust of the local doctor. Obviously, Kipling was aware of Laennec's work and invented an English connection.
He was the subject of a 1949 French film "Doctor Laennec" in which he was played by Pierre Blanchar.
On the exterior wall of the "Hôpital Necker – Enfants Malades", where Laennec wrote "Mediate auscultation", near the entrance of the hospital in 149, Rue de Sèvres, there is a marble memorial tablet with an engraved portrait of Laennec and this inscription: "Dans cet hôpital Laennec découvrit l'auscultation. 1781–1826". Some of the oldest buildings of the hospital can be seen on the same front of this large and modern medical area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26169 |
Ramadan
Ramadan (, also , ;) or Ramazan ( ; also spelled "Ramzan", "Ramadhan", or "Ramathan") is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting ("sawm"), prayer, reflection and community. A commemoration of Muhammad's first revelation, the annual observance of Ramadan is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam and lasts twenty-nine to thirty days, from one sighting of the crescent moon to the next.
Fasting from sunrise to sunset is "fard" (obligatory) for all adult Muslims who are not acutely or chronically ill, travelling, elderly, breastfeeding, diabetic, or menstruating. The predawn meal is referred to as "suhur", and the nightly feast that breaks the fast is called "iftar". Although "fatwas" have been issued declaring that Muslims who live in regions with a midnight sun or polar night should follow the timetable of Mecca, it is common practice to follow the timetable of the closest country in which night can be distinguished from day.
The spiritual rewards ("thawab") of fasting are believed to be multiplied during Ramadan.
Accordingly, Muslims refrain not only from food and drink, but also tobacco products, sexual relations, and sinful behavior, devoting themselves instead to "salat" (prayer) and recitation of the Quran.
The word "Ramadan" derives from the Arabic root "R-M-Ḍ" () "scorching heat". Ramadan is one of the names of God in Islam, and as such it is reported in many hadiths that it is prohibited to say only "Ramadan" in reference to the calendar month and that it is necessary to say "month of Ramadan", as reported in Sunni, Shia and Zaydi sources.
In the Persian language, the Arabic letter ض ("Ḍād") is pronounced as /z/. Some Muslim countries with historical Persian influence, such as Azerbaijan, Iran, India, Pakistan and Turkey, use the word "Ramazan" or "Ramzan". The word "Romjan" is used in Bangladesh.
Muslims hold that all scripture was revealed during Ramadan, the scrolls of Abraham, Torah, Psalms, Gospel, and Quran having been handed down on the first, sixth, twelfth, thirteenth (in some sources, eighteenth) and twenty-fourth Ramadans, respectively. Muhammed is said to have received his first quranic revelation on "Laylat al-Qadr", one of five odd-numbered nights that fall during the last ten days of Ramadan.
Although Muslims were first commanded to fast in the second year of "Hijra" (624 CE), they believe that the practice of fasting is not in fact an innovation of monotheism but rather has always been necessary for believers to attain "taqwa" (the fear of God). They point to the fact that the pre-Islamic pagans of Mecca fasted on the tenth day of Muharram to expiate sin and avoid drought. Philip Jenkins argues that the observance of Ramadan fasting grew out of "the strict Lenten discipline of the Syrian Churches," a postulation corroborated by other scholars, including theologian Paul-Gordon Chandler, but disputed by some Muslim academics.
The first and last dates of Ramadan are determined by the lunar Islamic calendar.
Because "Hilāl", the crescent moon, typically occurs approximately one day after the new moon, Muslims can usually estimate the beginning of Ramadan; however, many prefer to confirm the opening of Ramadan by direct visual observation of the crescent.
"Laylat al-Qadr" is considered the holiest night of the year. It is generally believed to have occurred on an odd-numbered night during the last ten days of Ramadan; the Dawoodi Bohra believe that "Laylat al-Qadr" was the twenty-third night of Ramadan.
The holiday of "Eid al-Fitr" (Arabic:عيد الفطر), which marks the end of Ramadan and the beginning of "Shawwal", the next lunar month, is declared after a crescent new moon has been sighted or after completion of thirty days of fasting if no sighting of the moon is possible. "Eid" celebrates of the return to a more natural disposition ("fitra") of eating, drinking, and marital intimacy.
The common practice is to fast from dawn to sunset. The pre-dawn meal before the fast is called the "suhur", while the meal at sunset that breaks the fast is called "iftar".
Muslims devote more time to prayer and acts of charity, striving to improve their self-discipline, motivated by hadith: "When Ramadan arrives, the gates of Paradise are opened and the gates of hell are locked up and devils are put in chains."
Ramadan is a time of spiritual reflection, self-improvement, and heightened devotion and worship. Muslims are expected to put more effort into following the teachings of Islam. The fast ("sawm") begins at dawn and ends at sunset. In addition to abstaining from eating and drinking during this time, Muslims abstain from sexual relations and sinful speech and behaviour during Ramadan fasting or month. The act of fasting is said to redirect the heart away from worldly activities, its purpose being to cleanse the soul by freeing it from harmful impurities. Muslims believe that Ramadan teaches them to practice self-discipline, self-control, sacrifice, and empathy for those who are less fortunate, thus encouraging actions of generosity and compulsory charity ("zakat").
Muslims also believe that for the poor people who don't have enough food they should fast so that the poor can get food to eat. This would also make them realize how poor feel when they remain hungry. The aim of fasting now seems to be being compassionate towards the poor people.
Exemptions to fasting include travel, menstruation, severe illness, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. However, many Muslims with medical conditions insist on fasting to satisfy their spiritual needs, although it is not recommended by hadith. Those unable to fast are obligated make up the missed days later.
Each day, before dawn, Muslims observe a pre-fast meal called the "suhoor". After stopping a short time before dawn, Muslims begin the first prayer of the day, "Fajr".
At sunset, families break the fast with the "iftar", traditionally opening the meal by eating dates to commemorate Muhammad's practice of breaking the fast with three dates. They then adjourn for "Maghrib", the fourth of the five required daily prayers, after which the main meal is served.
Social gatherings, many times in buffet style, are frequent at "iftar". Traditional dishes are often highlighted, including traditional desserts, particularly those made only during Ramadan. Water is usually the beverage of choice, but juice and milk are also often available, as are soft drinks and caffeinated beverages.
In the Middle East, "iftar" consists of water, juices, dates, salads and appetizers; one or more main dishes; and rich desserts, with dessert considered the most important aspect of the meal. Typical main dishes include lamb stewed with wheat berries, lamb kebabs with grilled vegetables, and roasted chicken served with chickpea-studded rice pilaf. Desserts may include "luqaimat", baklava or "kunafeh".
Over time, the practice of "iftar" has involved into banquets that may accommodate hundreds or even thousands of diners. The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the largest mosque in the UAE, feeds up to thirty thousand people every night. Some twelve thousand people attend "iftar" at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad.
"Zakāt", often translated as "the poor-rate", is the fixed percentage of income a believer is required to give to the poor; the practice is obligatory as one of the pillars of Islam. Muslims believe that good deeds are rewarded more handsomely during Ramadan than at any other time of the year; consequently, many donate a larger portion—or even all—of their yearly "zakāt" during this month.
"Tarawih" () are extra nightly prayers performed during the month of Ramadan. Contrary to popular belief, they are not compulsory.
Muslims are encouraged to read the entire Quran, which comprises thirty "juz'" (sections), over the thirty days of Ramadan. Some Muslims incorporate a recitation of one "juz"' into each of the thirty "tarawih" sessions observed during the month.
In some Islamic countries, lights are strung up in public squares and across city streets, a tradition believed to have originated during the Fatimid Caliphate, where the rule of Caliph al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah was acclaimed by people holding lanterns.
On the island of Java, many believers bathe in holy springs to prepare for fasting, a ritual known as "Padusan". The city of Semarang marks the beginning of Ramadan with the Dugderan carnival, which involves parading the Warak ngendog, a horse-dragon hybrid creature allegedly inspired by the Buraq. In the Chinese-influenced capital city of Jakarta, firecrackers are widely used to celebrate Ramadan, although they are officially illegal. Towards the end of Ramadan, most employees receive a one-month bonus known as "Tunjangan Hari Raya". Certain kinds of food are especially popular during Ramadan, such as large beef or buffalo in Aceh and snails in Central Java. The iftar meal is announced every evening by striking the bedug, a giant drum, in the mosque.
Common greetings during Ramadan include "Ramadan mubarak" and "Ramadan kareem".
During Ramadan in the Middle East, a "mesaharati" beats a drum across a neighbourhood to wake people up to eat the suhoor meal. Similarly in Southeast Asia, the "kentongan" slit drum is used for the same purpose.
According to a 2012 Pew Research Centre study, there was widespread Ramadan observance, with a median of 93 percent across the thirty-nine countries and territories studied. Regions with high percentages of fasting among Muslims include Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Horn of Africa and most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Percentages are lower in Central Asia and Southeast Europe.
In some Muslim countries, eating in public during daylight hours in Ramadan is a crime. The sale of alcohol becomes prohibited during Ramadan in Egypt. The penalty for publicly eating, drinking or smoking during Ramadan can result in fines and/or incarceration in the countries of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Malaysia. Whereas in the United Arab Emirates the punishment is community service.
In some countries, the observance of Ramadan has been restricted. In the USSR, the practice of Ramadan was suppressed by officials. In Albania, Ramadan festivities were banned during the communist period. However, many Albanians continued to fast secretly during this period. China is widely reported to have banned Ramadan fasting since 2012 in Xinjiang. Those caught fasting by the government could be sent to a "re-education camp".
Some countries impose modified work schedules. In the UAE, employees may work no more than six hours per day and thirty-six hours per week. Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait have similar laws.
There are various health effects of fasting in Ramadan. Ramadan fasting is considered safe for healthy individuals; it may pose risks for individuals with certain pre-existing conditions. Most Islamic scholars hold that fasting is not required for those who are ill. Additionally, the elderly and pre-pubertal children are exempt from fasting. Pregnant or lactating women are exempt from fasting during Ramadan according to some authorities, while according to other authorities they are exempt only if they fear fasting may harm them or their babies.
There are some health benefits of Ramadan including increasing insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin resistance. It has also been shown that there is a significant improvement in 10 years coronary heart disease risk score and other cardiovascular risk factors such as lipids profile, systolic blood pressure, weight, BMI and waist circumference in subjects with a previous history of cardiovascular disease. The fasting period is usually associated with modest weight loss, but weight can return afterwards.
Ramadan fasting, as a time-restricted eating habit that inverts the normal human day-night-routine for the observants, can have deleterious health effects on sleep patterns and the general health.
Fasting in Ramadan has been shown to alter the sleep patterns and the associated hormone production.
In Islam, pregnant women and those who are breasfeeding are exempt from fasting. Fasting can be hazardous for pregnant women as it is associated with risks of inducing labour and causing gestational diabetes, although it does not appear to affect the child's weight. It is permissible to not fast if it threatens the woman's or the child's lives, however, in many instances pregnant women are normal before development of complications. If a mother fasts during pregnancy, the resulting child may have significantly lower intelligence, lower cognitive capability and be at increased risk for several chronic diseases, e.g. Type 2 diabetes. Many Islamic scholars argue it is obligatory on a pregnant woman "not" to fast if a doctor recommends against it.
In many cultures, it is associated with heavy food and water intake during Suhur and Iftar times, which may do more harm than good. Ramadan fasting is safe for healthy people provided that overall food and water intake is adequate but those with medical conditions should seek medical advice if they encounter health problems before or during fasting.
The education departments of Berlin and the United Kingdom have tried to discourage students from fasting during Ramadan, as they claim that not eating or drinking can lead to concentration problems and bad grades.
A review of the literature by an Iranian group suggested fasting during Ramadan might produce renal injury in patients with moderate (GFR <60 ml/min) or severe kidney disease but was not injurious to renal transplant patients with good function or most stone-forming patients.
The correlation of Ramadan with crime rates is mixed: some statistics show that crime rates drop during Ramadan, while others show that it increases. Decreases in crime rates have been reported by the police in some cities in Turkey (Istanbul and Konya) and the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. A 2005 study found that there was a decrease in assault, robbery and alcohol-related crimes during Ramadan in Saudi Arabia, but only the decrease in alcohol-related crimes was statistically significant. Increases in crime rates during Ramadan have been reported in Turkey, Jakarta, parts of Algeria, Yemen and Egypt.
Various mechanisms have been proposed for the effect of Ramadan on crime:
The length of the dawn to sunset time varies in different parts of the world according to summer or winter solstices of the Sun. Most Muslims fast for eleven to sixteen hours during Ramadan. However, in polar regions, the period between dawn and sunset may exceed twenty-two hours in summer. For example, in 2014, Muslims in Reykjavik, Iceland, and Trondheim, Norway, fasted almost twenty-two hours, while Muslims in Sydney, Australia, fasted for only about eleven hours. In areas characterized by continuous night or day, some Muslims follow the fasting schedule observed in the nearest city that experiences sunrise and sunset, while others follow Mecca time.
Muslim astronauts in space schedule religious practices around the time zone of their last location on Earth. For example, this means an astronaut from Malaysia launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida would center their fast according to sunrise and sunset in Eastern Standard Time. This includes times for daily prayers, as well as sunset and sunrise for Ramadan.
Muslims continue to work during Ramadan; however, in some Islamic countries, such as Oman and Lebanon, working hours are shortened. It is often recommended that working Muslims inform their employers if they are fasting, given the potential for the observance to impact performance at work. The extent to which Ramadan observers are protected by religious accommodation varies by country. Policies putting them at a disadvantage compared to other employees have been met with discrimination claims in the United Kingdom and the United States. An Arab News article reported that Saudi Arabian businesses were unhappy with shorter working hours during Ramadan, some reporting a decline in productivity of 35 to 50%. The Saudi businesses proposed awarding salary bonuses in order to incentivize longer hours. Despite the reduction in productivity, merchants can enjoy higher profit margins in Ramadan due to increase in demand. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26173 |
Rainhill Trials
The Rainhill Trials were an important competition run in October 1829, to test George Stephenson's argument that locomotives would provide the best motive power for the then nearly-completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR). Five locomotives were entered, running along a length of level track at Rainhill, in Lancashire (now Merseyside).
Stephenson's "Rocket" was the only locomotive to complete the trials, and was declared the winner. The directors of the L&MR accepted that locomotives should operate services on their new line, and George and Robert Stephenson were given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.
The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had originally intended to use stationary steam engines to haul trains along the railway using cables. They had appointed George Stephenson as their engineer of the line in 1826, and he strongly advocated for the use of steam locomotives instead. As the railway was approaching completion, the directors decided to hold a competition to decide whether locomotives could be used to pull the trains; these became the Rainhill Trials. A prize of £500 (equal to £ today) was offered to the winner of the trials. Three notable engineers were selected as judges: John Urpeth Rastrick, a locomotive engineer of Stourbridge, Nicholas Wood, a mining engineer from Killingworth with considerable locomotive design experience, and John Kennedy, a Manchester cotton spinner and a major proponent of the railway.
The L&MR company set the rules for the trials. The rules went through several revisions; the final set, under which the competition was held, was:
Ten locomotives were officially entered for the trials, but on the day the competition began — 6 October 1829 — only five locomotives were available to run:
The length of the L&MR that ran past Rainhill village was straight and level for over , and was chosen as the site for the Trials. The locomotives were to run at Kenrick's Cross, on the mile east from the Manchester side of Rainhill Bridge. Two or three locomotives ran each day, and several tests for each locomotive were performed over the course of six days. Between 10,000 and 15,000 people turned up to watch the trials and bands provided musical entertainment on both days.
"Cycloped" was the first to drop out of the competition. It used a horse walking on a drive belt for power and was withdrawn after an accident caused the horse to burst through the floor of the engine. The next locomotive to retire was "Perseverance", which was damaged in transit to the competition. Burstall spent the first five days of the trails repairing his locomotive, and though it ran on the sixth day, it failed to reach the required speed and was withdrawn from the trial. It was granted a £25 consolation prize (equal to £ today).
"Sans Pareil" nearly completed the trials, though at first there was some doubt as to whether it would be allowed to compete as it was overweight. However, it did eventually complete eight trips before cracking a cylinder. Despite the failure it was purchased by the L&MR, where it ran for two years before being leased to the Bolton and Leigh Railway.
The last locomotive to drop out was "Novelty". In contrast to "Cycloped", it used advanced technology for 1829 and was lighter and considerably faster than the other locomotives in the competition. It was the crowd favourite and reached a then-astonishing on the first day of competition. It later suffered damage to a boiler pipe which could not be fixed properly on site. Nevertheless, it ran the next day and reached before the repaired pipe failed and damaged the engine severely enough that it had to be withdrawn.
The "Rocket" was the only locomotive that completed the trials. It averaged and achieved a top speed of ) hauling 13 tons, and was declared the winner of the £500 prize (equal to £ today). The Stephensons were given the contract to produce locomotives for the L&MR.
The Times carried a full report of the trials on 12 October 1829 from which the following extract are taken:
In 1980 the "Rocket 150" celebration was held to mark the 150th Anniversary of the trials.
A replica of "Novelty" was built for the event, which was also attended by replicas of "Sans Pareil" and "Rocket" (plus coach).
The event was also attended by:
Two Class 86 locomotives 86214 "Sans Pareil" and 86235 "Novelty" were painted in a variation of the Large Logo Rail Blue livery where the BR logo was replaced by "Rocket" 150 motif on a yellow background.
In a recent (2002) restaging of the Rainhill Trials using replica engines, neither "Sans Pareil" (11 out of 20 runs) nor "Novelty" (10 out of 20 runs) completed the course. In calculating the speeds and fuel efficiencies, it was found that "Rocket" would still have won, as its relatively modern technology made it a much more reliable locomotive than the others. "Novelty" almost matched it in terms of efficiency, but its firebox design caused it to gradually slow to a halt due to a buildup of molten ash (called "clinker") cutting off the air supply. The restaged trials were run over the Llangollen Railway, Wales, and were the subject of a 2003 BBC "Timewatch" documentary.
This restaging should not be taken as accurate as there were major compromises made for television and because of the differences in crew experience, the fuel used, the modifications made to the replicas for modern safety rules, modern materials and construction methods, and following operating experience. Sensible comparisons were made between the engines only after calculations took into account the differences.
The replicas had major differences from the 1829 originals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26175 |
Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering ( ), named after the nineteenth-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt), is the predominantly elastic scattering of light or other electromagnetic radiation by particles much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. For light frequencies well below the resonance frequency of the scattering particle (normal dispersion regime), the amount of scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength.
Rayleigh scattering results from the electric polarizability of the particles. The oscillating electric field of a light wave acts on the charges within a particle, causing them to move at the same frequency. The particle, therefore, becomes a small radiating dipole whose radiation we see as scattered light. The particles may be individual atoms or molecules; it can occur when light travels through transparent solids and liquids, but is most prominently seen in gases.
Rayleigh scattering of sunlight in Earth's atmosphere causes diffuse sky radiation, which is the reason for the blue color of the daytime and twilight sky, as well as the yellowish to reddish hue of the low Sun. Sunlight is also subject to Raman scattering, which changes the rotational state of the molecules and gives rise to polarization effects.
Scattering by particles similar to, or larger than, the wavelength of light is typically treated by the Mie theory, the discrete dipole approximation and other computational techniques. Rayleigh scattering applies to particles that are small with respect to wavelengths of light, and that are optically "soft" (i.e., with a refractive index close to 1). Anomalous diffraction theory applies to optically soft but larger particles.
In 1869, while attempting to determine whether any contaminants remained in the purified air he used for infrared experiments, John Tyndall discovered that bright light scattering off nanoscopic particulates was faintly blue-tinted. He conjectured that a similar scattering of sunlight gave the sky its blue hue, but he could not explain the preference for blue light, nor could atmospheric dust explain the intensity of the sky's color.
In 1871, Lord Rayleigh published two papers on the color and polarization of skylight to quantify Tyndall's effect in water droplets in terms of the tiny particulates' volumes and refractive indices. In 1881 with the benefit of James Clerk Maxwell's 1865 proof of the electromagnetic nature of light, he showed that his equations followed from electromagnetism. In 1899, he showed that they applied to individual molecules, with terms containing particulate volumes and refractive indices replaced with terms for molecular polarizability.
The size of a scattering particle is often parameterized by the ratio
formula_1
where "r" is the particle's radius, "λ" is the wavelength of the light and "x" is a dimensionless parameter that characterizes the particle's interaction with the incident radiation such that: Objects with x ≫ 1 act as geometric shapes, scattering light according to their projected area. At the intermediate x ≃ 1 of Mie scattering, interference effects develop through phase variations over the object's surface. Rayleigh scattering applies to the case when the scattering particle is very small (x ≪ 1, with a particle size < 1 /10 wavelength) and the whole surface re-radiates with the same phase. Because the particles are randomly positioned, the scattered light arrives at a particular point with a random collection of phases; it is incoherent and the resulting intensity is just the sum of the squares of the amplitudes from each particle and therefore proportional to the inverse fourth power of the wavelength and the sixth power of its size. The wavelength dependence is characteristic of dipole scattering and the volume dependence will apply to any scattering mechanism. In detail, the intensity "I" of light scattered by any one of the small spheres of diameter "d" and refractive index n from a beam of unpolarized light of wavelength "λ" and intensity "I"0 is given by
formula_2
where "R" is the distance to the particle and "θ" is the scattering angle. Averaging this over all angles gives the Rayleigh scattering cross-section
formula_3
The fraction of light scattered by a group of scattering particles is the number of particles per unit volume "N" times the cross-section. For example, the major constituent of the atmosphere, nitrogen, has a Rayleigh cross section of at a wavelength of 532 nm (green light). This means that at atmospheric pressure, where there are about molecules per cubic meter, about a fraction 10−5 of the light will be scattered for every meter of travel.
The strong wavelength dependence of the scattering (~"λ"−4) means that shorter (blue) wavelengths are scattered more strongly than longer (red) wavelengths.
The expression above can also be written in terms of individual molecules by expressing the dependence on refractive index in terms of the molecular polarizability "α", proportional to the dipole moment induced by the electric field of the light. In this case, the Rayleigh scattering intensity for a single particle is given in CGS-units by
formula_4
When the dielectric constant formula_5 of a certain region of volume formula_6 is different from the average dielectric constant of the medium formula_7, then any incident light will be scattered according to the following equation
formula_8where formula_9 represents the variance of the fluctuation in the dielectric constant formula_5.
The strong wavelength dependence of the scattering (~"λ"−4) means that shorter (blue) wavelengths are scattered more strongly than longer (red) wavelengths. This results in the indirect blue light coming from all regions of the sky. Rayleigh scattering is a good approximation of the manner in which light scattering occurs within various media for which scattering particles have a small size (parameter).
A portion of the beam of light coming from the sun scatters off molecules of gas and other small particles in the atmosphere. Here, Rayleigh scattering primarily occurs through sunlight's interaction with randomly located air molecules. It is this scattered light that gives the surrounding sky its brightness and its color. As previously stated, Rayleigh scattering is inversely proportional to the fourth power of wavelength, so that shorter wavelength violet and blue light will scatter more than the longer wavelengths (yellow and especially red light). However, the Sun, like any star, has its own spectrum and so "I"0 in the scattering formula above is not constant but falls away in the violet. In addition the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere absorbs wavelengths at the edge of the ultra-violet region of the spectrum. The resulting color, which appears like a pale blue, actually is a mixture of all the scattered colors, mainly blue and green. Conversely, glancing toward the sun, the colors that were not scattered away — the longer wavelengths such as red and yellow light — are directly visible, giving the sun itself a slightly yellowish hue. Viewed from space, however, the sky is black and the sun is white.
The reddening of the sun is intensified when it is near the horizon because the light being received directly from it must pass through more of the atmosphere. The effect is further increased because the sunlight must pass through a greater proportion of the atmosphere nearer the earth's surface, where it is denser. This removes a significant proportion of the shorter wavelength (blue) and medium wavelength (green) light from the direct path to the observer. The remaining unscattered light is therefore mostly of longer wavelengths and appears more red.
Some of the scattering can also be from sulfate particles. For years after large Plinian eruptions, the blue cast of the sky is notably brightened by the persistent sulfate load of the stratospheric gases. Some works of the artist J. M. W. Turner may owe their vivid red colours to the eruption of Mount Tambora in his lifetime.
In locations with little light pollution, the moonlit night sky is also blue, because moonlight is reflected sunlight, with a slightly lower color temperature due to the brownish color of the moon. The moonlit sky is not perceived as blue, however, because at low light levels human vision comes mainly from rod cells that do not produce any color perception (Purkinje effect).
Rayleigh scattering is an important component of the scattering of optical signals in optical fibers. Silica fibers are glasses, disordered materials with microscopic variations of density and refractive index. These give rise to energy losses due to the scattered light, with the following coefficient:
formula_11
where "n" is the refraction index, "p" is the photoelastic coefficient of the glass, "k" is the Boltzmann constant, and "β" is the isothermal compressibility. "T"f is a "fictive temperature", representing the temperature at which the density fluctuations are "frozen" in the material.
Rayleigh-type "λ"−4 scattering can also be exhibited by porous materials. An example is the strong optical scattering by nanoporous materials. The strong contrast in refractive index between pores and solid parts of sintered alumina results in very strong scattering, with light completely changing direction each five micrometers on average. The "λ"−4-type scattering is caused by the nanoporous structure (a narrow pore size distribution around ~70 nm) obtained by sintering monodispersive alumina powder. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26176 |
Ron Popeil
Ronald M. Popeil (; born May 3, 1935) is an American inventor and marketing personality, best known for his direct response marketing company Ronco. He is well known for his appearances in infomercials for the Showtime Rotisserie and the coined phrase "Set it, and forget it!" as well as popularizing the phrase, "But wait, there's more!" on television as early as the mid-1950s.
Popeil was born to a Jewish family in New York City in 1935. When he was 6 his parents divorced and he and his brother went to live in Florida with their grandparents. At age 17 in 1952, Ron went with his grandparents to work for his father, Samuel Popeil, at his company's (Popeil Brothers) manufacturing facility in Chicago. His grandparents later returned to Florida and Ron remained with his father.
Popeil learned his trade from his father, who was also an inventor and salesman of numerous kitchen-related gadgets such as the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic to major department stores. The Chop-O-Matic retailed for US$3.98 and sold over two million units. It indirectly spurred Ron Popeil's move into television, as it was so efficient at chopping vegetables it was impractical for salesmen to carry all they needed for their pitches. The solution was to tape the demonstration. Once done, the leap to infomercial followed.
Ron initially operated as a distributor of his father's kitchen products and later formed his own company (Ronco) in 1964. He continued as a distributor for his father and added additional products from other manufacturers. Ron and his father (Samuel) became competitors in the 1970s for the same retail store business.
Popeil received the Ig Nobel Prize in Consumer Engineering in 1993. The awards committee described him as the "incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television" and awarded the prize in recognition of his "redefining the industrial revolution" with his devices. He is a past member of the board of directors Mirage Resorts where he served for 22 years under Steve Wynn as well as a past member of the board of directors of MGM Hotels for 7 years under Kirk Kerkorian. He became the recipient of the Electronic Retail Association's Lifetime Achievement award in 2001 and he is listed in the Direct Response Hall of Fame.
He is currently a member of the advisory board for University of California Los Angeles' Business, Management and Legal Programs. In August 2005, he sold his company, Ronco, to Fi-Tek VII, a Denver holding company, for US$55 million, with plans to continue serving as the spokesman and inventor while being able to spend more time with his family.
In 1956, he married Marilyn Greene, with whom he had two daughters; they divorced in 1963. He married Lisa Boehne sometime after this and has one daughter with her. He and Boehne divorced sometime before 1995, when he married Robin Angers, with whom he has two more daughters.
As of 2006, he lived in Beverly Hills, California, with his wife, Robin Popeil, and two of his five daughters. Ashley Tisdale and Jennifer Tisdale are his cousins.
Popeil is noted for marketing and in some cases inventing a wide variety of products. Among the better known and more successful are the Chop-O-Matic hand food processor ("Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made ... All your onions chopped to perfection without shedding a single tear."), the Dial-O-Matic successor to the Veg-O-Matic ("Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side."), and the Ronco Pocket Fisherman. Popeil is also well known for his housewares inventions like his Giant Dehydrator and Beef Jerky Machine, his Electric Pasta Maker and his Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ. His Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ sold over 8 million units in the US alone, helping Ronco's housewares sales exceed $1 billion in profits. After retiring, Ron continued to invent products including the 5in1 Turkey Fryer & Food Cooking System which he has been developing for over ten years.
Ron Popeil's success in infomercials, memorable marketing personality, and ubiquity on American television have allowed him and his products to appear in a variety of popular media environments including cameo appearances on television shows such as "The X-Files", "Futurama", "King of the Hill", "The Simpsons", "Sex and the City", "The Daily Show" and "The West Wing". Parodies of Popeil's infomercials were done on the comedy show "Saturday Night Live" by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy and the "Veg-O-Matic" may have provided comedian Gallagher inspiration for the "Sledge-O-Matic" routine since the 1980s. The animated series "VeggieTales" once featured a parody of the "Veg-O-Matic" dubbed as the "Forgive-O-Matic". "Additionally, the professional wrestling tag team The Midnight Express dubbed their finishing move the Veg-O-Matic.
Popeil was voted by "Self" Magazine readers as one of the 25 people who have changed the way we eat, drink and think about food.
Popeil has been referenced in the music of Alice Cooper, the Beastie Boys, and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Yankovic's song "Mr. Popeil" was a tribute to Ron's father, Samuel Popeil (and featured Ron's sister Lisa Popeil on backing vocals). Ron Popeil later used this song in some of his infomercials.
In Malcolm Gladwell's book "", Ron Popeil is interviewed and many of his products, most notably the Veg-O-Matic and Showtime Rotisserie, are discussed. Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece "The Pitchman" about Ron Popeil won Gladwell the 2001 National Magazine award. The article was first published in "The New Yorker" in 2000. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26179 |
REO Speedwagon
REO Speedwagon (originally stylized as R.E.O. Speedwagon) is an American rock band from Champaign, Illinois. Formed in 1967, the band cultivated a following during the 1970s and achieved significant commercial success throughout the 1980s. The group's best-selling album, "Hi Infidelity" (1980), contained four US Top 40 hits and sold more than 10 million copies.
Over the course of its career, the band has sold more than 40 million records and has charted 13 Top 40 hits, including the number ones "Keep On Loving You" and "Can't Fight This Feeling". REO Speedwagon's mainstream popularity waned in the late 1980s, but the band remains a popular live act.
In the fall of 1966, Neal Doughty entered the electrical engineering program at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, as a junior. On his first night, he met fellow student Alan Gratzer. They held an impromptu jam session in the basement of their Illinois Street Residence Hall dormitory and soon started a rock band. Gratzer had been a drummer since high school, and was playing in a local group on the weekends, while Doughty had learned some Beatles songs on his parents' piano.
Doughty began to follow Gratzer's band, eventually sitting in on a song or two. The keyboard player was the leader, but several other band members were unhappy with the situation. On the last day of the university's spring semester, guitarist Joe Matt called the band's leader and told him that he, drummer Gratzer, and bassist Mike Blair had decided to leave the band to start a new one with Doughty.
They made a list of songs to learn over the summer break, and Doughty landed a summer job to buy his first keyboard. On his Farfisa organ, he learned "Light My Fire" by The Doors. The members returned to school in the fall of 1967, and had their first rehearsal before classes started. They named the band REO Speedwagon, from the REO Speed Wagon, a 1915 truck that was designed by Ransom Eli Olds. Doughty had seen the name written across the blackboard when he walked into his History of Transportation class on the first day they had decided to look for a name. Rather than pronouncing REO as a single word as the motor company did, they chose to spell out the name with the individual letters each pronounced ("R-E-O"). An advertisement in the school newspaper produced their first job, a fraternity party that turned into a food fight. They continued to perform cover songs in campus bars, fraternity parties, and university events. The first lineup consisted of Doughty on keyboards, Gratzer on drums and vocals, Joe Matt on guitar and vocals, Mike Blair on bass and vocals.
In early 1968, Terry Luttrell became lead singer, and Bob Crownover joined as the guitar player, replacing Matt. When Mike Blair left the band in the summer of 1968, Gregg Philbin replaced Blair, Marty Shepard played trumpet and Joe McCabe played sax until McCabe moved to Southern Illinois University. Crownover played guitar for the group until the summer of 1969 when Bill Fiorio replaced him. Fiorio then departed in late 1969, eventually assuming the name Duke Tumatoe, and went on to form the All Star Frogs. Steve Scorfina (who would go on to found progressive rock/album-oriented rock band Pavlov's Dog) came aboard for over a year, composing with the band and performing live, before being replaced by Gary Richrath in late 1970.
Richrath was a Peoria, Illinois-based guitarist and prolific songwriter who brought fresh original material to the band. Richrath had driven 100 miles (160km) to see the band and become a part of it. He is quoted as saying "I'm going to be a part of that band whether they like it or not", and then went about making it happen. With Richrath on board, the regional popularity of the band grew tremendously. The Midwestern United States was the original REO Speedwagon fan stronghold and is pivotal in this period of the band's history.
The band signed to Epic Records in 1971. Paul Leka, an East Coast record producer, brought the band to his recording studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut where it recorded original material for its first album. The lineup on the first album consisted of Richrath, Gratzer, Doughty, Philbin, and Luttrell.
With their equipment being hauled to dates in a friend's station wagon, REO played bars and clubs all over the Midwest. The band's debut album, "R.E.O. Speedwagon", was released on Epic Records in 1971. The most popular track on this record was "157 Riverside Avenue". The title refers to the Westport, Connecticut address, where the band stayed while recording in Leka's studio in Bridgeport and remains an in-concert favorite.
Although the rest of the band's lineup remained stable, REO Speedwagon switched lead vocalists three times for their first three albums. Luttrell left the band in early 1972, eventually becoming the vocalist for Starcastle. He was replaced by Kevin Cronin. Cronin recorded one album with the band, 1972's "R.E.O./T.W.O." but left the band during the recording sessions for 1973's "Ridin' the Storm Out" because of internal conflicts. "Ridin' the Storm Out" was completed with Michael Bryan Murphy on lead vocal, and featured Neal Doughty's "wailing storm siren" entrance on the title track. Murphy stayed on for two more albums, "Lost in a Dream" and "This Time We Mean It", before Cronin returned to the fold in January 1976 and recorded "R.E.O.", which was released that same year.
Cronin's return came after Greg X. Volz turned down the position for lead vocalist after becoming a born-again Christian.
In 1977, REO convinced Epic Records that their strength was in their live performances. Epic agreed to let them produce their first live album, "", which was eventually certified platinum. That same year, the band moved to Los Angeles, California.
In 1977, bassist Gregg Philbin left the band. Depending upon which band member is expressing an opinion, it was either because Philbin was disenchanted with the new corporate-structure REO where Cronin and Richrath got bigger slices of the pie instead of the equal credit they once shared as a "garage band", or he was asked to leave over his lifestyle issues affecting the music quality. Philbin was replaced with another Champaign, Illinois musician, Centennial High School alumnus, Bruce Hall, to record "You Can Tune a Piano but You Can't Tuna Fish". The album was released in 1978 and has received FM radio airplay over the years, thanks to songs like "Roll with the Changes" and "Time for Me to Fly". The album was REO's first to make the Top 40, peaking at #29. The album went on to sell over two million copies in the US, ultimately achieving double platinum status.
In 1979, the band took a turn back to hard rock with the release of "Nine Lives".
On November 21, 1980, Epic released "Hi Infidelity", which represented a change in sound, going from hard rock to more pop-oriented material. "Hi Infidelity" spawned four hit singles written by Richrath and Cronin, including the chart-topping "Keep On Loving You" (Cronin), plus "Take It on the Run" (#5) (Richrath), "In Your Letter" (#20) (Richrath), and "Don't Let Him Go" (#24) (Cronin), and remained on the charts for 65 weeks, 32 of which were spent in the top ten, including 15 weeks atop the "Billboard" 200. "Hi Infidelity" sold over 10 million copies.
The band's follow-up album, "Good Trouble", was released in June 1982. Although it was not as successful as its predecessor, the album performed moderately well commercially, featuring the hit singles "Keep the Fire Burnin'" (U.S. #7), "Sweet Time" (U.S. #26) and the Album Rock chart hit "The Key."
The band came storming back two years later with "Wheels Are Turnin'", an album that included the #1 hit single "Can't Fight This Feeling" plus three more hits: "I Do' Wanna Know" (U.S. #29), "One Lonely Night" (U.S. #19), and "Live Every Moment" (U.S. #34).
REO Speedwagon toured the US in 1985, including a sold-out concert in Madison, Wisconsin in May. On July 13, on the way to a show in Milwaukee, the band made a stop in Philadelphia to play at the US leg of Live Aid, which broke a record for number of viewers. They performed "Can't Fight This Feeling" and "Roll With the Changes," which featured members of the Beach Boys, the band members' families, and Paul Shaffer on stage for backing vocals.
1987's "Life as We Know It" saw a decline in sales, but still managed to provide the band with the top-20 hits "That Ain't Love" (U.S. #16) and "In My Dreams" (U.S. #19). "The Hits" (1988) is a compilation album from REO Speedwagon. It contains the new tracks "Here With Me" and "I Don't Want to Lose You." They were the last songs recorded with Gary Richrath and Alan Gratzer. "Here with Me" cracked the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the top ten on the Adult Contemporary chart.
By the late 1980s, the band's popularity was starting to decline. Original drummer Alan Gratzer left in September 1988 after he decided to retire from music to open a restaurant. In early 1989, Gary Richrath quit after tensions between him and Kevin Cronin boiled over. Cronin had been playing in The Strolling Dudes, a jazz ensemble that included jazz trumpet player Rick Braun (who had co-written the abovementioned "Here With Me" with Cronin), Miles Joseph on lead guitar and Graham Lear on drums. Lear had already been invited to join REO in September 1988 as Gratzer's successor and Joseph was brought in as a temporary stand-in for Richrath. Back up singers Carla Day and Melanie Jackson were also added. This lineup did only one show, on January 7, 1989, in Viña del Mar, Chile, where it won the award for best group at the city's annual International Song Festival. After that, Miles Joseph and the back up singers were dropped in favor of former Ted Nugent guitarist Dave Amato (who was brought aboard in May 1989) and keyboardist/songwriter/producer Jesse Harms.
The 1990 release "The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken", with Bryan Hitt (formerly of Wang Chung) on drums, was a commercial disappointment. The album produced only one, and - to date - the band's last "Billboard" Hot 100 single, "Love Is a Rock," which peaked at #65. Harms, disenchanted by the album's failure, left the group in early 1991.
Shortly after his departure, Richrath assembled former members of the Midwestern band Vancouver to form a namesake band, Richrath. After touring for several years, the Richrath band released "Only the Strong Survive" in 1992 on the GNP Crescendo label. Richrath (the band) continued to perform for several years before disbanding in the late 1990s. In September 1998, Gary Richrath briefly joined REO onstage at the County Fair in Los Angeles to play on the band's encore song, "157 Riverside Avenue". He then joined REO once again in Los Angeles in May 2000 for the same encore but no serious plans for a reunion ever materialized.
Having lost their recording contract with Epic, REO Speedwagon ended up releasing "Building the Bridge" (1996) on the Priority/Rhythm Safari label. When that label went bankrupt, the album was released on Castle Records, which also experienced financial troubles. REO Speedwagon ultimately self-financed this effort, which failed to chart. The title track did make R&R's AC Top 30 chart.
The commercial failure of the band's newer material with its revised lineup demanded a change in marketing strategy. As a consequence, Epic began re-releasing recordings from older albums with updated artwork and design.
Since 1995, the label has released over a dozen compilation albums featuring greatest hits, including 1999's "The Ballads". In 2000, REO teamed up with Styx for an appearance at Riverport Amphitheater in St. Louis, which was released as a live concert video "". The REO portion of the show was released again under three separate titles: "Live - Plus" (2001), "Live Plus 3" (2001) and "Extended Versions" (2001) (which was certified gold by the RIAA on April 26, 2006). REO once again teamed with Styx in 2003 for the Classic Rock's Main Event tour which also included another band from their common rock era, Journey.
The band released a self-financed album entitled "Find Your Own Way Home" in April 2007. Though it did not chart as an album, it produced two singles which appeared on "Billboard"'s Adult Contemporary radio chart.
REO Speedwagon continues to tour regularly, performing mostly their classic hits. They teamed up with Styx to record a new single entitled "Can't Stop Rockin'", released in March 2009, as well as for a full tour that included special guest .38 Special.
In November 2009, REO Speedwagon released a Christmas album, "Not So Silent Night...Christmas with REO Speedwagon." On December 2, the band released an online video game, "Find Your Own Way Home", produced by digital design agency Curious Sense. The game was the first "downloadable casual game" produced with a rock band and was cited by numerous publications including "The New York Times" as an innovative marketing product for a music act. In Summer 2010, the band — then touring with Pat Benatar — announced that it would release a 30th anniversary deluxe edition reissue of "Hi Infidelity".
REO Speedwagon headlined on the M&I Classic Rock Stage at the Milwaukee Summerfest on June 30, 2011. On March 11, 2012, Kevin Cronin appeared on the Canadian reality TV series "Star Académie". He sang a sampling of REO's hits with the show's singing finalists.
On November 22, 2013, they announced a benefit concert with Styx titled "Rock to the Rescue" to raise money for the affected families of the tornadoes in central Illinois. The concert was held on December 4, 2013 in Bloomington, Illinois. Richard Marx joined REO on stage for a joint performance of two of his hit songs. Gary Richrath reunited with REO one final time for a performance of "Ridin' the Storm Out" to end REO's set at the sold-out concert. Richrath stayed on stage to help with the encore of "With a Little Help From My Friends" along with REO, Styx, Richard Marx, and others. Richrath was originally from the town of East Peoria which was damaged during the storm. Families impacted by the storm and first responders sat near the stage for this special REO concert.
In early 2014, it was announced that REO Speedwagon and Chicago would be teaming up for 15 dates throughout 2014. Gary Richrath died on September 13, 2015, due to complications from surgery. In 2016 the band went on tour with Def Leppard and Tesla.
The band performed with Pitbull the song "Messin' Around" live on the ABC TV show "Greatest Hits in 2016"; that version of the song was also released as a single on iTunes. The band toured the UK arena circuit with Status Quo in December 2016. The band toured the US with Styx and Don Felder on the "United We Rock" tour, debuting June 20, 2017, at the Sunlight Supply Amphitheater. In 2017 the "Hi Infidelity" album received the Diamond Award for official U.S. sales of over 10 million copies. REO and Chicago once again teamed up for tour dates during the summer of 2018.
The band appeared in an episode in the third season of the American TV series "Ozark", which was released on Netflix on March 27, 2020. After the appearance, four of REO's songs reentered the "Billboard" rock charts.
Current members
Former members
Studio albums | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26180 |
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. He worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery fiction.
Predominantly known for writing the iconic dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451" (1953), and his science-fiction and horror-story collections, "The Martian Chronicles" (1950), "The Illustrated Man" (1951), and "I Sing the Body Electric" (1969), Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century American writers. While most of his best known work is in fantasy fiction, he also wrote in other genres, such as the coming-of-age novel "Dandelion Wine" (1957) and the fictionalized memoir "Green Shadows, White Whale" (1992).
Recipient of numerous awards, including a 2007 Pulitzer Citation, Bradbury also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including "Moby Dick" and "It Came from Outer Space". Many of his works were adapted to comic book, television, and film formats.
Upon his death in 2012, "The New York Times" called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, to Esther (née Moberg) Bradbury (1888–1966), a Swedish immigrant, and Leonard Spaulding Bradbury (1890–1957), a power and telephone lineman of English ancestry. He was given the middle name "Douglas" after the actor Douglas Fairbanks. Bradbury was related to the U.S. Shakespeare scholar Douglas Spaulding and descended from Mary Bradbury, who was tried at one of the Salem witch trials in 1692.
Bradbury was surrounded by an extended family during his early childhood and formative years in Waukegan. An aunt read him short stories when he was a child. This period provided foundations for both the author and his stories. In Bradbury's works of fiction, 1920s Waukegan becomes "Green Town", Illinois.
The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, Arizona, during 1926–1927 and 1932–1933 while their father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan. They eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934 when Bradbury was 14 years old. The family arrived with only US$40 (), which paid for rent and food until his father finally found a job making wire at a cable company for $14 a week (). This meant that they could stay, and Bradbury, who was in love with Hollywood, was ecstatic.
Bradbury attended Los Angeles High School and was active in the drama club. He often roller-skated through Hollywood in hopes of meeting celebrities. Among the creative and talented people Bradbury met were special-effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen and radio star George Burns. Bradbury's first pay as a writer, at age 14, was for a joke he sold to George Burns to use on the " Burns and Allen" radio show.
Throughout his youth, Bradbury was an avid reader and writer and knew at a young age that he was "going into one of the arts." Bradbury began writing his own stories at age 11 (1931), during the Great Depression — sometimes writing on the only available paper, butcher paper.
In his youth, he spent much time in the Carnegie library in Waukegan, reading such authors as H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe. At 12, Bradbury began writing traditional horror stories and said he tried to imitate Poe until he was about 18. In addition to comics, he loved Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of "Tarzan of the Apes", especially Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. "The Warlord of Mars" impressed him so much that at the age of 12, he wrote his own sequel. The young Bradbury was also a cartoonist and loved to illustrate. He wrote about Tarzan and drew his own Sunday panels. He listened to the radio show "Chandu the Magician", and every night when the show went off the air, he would sit and write the entire script from memory.
As a teen in Beverly Hills, he often visited his mentor and friend science-fiction writer Bob Olsen, sharing ideas and maintaining contact. In 1936, at a secondhand bookstore in Hollywood, Bradbury discovered a handbill promoting meetings of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society. Excited to find there were others sharing his interest, Bradbury joined a weekly Thursday-night conclave at age 16.
Bradbury cited H. G. Wells and Jules Verne as his primary science-fiction influences. Bradbury identified with Verne, saying, "He believes the human being is in a strange situation in a very strange world, and he believes that we can triumph by behaving morally".
Bradbury admitted that he stopped reading science-fiction books in his 20s and embraced a broad field of literature that included Alexander Pope and poet John Donne. Bradbury had just graduated from high school when he met Robert Heinlein, then 31 years old. Bradbury recalled, "He was well known, and he wrote humanistic science fiction, which influenced me to dare to be human instead of mechanical."
In young adulthood Bradbury read stories published in "Astounding Science Fiction", and read everything by Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and the early writings of Theodore Sturgeon and A. E. van Vogt.
The family lived about four blocks from the Fox Uptown Theatre on Western Avenue in Los Angeles, the flagship theater for MGM and Fox. There, Bradbury learned how to sneak in and watched previews almost every week. He rollerskated there, as well as all over town, as he put it, "hell-bent on getting autographs from glamorous stars. It was glorious." Among stars the young Bradbury was thrilled to encounter were Norma Shearer, Laurel and Hardy, and Ronald Colman. Sometimes, he spent all day in front of Paramount Pictures or Columbia Pictures and then skated to the Brown Derby to watch the stars who came and went for meals. He recounted seeing Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, and Mae West, whom he learned made a regular appearance every Friday night, bodyguard in tow.
Bradbury relates the following meeting with Sergei Bondarchuk, director of Soviet epic film series "War and Peace", at a Hollywood award ceremony in Bondarchuk's honor:
Bradbury's first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", which appeared in the January 1938 number of Forrest J. Ackerman's fanzine "Imagination!". In July 1939, Ackerman and his then-girlfriend Morojo gave 19-year-old Bradbury the money to head to New York for the First World Science Fiction Convention in New York City, and funded Bradbury's fanzine, titled "Futuria Fantasia". Bradbury wrote most of its four issues, each limited to under 100 copies. Between 1940 and 1947, he was a contributor to Rob Wagner's film magazine, "Script".
Bradbury was free to start a career in writing when, owing to his bad eyesight, he was rejected for admission into the military during World War II. Having been inspired by science-fiction heroes such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Bradbury began to publish science-fiction stories in fanzines in 1938. Bradbury was invited by Forrest J. Ackerman to attend the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, which at the time met at Clifton's Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. This was where he met the writers Robert A. Heinlein, Emil Petaja, Fredric Brown, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, and Jack Williamson.
In 1939, Bradbury joined Laraine Day's Wilshire Players Guild, where for two years, he wrote and acted in several plays. They were, as Bradbury later described, "so incredibly bad" that he gave up playwriting for two decades. Bradbury's first paid piece, "Pendulum", written with Henry Hasse, was published in the pulp magazine "Super Science Stories" in November 1941, for which he earned $15.
Bradbury sold his first story, "The Lake", for $13.75 at 22, and became a full-time writer by 24. His first collection of short stories, "Dark Carnival", was published in 1947 by Arkham House, a small press in Sauk City, Wisconsin, owned by writer August Derleth. Reviewing "Dark Carnival" for the "New York Herald Tribune", Will Cuppy proclaimed Bradbury "suitable for general consumption" and predicted that he would become a writer of the caliber of British fantasy author John Collier.
After a rejection notice from the pulp "Weird Tales", Bradbury submitted "Homecoming" to "Mademoiselle", which was spotted by a young editorial assistant named Truman Capote. Capote picked the Bradbury manuscript from a slush pile, which led to its publication. "Homecoming" won a place in the O. Henry Award Stories of 1947.
In UCLA's Powell Library, in a study room with typewriters for rent, Bradbury wrote his classic story of a book burning future, "The Fireman", which was about 25,000 words long. It was later published at about 50,000 words under the name "Fahrenheit 451", for a total cost of $9.80, due to the library's typewriter-rental fees of ten cents per half-hour.
A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood gave Bradbury the opportunity to put "The Martian Chronicles" into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood's glowing review followed.
Bradbury attributed his lifelong habit of writing every day to two incidents. The first of these, occurring when he was three years old, was his mother's taking him to see Lon Chaney's performance in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". The second incident occurred in 1932, when a carnival entertainer, one Mr. Electrico, touched the young man on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" Bradbury remarked, "I felt that something strange and wonderful had happened to me because of my encounter with Mr. Electrico...[he] gave me a future...I began to write, full-time. I have written every single day of my life since that day 69 years ago." At that age, Bradbury first started to do magic, which was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician.
Bradbury claimed a wide variety of influences, and described discussions he might have with his favorite poets and writers Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, and Thomas Wolfe. From Steinbeck, he said he learned "how to write objectively and yet insert all of the insights without too much extra comment". He studied Eudora Welty for her "remarkable ability to give you atmosphere, character, and motion in a single line". Bradbury's favorite writers growing up included Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote about the American South, Edith Wharton, and Jessamyn West.
Bradbury was once described as a "Midwest surrealist" and is often labeled a science-fiction writer, which he described as "the art of the possible." Bradbury resisted that categorization, however:
Bradbury recounted when he came into his own as a writer, the afternoon he wrote a short story about his first encounter with death. When he was a boy, he met a young girl at the beach and she went out into the water and never came back. Years later, as he wrote about it, tears flowed from him. He recognized he had taken the leap from emulating the many writers he admired to connecting with his voice as a writer.
When later asked about the lyrical power of his prose, Bradbury replied, "From reading so much poetry every day of my life. My favorite writers have been those who've said things well." He is quoted, "If you're reluctant to weep, you won't live a full and complete life."
In high school, Bradbury was active in both the poetry club and the drama club, continuing plans to become an actor, but becoming serious about his writing as his high school years progressed. Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High School, where he took poetry classes with Snow Longley Housh, and short-story writing courses taught by Jeannet Johnson. The teachers recognized his talent and furthered his interest in writing, but he did not attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. In regard to his education, Bradbury said:
He told "The Paris Review", "You can't learn to write in college. It's a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do – and they don't."
Bradbury described his inspiration as, "My stories run up and bite me in the leg—I respond by writing them down—everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off".
A reinvention of Waukegan, Green Town is a symbol of safety and home, which is often juxtaposed as a contrasting backdrop to tales of fantasy or menace. It serves as the setting of his semiautobiographical classics "Dandelion Wine", "Something Wicked This Way Comes", and "Farewell Summer", as well as in many of his short stories. In Green Town, Bradbury's favorite uncle sprouts wings, traveling carnivals conceal supernatural powers, and his grandparents provide room and board to Charles Dickens. Perhaps the most definitive usage of the pseudonym for his hometown, in "Summer Morning, Summer Night", a collection of short stories and vignettes exclusively about Green Town, Bradbury returns to the signature locale as a look back at the rapidly disappearing small-town world of the American heartland, which was the foundation of his roots.
Bradbury wrote many short essays on the culture and the arts, attracting the attention of critics in this field, but he used his fiction to explore and criticize his culture and society. Bradbury observed, for example, that "Fahrenheit 451" touches on the alienation of people by media:
Bradbury stated the novel worked as a critique of the later development of political correctness:
In a 1982 essay, he wrote, "People ask me to predict the Future, when all I want to do is prevent it". This intent had been expressed earlier by other authors, who sometimes attributed it to him.
On May 24, 1956, Bradbury appeared on television in Hollywood on the popular quiz show "You Bet Your Life" hosted by Groucho Marx. During his introductory comments and on-air banter with Marx, Bradbury briefly discussed some of his books and other works, including giving an overview of "The Veldt", his short story published six years earlier in "The Saturday Evening Post" under the title "The World the Children Made".
Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair and for the original exhibit housed in Epcot's Spaceship Earth geosphere at Walt Disney World. Bradbury concentrated on detective fiction in the 1980s. In the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, he also hosted "The Ray Bradbury Theater", a televised anthology series based on his short stories.
Bradbury was a strong supporter of public library systems, raising money to prevent the closure of several libraries in California facing budgetary cuts. He said "libraries raised me", and shunned colleges and universities, comparing his own lack of funds during the Depression with poor contemporary students. His opinion varied on modern technology. In 1985 Bradbury wrote, "I see nothing but good coming from computers. When they first appeared on the scene, people were saying, 'Oh my God, I'm so afraid.' I hate people like that – I call them the neo-Luddites", and "In a sense, [computers] are simply books. Books are all over the place, and computers will be, too". He resisted the conversion of his work into e-books, saying in 2010, "We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now". When the publishing rights for "Fahrenheit 451" came up for renewal in December 2011, Bradbury permitted its publication in electronic form provided that the publisher, Simon & Schuster, allowed the e-book to be digitally downloaded by any library patron. The title remains the only book in the Simon & Schuster catalog where this is possible.
Several comic-book writers have adapted Bradbury's stories. Particularly noted among these were EC Comics' line of horror and science-fiction comics. Initially, the writers plagiarized his stories, but a diplomatic letter from Bradbury about it led to the company paying him and negotiating properly licensed adaptations of his work. The comics featuring Bradbury's stories included "Tales from the Crypt", "Weird Science", "Weird Fantasy", "Crime Suspenstories", and "Haunt of Fear".
Bradbury remained an enthusiastic playwright all his life, leaving a rich theatrical legacy, as well as literary. Bradbury headed the Pandemonium Theatre Company in Los Angeles for many years and had a five-year relationship with the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena.
Bradbury is featured prominently in two documentaries related to his classic 1950s-1960s era: Jason V Brock's "Charles Beaumont: The Life of Twilight Zone's Magic Man", which details his troubles with Rod Serling, and his friendships with writers Charles Beaumont, George Clayton Johnson, and most especially his dear friend William F. Nolan, as well as Brock's "The AckerMonster Chronicles!", which delves into the life of former Bradbury agent, close friend, mega-fan, and "Famous Monsters of Filmland" editor Forrest J Ackerman.
Bradbury's legacy was celebrated by the bookstore Fahrenheit 451 Books in Laguna Beach, California, in the 1970s and 1980s. The grand opening of an annex to the store was attended by Bradbury and his favorite illustrator, Joseph Mugnaini, in the mid-1980s. The shop closed its doors in 1987, but in 1990, another shop with the same name (with different owners) opened in Carlsbad, California.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bradbury served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute.
Bradbury’s wife was Marguerite McClure (January 16, 1922 – November 24, 2003) from 1947 until her death; they had four daughters: Susan, Ramona, Bettina and Alexandra. Bradbury never obtained a driver's license, but relied on public transportation or his bicycle. He lived at home until he was 27 and married. His wife of 56 years, Maggie, as she was affectionately called, was the only woman Bradbury ever dated.
He was raised Baptist by his parents, who were themselves infrequent churchgoers. As an adult, Bradbury considered himself a "delicatessen religionist" who resisted categorization of his beliefs and took guidance from both Eastern and Western faiths. He felt that his career was "a God-given thing, and I'm so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is 'At play in the fields of the Lord.'"
Bradbury was a close friend of Charles Addams, and Addams illustrated the first of Bradbury's stories about the Elliotts, a family that resembled Addams' own Addams Family placed in rural Illinois. Bradbury's first story about them was "Homecoming", published in the 1946 Halloween issue of "Mademoiselle", with Addams' illustrations. Addams and he planned a larger collaborative work that would tell the family's complete history, but it never materialized, and according to a 2001 interview, they went their separate ways. In October 2001, Bradbury published all the Family stories he had written in one book with a connecting narrative, "From the Dust Returned", featuring a wraparound Addams cover of the original "Homecoming" illustration.
Another close friend was animator Ray Harryhausen, who was best man at Bradbury's wedding. During a BAFTA 2010 awards tribute in honor of Ray Harryhausen's 90th birthday, Bradbury spoke of his first meeting Harryhausen at Forrest J Ackerman's house when they were both 18 years old. Their shared love for science fiction, "King Kong", and the King Vidor-directed film "The Fountainhead", written by Ayn Rand, was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. These early influences inspired the pair to believe in themselves and affirm their career choices. After their first meeting, they kept in touch at least once a month, in a friendship that spanned over 70 years.
Late in life, Bradbury retained his dedication and passion despite what he described as the "devastation of illnesses and deaths of many good friends." Among the losses that deeply grieved Bradbury was the death of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, who was an intimate friend for many years. They remained close friends for nearly three decades after Roddenberry asked him to write for "Star Trek", which Bradbury never did, objecting that he "never had the ability to adapt other people's ideas into any sensible form."
Bradbury suffered a stroke in 1999 that left him partially dependent on a wheelchair for mobility. Despite this, he continued to write, and had even written an essay for "The New Yorker", about his inspiration for writing, published only a week prior to his death. Bradbury made regular appearances at science-fiction conventions until 2009, when he retired from the circuit.
Bradbury chose a burial place at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, with a headstone that reads "Author of Fahrenheit 451". On February 6, 2015, "The New York Times" reported that the house that Bradbury lived and wrote in for 50 years of his life, at 10265 Cheviot Drive in Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, California, had been demolished by the buyer, architect Thom Mayne.
Bradbury died in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, after a lengthy illness. Bradbury's personal library was willed to the Waukegan Public Library, where he had many of his formative reading experiences.
"The New York Times" called Bradbury "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream." The "Los Angeles Times" credited Bradbury with the ability "to write lyrically and evocatively of lands an imagination away, worlds he anchored in the here and now with a sense of visual clarity and small-town familiarity". Bradbury's grandson, Danny Karapetian, said Bradbury's works had "influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's always really touching and comforting to hear their stories". "The Washington Post" noted several modern day technologies that Bradbury had envisioned much earlier in his writing, such as the idea of banking ATMs and earbuds and Bluetooth headsets from "Fahrenheit 451", and the concepts of artificial intelligence within "I Sing the Body Electric".
On June 6, 2012, in an official public statement from the White House Press Office, President Barack Obama said:
Numerous Bradbury fans paid tribute to the author, noting the influence of his works on their own careers and creations. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg stated that Bradbury was "[his] muse for the better part of [his] sci-fi career... On the world of science fiction and fantasy and imagination he is immortal". Writer Neil Gaiman felt that "the landscape of the world we live in would have been diminished if we had not had him in our world". Author Stephen King released a statement on his website saying, "Ray Bradbury wrote three great novels and three hundred great stories. One of the latter was called 'A Sound of Thunder'. The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty."
Bradbury is credited with writing 27 novels and over 600 short stories. More than eight million copies of his works, published in over 36 languages, have been sold around the world.
In 1949, Bradbury and his wife were expecting their first child. He took a Greyhound bus to New York and checked into a room at the YMCA for 50 cents a night. He took his short stories to a dozen publishers and no one wanted them. Just before getting ready to go home, Bradbury had dinner with an editor at Doubleday. When Bradbury recounted that everyone wanted a novel and he did not have one, the editor, coincidentally named Walter Bradbury, asked if the short stories might be tied together into a book-length collection. The title was the editor's idea; he suggested, "You could call it "The Martian Chronicles"." Bradbury liked the idea and recalled making notes in 1944 to do a book set on Mars. That evening, he stayed up all night at the YMCA and typed out an outline. He took it to the Doubleday editor the next morning, who read it and wrote Bradbury a check for $750. When Bradbury returned to Los Angeles, he connected all the short stories that became "The Martian Chronicles."
What was later issued as a collection of stories and vignettes, "Summer Morning, Summer Night", started out to be Bradbury's first true novel. The core of the work was Bradbury's witnessing of the American small-town life in the American heartland.
In the winter of 1955–56, after a consultation with his Doubleday editor, Bradbury deferred publication of a novel based on Green Town, the pseudonym for his hometown. Instead, he extracted 17 stories and, with three other Green Town tales, bridged them into his 1957 book "Dandelion Wine". Later, in 2006, Bradbury published the original novel remaining after the extraction, and retitled it "Farewell Summer". These two titles show what stories and episodes Bradbury decided to retain as he created the two books out of one.
The most significant of the remaining unpublished stories, scenes, and fragments were published under the originally intended name for the novel, "Summer Morning, Summer Night", in 2007.
From 1950 to 1954, 31 of Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al Feldstein for EC Comics (seven of them uncredited in six stories, including "Kaleidoscope" and "Rocket Man" being combined as "Home To Stay" - for which Bradbury was retroactively paid - and EC's first version of "The Handler" under the title "A Strange Undertaking") and 16 of these were collected in the paperbacks, "The Autumn People" (1965) and "Tomorrow Midnight" (1966), both published by Ballantine Books with cover illustrations by Frank Frazetta.
Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury's stories were televised in several anthology shows, including "Tales of Tomorrow", "Lights Out", "Out There", "Suspense", "CBS Television Workshop", "Jane Wyman's Fireside Theatre", "Star Tonight", "Windows" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". "The Merry-Go-Round", a half-hour film adaptation of Bradbury's "The Black Ferris", praised by "Variety", was shown on "Starlight Summer Theater" in 1954 and NBC's "Sneak Preview" in 1956. During that same period, several stories were adapted for radio drama, notably on the science fiction anthologies "Dimension X" and its successor "X Minus One".
Producer William Alland first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with "It Came from Outer Space", a Harry Essex screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment "Atomic Monster". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié's "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953), which featured one scene based on Bradbury's "The Fog Horn", about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray Harryhausen produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Bradbury later returned the favor by writing a short story, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", about a stop-motion animator who strongly resembled Harryhausen. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts, and TV movies were based on Bradbury's stories or screenplays.
Bradbury was hired in 1953 by director John Huston to work on the screenplay for his film version of Melville's "Moby Dick" (1956), which stars Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab, Richard Basehart as Ishmael, and Orson Welles as Father Mapple. A significant result of the film was Bradbury's book "Green Shadows, White Whale", a semifictionalized account of the making of the film, including Bradbury's dealings with Huston and his time in Ireland, where exterior scenes that were set in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were filmed.
Bradbury's short story "I Sing the Body Electric" (from the book of the same name) was adapted for the 100th episode of "The Twilight Zone". The episode was first aired on May 18, 1962.
Bradbury and director Charles Rome Smith co-founded the Pandemonium Theatre Company in 1964. Its first production was "The World of Ray Bradbury", consisting of one-act adaptations of "The Pedestrian", "The Veldt", and "To the Chicago Abyss". It ran for four months at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles (October 1964 - February 1965); an off-Broadway production was presented in October 1965. Another Pandemonium Theatre Company production was mounted at the Coronet Theatre in 1965, again presenting adaptations of three Bradbury short stories: "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," "The Day It Rained Forever," and "Device Out of Time." (The last was adapted from his 1957 novel "Dandelion Wine"). The original cast for this production featured Booth Coleman, Joby Baker, Fredric Villani, Arnold Lessing, Eddie Sallia, Keith Taylor, Richard Bull, Gene Otis Shane, Henry T. Delgado, F. Murray Abraham, Anne Loos, and Len Lesser. The director, again, was Charles Rome Smith.
Oskar Werner and Julie Christie starred in "Fahrenheit 451" (1966), an adaptation of Bradbury's novel directed by François Truffaut.
In 1966, Bradbury helped Lynn Garrison create "AVIAN", a specialist aviation magazine. For the first issue, Bradbury wrote a poem, "Planes That Land on Grass".
In 1969, "The Illustrated Man" was brought to the big screen, starring Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Robert Drivas. Containing the prologue and three short stories from the book, the film received mediocre reviews. The same year, Bradbury approached composer Jerry Goldsmith, who had worked with Bradbury in dramatic radio of the 1950s and later scored the film version, to compose a cantata "Christus Apollo" based on Bradbury's text. The work premiered in late 1969, with the California Chamber Symphony performing with narrator Charlton Heston at UCLA.
"The Martian Chronicles" became a three-part TV miniseries starring Rock Hudson, which was first broadcast by NBC in 1980. Bradbury found the miniseries "just boring".
The 1982 television movie "The Electric Grandmother" was based on Bradbury's short story "I Sing the Body Electric".
The 1983 horror film "Something Wicked This Way Comes", starring Jason Robards and Jonathan Pryce, is based on the Bradbury novel of the same name.
In 1984, Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced "Bradbury 13", a series of 13 audio adaptations of famous stories from Bradbury, in conjunction with National Public Radio. The full-cast dramatizations featured adaptations of "The Ravine", "Night Call, Collect", "The Veldt", "There Was an Old Woman", "Kaleidoscope", "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed", "The Screaming Woman", "A Sound of Thunder", "The Man", "The Wind", "The Fox and the Forest", "Here There Be Tygers", and "The Happiness Machine". Voiceover actor Paul Frees provided narration, while Bradbury was responsible for the opening voiceover; Greg Hansen and Roger Hoffman scored the episodes. The series won a Peabody Award and two Gold Cindy awards, and was released on CD on May 1, 2010. The series began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on June 12, 2011.
From 1985 to 1992, Bradbury hosted a syndicated anthology television series, "The Ray Bradbury Theater", for which he adapted 65 of his stories. Each episode began with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementoes of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first two seasons, Bradbury also provided additional voiceover narration specific to the featured story and appeared on screen.
Deeply respected in the USSR, Bradbury's fiction has been adapted into five episodes of the Soviet science-fiction TV series "This Fantastic World" which adapted the stories film version of "I Sing The Body Electric", "Fahrenheit 451", "A Piece of Wood", "To the Chicago Abyss", and "Forever and the Earth". In 1984 a cartoon adaptation of There Will Come Soft Rains («Будет ласковый дождь») came out by Uzbek director Nazim Tyuhladziev. He made a film adaptation of "The Veldt" in 1987. In 1989, a cartoon adaptation of "Here There Be Tygers" («Здесь могут водиться тигры») by director Vladimir Samsonov came out.
Bradbury wrote and narrated the 1993 animated television version of "The Halloween Tree", based on his 1972 novel.
The 1998 film "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit", released by Touchstone Pictures, was written by Bradbury. It was based on his story "The Magic White Suit" originally published in "The Saturday Evening Post" in 1957. The story had also previously been adapted as a play, a musical, and a 1958 television version.
In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of "Fahrenheit 451" at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups. In 1984, Telarium released a game for Commodore 64 based on "Fahrenheit 451".
In 2005, the film "A Sound of Thunder" was released, loosely based upon the short story of the same name. The film "The Butterfly Effect" revolves around the same theory as "A Sound of Thunder" and contains many references to its inspiration. Short film adaptations of "A Piece of Wood" and "The Small Assassin" were released in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
In 2005, it was reported that Bradbury was upset with filmmaker Michael Moore for using the title "Fahrenheit 9/11", which is an allusion to Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", for his documentary about the George W. Bush administration. Bradbury expressed displeasure with Moore's use of the title, but stated that his resentment was not politically motivated, though Bradbury was conservative-leaning politically. Bradbury asserted that he did not want any of the money made by the movie, nor did he believe that he deserved it. He pressured Moore to change the name, but to no avail. Moore called Bradbury two weeks before the film's release to apologize, saying that the film's marketing had been set in motion a long time ago and it was too late to change the title.
In 2008, the film "Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis" was produced by Roger Lay Jr. for Urban Archipelago Films, based upon the short story of the same name. The film won the best feature award at the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Phoenix. The film has international distribution by Arsenal Pictures and domestic distribution by Lightning Entertainment.
In 2010, "The Martian Chronicles" was adapted for radio by "Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air".
Bradbury's works and approach to writing are documented in Terry Sanders' film "Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer" (1963).
Bradbury's poem "Groon" was voiced as a tribute in 2012.
The Ray Bradbury Award for excellency in screenwriting was occasionally presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America – presented to six people on four occasions from 1992 to 2009. Beginning 2010, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation is presented annually according to Nebula Awards rules and procedures, although it is not a Nebula Award. The revamped Bradbury Award replaced the Nebula Award for Best Script.
Bradbury appeared in the documentary "The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal" (1985), produced and directed by Arnold Leibovit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26181 |
Radio Row
Radio Row is a nickname for an urban street or district specializing in the sale of radio and electronic equipment and parts. Radio Rows arose in many cities with the 1920s rise of broadcasting and declined after the middle of the 20th century.
New York City's Radio Row, which existed from 1921 to 1966, was a warehouse district on the Lower West Side of Manhattan, New York City. Major firms that started there include Arrow Electronics, Avnet (founded by Charles Avnet in 1921), and Schweber Electronics.
The first of many radio-related stores was City Radio, opened in 1921 by Harry Schneck on Cortlandt Street, which became the central axis of a several-block area of electronics stores.
"The New York Times" made an early reference to "Radio Row" in 1927, when Cortlandt Street celebrated a "Radio Jubilee". The "Times" reported that "Today ... Cortlandt Street is 'Radio Row,' while Broadway is just a thoroughfare." The street was closed and decorated with flags and bunting, and the "Times" reported plans for New York's acting mayor Joseph V. McKee to present a "key to Cortland Street" to the then-reigning Miss New York, Frieda Louise Mierse, while a contest was held to name a "Miss Downtown Radio."
Pete Hamill recalled that, as a child, "On Saturday mornings, I used to venture from Brooklyn with my father to Radio Row on Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan, where he and hundreds of other New York men moved from stall to stall in search of the elusive tube that would make the radio work again. Later, my brothers went there with him in search of television components. Radio Row was a piece of all our interior maps."
In 1930, the "Times" described Radio Row as located on Greenwich Street "where Cortlandt Street intersects it and the Ninth Avenue Elevated forms a canopy over the roadway. ... The largest concentration is in the block bounded by Dey Street on the north and Cortlandt on the south, but Radio Row does not stop there; it overflows around the corner, around several corners, embracing in all some five crowded blocks." It estimated 40 or 50 stores in the vicinity, "all going full blast at the same time. There may be regulations prohibiting this vociferous practice, but if the radio dealers have anything to say it about it, it will never have the slightest effect along Radio Row. ... The clamor is heard even as one walks through the subway tunnel to the street exit. ... The first impression, and in fact the only one, is auditory, a reverberating bedlam, a confusion of sounds which only an army of loudspeakers could produce." It noted, in addition to merchants selling radio sets, "others display mostly accessories ... one shopkeeper last week featured a crystal set small enough to fit into a pocket, and another gave prominent position to a bucket of condensers about an inch in side."
World War II was unkind to Radio Row, and in 1944 the "Times" lamented that the "one-time repository of nearly everything from a tube socket to a complete radio station" was "bargainless and practically setless, too, due to wartime scarcities" but that it still catered to "tinkerers and engineers" and that an "old spirit" and "magical quality" were still there. One shop said it was practically able to stay in business just by "making repairs on the electric meters burned out by the students of the city schools who were studying radio," and all were optimistic about growing public interest in "two new kinds of radio: FM and television."
But Radio Row rebounded. The used radios, war surplus electronics (e.g., ARC-5 radios), junk, and parts often piled so high they would spill out onto the street, attracting collectors and scroungers. According to a business writer, it also was the origin of the electronic component distribution business.
Radio Row was torn down in 1966 to make room for the World Trade Center.
Planning for its demise began five years earlier, when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey rejected a proposal to build the new complex on the east side of Lower Manhattan. Instead, officials chose a site on the west side, near the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad terminals, and began planning to use eminent domain to remove the shops in the area bounded by Vesey, Church, Liberty, and West streets.
Local opposition arose to the decision to raze the streets on the west side for the World Trade Center. Sam Slate reported on this for WCBS Radio in 1962: The city also objected to the compensation given for the streets themselves obscured by the superblock.
A committee of small business owners led by Oscar Nadel took exception to the Port Authority's offer of $30,000 to any business in the condemned area, regardless of its size or age. Nadel's group, who estimated that businesses in the area employed 30,000 people and generated $300 million per year, sued the Port Authority. But the court ultimately threw out the case, called "Courtesy Sandwich Shop v. Port of New York Authority," in November 1963 ""for want of a substantial federal question"".
After the closing of these stores, the concentration of radio retailers was not duplicated elsewhere in New York. Some clusters of radio and electronics stores were created or added to in the Canal Street and Union Square areas.
A large black-and-white photo mural of Radio Row can be viewed at the World Trade Center Port Authority Trans-Hudson station.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Arch Street from 6th to 11th Streets was known as "Radio Row", after its electronic-goods stores.
In 1923, "The Boston Globe" reported that a section of the North End had been dubbed "Radio Row" because of its many radio antennas. "The hurdy-gurdy has a rival," wrote the "Globe". "No skyline anywhere else in the city or the suburbs is filled with so many antennae as the blocks stretching along some sections of Hanover and Salem sts. Many residents have three or four aerials—one has six—with wires leading down to receiving sets of all descriptions, in the homes of the foreign-born residents. It has all come about in a few months...All stairways lead to the roof, where [some residents] are arranging to rig up a loudspeaker, connected with instruments below. A survey of housetops...shows a whole population getting ready."
In Los Angeles of the 1940s and 1950s, "Radio Row" referred to the area near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, where all four major radio networks had broadcasting facilities.
In the second half of the 20th century and early 21st century, various Asian cities developed electronics districts.
Radio Row may also refer to a large grouping of sports talk radio stations that broadcast from the Super Bowl media center during the week before the annual major football game. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26184 |
Ralph Cudworth
The Rev. Prof. Ralph Cudworth (1617 – 26 June 1688) was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian Hebraist, classicist, theologian and philosopher, and a leading figure among the Cambridge Platonists. From a family background embedded in the early nonconformist environment of Emmanuel College where he studied (1630–45), he became 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645–88), 26th Master of Clare Hall (1645–54), and 14th Master of Christ's College (1654–88). He was a leading opponent of Thomas Hobbes's political and philosophical views, and his "magnum opus" was his "The True Intellectual System of the Universe" (1678).
Cudworth's family reputedly originated in Cudworth (near Barnsley), Yorkshire, moving to Lancashire with the marriage (1377) of John de Cudworth (d.1384) and Margery (d.1384), daughter of Richard de Oldham (living 1354), lord of the manor of Werneth, Oldham. The Cudworths of Werneth Hall, Oldham, were lords of the manor of Werneth/Oldham, until 1683. Ralph Cudworth (the philosopher)’s father, Ralph Cudworth (Snr) was the posthumous-born second son of Ralph Cudworth (d.1572) of Werneth Hall, Oldham.
The philosopher's father, The Rev. Dr Ralph Cudworth (1572/3–1624), was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA (1592/93, MA (1596). Emmanuel College (founded by Sir Walter Mildmay (1584), and under the direction of its first Master, Laurence Chaderton) was, from its inception, a stronghold of Reformist, Puritan and Calvinist teaching, which shaped the development of puritan ministry, and contributed largely to the emigrant ministry in America.
Ordained in 1599 and elected to a college fellowship by 1600, Cudworth Snr was much influenced by William Perkins, whom he succeeded, in 1602, as Lecturer of the Parish Church of St Andrew the Great, Cambridge. He was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1603. He edited Perkins's "Commentary" on St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (1604), with a dedication to Robert, 3rd Lord Rich (later 1st Earl of Warwick), adding a commentary of his own with dedication to Sir Bassingbourn Gawdy. Lord Rich presented him to the Vicariate of Coggeshall, Essex (1606) to replace the deprived minister Thomas Stoughton, but he resigned this position (March 1608), and was licensed to preach from the pulpit by the Chancellor and Scholars of the University of Cambridge (November 1609). He then applied for the Rectoriate of Aller, Somerset (an Emmanuel College living) and, resigning his fellowship, was appointed to it in 1610.
His marriage (1611) to Mary Machell ("c".1582–1634), (who had been "nutrix" – nurse, or preceptor – to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales) brought important connections. Cudworth Snr was appointed as one of James I's chaplains. Mary's mother (or aunt) was the sister of Sir Edward Lewknor, a central figure (with the Jermyn and Heigham families) among the puritan East Anglian gentry, whose children had attended Emmanuel College. Mary's Lewknor and Machell connections with the Rich family included her first cousins Sir Nathaniel Rich and his sister Dame Margaret Wroth, wife of Sir Thomas Wroth of Petherton Park near Bridgwater, Somerset, influential promoters of colonial enterprise (and later of nonconformist emigration) in New England. Aller was immediately within their sphere.
Ralph Snr and Mary settled at Aller, where their children (listed below) were christened during the following decade. Cudworth continued to study, working on a complete survey of Case-Divinity, "The Cases of Conscience in Family, Church and Commonwealth" while suffering from the agueish climate at Aller. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity (1619), and was among the dedicatees of Richard Bernard's 1621 edition of "The Faithfull Shepherd". Ralph Snr died at Aller declaring a nuncupative will (7 August 1624) before Anthony Earbury and Dame Margaret Wroth.
The children of Ralph Cudworth Snr and Mary (née Machell) Cudworth ("c".1582–1634) were:
The second son, and third of five (probably six) children, Ralph Cudworth (Jnr) was born at Aller, Somerset, where he was baptised (13 July 1617). Following the death of his father, Ralph Cudworth Snr (1624), The Rev. Dr John Stoughton (1593–1639), (son of Thomas Stoughton of Coggeshall; also a Fellow of Emmanuel College), succeeded as Rector of Aller, and married the widow Mary (née Machell) Cudworth ("c".1582–1634). Dr Stoughton paid careful attention to his stepchildren's education, which Ralph later described as a "diet of Calvinism". Letters, to Stoughton, by both brothers James and Ralph Cudworth make this plain; and, when Ralph matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1632), Stoughton thought him "as wel grounded in Schol-Learning as any Boy of his Age that went to the University". Stoughton was appointed Curate and Preacher at St Mary Aldermanbury, London (1632), and the family left Aller. Ralph's elder brother, James Cudworth, married and emigrated to Scituate, Plymouth Colony, New England (1634). Mary Machell Cudworth Stoughton died during summer 1634, and Dr Stoughton married a daughter of John Browne of Frampton and Dorchester.
A diligent student, Cudworth was admitted (as a pensioner) to Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1630), matriculated (1632), and graduated (BA (1635/6); MA (1639)). After some misgivings (which he confided in his stepfather), he was elected a Fellow of Emmanuel (1639), and became a successful tutor, delivering the Rede Lecture (1641). He published a tract entitled "The Union of Christ and the Church, in a Shadow" (1642), and another, "A Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord's Supper" (1642), in which his readings of Karaite manuscripts (stimulated by meetings with Johann Stephan Rittangel) were influential.
Following sustained correspondence with John Selden (to whom he supplied Karaite literature), he was elected (aged 28) as 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645). In 1645, Thomas Paske had been ejected as Master of Clare Hall for his Anglican allegiances, and Cudworth (despite his immaturity) was selected as his successor, as 26th Master (but not admitted until 1650). Similarly, his fellow-theologian Benjamin Whichcote was installed as 19th Provost of King's College. Cudworth attained the degree of Bachelor of Divinity (1646), and preached a sermon before the House of Commons of England (on 1 John 2, 3–4), which was later published with a Letter of Dedication to the House (1647). Despite these distinctions and his presentation, by Emmanuel College, to the Rectoriate of North Cadbury, Somerset (3 October 1650), he remained comparatively impoverished. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity (1651), and, in January 1651/2, his friend Dr John Worthington wrote of him, "If through want of maintenance he should be forced to leave Cambridge, for which place he is so eminently accomplished with what is noble and Exemplarily Academical, it would be an ill omen."
Cudworth was elected (29 October 1654) and admitted (2 November 1654), as 14th Master of Christ's College. His appointment coincided with his marriage to Damaris (d.1695), daughter (by his first wife, Damaris) of Matthew Cradock (d.1641), first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Hence Worthington commented "After many tossings Dr Cudworth is through God's good Providence returned to Cambridge and settled in Christ's College, and by his marriage more settled and fixed."
In his Will (1641), Matthew Cradock had divided his estate beside the Mystic River at Medford, Massachusetts (which he had never visited, and was managed on his behalf) into two moieties: one was bequeathed to his daughter Damaris Cradock (d.1695), (later wife of Ralph Cudworth Jnr); and one was to be enjoyed by his widow Rebecca (during her lifetime), and afterwards to be inherited by his brother, Samuel Cradock (1583–1653), and his heirs male. Samuel Cradock's son, Samuel Cradock Jnr (1621–1706), was admitted to Emmanuel (1637), graduated (BA (1640–1); MA (1644); BD (1651)), was later a Fellow (1645–56), and pupil of Benjamin Whichcote. After part of the Medford estate was rented to Edward Collins (1642), it was placed in the hands of an attorney; the widow Rebecca Cradock (whose second and third husbands were Richard Glover and Benjamin Whichcote, respectively), petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts, and the legatees later sold the estate to Collins (1652).
The marriage of the widow Rebecca Cradock, to Cudworth's colleague Benjamin Whichcote laid the way for the union between Cudworth and her stepdaughter, Damaris (d.1695), thereby reinforcing the connections between the two scholars through a familial bond. Damaris had married, firstly (1642), Thomas Andrewes Jnr (d.1653) of London and Feltham, son of Sir Thomas Andrewes (d.1659), (Lord Mayor of London, 1649, 1651–2), which union had produced several children. The Andrewes family were also engaged in the Massachusetts project, and strongly supported puritan causes.
Cudworth emerged as a central figure among that circle of theologians and philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists, who were (more or less) in sympathy with the Commonwealth: during the later 1650s, Cudworth was consulted by John Thurloe, Oliver Cromwell's Secretary to the Council of State, with regard to certain university and government appointments and various other matters. During 1657, Cudworth advised Bulstrode Whitelocke's sub-committee of the Parliamentary "Grand Committee for Religion" on the accuracy of editions of the English Bible. Cudworth was appointed Vicar of Great Wilbraham, and Rector of Toft, Cambridgeshire Ely diocese (1656), but surrendered these livings (1661 and 1662, respectively) when he was presented, by Dr Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, to the Hertfordshire Rectory of Ashwell (1 December 1662).
Given Cudworth's close cooperation with prominent figures in Oliver Cromwell's regime (such as John Thurloe), Cudworth's continuance as Master of Christ's was challenged at the Restoration but, ultimately, he retained this post until his death. He and his family are believed to have resided in private lodgings at the "Old Lodge" (which stood between Hobson Street and the College Chapel), and various improvements were made to the College rooms in his time.
In 1665, Cudworth almost quarrelled with his fellow-Platonist, Henry More, because of the latter's composition of an ethical work which Cudworth feared would interfere with his own long-contemplated treatise on the same subject. To avoid any difficulties, More published his "Enchiridion ethicum" (1666–69), in Latin; However, Cudworth's planned treatise was never published. His own majestic work, "The True Intellectual System of the Universe" (1678), was conceived in three parts of which only the first was completed; he wrote: "there is no reason why this volume should therefore be thought imperfect and incomplete, because it hath not all the Three Things at first Designed by us: it containing all that belongeth to its own particular Title and Subject, and being in that respect no Piece, but a Whole."
Cudworth was installed as Prebendary of Gloucester (1678). His colleague, Benjamin Whichcote, died at Cudworth's house in Cambridge (1683), and Cudworth himself died (26 June 1688), and was buried in the Chapel of Christ's College. An oil portrait of Cudworth (from life) hangs in the Hall of Christ's College. During Cudworth's time an outdoor Swimming Pool was created at Christ's College (which still exists), and a carved bust of Cudworth there accompanies those of John Milton and Nicholas Saunderson.
Cudworth's widow, Damaris (née Cradock) Andrewes Cudworth (d.1695), maintained close connections with her daughter, Damaris Cudworth Masham, at High Laver, Essex, which was where she died, and was commemorated in the church with a carved epitaph reputedly composed by the philosopher John Locke.
The children of Ralph Cudworth and Damaris (née Cradock) Andrewes Cudworth (d.1695) were:
The stepchildren of Ralph Cudworth (children of Damaris (née Cradock) Andrewes (d.1695) and Thomas Andrewes (d.1653) were:
Cudworth's works included "The Union of Christ and the Church, in a Shadow" (1642); "A Sermon preached before the House of Commons" (1647); and "A Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord's Supper" (1670). Much of Cudworth's work remains in manuscript. However, certain surviving works have been published posthumously, such as "A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality, and A Treatise of Freewill. "
Cudworth's "Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality", published with a preface by Edward Chandler (1731), is about the historical development of British moral philosophy. It answers, from the standpoint of Platonism, Hobbes's famous doctrine that moral distinctions are created by the state: just as knowledge contains a permanent intelligible element over and above the flux of sense-impressions, so there exist eternal and immutable ideas of morality. Cudworth's ideas (like those of Plato) have "a constant and never-failing entity of their own" (such as we see in geometrical figures); but, unlike Plato's ideas, they exist in the mind of God, whence they are communicated to finite understandings. Hence "it is evident that wisdom, knowledge and understanding are eternal and self-subsistent things, superior to matter and all sensible beings, and independent upon them"; and so also are moral good and evil. Cudworth does not attempt to give any list of Moral Ideas. It is, indeed, the cardinal weakness of this form of intuitionism that no satisfactory list can be given, and that no moral principles have the "constant and never-failing entity" (or the definiteness) of the concepts of geometry (these attacks are not uncontested — for example, see "Common Sense" tradition from Thomas Reid to James McCosh and the Oxford Realists Harold Prichard and Sir William David Ross). Henry More's "Enchiridion ethicum", attempts to enumerate the ""noemata moralia""; but, so far from being self-evident, most of his moral axioms are open to serious controversy.
Another posthumous publication was Cudworth's "A Treatise of Freewill", edited by John Allen (1838). Both this and the "Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality" are connected with the design of his "magnum opus", "The True Intellectual System of the Universe".
In 1678, Cudworth published "The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted and its impossibility demonstrated", which had been given an Imprimatur for publication (29 May 1671).
The "Intellectual System" arose, so Cudworth informs us, from a discourse refuting "fatal necessity", or determinism. Enlarging his plan, he proposed to prove three matters:
These three comprise, collectively, the intellectual (as opposed to the physical) system of the universe; and they are opposed, respectively, by three false principles: atheism, religious fatalism (which refers all moral distinctions to the will of God), and the fatalism of the ancient Stoics (who recognized God and yet identified Him with nature). The immense fragment dealing with atheism was all that was published, perhaps because of the theological clamour raised against this first part.
Cudworth criticizes two main forms of materialistic atheism: the atomic (adopted by Democritus, Epicurus and Hobbes); and the hylozoic (attributed to Strato of Lampsacus, which explains everything by the supposition of an inward self-organizing life in matter). Atomic atheism is by far the more important, if only because Hobbes (the great antagonist whom Cudworth always has in view), is supposed to have held this view. It arises from the combination of two principles, neither of which is, individually, atheistic (namely atomism and corporealism (or the doctrine that nothing exists but body)). The example of Stoicism, as Cudworth suggests, shows that corporealism may be theistic.
Cudworth plunges into the history of atomism with vast erudition. It is, in its purely physical application (a theory that he fully accepts), he holds that atomism was taught by Pythagoras, Empedocles (and, in fact, nearly all the ancient philosophers), and was only perverted to atheism by Democritus. Cudworth believes that atomism was first invented before the Trojan war by a Sidonian thinker named Moschus or Mochus (identical with Moses in the Old Testament). In dealing with atheism, Cudworth's method was to marshal the atheistic arguments elaborately, so elaborately that Dryden remarked "he has raised such objections against the being of a God and Providence that many think he has not answered them"; then, in his last chapter (which, by itself, is the length of an ordinary treatise), he confutes the arguments with all the reasons that his reading could supply. A subordinate matter in the book which attracted much attention at the time was the conception of the "Plastic Medium" (a mere revival of Plato's "World-Soul," which is intended to explain the existence and laws of nature without referring to the direct operation of God), which occasioned a long-drawn controversy, between Pierre Bayle and Le Clerc (the former maintaining; the latter denying), that the Plastic Medium is favourable to atheism.
Andrew Dickson White wrote in his "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom" (1896):
In 1678 Ralph Cudworth published his "Intellectual System of the Universe". To this day he remains, in breadth of scholarship, in strength of thought, in tolerance, and in honesty, one of the greatest glories of the English Church... He purposed to build a fortress which should protect Christianity against all dangerous theories of the universe, ancient or modern. ...while genius marked every part of it, features appeared which gave the rigidly orthodox serious misgivings. From the old theories of direct personal action on the universe by the Almighty he broke utterly. He dwelt on the action of law, rejected the continuous exercise of miraculous intervention, pointed out the fact that in the natural world there are "errors" and "bungles" and argued vigorously in favor of the origin and maintenance of the universe as a slow and gradual development of Nature in obedience to an inward principle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26185 |
Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell is a city in, and the seat of, Chaves County in the U.S. state of New Mexico, the county forms the entirety of the Roswell micropolitan area. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 48,411, making it the fifth-largest city in New Mexico. It is home of New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI), founded in 1891. The city is also the location of an Eastern New Mexico University campus. Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located a few miles northeast of the city on the Pecos River. Bottomless Lakes State Park is located east of Roswell on US 380.
The Roswell UFO incident was named after the town, though the crash site of the alleged UFO was some from Roswell and closer to Corona. The investigation and debris recovery was handled by the local Roswell Army Air Field. In the 1930s, Roswell was a site for much of Robert H. Goddard's early rocketry work. The Roswell Museum and Art Center maintains an exhibit that includes a recreation of Goddard's rocket engine development workshop.
Roswell's tourism industry is based on aerospace engineering and ufology museums and businesses, as well as alien-themed and spacecraft-themed iconography. The city also relies on New Mexico and Americana related tourism. New Mexican cuisine restaurants, such as Martin's Capitol Café, are located near downtown on Main Street, near the International UFO Museum and Research Center. Local American folk and New Mexico music performances occur near Pioneer Plaza and in parks around the city. It is a center for acequia-similar irrigated farming, dairying, and ranching, it also the location of several manufacturing, distribution, and petroleum related facilities. This regional pride has resulted in Roswell receiving the All-America City Award multiple times, in 1978–79 and 2002.
The first non-indigenous settlers of the area around Roswell were a group of pioneers from Missouri, who attempted to start a settlement southwest of what is now Roswell in 1865, but were forced to abandon the site because of a lack of water. It was called Missouri Plaza. It also had many Hispanic people from Lincoln, New Mexico. John Chisum had his famous Jingle Bob Ranch about from the center of Roswell, at South Spring Acres. At the time, it was the largest ranch in the United States.
Van C. Smith, a businessman from Omaha, Nebraska, and his partner, Aaron Wilburn, constructed two adobe buildings in 1869 that began what is now Roswell. The two buildings became the settlement's general store, post office, and sleeping quarters for paying guests. In 1871, Smith filed a claim with the federal government for the land around the buildings, and on August 20, 1873, he became the town's first postmaster. Smith was the son of Roswell Smith, a prominent lawyer in Lafayette, Indiana, and Annie Ellsworth, daughter of U.S. Patent Commissioner Henry Leavitt Ellsworth. He called the town Roswell, after his father's first name.
In 1877, Captain Joseph Calloway Lea and his family bought out Smith and Wilburn's claim and became the owners of most of the land of Roswell and the area surrounding it. The town was relatively quiet during the Lincoln County War (1877–1879). A major aquifer was discovered when merchant Nathan Jaffa had a well drilled in his back yard on Richardson Avenue in 1890, resulting in the area's first major growth and development spurt. The growth continued when a railroad was built through town in 1893.
During World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was located in nearby Orchard Park. The German prisoners of war were used to do major infrastructure work in Roswell, such as paving the banks of the North Spring River. Some POWs used rocks of different sizes to create the outline of an iron cross among the stones covering the north bank. Later, the iron cross was covered with a thin layer of concrete. In the 1980s, a crew cleaning the river bed cleared off the concrete and revealed the outline once more. The small park just south of the cross was then known as Iron Cross Park. On November 11, 1996, the park was renamed POW/MIA Park. The park displays a piece of the Berlin Wall, presented to the city of Roswell by the German Air Force.
Roswell was a location of military importance from 1941 to 1967. In 1967, the Walker Air Force Base was decommissioned. After the closure of the base, Roswell capitalized on its pleasant climate and reinvented itself as a retirement community.
Roswell has benefited from interest in the alleged UFO incident of 1947. It was the report of an object that crashed in the general vicinity in June or July 1947, allegedly an extraterrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s, the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of a conspiracy theory regarding a classified program named "Mogul". Many UFO proponents maintain that an alien craft was found and its occupants were captured, and that the military then engaged in a cover-up. In recent times, the business community has deliberately sought out tourists interested in UFOs, science fiction, and aliens.
Roswell hosted the record-breaking skydive by Felix Baumgartner on October 14, 2012.
Roswell is located in southeastern New Mexico, approximately west of the Pecos River and some east of highlands that rise to the Sierra Blanca range. U.S. Routes 70, 285 and 380 intersect in the city. US 70 leads northeast to Clovis and west to Alamogordo; US 285 leads north to Santa Fe and south to Carlsbad; and US 380 leads east to Brownfield, Texas, and west to Socorro.
According to the United States Census Bureau, Roswell has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.19%, is covered by water.
Roswell is located in the High Plains and has four very distinct seasons, giving it a "BSk" or "BSh" semiarid climate according to the Köppen climate classification. Winters are cold, but usually sunny, and snowfall is a common occurrence. Spring is mild and usually warm, but can still be cold on occasion. Summers are hot (as is common with the High Plains of New Mexico and Colorado) and, quite frequently, the temperature rises above 100 °F, which can be unpleasant. The North American monsoon occurs during the summer, and can bring torrential downpours, severe thunderstorms (with high winds and hail) and sometimes even tornadoes. The rain can provide a cooling relief from the scorching great plains heat. Fall is mild and pleasant, but can be cold. Snow is possible in October and November.
The record low in Roswell is on January 11, 1962 and February 8, 1933. The record high is on June 27, 1994.
As of the 2000 census, 45,293 people, 17,068 households, and 11,742 families resided in the city. The population density was 1,565.2 people per square mile (604.3/km²). The 19,327 housing units averaged 667.9 per square mile (257.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 70.96% White, 2.47% African American, 1.28% Native American, 0.65% Asian, 21.29% from other races, and 3.31% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 44.34% of the population.
Of the 17,069 households, 34.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.1% were married couples living together, 14.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.2% were not families. About 27.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.13.
In the city, the population was distributed as 28.5% under the age of 18, 9.9% from 18 to 24, 24.9% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $27,252, and for a family was $31,724. Males had a median income of $26,554 versus $21,408 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,589. About 18.7% of families and 22.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 31.1% of those under age 18 and 13.8% of those age 65 or over.
Previously, Roswell was home to the Roswell Giants (1923), Roswell Sunshiners (1937), Roswell Rockets (1949–1956) and Roswell Pirates (1959), who played in the Panhandle-Pecos Valley League (1923), West Texas-New Mexico League (1937), Longhorn League (1949–1955), Southwestern League (1956) and Sophomore League (1959).
Joe Bauman hit a minor-league record 72 home runs for the 1954 Roswell Rockets. Overall, Bauman hit .400 with 72 home runs and 224 RBI, 150 walks and 188 runs in the 1954 season. Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Willie Stargell played for the 1959 Roswell Pirates. Roswell was an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1959.
Roswell is home to Leprino Foods, one of the world's largest mozzarella factories. It is also the location of the former Transportation Manufacturing Corporation factory, best known for producing various iterations of the RTS city bus since 1987. The factory was operated by Nova Bus from 1994 to 2003 and subsequently by Millennium Transit Services. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26186 |
Red Sea
The Red Sea (, Hebrew: Yam Soof ים סוף) is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal). The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion. The sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley.
The Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km2 (169,100 mi2), is about 2250 km (1398 mi) long and, at its widest point, 355 km (220.6 mi) wide. It has a maximum depth of in the central "Suakin Trough", and an average depth of 490 m (1,608 ft). However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals. The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the world's northernmost tropical sea.
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Red Sea as follows:
"Red Sea" is a direct translation of the Greek "Erythra Thalassa" (). The sea itself was once referred to as the Erythraean Sea by Europeans. As well as "Mare Rubrum" in Latin (alternatively "Sinus Arabicus", literally "Arabian Gulf"). Other designations include the (alternatively بحر القلزم "Baḥr Al-Qulzum", literally "the Sea of Clysma"), Somali "Badda Cas" and Tigrinya "Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī" (ቀይሕ ባሕሪ). The name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured "Trichodesmium erythraeum" near the water's surface. A theory favoured by some modern scholars is that the name "red" is referring to the direction south, just as the Black Sea's name may refer to north. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used colour words to refer to the cardinal directions. Herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably.
The name in Hebrew "Yam Suph" () is of biblical origin.
The name in "Phiom Enhah" ("Sea of Hah") is connected to Ancient Egyptian root "ḥḥ" which refers to water and sea (for example the names of the Ogdoad gods Heh and Hauhet) - Pa-yem 'Aa en Mu-Ked, the ancient Egyptian name of the Red Sea.
Historically, it was also known to western geographers as "Mare Mecca" (Sea of Mecca), and "Sinus Arabicus" (Gulf of Arabia). Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia.
The association of the Red Sea with the biblical account of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is ancient, and was made explicit in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Exodus from Hebrew to Koine Greek in approximately the third century B.C. In that version, the "Yam Suph" () is translated as "Erythra Thalassa" (Red Sea). Although reeds do not grow in the Red Sea today (reeds do not grow in salt water), Professor Colin Humphreys explains the discrepancy on the basis that a freshwater marsh of reeds could have existed around Aqaba.
The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms – the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek "Erythra thalassa" in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the north-western part of the Indian Ocean, and also to a region on Mars.
The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, as they attempted to establish commercial routes to Punt. One such expedition took place around 2500 BCE, and another around 1500 BCE (by Hatshepsut). Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea. The biblical Book of Exodus tells the account of the Israelites' crossing of a body of water, which the Hebrew text calls "Yam Suph" (). "Yam Suph" was traditionally identified as the Red Sea. Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882‒942), in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, identifies the crossing place of the Red Sea as "Baḥar al-Qulzum", meaning the Gulf of Suez.
In the 6th century BCE, Darius the Great of Persia sent reconnaissance missions to the Red Sea, improving and extending navigation by locating many hazardous rocks and currents. A canal was built between the Nile and the northern end of the Red Sea at Suez. In the late 4th century BCE, Alexander the Great sent Greek naval expeditions down the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Greek navigators continued to explore and compile data on the Red Sea. Agatharchides collected information about the sea in the 2nd century BCE. The "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" ("Periplus of the Red Sea"), a Greek periplus written by an unknown author around the 1st century, contains a detailed description of the Red Sea's ports and sea routes. The Periplus also describes how Hippalus first discovered the direct route from the Red Sea to India.
The Red Sea was favored for Roman trade with India starting with the reign of Augustus, when the Roman Empire gained control over the Mediterranean, Egypt, and the northern Red Sea. The route had been used by previous states but grew in the volume of traffic under the Romans. From Indian ports goods from China were introduced to the Roman world. Contact between Rome and China depended on the Red Sea, but the route was broken by the Aksumite Empire around the 3rd century AD.
During the Middle Ages, the Red Sea was an important part of the spice trade route. In 1183, Raynald of Châtillon launched a raid down the Red Sea to attack the Muslim pilgrim convoys to Mecca. The possibility that Raynald's fleet might sack the holy cities of Mecca and Medina caused fury throughout the Muslim world. However, it appears that Reynald's target were the lightly armed Muslim pilgrim convoys rather the well guarded cities of Mecca and Medina, and the belief in the Muslim world that Reynald was seeking to sack the holy cities was due to the proximity of those cities to the areas that Raynald raided. In 1513, trying to secure that channel to Portugal, Afonso de Albuquerque laid siege to Aden but was forced to retreat. They cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, as the first fleet from Europe in modern times to have sailed these waters. Later in 1524 the city was delivered to Governor Heitor da Silveira as an agreement for protection from the Ottomans.
In 1798, France ordered General Napoleon to invade Egypt and take control of the Red Sea. Although he failed in his mission, the engineer Jean-Baptiste Lepère, who took part in it, revitalised the plan for a canal which had been envisaged during the reign of the Pharaohs. Several canals were built in ancient times from the Nile to the Red Sea along or near the line of the present Sweet Water Canal, but none lasted for long. The Suez Canal was opened in November 1869. After the Second World War, the Americans and Soviets exerted their influence whilst the volume of oil tanker traffic intensified. However, the Six-Day War culminated in the closure of the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975. Today, in spite of patrols by the major maritime fleets in the waters of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal has never recovered its supremacy over the Cape route, which is believed to be less vulnerable to piracy.
The Red Sea is between arid land, desert and semi-desert. Reef systems are better developed along the Red Sea mainly because of its greater depths and an efficient water circulation pattern. The Red Sea water mass-exchanges its water with the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden. These physical factors reduce the effect of high salinity caused by evaporation in the north and relatively hot water in the south.
The climate of the Red Sea is the result of two monsoon seasons; a northeasterly monsoon and a southwesterly monsoon. Monsoon winds occur because of differential heating between the land and the sea. Very high surface temperatures and high salinities make this one of the warmest and saltiest bodies of seawater in the world. The average surface water temperature of the Red Sea during the summer is about in the north and in the south, with only about 2 °C (3.6 °F) variation during the winter months. The overall average water temperature is . Temperature and visibility remain good to around 200 m (656 ft). The sea is known for its strong winds and unpredictable local currents.
The rainfall over the Red Sea and its coasts is extremely low, averaging per year. The rain is mostly short showers, often with thunderstorms and occasionally with dust storms. The scarcity of rainfall and no major source of fresh water to the Red Sea result in excess evaporation as high as per year and high salinity with minimal seasonal variation. A recent underwater expedition to the Red Sea offshore from Sudan and Eritrea found surface water temperatures in winter and up to in the summer, but despite that extreme heat, the coral was healthy with much fish life with very little sign of coral bleaching, with only 9% infected by "Thalassomonas loyana", the 'white plague' agent. "Favia favus" coral there harbours a virus, BA3, which kills "T. loyana".
Plans are afoot to use samples of these corals' apparently heat-adapted commensal algae to salvage bleached coral elsewhere.
The Red Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, owing to high evaporation and low precipitation; no significant rivers or streams drain into the sea, and its southern connection to the Gulf of Aden, an arm of the Indian Ocean, is narrow. Its salinity ranges from between ~36 ‰ in the southern part and 41 ‰ in the northern part around the Gulf of Suez, with an average of 40 ‰. (Average salinity for the world's seawater is ~35 ‰ on the Practical Salinity Scale, or PSU; that translates to 3.5% of actual dissolved salts.)
In general, tide ranges between in the north, near the mouth of the Gulf of Suez and in the south near the Gulf of Aden, but it fluctuates between and away from the nodal point. The central Red Sea (Jeddah area) is therefore almost tideless, and as such the annual water level changes are more significant. Because of the small tidal range the water during high tide inundates the coastal sabkhas as a thin sheet of water up to a few hundred metres rather than flooding the sabkhas through a network of channels. However, south of Jeddah in the Shoiaba area, the water from the lagoon may cover the adjoining sabkhas as far as , whereas north of Jeddah in the Al-Kharrar area the sabkhas are covered by a thin sheet of water as far as . The prevailing north and northeast winds influence the movement of water in the coastal inlets to the adjacent sabkhas, especially during storms. Winter mean sea level is higher than in summer. Tidal velocities passing through constrictions caused by reefs, sand bars and low islands commonly exceed 1–2 m/s (3–6.5 ft/s). Coral reefs in the Red Sea are near Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.
Detailed information regarding current data is lacking, partially because the currents are weak and both spatially and temporally variable. The variation of temporal and spatial currents is as low as and are governed all by wind. During the summer, NW winds drive surface water south for about four months at a velocity of 15–20 cm/s (6–8 in/s), whereas in winter the flow is reversed resulting in the inflow of water from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea. The net value of the latter predominates, resulting in an overall drift to the north end of the Red Sea. Generally, the velocity of the tidal current is between 50–60 cm/s (20–23.6 in/s) with a maximum of at the mouth of the al-Kharrar Lagoon. However, the range of the north-northeast current along the Saudi coast is 8–29 cm/s (3–11.4 in/s).
The north part of the Red Sea is dominated by persistent north-west winds, with speeds ranging between and . The rest of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are subjected to regular and seasonally reversible winds. The wind regime is characterized by seasonal and regional variations in speed and direction with average speed generally increasing northward.
Wind is the driving force in the Red Sea to transport material as suspension or as bedload. Wind-induced currents play an important role in the Red Sea in resuspending bottom sediments and transferring materials from sites of dumping to sites of burial in quiescent environment of deposition. Wind-generated current measurement is therefore important in order to determine the sediment dispersal pattern and its role in the erosion and accretion of the coastal rock exposure and the submerged coral beds.
The Red Sea was formed by the Arabian peninsula being split from the Horn of Africa by movement of the Red Sea Rift. This split started in the Eocene and accelerated during the Oligocene. The sea is still widening (in 2005, following a three-week period of tectonic activity it had grown by 8m), and it is considered that it will become an ocean in time (as proposed in the model of John Tuzo Wilson). In 1949, a deep water survey reported anomalously hot brines in the central portion of the Red Sea. Later work in the 1960s confirmed the presence of hot, 60 °C (140 °F), saline brines and associated metalliferous muds. The hot solutions were emanating from an active subseafloor rift. Lake Asal in Djibouti is eligible as an experimental site to study the evolution of the deep hot brines of the Red Sea. Indeed, by observing the strontium isotope composition of the Red Sea brines, it is easy to deduce how these salt waters found at the bottom of the Red Sea could have evolved in a similar way to Lake Asal, which ideally represents their compositional extreme. The high salinity of the waters was not hospitable to living organisms.
Sometime during the Tertiary period, the Bab el Mandeb closed and the Red Sea evaporated to an empty hot dry salt-floored sink. Effects causing this would have been:
A number of volcanic islands rise from the center of the sea. Most are dormant. However, in 2007, Jabal al-Tair island in the Bab el Mandeb strait erupted violently. Two new islands were formed in 2011 and 2013 in the Zubair Archipelago, a small chain of islands owned by Yemen. The first island, Sholan Island, emerged in an eruption in December 2011, the second island, Jadid, emerged in September 2013.
The Durwara 2 Field was discovered in 1963, while the Suakin 1 Field and the Bashayer 1A Field were discovered in 1976, on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea. The Barqan Field was discovered in 1969, and the Midyan Field in 1992, both within the Midyan Basin on the Saudi Arabian side of the Red Sea. The 20-m thick Middle Miocene Maqna Formation is an oil source rock in the basin. Oil seeps occur near the Farasan Islands, the Dahlak Archipelago, along the coast of Eritrea, and in the southeastern Red Sea along the coasts of Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
In terms of mineral resources the major constituents of the Red Sea sediments are as follows:
The Red Sea is a rich and diverse ecosystem. More than 1200 species of fish have been recorded in the Red Sea, and around 10% of these are found nowhere else. This also includes 42 species of deepwater fish.
The rich diversity is in part due to the of coral reef extending along its coastline; these fringing reefs are 5000–7000 years old and are largely formed of stony acropora and porites corals. The reefs form platforms and sometimes lagoons along the coast and occasional other features such as cylinders (such as the Blue Hole (Red Sea) at Dahab). These coastal reefs are also visited by pelagic species of Red Sea fish, including some of the 44 species of shark.
It contains 175 species of nudibranch, many of which are only found in the Red Sea.
The Red Sea also contains many offshore reefs including several true atolls. Many of the unusual offshore reef formations defy classic (i.e., Darwinian) coral reef classification schemes, and are generally attributed to the high levels of tectonic activity that characterize the area.
The special biodiversity of the area is recognized by the Egyptian government, who set up the Ras Mohammed National Park in 1983. The rules and regulations governing this area protect local marine life, which has become a major draw for diving enthusiasts.
Divers and snorkellers should be aware that although most Red Sea species are innocuous, a few are hazardous to humans: see Red Sea species hazardous to humans.
Other marine habitats include sea grass beds, salt pans, mangroves and salt marshes.
There is extensive demand for desalinated water to meet the needs of the population and the industries along the Red Sea.
There are at least 18 desalination plants along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia which discharge warm brine and treatment chemicals (chlorine and anti-scalants) that bleach and kill corals and cause diseases in the fish. This is only localized, but it may intensify with time and profoundly impact the fishing industry.
The water from the Red Sea is also used by oil refineries and cement factories for cooling.
The Red Sea is part of the sea roads between Europe, the Persian Gulf and East Asia, and as such has heavy shipping traffic. Government-related bodies with responsibility to police the Red Sea area include the Port Said Port Authority, Suez Canal Authority and Red Sea Ports Authority of Egypt, Jordan Maritime Authority, Israel Port Authority, Saudi Ports Authority and Sea Ports Corporation of Sudan.
The sea is known for its recreational diving sites, such as Ras Mohammed, SS Thistlegorm (shipwreck), Elphinstone Reef, The Brothers, Daedalus Reef, St.John's Reef, Rocky Island in Egypt and less known sites in Sudan such as Sanganeb, Abington, Angarosh and Shaab Rumi.
The Red Sea became a popular destination for diving after the expeditions of Hans Hass in the 1950s, and later by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Popular tourist resorts include El Gouna, Hurghada, Safaga, Marsa Alam, on the west shore of the Red Sea, and Sharm-el-Sheikh, Dahab, and Taba on the Egyptian side of Sinaï, as well as Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel in an area known as the Red Sea Riviera.
The popular tourist beach of Sharm el-Sheikh was closed to all swimming in December 2010 due to several serious shark attacks, including a fatality. As of December 2010, scientists are investigating the attacks and have identified, but not verified, several possible causes including over-fishing which causes large sharks to hunt closer to shore, tourist boat operators who chum offshore for shark-photo opportunities, and reports of ships throwing dead livestock overboard. The sea's narrowness, significant depth, and sharp drop-offs, all combine to form a geography where large deep-water sharks can roam in hundreds of meters of water, yet be within a hundred meters of swimming areas.
Tourism to the region has been threatened by occasional terrorist attacks, and by incidents related to food safety standards.
The Red Sea may be geographically divided into three sections: the Red Sea proper, and in the north, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez. The six countries bordering the Red Sea proper are:
The Gulf of Suez is entirely bordered by Egypt. The Gulf of Aqaba borders Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
In addition to the standard geographical definition of the six countries bordering the Red Sea cited above, areas such as Somalia are sometimes also described as Red Sea territories. This is primarily due to their proximity to and geological similarities with the nations facing the Red Sea and/or political ties with said areas.
Towns and cities on the Red Sea coast (including the coasts of the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez) include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26191 |
Josh Kirby
Ronald William "Josh" Kirby (27 November 1928 – 23 October 2001) was a commercial artist born on the outskirts of Liverpool in the UK. Over a career spanning 60 years, he was the artist for the covers many science fiction books including those of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
He was born in 27 November 1928 at 58 Argo Road, Waterloo, Liverpool, UK. His parents were Charles William and Ellen (née Marsh) Kirby who ran a grocery shop together, although his father was also a ship owner's freight clerk. They named him Ronald William Kirby.
Kirby dreamed of a career in art from a young age. When he was seven he made a trade sign that said “KIRBY – ARTIST”. He was also attracted to science fiction and fantasy from images seen in films and magazines.
At the beginning of the Second World War his school was evacuated to Abercraf in South Wales. In 1943 he returned to Liverpool and attended the Junior then Senior Schools of the Liverpool City School of Art from the age of 14 until he was 20. He was trained in drawing, painting and lithography. While he was there, his Old Master-style portraits earned him the nickname "Josh" when colleagues likened his work to that of the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. and the nickname stuck. He also met the model June Furlong in 1948 and they remained life-long friends.
He moved to London in 1950.
In 1965 he married Dianne Kingston and moved to The Old Rectory, Shelfanger, near Diss in Norfolk. They divorced in 1982. He died of natural causes in his sleep at home in Shelfanger at the age of 72 on 23 Oct 2001 and was survived by his partner Jackie Rigden.
He worked as freelance all his career, having left his only employment after half a day.
After leaving art school, Liverpool City Council commissioned him to paint the Lord Mayor, Alderman Joseph Jackson Cleary, in 1950. Kirby carried out the commission but decided against portraiture as a career and turned to illustration for film posters and books.
In the early 50s Kirby illustrated film posters for studios in both London and Paris and continued to do some film posters until the 80s. In the 70s, he undertook film poster art for publicity agency feref. Working alongside designer Eddie Paul, Kirby depicted the characters for Star Wars: "Return of the Jedi;" films "The Beastmaster" and "Krull", among others. He also designed a poster for "The Life of Brian" inspired by Pieter Brueghel's Tower Of Babel, but it was not used.
When the market for film poster illustration dried up in the mid 80s, Kirby switched his attention to role-playing games. He provided cover art for "Duelmasters", "Tunnels & Trolls" and "Wizards & Warriors."
However, Kirby's major output from the late 50s - 80s was artwork for book covers for a very wide range of books including westerns, crime novels, science fiction and non-fiction, as well as covers and interior art for science fiction magazines. His first published book cover art was for the 1955 science fiction novel "Cee-Tee Man", by Dan Morgan. In 1956 when he created a cover for Ian Fleming's book, "Moonraker". Working for publishers including Panter, Corgi, Four Square and NEL/Mayflower, he illustrated over 400 covers for authors including Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Hitchcock, Guy de Maupassant, Jimmy Sangster, Richard Matheson, Ursula Le Guin, Jack Kerouac, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, H. G. Wells, Robert Rankin, Craig Shaw Gardner, Stephen Briggs, Ron Goulart, Brian Aldiss and Terry Pratchett.
Kirby's most significant work in the 80s was the covers for the "Discworld" series, a commission that Kirby thought would be a "one-off". Starting with "The Colour of Magic", he eventually produced the covers for 26 of the series until his death in 2001.
Throughout his career, Kirby used oils, acrylics, gouache, or watercolor, often using more than one method on a single piece. Ultimately, he preferred oils as they would not dry too quickly and could be manipulated and applied in layers. This allowed them to be retouched or entirely painted over, whatever it took to achieve the result.
When asked about influences, he most often named three past artists. The oldest was Hieronymus Bosch, famous for his fantastic imagery, detailed landscapes and illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Next was Pieter Bruegel, whose religious and mythological depictions expanded the viewer's perspective of reality. And finally muralist Frank Brangwyn, an avante-garde artist-craftsman notable for his boldly-coloured murals.
Kirby worked slowly and meticulously. It would take him four to eight weeks to complete a single painting because his process included reading each novel before illustrating it. He would then draw a rough sketch in pencil to be approved by the art editor at the publisher. Unusually, he discussed the concept directly over the phone with Pratchett, rather than his publisher's art director.
Collections of his work include:
"The Voyage of the Ayeguy" (1981), a portfolio of six linked science-fantasy pictures published by Schanes & Schanes
"The Josh Kirby Poster Book" (1989), containing 13 posters inspired by Discworld
"Faust Eric" (1990), by Terry Pratchett with 15 Kirby illustrations
"In the Garden of Unearthly Delights" (1991), a collection of 159 Kirby paintings
"The Josh Kirby Discworld Portfolio" (1993). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26192 |
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Penrose has made contributions to the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology. He has received several prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems.
Born in Colchester, Essex, Roger Penrose is a son of psychiatrist and geneticist Lionel Penrose and Margaret Leathes, and the grandson of the physiologist John Beresford Leathes and his wife, a Russian national, Sonia Marie Natanson, who had left St. Petersburg in the late 1880s. His uncle was artist Roland Penrose, whose son with photographer Lee Miller is Antony Penrose. Penrose is the brother of physicist Oliver Penrose and of chess Grandmaster Jonathan Penrose. Penrose attended University College School and University College, London, where he graduated with a first class degree in mathematics. In 1955, while still a student, Penrose reintroduced the E. H. Moore generalised matrix inverse, also known as the Moore–Penrose inverse, after it had been reinvented by Arne Bjerhammar in 1951. Having started research under the professor of geometry and astronomy, Sir W. V. D. Hodge, Penrose finished his PhD at St John's College, Cambridge in 1958, with a thesis on "tensor methods in algebraic geometry" under algebraist and geometer John A. Todd. He devised and popularised the Penrose triangle in the 1950s, describing it as "impossibility in its purest form", and exchanged material with the artist M. C. Escher, whose earlier depictions of impossible objects partly inspired it. Escher's Waterfall, and Ascending and Descending were in turn inspired by Penrose.
As reviewer Manjit Kumar puts it:
Having become a reader at Birkbeck College, London (and having had his attention drawn from pure mathematics to astrophysics by the cosmologist Dennis Sciama, then at Cambridge) it was in 1964 that, in the words of Kip Thorne of Caltech, "Roger Penrose revolutionised the mathematical tools that we use to analyse the properties of spacetime". Until then work on the curved geometry of general relativity had been confined to configurations with sufficiently high symmetry for Einstein's equations to be soluble explicitly, and there was doubt about whether such cases were typical. One approach to this issue was by the use of perturbation theory, as developed under the leadership of John Archibald Wheeler at Princeton. The other, more radically innovative, approach initiated by Penrose was to overlook the detailed geometrical structure of spacetime and instead concentrate attention just on the topology of the space, or at most its conformal structure, since it is the latter – as determined by the lay of the lightcones – that determines the trajectories of lightlike geodesics, and hence their causal relationships. The importance of Penrose's epoch-making paper "Gravitational collapse and space-time singularities" was not only its result (roughly that if an object such as a dying star implodes beyond a certain point, then nothing can prevent the gravitational field getting so strong as to form some kind of singularity). It also showed a way to obtain similarly general conclusions in other contexts, notably that of the cosmological Big Bang, which he dealt with in collaboration with Dennis Sciama's most famous student, Stephen Hawking.
It was in the local context of gravitational collapse that the contribution of Penrose was most decisive, starting with his 1969 cosmic censorship conjecture, to the effect that any ensuing singularities would be confined within a well-behaved event horizon surrounding a hidden space-time region for which Wheeler coined the term black hole, leaving a visible exterior region with strong but finite curvature, from which some of the gravitational energy may be extractable by what is known as the Penrose process, while accretion of surrounding matter may release further energy that can account for astrophysical phenomena such as quasars.
Following up his "weak cosmic censorship hypothesis", Penrose went on, in 1979, to formulate a stronger version called the "strong censorship hypothesis". Together with the BKL conjecture and issues of nonlinear stability, settling the censorship conjectures is one of the most important outstanding problems in general relativity. Also from 1979 dates Penrose's influential Weyl curvature hypothesis on the initial conditions of the observable part of the universe and the origin of the second law of thermodynamics. Penrose and James Terrell independently realised that objects travelling near the speed of light will appear to undergo a peculiar skewing or rotation. This effect has come to be called the Terrell rotation or Penrose–Terrell rotation.
In 1967, Penrose invented the twistor theory which maps geometric objects in Minkowski space into the 4-dimensional complex space with the metric signature (2,2).
Penrose is well known for his 1974 discovery of Penrose tilings, which are formed from two tiles that can only tile the plane nonperiodically, and are the first tilings to exhibit fivefold rotational symmetry. Penrose developed these ideas based on the article "Deux types fondamentaux de distribution statistique" (1938; an English translation "Two Basic Types of Statistical Distribution") by Czech geographer, demographer and statistician Jaromír Korčák. In 1984, such patterns were observed in the arrangement of atoms in quasicrystals. Another noteworthy contribution is his 1971 invention of spin networks, which later came to form the geometry of spacetime in loop quantum gravity. He was influential in popularising what are commonly known as Penrose diagrams (causal diagrams).
In 1983, Penrose was invited to teach at Rice University in Houston, by the then provost Bill Gordon. He worked there from 1983 to 1987.
In 2004, Penrose released "", a 1,099-page comprehensive guide to the Laws of Physics that includes an explanation of his own theory. The Penrose Interpretation predicts the relationship between quantum mechanics and general relativity, and proposes that a quantum state remains in superposition until the difference of space-time curvature attains a significant level.
Penrose is the Francis and Helen Pentz Distinguished Visiting Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University.
In 2010, Penrose reported possible evidence, based on concentric circles found in WMAP data of the CMB sky, of an earlier universe existing before the Big Bang of our own present universe. He mentions this evidence in the epilogue of his 2010 book "Cycles of Time", a book in which he presents his reasons, to do with Einstein's field equations, the Weyl curvature C, and the Weyl curvature hypothesis (WCH), that the transition at the Big Bang could have been smooth enough for a previous universe to survive it. He made several conjectures about C and the WCH, some of which were subsequently proved by others, and he also popularized his conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC) theory.
In simple terms, he believes that the singularity in Einstein's field equation at the Big Bang is only an apparent singularity, similar to the well-known apparent singularity at the event horizon of a black hole. The latter singularity can be removed by a change of coordinate system, and Penrose proposes a different change of coordinate system that will remove the singularity at the big bang. One implication of this is that the major events at the Big Bang can be understood without unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics, and therefore we are not necessarily constrained by the Wheeler–DeWitt equation, which disrupts time. Alternatively, one can use the Einstein–Maxwell–Dirac equations.
Penrose has written books on the connection between fundamental physics and human (or animal) consciousness. In "The Emperor's New Mind" (1989), he argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Penrose proposes the characteristics this new physics may have and specifies the requirements for a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics (what he calls "correct quantum gravity"). Penrose uses a variant of Turing's halting theorem to demonstrate that a system can be deterministic without being algorithmic. (For example, imagine a system with only two states, ON and OFF. If the system's state is ON when a given Turing machine halts and OFF when the Turing machine does not halt, then the system's state is completely determined by the machine; nevertheless, there is no algorithmic way to determine whether the Turing machine stops.)
Penrose believes that such deterministic yet non-algorithmic processes may come into play in the quantum mechanical wave function reduction, and may be harnessed by the brain. He argues that computers today are unable to have intelligence because they are algorithmically deterministic systems. He argues against the viewpoint that the rational processes of the mind are completely algorithmic and can thus be duplicated by a sufficiently complex computer. This contrasts with supporters of strong artificial intelligence, who contend that thought can be simulated algorithmically. He bases this on claims that consciousness transcends formal logic because things such as the insolubility of the halting problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorem prevent an algorithmically based system of logic from reproducing such traits of human intelligence as mathematical insight. These claims were originally espoused by the philosopher John Lucas of Merton College, Oxford.
The Penrose–Lucas argument about the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem for computational theories of human intelligence has been widely criticised by mathematicians, computer scientists and philosophers, and the consensus among experts in these fields seems to be that the argument fails, though different authors may choose different aspects of the argument to attack. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26193 |
Restriction enzyme
A restriction enzyme, restriction endonuclease, or " restrictase " is an enzyme that cleaves DNA into fragments at or near specific recognition sites within molecules known as restriction sites. Restriction enzymes are one class of the broader endonuclease group of enzymes. Restriction enzymes are commonly classified into five types, which differ in their structure and whether they cut their DNA substrate at their recognition site, or if the recognition and cleavage sites are separate from one another. To cut DNA, all restriction enzymes make two incisions, once through each sugar-phosphate backbone (i.e. each strand) of the DNA double helix.
These enzymes are found in bacteria and archaea and provide a defence mechanism against invading viruses. Inside a prokaryote, the restriction enzymes selectively cut up "foreign" DNA in a process called "restriction digestion"; meanwhile, host DNA is protected by a modification enzyme (a methyltransferase) that modifies the prokaryotic DNA and blocks cleavage. Together, these two processes form the restriction modification system.
Over 3,000 restriction enzymes have been studied in detail, and more than 600 of these are available commercially. These enzymes are routinely used for DNA modification in laboratories, and they are a vital tool in molecular cloning.
The term restriction enzyme originated from the studies of phage λ, a virus that infects bacteria, and the phenomenon of host-controlled restriction and modification of such bacterial phage or bacteriophage. The phenomenon was first identified in work done in the laboratories of Salvador Luria, Weigle and Giuseppe Bertani in the early 1950s. It was found that, for a bacteriophage λ that can grow well in one strain of "Escherichia coli", for example "E. coli" C, when grown in another strain, for example "E. coli" K, its yields can drop significantly, by as much as 3-5 orders of magnitude. The host cell, in this example "E. coli" K, is known as the restricting host and appears to have the ability to reduce the biological activity of the phage λ. If a phage becomes established in one strain, the ability of that phage to grow also becomes restricted in other strains. In the 1960s, it was shown in work done in the laboratories of Werner Arber and Matthew Meselson that the restriction is caused by an enzymatic cleavage of the phage DNA, and the enzyme involved was therefore termed a restriction enzyme.
The restriction enzymes studied by Arber and Meselson were type I restriction enzymes, which cleave DNA randomly away from the recognition site. In 1970, Hamilton O. Smith, Thomas Kelly and Kent Wilcox isolated and characterized the first type II restriction enzyme, "Hin"dII, from the bacterium "Haemophilus influenzae". Restriction enzymes of this type are more useful for laboratory work as they cleave DNA at the site of their recognition sequence and are the most commonly used as a molecular biology tool. Later, Daniel Nathans and Kathleen Danna showed that cleavage of simian virus 40 (SV40) DNA by restriction enzymes yields specific fragments that can be separated using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, thus showing that restriction enzymes can also be used for mapping DNA. For their work in the discovery and characterization of restriction enzymes, the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, and Hamilton O. Smith. The discovery of restriction enzymes allows DNA to be manipulated, leading to the development of recombinant DNA technology that has many applications, for example, allowing the large scale production of proteins such as human insulin used by diabetics.
Restriction enzymes likely evolved from a common ancestor and became widespread via horizontal gene transfer. In addition, there is mounting evidence that restriction endonucleases evolved as a selfish genetic element.
Restriction enzymes recognize a specific sequence of nucleotides and produce a double-stranded cut in the DNA. The recognition sequences can also be classified by the number of bases in its recognition site, usually between 4 and 8 bases, and the number of bases in the sequence will determine how often the site will appear by chance in any given genome, e.g., a 4-base pair sequence would theoretically occur once every 4^4 or 256bp, 6 bases, 4^6 or 4,096bp, and 8 bases would be 4^8 or 65,536bp. Many of them are palindromic, meaning the base sequence reads the same backwards and forwards. In theory, there are two types of palindromic sequences that can be possible in DNA. The "mirror-like" palindrome is similar to those found in ordinary text, in which a sequence reads the same forward and backward on a single strand of DNA, as in GTAATG. The "inverted repeat" palindrome is also a sequence that reads the same forward and backward, but the forward and backward sequences are found in complementary DNA strands (i.e., of double-stranded DNA), as in GTATAC (GTATAC being complementary to CATATG). Inverted repeat palindromes are more common and have greater biological importance than mirror-like palindromes.
EcoRI digestion produces "sticky" ends,
whereas SmaI restriction enzyme cleavage produces "blunt" ends:
Recognition sequences in DNA differ for each restriction enzyme, producing differences in the length, sequence and strand orientation (5' end or 3' end) of a sticky-end "overhang" of an enzyme restriction.
Different restriction enzymes that recognize the same sequence are known as neoschizomers. These often cleave in different locales of the sequence. Different enzymes that recognize and cleave in the same location are known as isoschizomers.
Naturally occurring restriction endonucleases are categorized into four groups (Types I, II III, and IV) based on their composition and enzyme cofactor requirements, the nature of their target sequence, and the position of their DNA cleavage site relative to the target sequence. DNA sequence analyses of restriction enzymes however show great variations, indicating that there are more than four types. All types of enzymes recognize specific short DNA sequences and carry out the endonucleolytic cleavage of DNA to give specific fragments with terminal 5'-phosphates. They differ in their recognition sequence, subunit composition, cleavage position, and cofactor requirements, as summarised below:
Type I restriction enzymes were the first to be identified and were first identified in two different strains (K-12 and B) of "E. coli". These enzymes cut at a site that differs, and is a random distance (at least 1000 bp) away, from their recognition site. Cleavage at these random sites follows a process of DNA translocation, which shows that these enzymes are also molecular motors. The recognition site is asymmetrical and is composed of two specific portions—one containing 3–4 nucleotides, and another containing 4–5 nucleotides—separated by a non-specific spacer of about 6–8 nucleotides. These enzymes are multifunctional and are capable of both restriction digestion and modification activities, depending upon the methylation status of the target DNA. The cofactors S-Adenosyl methionine (AdoMet), hydrolyzed adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and magnesium (Mg2+) ions, are required for their full activity. Type I restriction enzymes possess three subunits called HsdR, HsdM, and HsdS; HsdR is required for restriction digestion; HsdM is necessary for adding methyl groups to host DNA (methyltransferase activity), and HsdS is important for specificity of the recognition (DNA-binding) site in addition to both restriction digestion (DNA cleavage) and modification (DNA methyltransferase) activity.
Typical type II restriction enzymes differ from type I restriction enzymes in several ways. They form homodimers, with recognition sites that are usually undivided and palindromic and 4–8 nucleotides in length. They recognize and cleave DNA at the same site, and they do not use ATP or AdoMet for their activity—they usually require only Mg2+ as a cofactor. These enzymes cleave the phosphodiester bond of double helix DNA. It can either cleave at the center of both strands to yield a blunt end, or at a staggered position leaving overhangs called sticky ends. These are the most commonly available and used restriction enzymes. In the 1990s and early 2000s, new enzymes from this family were discovered that did not follow all the classical criteria of this enzyme class, and new subfamily nomenclature was developed to divide this large family into subcategories based on deviations from typical characteristics of type II enzymes. These subgroups are defined using a letter suffix.
Type IIB restriction enzymes (e.g., BcgI and BplI) are multimers, containing more than one subunit. They cleave DNA on both sides of their recognition to cut out the recognition site. They require both AdoMet and Mg2+ cofactors. Type IIE restriction endonucleases (e.g., NaeI) cleave DNA following interaction with two copies of their recognition sequence. One recognition site acts as the target for cleavage, while the other acts as an allosteric effector that speeds up or improves the efficiency of enzyme cleavage. Similar to type IIE enzymes, type IIF restriction endonucleases (e.g. NgoMIV) interact with two copies of their recognition sequence but cleave both sequences at the same time. Type IIG restriction endonucleases (e.g., Eco57I) do have a single subunit, like classical Type II restriction enzymes, but require the cofactor AdoMet to be active. Type IIM restriction endonucleases, such as DpnI, are able to recognize and cut methylated DNA. Type IIS restriction endonucleases (e.g., "Fok"I) cleave DNA at a defined distance from their non-palindromic asymmetric recognition sites; this characteristic is widely used to perform in-vitro cloning techniques such as Golden Gate cloning. These enzymes may function as dimers. Similarly, Type IIT restriction enzymes (e.g., Bpu10I and BslI) are composed of two different subunits. Some recognize palindromic sequences while others have asymmetric recognition sites.
Type III restriction enzymes (e.g., EcoP15) recognize two separate non-palindromic sequences that are inversely oriented. They cut DNA about 20–30 base pairs after the recognition site. These enzymes contain more than one subunit and require AdoMet and ATP cofactors for their roles in DNA methylation and restriction digestion, respectively. They are components of prokaryotic DNA restriction-modification mechanisms that protect the organism against invading foreign DNA. Type III enzymes are hetero-oligomeric, multifunctional proteins composed of two subunits, Res () and Mod (). The Mod subunit recognises the DNA sequence specific for the system and is a modification methyltransferase; as such, it is functionally equivalent to the M and S subunits of type I restriction endonuclease. Res is required for restriction digestion, although it has no enzymatic activity on its own. Type III enzymes recognise short 5–6 bp-long asymmetric DNA sequences and cleave 25–27 bp downstream to leave short, single-stranded 5' protrusions. They require the presence of two inversely oriented unmethylated recognition sites for restriction digestion to occur. These enzymes methylate only one strand of the DNA, at the N-6 position of adenosyl residues, so newly replicated DNA will have only one strand methylated, which is sufficient to protect against restriction digestion. Type III enzymes belong to the beta-subfamily of N6 adenine methyltransferases, containing the nine motifs that characterise this family, including motif I, the AdoMet binding pocket (FXGXG), and motif IV, the catalytic region (S/D/N (PP) Y/F).
Type IV enzymes recognize modified, typically methylated DNA and are exemplified by the McrBC and Mrr systems of "E. coli".
Type V restriction enzymes (e.g., the cas9-gRNA complex from CRISPRs) utilize guide RNAs to target specific non-palindromic sequences found on invading organisms. They can cut DNA of variable length, provided that a suitable guide RNA is provided. The flexibility and ease of use of these enzymes make them promising for future genetic engineering applications.
Artificial restriction enzymes can be generated by fusing a natural or engineered DNA binding domain to a nuclease domain (often the cleavage domain of the type IIS restriction enzyme "Fok"I). Such artificial restriction enzymes can target large DNA sites (up to 36 bp) and can be engineered to bind to desired DNA sequences. Zinc finger nucleases are the most commonly used artificial restriction enzymes and are generally used in genetic engineering applications, but can also be used for more standard gene cloning applications. Other artificial restriction enzymes are based on the DNA binding domain of TAL effectors.
In 2013, a new technology CRISPR-Cas9, based on a prokaryotic viral defense system, was engineered for editing the genome, and it was quickly adopted in laboratories. For more detail, read CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats).
In 2017 a group in Illinois announced using an Argonaute protein taken from Pyrococcus furiosus (PfAgo) along with guide DNA to edit DNA as artificial restriction enzymes. The authors, however, retracted their study later that year.
Artificial ribonucleases that act as restriction enzymes for RNA are also being developed. A PNA-based system, called PNAzymes, has a Cu(II)-2,9-dimethylphenanthroline group that mimics ribonucleases for specific RNA sequence and cleaves at a non-base-paired region (RNA bulge) of the targeted RNA formed when the enzyme binds the RNA. This enzyme shows selectivity by cleaving only at one site that either does not have a mismatch or is kinetically preferred out of two possible cleavage sites.
Since their discovery in the 1970s, many restriction enzymes have been identified; for example, more than 3500 different Type II restriction enzymes have been characterized. Each enzyme is named after the bacterium from which it was isolated, using a naming system based on bacterial genus, species and strain. For example, the name of the EcoRI restriction enzyme was derived as shown in the box.
Isolated restriction enzymes are used to manipulate DNA for different scientific applications.
They are used to assist insertion of genes into plasmid vectors during gene cloning and protein production experiments. For optimal use, plasmids that are commonly used for gene cloning are modified to include a short "polylinker" sequence (called the multiple cloning site, or MCS) rich in restriction enzyme recognition sequences. This allows flexibility when inserting gene fragments into the plasmid vector; restriction sites contained naturally within genes influence the choice of endonuclease for digesting the DNA, since it is necessary to avoid restriction of wanted DNA while intentionally cutting the ends of the DNA. To clone a gene fragment into a vector, both plasmid DNA and gene insert are typically cut with the same restriction enzymes, and then glued together with the assistance of an enzyme known as a DNA ligase.
Restriction enzymes can also be used to distinguish gene alleles by specifically recognizing single base changes in DNA known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This is however only possible if a SNP alters the restriction site present in the allele. In this method, the restriction enzyme can be used to genotype a DNA sample without the need for expensive gene sequencing. The sample is first digested with the restriction enzyme to generate DNA fragments, and then the different sized fragments separated by gel electrophoresis. In general, alleles with correct restriction sites will generate two visible bands of DNA on the gel, and those with altered restriction sites will not be cut and will generate only a single band. A DNA map by restriction digest can also be generated that can give the relative positions of the genes. The different lengths of DNA generated by restriction digest also produce a specific pattern of bands after gel electrophoresis, and can be used for DNA fingerprinting.
In a similar manner, restriction enzymes are used to digest genomic DNA for gene analysis by Southern blot. This technique allows researchers to identify how many copies (or paralogues) of a gene are present in the genome of one individual, or how many gene mutations (polymorphisms) have occurred within a population. The latter example is called restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP).
Artificial restriction enzymes created by linking the "Fok"I DNA cleavage domain with an array of DNA binding proteins or zinc finger arrays, denoted zinc finger nucleases (ZFN), are a powerful tool for host genome editing due to their enhanced sequence specificity. ZFN work in pairs, their dimerization being mediated in-situ through the "Fok"I domain. Each zinc finger array (ZFA) is capable of recognizing 9–12 base pairs, making for 18–24 for the pair. A 5–7 bp spacer between the cleavage sites further enhances the specificity of ZFN, making them a safe and more precise tool that can be applied in humans. A recent Phase I clinical trial of ZFN for the targeted abolition of the CCR5 co-receptor for HIV-1 has been undertaken.
Others have proposed using the bacteria R-M system as a model for devising human anti-viral gene or genomic vaccines and therapies since the RM system serves an innate defense-role in bacteria by restricting tropism by bacteriophages. There is research on REases and ZFN that can cleave the DNA of various human viruses, including HSV-2, high-risk HPVs and HIV-1, with the ultimate goal of inducing target mutagenesis and aberrations of human-infecting viruses. The human genome already contains remnants of retroviral genomes that have been inactivated and harnessed for self-gain. Indeed, the mechanisms for silencing active L1 genomic retroelements by the three prime repair exonuclease 1 (TREX1) and excision repair cross complementing 1(ERCC) appear to mimic the action of RM-systems in bacteria, and the non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) that follows the use of ZFN without a repair template.
Examples of restriction enzymes include:
Key:
* = blunt ends
N = C or G or T or A
W = A or T | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26194 |
RNA virus
An RNA virus is a virus that has RNA (ribonucleic acid) as its genetic material. This nucleic acid is usually single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) but may be double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). Notable human diseases caused by RNA viruses include the common cold, influenza, SARS, COVID-19, hepatitis C, hepatitis E, West Nile fever, Ebola virus disease, rabies, polio and measles.
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) classifies RNA viruses as those that belong to "Group III", "Group IV" or "Group V" of the Baltimore classification system of classifying viruses and does not consider viruses with DNA intermediates in their life cycle as RNA viruses. Viruses with RNA as their genetic material which also include DNA intermediates in their replication cycle are called retroviruses, and comprise "Group VI" of the Baltimore classification. Notable human retroviruses include HIV-1 and HIV-2, the cause of the disease AIDS.
Another term for RNA viruses that explicitly excludes retroviruses is ribovirus.
RNA viruses can be further classified according to the sense or polarity of their RNA into negative-sense and positive-sense, or ambisense RNA viruses. Positive-sense viral RNA is similar to mRNA and thus can be immediately translated by the host cell. Negative-sense viral RNA is complementary to mRNA and thus must be converted to positive-sense RNA by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase before translation. Purified RNA of a positive-sense virus can directly cause infection though it may be less infectious than the whole virus particle. In contrast, purified RNA of a negative-sense virus is not infectious by itself as it needs to be transcribed into positive-sense RNA; each virion can be transcribed to several positive-sense RNAs. Ambisense RNA viruses resemble negative-sense RNA viruses, except they also translate genes from the positive strand.
The double-stranded (ds)RNA viruses represent a diverse group of viruses that vary widely in host range (humans, animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria), genome segment number (one to twelve), and virion organization (Triangulation number, capsid layers, spikes, turrets, etc.). Members of this group include the rotaviruses, which are the most common cause of gastroenteritis in young children, and picobirnaviruses, which are the most common virus in fecal samples of both humans and animals with or without signs of diarrhea. Bluetongue virus is an economically important pathogen of cattle and sheep. In recent years, progress has been made in determining, at atomic and subnanometeric levels, the structures of a number of key viral proteins and of the virion capsids of several dsRNA viruses, highlighting the significant parallels in the structure and replicative processes of many of these viruses.
RNA viruses generally have very high mutation rates compared to DNA viruses, because viral RNA polymerases lack the proofreading ability of DNA polymerases. This is one reason why it is difficult to make effective vaccines to prevent diseases caused by RNA viruses—diversity is their strength. Retroviruses also have a high mutation rate even though their DNA intermediate integrates into the host genome (and is thus subject to host DNA proofreading once integrated), because errors during reverse transcription are embedded into both strands of DNA before integration. Some genes of RNA virus are important to the viral replication cycles and mutations are not tolerated. For example, the region of the hepatitis C virus genome that encodes the core protein is highly conserved, because it contains an RNA structure involved in an internal ribosome entry site.
Animal RNA viruses are classified by the ICTV. There are three distinct groups of RNA viruses depending on their genome and mode of replication:
Retroviruses (Group VI) have a single-stranded RNA genome but, in general, are not considered RNA viruses because they use DNA intermediates to replicate. Reverse transcriptase, a viral enzyme that comes from the virus itself after it is uncoated, converts the viral RNA into a complementary strand of DNA, which is copied to produce a double-stranded molecule of viral DNA. After this DNA is integrated into the host genome using the viral enzyme integrase, expression of the encoded genes may lead to the formation of new virions.
Numerous RNA viruses are capable of genetic recombination when at least two viral genomes are present in the same host cell. RNA recombination appears to be a major driving force in determining genome architecture and the course of viral evolution among "Picornaviridae" ((+)ssRNA) (e.g. poliovirus). In the "Retroviridae" ((+)ssRNA)(e.g. HIV), damage in the RNA genome appears to be avoided during reverse transcription by strand switching, a form of recombination. Recombination also occurs in the "Reoviridae" (dsRNA)(e.g. reovirus), "Orthomyxoviridae" ((-)ssRNA)(e.g. influenza virus) and "Coronaviridae" ((+)ssRNA) (e.g. SARS). Recombination in RNA viruses appears to be an adaptation for coping with genome damage. Recombination can occur infrequently between animal viruses of the same species but of divergent lineages. The resulting recombinant viruses may sometimes cause an outbreak of infection in humans.
Classification of the RNA viruses is difficult. This is in part due to the high mutation rates these genomes undergo. Classification is based principally on the type of genome (double-stranded, negative- or positive-single-strand) and gene number and organisation. Currently, there are 5 orders and 47 families of RNA viruses recognised. There are also many unassigned species and genera.
Related to but distinct from the RNA viruses are the viroids and the RNA satellite viruses. These are not currently classified as RNA viruses and are described on their own pages.
A study of several thousand RNA viruses has shown the presence of at least five main taxa: a levivirus and relatives group; a picornavirus supergroup; an alphavirus supergroup plus a flavivirus supergroup; the dsRNA viruses; and the -ve strand viruses. The lentivirus group appears to be basal to all the remaining RNA viruses. The next major division lies between the picornasupragroup and the remaining viruses. The dsRNA viruses appear to have evolved from a +ve RNA ancestor and the -ve RNA viruses from within the dsRNA viruses. The closest relation to the -ve stranded RNA viruses is the Reoviridae.
This is the single largest group of RNA viruses with 30 families. Attempts have been made to group these families in higher orders. These proposals were based on an analysis of the RNA polymerases and are still under consideration. To date, the suggestions proposed have not been broadly accepted because of doubts over the suitability of a single gene to determine the taxonomy of the clade.
The proposed classification of positive-strand RNA viruses is based on the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Three groups have been recognised:
A division of the alpha-like (Sindbis-like) supergroup on the basis of a novel domain located near the N termini of the proteins involved in viral replication has been proposed. The two groups proposed are: the 'altovirus' group (alphaviruses, furoviruses, hepatitis E virus, hordeiviruses, tobamoviruses, tobraviruses, tricornaviruses and probably rubiviruses); and the 'typovirus' group (apple chlorotic leaf spot virus, carlaviruses, potexviruses and tymoviruses).
The alpha like supergroup can be further divided into three clades: the rubi-like, tobamo-like, and tymo-like viruses.
Additional work has identified five groups of positive-stranded RNA viruses containing four, three, three, three, and one order(s), respectively. These fourteen orders contain 31 virus families (including 17 families of plant viruses) and 48 genera (including 30 genera of plant viruses). This analysis suggests that alphaviruses and flaviviruses can be separated into two families—the Togaviridae and Flaviridae, respectively—but suggests that other taxonomic assignments, such as the pestiviruses, hepatitis C virus, rubiviruses, hepatitis E virus, and arteriviruses, may be incorrect. The coronaviruses and toroviruses appear to be distinct families in distinct orders and not distinct genera of the same family as currently classified. The luteoviruses appear to be two families rather than one, and apple chlorotic leaf spot virus appears not to be a closterovirus but a new genus of the Potexviridae.
The evolution of the picornaviruses based on an analysis of their RNA polymerases and helicases appears to date to the divergence of the eukaryotes. Their putative ancestors include the bacterial group II retroelements, the family of HtrA proteases and DNA bacteriophages.
Partitiviruses are related to and may have evolved from a totivirus ancestor.
Hypoviruses and barnaviruses appear to share an ancestry with the potyvirus and sobemovirus lineages respectively.
This analysis also suggests that the dsRNA viruses are not closely related to each other but instead belong to four additional classes—Birnaviridae, Cystoviridae, Partitiviridae, and Reoviridae—and one additional order (Totiviridae) of one of the classes of positive ssRNA viruses in the same subphylum as the positive-strand RNA viruses.
One study has suggested that there are two large clades: One includes the families "Caliciviridae", "Flaviviridae", and "Picornaviridae" and a second that includes the families "Alphatetraviridae", "Birnaviridae", "Cystoviridae", Nodaviridae", and "Permutotretraviridae".
These viruses have multiple types of genome ranging from a single RNA molecule up to eight segments. Despite their diversity it appears that they may have originated in arthropods and to have diversified from there.
A number of satellite viruses—viruses that require the assistance of another virus to complete their life cycle—are also known. Their taxonomy has yet to be settled. The following four genera have been proposed for positive sense single stranded RNA satellite viruses that infect plants—Albetovirus, Aumaivirus, Papanivirus and Virtovirus. A family—Sarthroviridae which includes the genus Macronovirus—has been proposed for the positive sense single stranded RNA satellite viruses that infect arthropods.
There are twelve families and a number of unassigned genera and species recognised in this group.
There are three orders and 34 families recognised in this group. In addition, there are a number of unclassified species and genera.
Satellite viruses
An unclassified astrovirus/hepevirus-like virus has also been described.
With the exception of the Hepatitis D virus, this group of viruses has been placed into a single phylum—Negarnaviricota. This phylum has been divided into two subphyla—Haploviricotina and Polyploviricotina. Within the subphylum Haploviricotina four classes are currently recognised: Chunqiuviricetes, Milneviricetes, Monjiviricetes and Yunchangviricetes. In the subphylum Polyploviricotina two classes are recognised: Ellioviricetes and Insthoviricetes.
Six classes, seven orders and twenty four families are currently recognised in this group. A number of unassigned species and genera are yet to be classified.
The majority of fungal viruses are double-stranded RNA viruses. A small number of positive-strand RNA viruses have been described. One report has suggested the possibility of a negative stranded virus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26195 |
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in 1960. It is based on the fact that radiocarbon () is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of it contains begins to decrease as the undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sample is, the less there is to be detected, and because the half-life of (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to approximately 50,000 years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of older samples.
Research has been ongoing since the 1960s to determine what the proportion of in the atmosphere has been over the past fifty thousand years. The resulting data, in the form of a calibration curve, is now used to convert a given measurement of radiocarbon in a sample into an estimate of the sample's calendar age. Other corrections must be made to account for the proportion of in different types of organisms (fractionation), and the varying levels of throughout the biosphere (reservoir effects). Additional complications come from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, and from the above-ground nuclear tests done in the 1950s and 1960s. Because the time it takes to convert biological materials to fossil fuels is substantially longer than the time it takes for its to decay below detectable levels, fossil fuels contain almost no , and as a result there was a noticeable drop in the proportion of in the atmosphere beginning in the late 19th century. Conversely, nuclear testing increased the amount of in the atmosphere, which attained a maximum in about 1965 of almost twice what it had been before the testing began.
Measurement of radiocarbon was originally done by beta-counting devices, which counted the amount of beta radiation emitted by decaying atoms in a sample. More recently, accelerator mass spectrometry has become the method of choice; it counts all the atoms in the sample and not just the few that happen to decay during the measurements; it can therefore be used with much smaller samples (as small as individual plant seeds), and gives results much more quickly. The development of radiocarbon dating has had a profound impact on archaeology. In addition to permitting more accurate dating within archaeological sites than previous methods, it allows comparison of dates of events across great distances. Histories of archaeology often refer to its impact as the "radiocarbon revolution". Radiocarbon dating has allowed key transitions in prehistory to be dated, such as the end of the last ice age, and the beginning of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in different regions.
In 1939, Martin Kamen and Samuel Ruben of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley began experiments to determine if any of the elements common in organic matter had isotopes with half-lives long enough to be of value in biomedical research. They synthesized using the laboratory's cyclotron accelerator and soon discovered that the atom's half-life was far longer than had been previously thought. This was followed by a prediction by Serge A. Korff, then employed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, that the interaction of thermal neutrons with in the upper atmosphere would create . It had previously been thought that would be more likely to be created by deuterons interacting with . At some time during World War II, Willard Libby, who was then at Berkeley, learned of Korff's research and conceived the idea that it might be possible to use radiocarbon for dating.
In 1945, Libby moved to the University of Chicago where he began his work on radiocarbon dating. He published a paper in 1946 in which he proposed that the carbon in living matter might include as well as non-radioactive carbon. Libby and several collaborators proceeded to experiment with methane collected from sewage works in Baltimore, and after isotopically enriching their samples they were able to demonstrate that they contained . By contrast, methane created from petroleum showed no radiocarbon activity because of its age. The results were summarized in a paper in "Science" in 1947, in which the authors commented that their results implied it would be possible to date materials containing carbon of organic origin.
Libby and James Arnold proceeded to test the radiocarbon dating theory by analyzing samples with known ages. For example, two samples taken from the tombs of two Egyptian kings, Zoser and Sneferu, independently dated to 2625 BC plus or minus 75 years, were dated by radiocarbon measurement to an average of 2800 BC plus or minus 250 years. These results were published in "Science" in 1949. Within 11 years of their announcement, more than 20 radiocarbon dating laboratories had been set up worldwide. In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.
In nature, carbon exists as two stable, nonradioactive isotopes: carbon-12 (), and carbon-13 (), and a radioactive isotope, carbon-14 (), also known as "radiocarbon". The half-life of (the time it takes for half of a given amount of to decay) is about 5,730 years, so its concentration in the atmosphere might be expected to decrease over thousands of years, but is constantly being produced in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere, primarily by galactic cosmic rays, and to a lesser degree by solar cosmic rays. These generate neutrons that in turn create when they strike nitrogen-14 () atoms. The following nuclear reaction is the main pathway by which is created:
where n represents a neutron and p represents a proton.
Once produced, the quickly combines with the oxygen in the atmosphere to form first carbon monoxide (), and ultimately carbon dioxide ().
Carbon dioxide produced in this way diffuses in the atmosphere, is dissolved in the ocean, and is taken up by plants via photosynthesis. Animals eat the plants, and ultimately the radiocarbon is distributed throughout the biosphere. The ratio of to is approximately 1.25 parts of to 1012 parts of . In addition, about 1% of the carbon atoms are of the stable isotope .
The equation for the radioactive decay of is:
By emitting a beta particle (an electron, e−) and an electron antineutrino (), one of the neutrons in the nucleus changes to a proton and the nucleus reverts to the stable (non-radioactive) isotope .
During its life, a plant or animal is in equilibrium with its surroundings by exchanging carbon either with the atmosphere or through its diet. It will, therefore, have the same proportion of as the atmosphere, or in the case of marine animals or plants, with the ocean. Once it dies, it ceases to acquire , but the within its biological material at that time will continue to decay, and so the ratio of to in its remains will gradually decrease. Because decays at a known rate, the proportion of radiocarbon can be used to determine how long it has been since a given sample stopped exchanging carbon – the older the sample, the less will be left.
The equation governing the decay of a radioactive isotope is:
where "N"0 is the number of atoms of the isotope in the original sample (at time "t" = 0, when the organism from which the sample was taken died), and "N" is the number of atoms left after time "t". "λ" is a constant that depends on the particular isotope; for a given isotope it is equal to the reciprocal of the mean-life – i.e. the average or expected time a given atom will survive before undergoing radioactive decay. The mean-life, denoted by "τ", of is 8,267 years, so the equation above can be rewritten as:
The sample is assumed to have originally had the same / ratio as the ratio in the atmosphere, and since the size of the sample is known, the total number of atoms in the sample can be calculated, yielding "N"0, the number of atoms in the original sample. Measurement of "N", the number of atoms currently in the sample, allows the calculation of "t", the age of the sample, using the equation above.
The half-life of a radioactive isotope (usually denoted by t1/2) is a more familiar concept than the mean-life, so although the equations above are expressed in terms of the mean-life, it is more usual to quote the value of 's half-life than its mean-life. The currently accepted value for the half-life of is 5,730 ± 40 years. This means that after 5,730 years, only half of the initial will remain; a quarter will remain after 11,460 years; an eighth after 17,190 years; and so on.
The above calculations make several assumptions, such as that the level of in the atmosphere has remained constant over time. In fact, the level of in the atmosphere has varied significantly and as a result, the values provided by the equation above have to be corrected by using data from other sources. This is done by calibration curves (discussed below), which convert a measurement of in a sample into an estimated calendar age. The calculations involve several steps and include an intermediate value called the "radiocarbon age", which is the age in "radiocarbon years" of the sample: an age quoted in radiocarbon years means that no calibration curve has been used − the calculations for radiocarbon years assume that the atmospheric / ratio has not changed over time.
Calculating radiocarbon ages also requires the value of the half-life for . In Libby's 1949 paper he used a value of 5720 ± 47 years, based on research by Engelkemeir et al. This was remarkably close to the modern value, but shortly afterwards the accepted value was revised to 5568 ± 30 years, and this value was in use for more than a decade. It was revised again in the early 1960s to 5,730 ± 40 years, which meant that many calculated dates in papers published prior to this were incorrect (the error in the half-life is about 3%). For consistency with these early papers, it was agreed at the 1962 Radiocarbon Conference in Cambridge (UK) to use the “Libby half-life” of 5568 years. Radiocarbon ages are still calculated using this half-life, and are known as "Conventional Radiocarbon Age". Since the calibration curve (IntCal) also reports past atmospheric concentration using this conventional age, any conventional ages calibrated against the IntCal curve will produce a correct calibrated age. When a date is quoted, the reader should be aware that if it is an uncalibrated date (a term used for dates given in radiocarbon years) it may differ substantially from the best estimate of the actual calendar date, both because it uses the wrong value for the half-life of , and because no correction (calibration) has been applied for the historical variation of in the atmosphere over time.
Carbon is distributed throughout the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the oceans; these are referred to collectively as the carbon exchange reservoir, and each component is also referred to individually as a carbon exchange reservoir. The different elements of the carbon exchange reservoir vary in how much carbon they store, and in how long it takes for the generated by cosmic rays to fully mix with them. This affects the ratio of to in the different reservoirs, and hence the radiocarbon ages of samples that originated in each reservoir. The atmosphere, which is where is generated, contains about 1.9% of the total carbon in the reservoirs, and the it contains mixes in less than seven years. The ratio of to in the atmosphere is taken as the baseline for the other reservoirs: if another reservoir has a lower ratio of to , it indicates that the carbon is older and hence that either some of the has decayed, or the reservoir is receiving carbon that is not at the atmospheric baseline. The ocean surface is an example: it contains 2.4% of the carbon in the exchange reservoir, but there is only about 95% as much as would be expected if the ratio were the same as in the atmosphere. The time it takes for carbon from the atmosphere to mix with the surface ocean is only a few years, but the surface waters also receive water from the deep ocean, which has more than 90% of the carbon in the reservoir. Water in the deep ocean takes about 1,000 years to circulate back through surface waters, and so the surface waters contain a combination of older water, with depleted , and water recently at the surface, with in equilibrium with the atmosphere.
Creatures living at the ocean surface have the same ratios as the water they live in, and as a result of the reduced / ratio, the radiocarbon age of marine life is typically about 400 years. Organisms on land are in closer equilibrium with the atmosphere and have the same / ratio as the atmosphere. These organisms contain about 1.3% of the carbon in the reservoir; sea organisms have a mass of less than 1% of those on land and are not shown in the diagram. Accumulated dead organic matter, of both plants and animals, exceeds the mass of the biosphere by a factor of nearly 3, and since this matter is no longer exchanging carbon with its environment, it has a / ratio lower than that of the biosphere.
The variation in the / ratio in different parts of the carbon exchange reservoir means that a straightforward calculation of the age of a sample based on the amount of it contains will often give an incorrect result. There are several other possible sources of error that need to be considered. The errors are of four general types:
In the early years of using the technique, it was understood that it depended on the atmospheric / ratio having remained the same over the preceding few thousand years. To verify the accuracy of the method, several artefacts that were datable by other techniques were tested; the results of the testing were in reasonable agreement with the true ages of the objects. Over time, however, discrepancies began to appear between the known chronology for the oldest Egyptian dynasties and the radiocarbon dates of Egyptian artefacts. Neither the pre-existing Egyptian chronology nor the new radiocarbon dating method could be assumed to be accurate, but a third possibility was that the / ratio had changed over time. The question was resolved by the study of tree rings: comparison of overlapping series of tree rings allowed the construction of a continuous sequence of tree-ring data that spanned 8,000 years. (Since that time the tree-ring data series has been extended to 13,900 years.) In the 1960s, Hans Suess was able to use the tree-ring sequence to show that the dates derived from radiocarbon were consistent with the dates assigned by Egyptologists. This was possible because although annual plants, such as corn, have a / ratio that reflects the atmospheric ratio at the time they were growing, trees only add material to their outermost tree ring in any given year, while the inner tree rings don't get their replenished and instead start losing through decay. Hence each ring preserves a record of the atmospheric / ratio of the year it grew in. Carbon-dating the wood from the tree rings themselves provides the check needed on the atmospheric / ratio: with a sample of known date, and a measurement of the value of "N" (the number of atoms of remaining in the sample), the carbon-dating equation allows the calculation of "N"0 – the number of atoms of in the sample at the time the tree ring was formed – and hence the / ratio in the atmosphere at that time. Equipped with the results of carbon-dating the tree rings, it became possible to construct calibration curves designed to correct the errors caused by the variation over time in the / ratio. These curves are described in more detail below.
Coal and oil began to be burned in large quantities during the 19th century. Both are sufficiently old that they contain little or no detectable and, as a result, the released substantially diluted the atmospheric / ratio. Dating an object from the early 20th century hence gives an apparent date older than the true date. For the same reason, concentrations in the neighbourhood of large cities are lower than the atmospheric average. This fossil fuel effect (also known as the Suess effect, after Hans Suess, who first reported it in 1955) would only amount to a reduction of 0.2% in activity if the additional carbon from fossil fuels were distributed throughout the carbon exchange reservoir, but because of the long delay in mixing with the deep ocean, the actual effect is a 3% reduction.
A much larger effect comes from above-ground nuclear testing, which released large numbers of neutrons and created . From about 1950 until 1963, when atmospheric nuclear testing was banned, it is estimated that several tonnes of were created. If all this extra had immediately been spread across the entire carbon exchange reservoir, it would have led to an increase in the / ratio of only a few per cent, but the immediate effect was to almost double the amount of in the atmosphere, with the peak level occurring in 1964 for the northern hemisphere, and in 1966 for the southern hemisphere. The level has since dropped, as this bomb pulse or "bomb carbon" (as it is sometimes called) percolates into the rest of the reservoir.
Photosynthesis is the primary process by which carbon moves from the atmosphere into living things. In photosynthetic pathways is absorbed slightly more easily than , which in turn is more easily absorbed than . The differential uptake of the three carbon isotopes leads to / and / ratios in plants that differ from the ratios in the atmosphere. This effect is known as isotopic fractionation.
To determine the degree of fractionation that takes place in a given plant, the amounts of both and isotopes are measured, and the resulting / ratio is then compared to a standard ratio known as PDB. The / ratio is used instead of / because the former is much easier to measure, and the latter can be easily derived: the depletion of relative to is proportional to the difference in the atomic masses of the two isotopes, so the depletion for is twice the depletion of . The fractionation of , known as , is calculated as follows:
where the ‰ sign indicates parts per thousand. Because the PDB standard contains an unusually high proportion of , most measured values are negative.
For marine organisms, the details of the photosynthesis reactions are less well understood, and the values for marine photosynthetic organisms are dependent on temperature. At higher temperatures, has poor solubility in water, which means there is less available for the photosynthetic reactions. Under these conditions, fractionation is reduced, and at temperatures above 14 °C the values are correspondingly higher, while at lower temperatures, becomes more soluble and hence more available to marine organisms. The value for animals depends on their diet. An animal that eats food with high values will have a higher than one that eats food with lower values. The animal's own biochemical processes can also impact the results: for example, both bone minerals and bone collagen typically have a higher concentration of than is found in the animal's diet, though for different biochemical reasons. The enrichment of bone also implies that excreted material is depleted in relative to the diet.
Since makes up about 1% of the carbon in a sample, the / ratio can be accurately measured by mass spectrometry. Typical values of have been found by experiment for many plants, as well as for different parts of animals such as bone collagen, but when dating a given sample it is better to determine the value for that sample directly than to rely on the published values.
The carbon exchange between atmospheric and carbonate at the ocean surface is also subject to fractionation, with in the atmosphere more likely than to dissolve in the ocean. The result is an overall increase in the / ratio in the ocean of 1.5%, relative to the / ratio in the atmosphere. This increase in concentration almost exactly cancels out the decrease caused by the upwelling of water (containing old, and hence depleted, carbon) from the deep ocean, so that direct measurements of radiation are similar to measurements for the rest of the biosphere. Correcting for isotopic fractionation, as is done for all radiocarbon dates to allow comparison between results from different parts of the biosphere, gives an apparent age of about 400 years for ocean surface water.
Libby's original exchange reservoir hypothesis assumed that the / ratio in the exchange reservoir is constant all over the world, but it has since been discovered that there are several causes of variation in the ratio across the reservoir.
The marine effect: The in the atmosphere transfers to the ocean by dissolving in the surface water as carbonate and bicarbonate ions; at the same time the carbonate ions in the water are returning to the air as . This exchange process brings from the atmosphere into the surface waters of the ocean, but the thus introduced takes a long time to percolate through the entire volume of the ocean. The deepest parts of the ocean mix very slowly with the surface waters, and the mixing is uneven. The main mechanism that brings deep water to the surface is upwelling, which is more common in regions closer to the equator. Upwelling is also influenced by factors such as the topography of the local ocean bottom and coastlines, the climate, and wind patterns. Overall, the mixing of deep and surface waters takes far longer than the mixing of atmospheric with the surface waters, and as a result water from some deep ocean areas has an apparent radiocarbon age of several thousand years. Upwelling mixes this "old" water with the surface water, giving the surface water an apparent age of about several hundred years (after correcting for fractionation). This effect is not uniform – the average effect is about 400 years, but there are local deviations of several hundred years for areas that are geographically close to each other. These deviations can be accounted for in calibration, and users of software such as CALIB can provide as an input the appropriate correction for the location of their samples. The effect also applies to marine organisms such as shells, and marine mammals such as whales and seals, which have radiocarbon ages that appear to be hundreds of years old.
The northern and southern hemispheres have atmospheric circulation systems that are sufficiently independent of each other that there is a noticeable time lag in mixing between the two. The atmospheric / ratio is lower in the southern hemisphere, with an apparent additional age of about 40 years for radiocarbon results from the south as compared to the north. This is because the greater surface area of ocean in the southern hemisphere means that there is more carbon exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere than in the north. Since the surface ocean is depleted in because of the marine effect, is removed from the southern atmosphere more quickly than in the north. The effect is strengthened by strong upwelling around Antarctica.
If the carbon in freshwater is partly acquired from aged carbon, such as rocks, then the result will be a reduction in the / ratio in the water. For example, rivers that pass over limestone, which is mostly composed of calcium carbonate, will acquire carbonate ions. Similarly, groundwater can contain carbon derived from the rocks through which it has passed. These rocks are usually so old that they no longer contain any measurable , so this carbon lowers the / ratio of the water it enters, which can lead to apparent ages of thousands of years for both the affected water and the plants and freshwater organisms that live in it. This is known as the hard water effect because it is often associated with calcium ions, which are characteristic of hard water; other sources of carbon such as humus can produce similar results, and can also reduce the apparent age if they are of more recent origin than the sample. The effect varies greatly and there is no general offset that can be applied; additional research is usually needed to determine the size of the offset, for example by comparing the radiocarbon age of deposited freshwater shells with associated organic material.
Volcanic eruptions eject large amounts of carbon into the air. The carbon is of geological origin and has no detectable , so the / ratio in the vicinity of the volcano is depressed relative to surrounding areas. Dormant volcanoes can also emit aged carbon. Plants that photosynthesize this carbon also have lower / ratios: for example, plants in the neighbourhood of the Furnas caldera in the Azores were found to have apparent ages that ranged from 250 years to 3320 years.
Any addition of carbon to a sample of a different age will cause the measured date to be inaccurate. Contamination with modern carbon causes a sample to appear to be younger than it really is: the effect is greater for older samples. If a sample that is 17,000 years old is contaminated so that 1% of the sample is modern carbon, it will appear to be 600 years younger; for a sample that is 34,000 years old, the same amount of contamination would cause an error of 4,000 years. Contamination with old carbon, with no remaining , causes an error in the other direction independent of age – a sample contaminated with 1% old carbon will appear to be about 80 years older than it truly is, regardless of the date of the sample.
Samples for dating need to be converted into a form suitable for measuring the content; this can mean conversion to gaseous, liquid, or solid form, depending on the measurement technique to be used. Before this can be done, the sample must be treated to remove any contamination and any unwanted constituents. This includes removing visible contaminants, such as rootlets that may have penetrated the sample since its burial. Alkali and acid washes can be used to remove humic acid and carbonate contamination, but care has to be taken to avoid removing the part of the sample that contains the carbon to be tested.
Particularly for older samples, it may be useful to enrich the amount of in the sample before testing. This can be done with a thermal diffusion column. The process takes about a month and requires a sample about ten times as large as would be needed otherwise, but it allows more precise measurement of the / ratio in old material and extends the maximum age that can be reliably reported.
Once contamination has been removed, samples must be converted to a form suitable for the measuring technology to be used. Where gas is required, is widely used. For samples to be used in liquid scintillation counters, the carbon must be in liquid form; the sample is typically converted to benzene. For accelerator mass spectrometry, solid graphite targets are the most common, although gaseous can also be used.
The quantity of material needed for testing depends on the sample type and the technology being used. There are two types of testing technology: detectors that record radioactivity, known as beta counters, and accelerator mass spectrometers. For beta counters, a sample weighing at least is typically required. Accelerator mass spectrometry is much more sensitive, and samples containing as little as 0.5 milligrams of carbon can be used.
For decades after Libby performed the first radiocarbon dating experiments, the only way to measure the in a sample was to detect the radioactive decay of individual carbon atoms. In this approach, what is measured is the activity, in number of decay events per unit mass per time period, of the sample. This method is also known as "beta counting", because it is the beta particles emitted by the decaying atoms that are detected. In the late 1970s an alternative approach became available: directly counting the number of and atoms in a given sample, via accelerator mass spectrometry, usually referred to as AMS. AMS counts the / ratio directly, instead of the activity of the sample, but measurements of activity and / ratio can be converted into each other exactly. For some time, beta counting methods were more accurate than AMS, but AMS is now more accurate and has become the method of choice for radiocarbon measurements. In addition to improved accuracy, AMS has two further significant advantages over beta counting: it can perform accurate testing on samples much too small for beta counting, and it is much faster – an accuracy of 1% can be achieved in minutes with AMS, which is far quicker than would be achievable with the older technology.
Libby's first detector was a Geiger counter of his own design. He converted the carbon in his sample to lamp black (soot) and coated the inner surface of a cylinder with it. This cylinder was inserted into the counter in such a way that the counting wire was inside the sample cylinder, in order that there should be no material between the sample and the wire. Any interposing material would have interfered with the detection of radioactivity, since the beta particles emitted by decaying are so weak that half are stopped by a 0.01 mm thickness of aluminium.
Libby's method was soon superseded by gas proportional counters, which were less affected by bomb carbon (the additional created by nuclear weapons testing). These counters record bursts of ionization caused by the beta particles emitted by the decaying atoms; the bursts are proportional to the energy of the particle, so other sources of ionization, such as background radiation, can be identified and ignored. The counters are surrounded by lead or steel shielding, to eliminate background radiation and to reduce the incidence of cosmic rays. In addition, anticoincidence detectors are used; these record events outside the counter and any event recorded simultaneously both inside and outside the counter is regarded as an extraneous event and ignored.
The other common technology used for measuring activity is liquid scintillation counting, which was invented in 1950, but which had to wait until the early 1960s, when efficient methods of benzene synthesis were developed, to become competitive with gas counting; after 1970 liquid counters became the more common technology choice for newly constructed dating laboratories. The counters work by detecting flashes of light caused by the beta particles emitted by as they interact with a fluorescing agent added to the benzene. Like gas counters, liquid scintillation counters require shielding and anticoincidence counters.
For both the gas proportional counter and liquid scintillation counter, what is measured is the number of beta particles detected in a given time period. Since the mass of the sample is known, this can be converted to a standard measure of activity in units of either counts per minute per gram of carbon (cpm/g C), or becquerels per kg (Bq/kg C, in SI units). Each measuring device is also used to measure the activity of a blank sample – a sample prepared from carbon old enough to have no activity. This provides a value for the background radiation, which must be subtracted from the measured activity of the sample being dated to get the activity attributable solely to that sample's . In addition, a sample with a standard activity is measured, to provide a baseline for comparison.
AMS counts the atoms of and in a given sample, determining the / ratio directly. The sample, often in the form of graphite, is made to emit C− ions (carbon atoms with a single negative charge), which are injected into an accelerator. The ions are accelerated and passed through a stripper, which removes several electrons so that the ions emerge with a positive charge. The ions, which may have from 1 to 4 positive charges (C+ to C4+), depending on the accelerator design, are then passed through a magnet that curves their path; the heavier ions are curved less than the lighter ones, so the different isotopes emerge as separate streams of ions. A particle detector then records the number of ions detected in the stream, but since the volume of (and , needed for calibration) is too great for individual ion detection, counts are determined by measuring the electric current created in a Faraday cup. The large positive charge induced by the stripper forces molecules such as , which has a weight close enough to to interfere with the measurements, to dissociate, so they are not detected. Most AMS machines also measure the sample's , for use in calculating the sample's radiocarbon age. The use of AMS, as opposed to simpler forms of mass spectrometry, is necessary because of the need to distinguish the carbon isotopes from other atoms or molecules that are very close in mass, such as and . As with beta counting, both blank samples and standard samples are used. Two different kinds of blank may be measured: a sample of dead carbon that has undergone no chemical processing, to detect any machine background, and a sample known as a process blank made from dead carbon that is processed into target material in exactly the same way as the sample which is being dated. Any signal from the machine background blank is likely to be caused either by beams of ions that have not followed the expected path inside the detector or by carbon hydrides such as or . A signal from the process blank measures the amount of contamination introduced during the preparation of the sample. These measurements are used in the subsequent calculation of the age of the sample.
The calculations to be performed on the measurements taken depend on the technology used, since beta counters measure the sample's radioactivity whereas AMS determines the ratio of the three different carbon isotopes in the sample.
To determine the age of a sample whose activity has been measured by beta counting, the ratio of its activity to the activity of the standard must be found. To determine this, a blank sample (of old, or dead, carbon) is measured, and a sample of known activity is measured. The additional samples allow errors such as background radiation and systematic errors in the laboratory setup to be detected and corrected for. The most common standard sample material is oxalic acid, such as the HOxII standard, 1,000 lb of which was prepared by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1977 from French beet harvests.
The results from AMS testing are in the form of ratios of , , and , which are used to calculate Fm, the "fraction modern". This is defined as the ratio between the / ratio in the sample and the / ratio in modern carbon, which is in turn defined as the / ratio that would have been measured in 1950 had there been no fossil fuel effect.
Both beta counting and AMS results have to be corrected for fractionation. This is necessary because different materials of the same age, which because of fractionation have naturally different / ratios, will appear to be of different ages because the / ratio is taken as the indicator of age. To avoid this, all radiocarbon measurements are converted to the measurement that would have been seen had the sample been made of wood, which has a known δ value of −25‰.
Once the corrected / ratio is known, a "radiocarbon age" is calculated using:
The calculation uses 8,033, the mean-life derived from Libby's half-life of 5,568 years, not 8,267, the mean-life derived from the more accurate modern value of 5,730 years. Libby's value for the half-life is used to maintain consistency with early radiocarbon testing results; calibration curves include a correction for this, so the accuracy of final reported calendar ages is assured.
The reliability of the results can be improved by lengthening the testing time. For example, if counting beta decays for 250 minutes is enough to give an error of ± 80 years, with 68% confidence, then doubling the counting time to 500 minutes will allow a sample with only half as much to be measured with the same error term of 80 years.
Radiocarbon dating is generally limited to dating samples no more than 50,000 years old, as samples older than that have insufficient to be measurable. Older dates have been obtained by using special sample preparation techniques, large samples, and very long measurement times. These techniques can allow measurement of dates up to 60,000 and in some cases up to 75,000 years before the present.
Radiocarbon dates are generally presented with a range of one standard deviation (usually represented by the Greek letter sigma as 1σ) on either side of the mean. However, a date range of 1σ represents only a 68% confidence level, so the true age of the object being measured may lie outside the range of dates quoted. This was demonstrated in 1970 by an experiment run by the British Museum radiocarbon laboratory, in which weekly measurements were taken on the same sample for six months. The results varied widely (though consistently with a normal distribution of errors in the measurements), and included multiple date ranges (of 1σ confidence) that did not overlap with each other. The measurements included one with a range from about 4250 to about 4390 years ago, and another with a range from about 4520 to about 4690.
Errors in procedure can also lead to errors in the results. If 1% of the benzene in a modern reference sample accidentally evaporates, scintillation counting will give a radiocarbon age that is too young by about 80 years.
The calculations given above produce dates in radiocarbon years: i.e. dates that represent the age the sample would be if the / ratio had been constant historically. Although Libby had pointed out as early as 1955 the possibility that this assumption was incorrect, it was not until discrepancies began to accumulate between measured ages and known historical dates for artefacts that it became clear that a correction would need to be applied to radiocarbon ages to obtain calendar dates.
To produce a curve that can be used to relate calendar years to radiocarbon years, a sequence of securely dated samples is needed which can be tested to determine their radiocarbon age. The study of tree rings led to the first such sequence: individual pieces of wood show characteristic sequences of rings that vary in thickness because of environmental factors such as the amount of rainfall in a given year. These factors affect all trees in an area, so examining tree-ring sequences from old wood allows the identification of overlapping sequences. In this way, an uninterrupted sequence of tree rings can be extended far into the past. The first such published sequence, based on bristlecone pine tree rings, was created by Wesley Ferguson. Hans Suess used this data to publish the first calibration curve for radiocarbon dating in 1967. The curve showed two types of variation from the straight line: a long term fluctuation with a period of about 9,000 years, and a shorter-term variation, often referred to as "wiggles", with a period of decades. Suess said he drew the line showing the wiggles by "cosmic "schwung"", by which he meant that the variations were caused by extraterrestrial forces. It was unclear for some time whether the wiggles were real or not, but they are now well-established. These short term fluctuations in the calibration curve are now known as de Vries effects, after Hessel de Vries.
A calibration curve is used by taking the radiocarbon date reported by a laboratory and reading across from that date on the vertical axis of the graph. The point where this horizontal line intersects the curve will give the calendar age of the sample on the horizontal axis. This is the reverse of the way the curve is constructed: a point on the graph is derived from a sample of known age, such as a tree ring; when it is tested, the resulting radiocarbon age gives a data point for the graph.Over the next thirty years many calibration curves were published using a variety of methods and statistical approaches. These were superseded by the INTCAL series of curves, beginning with INTCAL98, published in 1998, and updated in 2004, 2009, and 2013. The improvements to these curves are based on new data gathered from tree rings, varves, coral, plant macrofossils, speleothems, and foraminifera. The INTCAL13 data includes separate curves for the northern and southern hemispheres, as they differ systematically because of the hemisphere effect. The southern curve (SHCAL13) is based on independent data where possible and derived from the northern curve by adding the average offset for the southern hemisphere where no direct data was available. There is also a separate marine calibration curve, MARINE13. For a set of samples forming a sequence with a known separation in time, these samples form a subset of the calibration curve. The sequence can be compared to the calibration curve and the best match to the sequence established. This “wiggle-matching” technique can lead to more precise dating than is possible with individual radiocarbon dates. Wiggle-matching can be used in places where there is a plateau on the calibration curve, and hence can provide a much more accurate date than the intercept or probability methods are able to produce. The technique is not restricted to tree rings; for example, a stratified tephra sequence in New Zealand, believed to predate human colonization of the islands, has been dated to 1314 AD ± 12 years by wiggle-matching. The wiggles also mean that reading a date from a calibration curve can give more than one answer: this occurs when the curve wiggles up and down enough that the radiocarbon age intercepts the curve in more than one place, which may lead to a radiocarbon result being reported as two separate age ranges, corresponding to the two parts of the curve that the radiocarbon age intercepted.
Bayesian statistical techniques can be applied when there are several radiocarbon dates to be calibrated. For example, if a series of radiocarbon dates is taken from different levels in a stratigraphic sequence, Bayesian analysis can be used to evaluate dates which are outliers and can calculate improved probability distributions, based on the prior information that the sequence should be ordered in time. When Bayesian analysis was introduced, its use was limited by the need to use mainframe computers to perform the calculations, but the technique has since been implemented on programs available for personal computers, such as OxCal.
Several formats for citing radiocarbon results have been used since the first samples were dated. As of 2019, the standard format required by the journal "Radiocarbon" is as follows.
Uncalibrated dates should be reported as ": < year> ± BP", where:
For example, the uncalibrated date "UtC-2020: 3510 ± 60 BP" indicates that the sample was tested by the Utrecht van der Graaff Laboratorium, where it has a sample number of 2020, and that the uncalibrated age is 3510 years before present, ± 60 years. Related forms are sometimes used: for example, "10 ka BP" means 10,000 radiocarbon years before present (i.e. 8,050 BC), and yr BP might be used to distinguish the uncalibrated date from a date derived from another dating method such as thermoluminescence.
Calibrated dates are frequently reported as cal BP, cal BC, or cal AD, again with BP referring to the year 1950 as the zero date. "Radiocarbon" gives two options for reporting calibrated dates. A common format is "cal ", where:
For example, "cal 1220–1281 AD (1σ)" means a calibrated date for which the true date lies between 1220 AD and 1281 AD, with the confidence level given as 1σ, or one standard deviation. Calibrated dates can also be expressed as BP instead of using BC and AD. The curve used to calibrate the results should be the latest available INTCAL curve. Calibrated dates should also identify any programs, such as OxCal, used to perform the calibration. In addition, an article in "Radiocarbon" in 2014 about radiocarbon date reporting conventions recommends that information should be provided about sample treatment, including the sample material, pretreatment methods, and quality control measurements; that the citation to the software used for calibration should specify the version number and any options or models used; and that the calibrated date should be given with the associated probabilities for each range.
A key concept in interpreting radiocarbon dates is archaeological association: what is the true relationship between two or more objects at an archaeological site? It frequently happens that a sample for radiocarbon dating can be taken directly from the object of interest, but there are also many cases where this is not possible. Metal grave goods, for example, cannot be radiocarbon dated, but they may be found in a grave with a coffin, charcoal, or other material which can be assumed to have been deposited at the same time. In these cases, a date for the coffin or charcoal is indicative of the date of deposition of the grave goods, because of the direct functional relationship between the two. There are also cases where there is no functional relationship, but the association is reasonably strong: for example, a layer of charcoal in a rubbish pit provides a date which has a relationship to the rubbish pit.
Contamination is of particular concern when dating very old material obtained from archaeological excavations and great care is needed in the specimen selection and preparation. In 2014, Thomas Higham and co-workers suggested that many of the dates published for Neanderthal artefacts are too recent because of contamination by "young carbon".
As a tree grows, only the outermost tree ring exchanges carbon with its environment, so the age measured for a wood sample depends on where the sample is taken from. This means that radiocarbon dates on wood samples can be older than the date at which the tree was felled. In addition, if a piece of wood is used for multiple purposes, there may be a significant delay between the felling of the tree and the final use in the context in which it is found. This is often referred to as the "old wood" problem. One example is the Bronze Age trackway at Withy Bed Copse, in England; the trackway was built from wood that had clearly been worked for other purposes before being re-used in the trackway. Another example is driftwood, which may be used as construction material. It is not always possible to recognize re-use. Other materials can present the same problem: for example, bitumen is known to have been used by some Neolithic communities to waterproof baskets; the bitumen's radiocarbon age will be greater than is measurable by the laboratory, regardless of the actual age of the context, so testing the basket material will give a misleading age if care is not taken. A separate issue, related to re-use, is that of lengthy use, or delayed deposition. For example, a wooden object that remains in use for a lengthy period will have an apparent age greater than the actual age of the context in which it is deposited.
Archaeology is not the only field to make use of radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dates can also be used in geology, sedimentology, and lake studies, for example. The ability to date minute samples using AMS has meant that palaeobotanists and palaeoclimatologists can use radiocarbon dating directly on pollen purified from sediment sequences, or on small quantities of plant material or charcoal. Dates on organic material recovered from strata of interest can be used to correlate strata in different locations that appear to be similar on geological grounds. Dating material from one location gives date information about the other location, and the dates are also used to place strata in the overall geological timeline.
Radiocarbon is also used to date carbon released from ecosystems, particularly to monitor the release of old carbon that was previously stored in soils as a result of human disturbance or climate change. Recent advances in field collection techniques also allow the radiocarbon dating of methane and carbon dioxide, which are important Greenhouse gases.
The Pleistocene is a geological epoch that began about 2.6 million years ago. The Holocene, the current geological epoch, begins about 11,700 years ago when the Pleistocene ends. Establishing the date of this boundary − which is defined by sharp climatic warming − as accurately as possible has been a goal of geologists for much of the 20th century. At Two Creeks, in Wisconsin, a fossil forest was discovered (Two Creeks Buried Forest State Natural Area), and subsequent research determined that the destruction of the forest was caused by the Valders ice readvance, the last southward movement of ice before the end of the Pleistocene in that area. Before the advent of radiocarbon dating, the fossilized trees had been dated by correlating sequences of annually deposited layers of sediment at Two Creeks with sequences in Scandinavia. This led to estimates that the trees were between 24,000 and 19,000 years old, and hence this was taken to be the date of the last advance of the Wisconsin glaciation before its final retreat marked the end of the Pleistocene in North America. In 1952 Libby published radiocarbon dates for several samples from the Two Creeks site and two similar sites nearby; the dates were averaged to 11,404 BP with a standard error of 350 years. This result was uncalibrated, as the need for calibration of radiocarbon ages was not yet understood. Further results over the next decade supported an average date of 11,350 BP, with the results thought to be the most accurate averaging 11,600 BP. There was initial resistance to these results on the part of Ernst Antevs, the palaeobotanist who had worked on the Scandinavian varve series, but his objections were eventually discounted by other geologists. In the 1990s samples were tested with AMS, yielding (uncalibrated) dates ranging from 11,640 BP to 11,800 BP, both with a standard error of 160 years. Subsequently, a sample from the fossil forest was used in an interlaboratory test, with results provided by over 70 laboratories. These tests produced a median age of 11,788 ± 8 BP (2σ confidence) which when calibrated gives a date range of 13,730 to 13,550 cal BP. The Two Creeks radiocarbon dates are now regarded as a key result in developing the modern understanding of North American glaciation at the end of the Pleistocene.
In 1947, scrolls were discovered in caves near the Dead Sea that proved to contain writing in Hebrew and Aramaic, most of which are thought to have been produced by the Essenes, a small Jewish sect. These scrolls are of great significance in the study of Biblical texts because many of them contain the earliest known version of books of the Hebrew bible. A sample of the linen wrapping from one of these scrolls, the Great Isaiah Scroll, was included in a 1955 analysis by Libby, with an estimated age of 1,917 ± 200 years. Based on an analysis of the writing style, palaeographic estimates were made of the age of 21 of the scrolls, and samples from most of these, along with other scrolls which had not been palaeographically dated, were tested by two AMS laboratories in the 1990s. The results ranged in age from the early 4th century BC to the mid 4th century AD. In all but two cases the scrolls were determined to be within 100 years of the palaeographically determined age. The Isaiah scroll was included in the testing and was found to have two possible date ranges at a 2σ confidence level, because of the shape of the calibration curve at that point: there is a 15% chance that it dates from 355–295 BC, and an 84% chance that it dates from 210–45 BC. Subsequently, these dates were criticized on the grounds that before the scrolls were tested, they had been treated with modern castor oil in order to make the writing easier to read; it was argued that failure to remove the castor oil sufficiently would have caused the dates to be too young. Multiple papers have been published both supporting and opposing the criticism.
Soon after the publication of Libby's 1949 paper in "Science", universities around the world began establishing radiocarbon-dating laboratories, and by the end of the 1950s there were more than 20 active research laboratories. It quickly became apparent that the principles of radiocarbon dating were valid, despite certain discrepancies, the causes of which then remained unknown.
The development of radiocarbon dating has had a profound impact on archaeologyoften described as the "radiocarbon revolution". In the words of anthropologist R. E. Taylor, " data made a "world" prehistory possible by contributing a time scale that transcends local, regional and continental boundaries". It provides more accurate dating within sites than previous methods, which usually derived either from stratigraphy or from typologies (e.g. of stone tools or pottery); it also allows comparison and synchronization of events across great distances. The advent of radiocarbon dating may even have led to better field methods in archaeology since better data recording leads to a firmer association of objects with the samples to be tested. These improved field methods were sometimes motivated by attempts to prove that a date was incorrect. Taylor also suggests that the availability of definite date information freed archaeologists from the need to focus so much of their energy on determining the dates of their finds, and led to an expansion of the questions archaeologists were willing to research. For example, from the 1970s questions about the evolution of human behaviour were much more frequently seen in archaeology.
The dating framework provided by radiocarbon led to a change in the prevailing view of how innovations spread through prehistoric Europe. Researchers had previously thought that many ideas spread by diffusion through the continent, or by invasions of peoples bringing new cultural ideas with them. As radiocarbon dates began to prove these ideas wrong in many instances, it became apparent that these innovations must sometimes have arisen locally. This has been described as a "second radiocarbon revolution", and with regard to British prehistory, archaeologist Richard Atkinson has characterized the impact of radiocarbon dating as "radical ... therapy" for the "progressive disease of invasionism". More broadly, the success of radiocarbon dating stimulated interest in analytical and statistical approaches to archaeological data. Taylor has also described the impact of AMS, and the ability to obtain accurate measurements from very small samples, as ushering in a third radiocarbon revolution.
Occasionally, radiocarbon dating techniques date an object of popular interest, for example, the Shroud of Turin, a piece of linen cloth thought by some to bear an image of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. Three separate laboratories dated samples of linen from the Shroud in 1988; the results pointed to 14th-century origins, raising doubts about the shroud's authenticity as an alleged 1st-century relic.
Researchers have studied other radioactive isotopes created by cosmic rays to determine if they could also be used to assist in dating objects of archaeological interest; such isotopes include , , , , and . With the development of AMS in the 1980s it became possible to measure these isotopes precisely enough for them to be the basis of useful dating techniques, which have been primarily applied to dating rocks. Naturally occurring radioactive isotopes can also form the basis of dating methods, as with potassium–argon dating, argon–argon dating, and uranium series dating. Other dating techniques of interest to archaeologists include thermoluminescence, optically stimulated luminescence, electron spin resonance, and fission track dating, as well as techniques that depend on annual bands or layers, such as dendrochronology, tephrochronology, and varve chronology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26197 |
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions and a key figure of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He led the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage by sea, from 1903 to 1906, and the first expedition to the South Pole in 1911. He led the first expedition proven to have reached the North Pole in a dirigible in 1926. He disappeared while taking part in a rescue mission for the airship in 1928.
Amundsen was born into a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge, between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. His parents were Jens Amundsen and Hanna Sahlqvist. Roald was the fourth son in the family. His mother wanted him to avoid the family maritime trade and encouraged him to become a doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21. He promptly quit university for a life at sea.
When he was fifteen years old, Amundsen was enthralled by reading Sir John Franklin's narratives of his overland Arctic expeditions. Amundsen wrote "I read them with a fervid fascination which has shaped the whole course of my life".
Amundsen joined the Belgian Antarctic Expedition as first mate. This expedition, led by Adrien de Gerlache using the ship the RV "Belgica", became the first expedition to overwinter in Antarctica. The "Belgica", whether by mistake or design, became locked in the sea ice at 70°30′S off Alexander Island, west of the Antarctic Peninsula. The crew endured a winter for which they were poorly prepared.
By Amundsen's own estimation, the doctor for the expedition, the American Frederick Cook, probably saved the crew from scurvy by hunting for animals and feeding the crew fresh meat. In cases where citrus fruits are lacking, fresh meat from animals that make their own vitamin C contains enough of the vitamin to prevent scurvy, and even partly treat it. This was an important lesson for Amundsen's future expeditions.
In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse Canada's Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He planned a small expedition of six men in a fishing vessel, , in order to have flexibility. His ship had relatively shallow draft. His technique was to use a small ship and hug the coast. Amundsen had the ship outfitted with a small 13 horsepower single-screw paraffin engine.
They traveled via Baffin Bay, the Parry Channel and then south through Peel Sound, James Ross Strait, Simpson Strait and Rae Strait. They spent two winters at King William Island, in the harbor of what is today Gjoa Haven. During this time, Amundsen and the crew learned from the local Netsilik Inuit people about Arctic survival skills, which he found invaluable in his later expedition to the South Pole. For example, he learned to use sled dogs for transportation of goods and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas, which could not keep out the cold when wet.
Leaving Gjoa Haven, he sailed west and passed Cambridge Bay, which had been reached from the west by Richard Collinson in 1852. Continuing to the south of Victoria Island, the ship cleared the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on . It had to stop for the winter before going on to Nome on Alaska's Pacific coast. The nearest telegraph station was away in Eagle. Amundsen traveled there overland to wire a success message on 5 December, then returned to Nome in 1906. Later that year he was elected to the American Antiquarian Society.
At this time, Amundsen learned of the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden, and that he had a new king. The explorer sent the new king, Haakon VII, news that his traversing the Northwest Passage "was a great achievement for Norway". He said he hoped to do more and signed it "Your loyal subject, Roald Amundsen." The crew returned to Oslo in November 1906, after almost three-and-a-half years abroad. "Gjøa" was returned to Norway in 1972. After a trip from San Francisco on a bulk carrier, she was placed on land outside the Fram Museum in Oslo, where she is now situated inside her own dedicated building at the museum.
Amundsen next planned to take an expedition to the North Pole and explore the Arctic Basin. Finding it difficult to raise funds, when he heard in 1909 that the Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had claimed to reach the North Pole as a result of two different expeditions, he decided to reroute to Antarctica. He was not clear about his intentions, and Robert F. Scott and the Norwegian supporters felt misled. Scott was planning his own expedition to the South Pole that year. Using the ship , earlier used by Fridtjof Nansen, Amundsen left Oslo for the south on 3 June 1910. At Madeira, Amundsen alerted his men that they would be heading to Antarctica, and sent a telegram to Scott: "Beg to inform you "Fram" proceeding Antarctic – Amundsen."
Nearly six months later, the expedition arrived at the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf (then known as "the Great Ice Barrier"), at a large inlet called the Bay of Whales, on 14 January 1911. Amundsen established his base camp there, calling it . Amundsen eschewed the heavy wool clothing worn on earlier Antarctic attempts in favour of adopting Inuit-style furred skins.
Using skis and dog sleds for transportation, Amundsen and his men created supply depots at 80°, 81° and 82° South on the Barrier, along a line directly south to the Pole. Amundsen also planned to kill some of his dogs on the way and use them as a source for fresh meat. A small group, including Hjalmar Johansen, Kristian Prestrud and Jørgen Stubberud, set out on 8 September, but had to abandon their trek due to extreme temperatures. The painful retreat caused a quarrel within the group, and Amundsen sent Johansen and the other two men to explore King Edward VII Land.
A second attempt, with a team of five made up of Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting and Amundsen, departed base camp on 19 October. They took four sledges and 52 dogs. Using a route along the previously unknown Axel Heiberg Glacier, they arrived at the edge of the Polar Plateau on 21 November after a four-day climb. The team and 16 dogs arrived at the pole on 14 December, a month before Scott's group. Amundsen named their South Pole camp Polheim. Amundsen renamed the Antarctic Plateau as King Haakon VII's Plateau. They left a small tent and letter stating their accomplishment, in case they did not return safely to Framheim.
The team arrived at Framheim on 25 January 1912, with 11 surviving dogs. They made their way off the continent and to Hobart, Australia, where Amundsen publicly announced his success on 7 March 1912. He telegraphed news to backers.
Amundsen's expedition benefited from his careful preparation, good equipment, appropriate clothing, a simple primary task, an understanding of dogs and their handling, and the effective use of skis. In contrast to the misfortunes of Scott's team, Amundsen's trek proved relatively smooth and uneventful.
In 1918, an expedition Amundsen began with a new ship, , lasted until 1925. "Maud" was carefully navigated through the ice west to east through the Northeast Passage. With him on this expedition were Oscar Wisting and Helmer Hanssen, both of whom had been part of the team to reach the South Pole. In addition, Henrik Lindstrøm was included as a cook. He suffered a stroke and was so physically reduced that he could not participate.
The goal of the expedition was to explore the unknown areas of the Arctic Ocean, strongly inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's earlier expedition with "Fram". The plan was to sail along the coast of Siberia and go into the ice farther to the north and east than Nansen had. In contrast to Amundsen's earlier expeditions, this was expected to yield more material for academic research, and he carried the geophysicist Harald Sverdrup on board.
The voyage was to the northeasterly direction over the Kara Sea. Amundsen planned to freeze the "Maud" into the polar ice cap and drift towards the North Poleas Nansen had done with the "Fram"and he did so off Cape Chelyuskin. But, the ice became so thick that the ship was unable to break free, although it was designed for such a journey in heavy ice. In September 1919, the crew got the ship loose from the ice, but it froze again after eleven days somewhere between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island.
During this time, Amundsen suffered a broken arm and was attacked by polar bears. As a result, he participated little in the work outdoors, such as sleigh rides and hunting. He, Hanssen, and Wisting, along with two other men, embarked on an expedition by dog sled to Nome, Alaska, more than away. But they found that the ice was not frozen solid in the Bering Strait, and it could not be crossed. They sent a telegram from Anadyr to signal their location.
After two winters frozen in the ice, without having achieved the goal of drifting over the North Pole, Amundsen decided to go to Nome to repair the ship and buy provisions. Several of the crew ashore there, including Hanssen, did not return on time to the ship. Amundsen considered Hanssen to be in breach of contract, and dismissed him from the crew.
During the third winter, "Maud" was frozen in the western Bering Strait. She finally became free and the expedition sailed south, reaching Seattle, in the American Pacific Northwest in 1921 for repairs. Amundsen returned to Norway, needing to put his finances in order. He took with him two young indigenous girls, a four-year-old he adopted, Kakonita, and her companion Camilla. When Amundsen went bankrupt two years later, however, he sent the girls to be cared for by Camilla's father, who lived in eastern Russia.
In June 1922, Amundsen returned to "Maud", which had been sailed to Nome. He decided to shift from the planned naval expedition to aerial ones, and arranged to charter a plane. He divided the expedition team in two: one part, led by him, was to winter over and prepare for an attempt to fly over the pole in 1923. The second team on "Maud", under the command of Wisting, was to resume the original plan to drift over the North Pole in the ice. The ship drifted in the ice for three years east of the New Siberian Islands, never reaching the North Pole. It was finally seized by Amundsen's creditors as collateral for his mounting debt.
The 1923 attempt to fly over the Pole failed. Amundsen and Oskar Omdal, of the Royal Norwegian Navy, tried to fly from Wainwright, Alaska, to Spitsbergen across the North Pole. When their aircraft was damaged, they abandoned the journey. To raise additional funds, Amundsen traveled around the United States in 1924 on a lecture tour. Although he was unable to reach the North Pole, the scientific results of the expedition, mainly the work of Sverdrup, have proven to be of considerable value. Much of the carefully collected scientific data was lost during the ill-fated journey of Peter Tessem and Paul Knutsen, two crew members sent on a mission by Amundsen. The scientific materials were later retrieved by Russian scientist Nikolay Urvantsev from where they had been abandoned on the shores of the Kara Sea.
In 1925, accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth, pilot Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, flight mechanic Karl Feucht and two other team members, Amundsen took two Dornier Do J flying boats, the N-24 and N-25, to 87° 44′ north. It was the northernmost latitude reached by plane up to that time. The aircraft landed a few miles apart without radio contact, yet the crews managed to reunite. The N-24 was damaged. Amundsen and his crew worked for more than three weeks to clean up an airstrip to take off from ice. They shovelled 600 tons of ice while consuming only one pound (400 g) of daily food rations. In the end, the six crew members were packed into the N-25. In a remarkable feat, Riiser-Larsen took off, and they barely became airborne over the cracking ice. They returned triumphant when everyone thought they had been lost forever.
In 1926, Amundsen and 15 other men (including Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Oscar Wisting, and the Italian air crew led by aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile made the first crossing of the Arctic in the airship "Norge," designed by Nobile. They left Spitsbergen on 11 May 1926, flew over the North Pole on 12 May, and landed in Alaska the following day.
The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole: Frederick Cook in 1908; Robert Peary in 1909; and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 (just a few days before the "Norge") are disputed by some, as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud. If these other claims are false, the crew of the "Norge" would be the first explorers verified to have reached the North Pole, floated over it in the Norge in 1926. If the "Norge" expedition was the first to the North Pole, Amundsen and Oscar Wisting were the first men to have reached both geographical poles, by ground or by air.
Amundsen disappeared on 18 June 1928 while flying on a rescue mission in the Arctic. His team included Norwegian pilot Leif Dietrichson, French pilot René Guilbaud, and three more Frenchmen. They were seeking missing members of Nobile's crew, whose new airship had crashed while returning from the North Pole. Amundsen's French Latham 47 flying boat
never returned.
Later, a wing-float and bottom gasoline tank from the plane, which had been adapted as a replacement wing-float, were found near the Tromsø coast. It is believed that the plane crashed in fog in the Barents Sea, and that Amundsen and his crew were killed in the wreck, or died shortly afterward. The search for Amundsen and team was called off in September 1928 by the Norwegian government, and the bodies were never found.
In 2004 and in late August 2009, the Royal Norwegian Navy used the unmanned submarine "Hugin 1000" to search for the wreckage of Amundsen's plane. The searches focused on a area of the sea floor, and were documented by the German production company ContextTV. They found nothing from the Amundsen flight.
In 1925, Amundsen was awarded the Hans Egede Medal by the Royal Danish Geographical Society.
Owing to Amundsen's numerous significant accomplishments in polar exploration, many places in both the Arctic and Antarctic are named after him. The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, operated by the United States Antarctic Program, was jointly named in honour of Amundsen and his rival. British novelist Roald Dahl was named after Amundsen, as was Nobel Prize laureate Roald Hoffmann.
The 1969 film "The Red Tent" tells the story of the Nobile expedition and Amundsen's disappearance. Sean Connery plays the role of Amundsen.
Huntford's book was adapted into the TV serial "The Last Place on Earth". It aired in 1985 and featured Sverre Anker Ousdal as Amundsen.
On 15 February 2019, a biographic Norwegian film titled "Amundsen", directed by Espen Sandberg, was released.
At least two Inuit people in Gjøa Haven with European ancestry have claimed to be descendants of Amundsen, from the period of their extended winter stay on King Williams Island from 1903 to 1905. Accounts by members of the expedition told of their relations with Inuit women, and historians have speculated that Amundsen might also have taken a partner, although he wrote a warning against this.
Specifically, half-brothers Bob Konona and Paul Ikuallaq say that their father Luke Ikuallaq told them on his deathbed that he was the son of Amundsen. Konona said that their father Ikuallaq was left out on the ice to die after his birth, as his European ancestry made him illegitimate to the Inuit, threatening their community. His Inuit grandparents saved him.
In 2012, Y-DNA analysis, with the families' permission, showed that Ikuallaq was not a match to the direct male line of Amundsen. Not all descendants claiming European ancestry have been tested for a match to Amundsen, nor has there been a comparison of Ikuallaq's DNA to that of other European members of Amundsen's crew. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26199 |
Richard Lovelace
Richard Lovelace (pronounced , homophone of "loveless") (9 December 1617 – 1657) was an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of the king during the Civil War. His best known works are "To Althea, from Prison", and "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres".
Richard Lovelace was born on 9 December 1617. His exact birthplace is unknown, and may have been Woolwich, Kent, or Holland. He was the oldest son of Sir William Lovelace and Anne Barne Lovelace. He had four brothers and three sisters. His father was from a distinguished military and legal family; the Lovelace family owned a considerable amount of property in Kent.
His father, Sir William Lovelace, was a member of the Virginia Company and an incorporator in the second Virginia Company in 1609. He was a soldier and died during the war with Spain and the Dutch Republic in the Siege of Groenlo (1627) a few days before the town fell. Richard was nine years old when his father died.
Lovelace's father was the son of Sir William Lovelace and Elizabeth Aucher, who was the daughter of Mabel Wroths and Edward Aucher, who inherited, under his father's will, the manors of Bishopsbourne and Hautsborne. Elizabeth's nephew was Sir Anthony Aucher (1614 – 31 May 1692) an English politician and Cavalier during the English Civil War. He was the son of her brother Sir Anthony Aucher and his wife Hester Collett.
Lovelace's mother, Anne Barne (1587–1633), was the daughter of Sir William Barne and the granddaughter of Sir George Barne III (1532–1593), the Lord Mayor of London and a prominent merchant and public official from London during the reign of Elizabeth I and Anne Gerrard, daughter of Sir William Garrard, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1555.
Lovelace's maternal grandmother was Anne Sandys. His great-grandmother was Cicely Wilford and his great-grandfather Most Reverend Dr Edwin Sandys, an Anglican church leader who successively held the posts of Bishop of Worcester (1559–1570), Bishop of London (1570–1576), and Archbishop of York (1576–1588) and was one of the translators of the Bishops' Bible.
His mother, Anne Barne Lovelace, married as her second husband, on 20 January 1630, at Greenwich, England, the Very Rev Dr Jonathan Browne. They were the parents of one child, Anne Browne, Richard's half-sister, who married Herbert Croft and was the mother of Sir Herbert Croft, 1st Baronet see Croft baronets.
Lovelace's brother, Francis Lovelace (1621–1675), was the second governor of the New York Colony appointed by the Duke of York, later King James II of England. They were also great nephews of both George Sandys (2 March 1577 – March 1644), an English traveller, colonist and poet; and of Sir Edwin Sandys (9 December 1561 – October 1629), an English statesman and one of the founders of the London Company.
In 1629, when Lovelace was eleven, he went to Sutton's Foundation at Charterhouse School, then in London. There is no clear record that Lovelace actually attended; it is believed that he studied as a "boarder" because he did not need financial assistance like the "scholars". He spent five years at Charterhouse, three of which were spent with Richard Crashaw, who also became a poet. On 5 May 1631, Lovelace was sworn in as a Gentleman Wayter Extraordinary to King Charles I, an honorary position for which one paid a fee. He went on to Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 1634.
Lovelace attended the University of Oxford and was praised by his contemporary Anthony Wood as "the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the female sex".
While at college, he tried to portray himself more as a social connoisseur than as a scholar, continuing his image of being a Cavalier. Being a Cavalier poet, Lovelace wrote to praise a friend or fellow poet, to give advice in grief or love, to define a relationship, to articulate the precise amount of attention a man owes a woman, to celebrate beauty, and to persuade to love. Lovelace wrote a comedy, "The Scholars", while at Oxford. He then left for the University of Cambridge for a few months, where he met Lord Goring, who led him into political trouble.
At the age of eighteen he was granted the degree of Master of Arts at Oxford University.
Lovelace's poetry was often influenced by his experiences with politics and association with important figures of his time. At the age of nineteen he contributed a verse to a volume of elegies commemorating Princess Katharine. In 1639 Lovelace joined the regiment of Lord Goring, serving first as a senior ensign and later as a captain in the Bishops' Wars. This experience inspired "Sonnet. To Generall Goring", the poem "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres" and the tragedy "The Soldier". On his return to his home in Kent in 1640, Lovelace served as a country gentleman and a justice of the peace, encountering civil turmoil over religion and politics.
In 1641, Lovelace led a group of men to seize and destroy a petition for the abolition of Episcopal rule, which had been signed by 15,000 people. The following year he presented the House of Commons with Dering's pro-Royalist petition which was supposed to have been burned. These actions resulted in Lovelace's first imprisonment. He was shortly released on bail, with the stipulation that he avoid communication with the House of Commons without permission. This prevented Lovelace, who had done everything to prove himself during the Bishops' Wars, from participating in the first phase of the English Civil War. This first experience of imprisonment brought him to write one of his best known lyrics, "To Althea, from Prison", in which he illustrates his noble and paradoxical nature. Lovelace did everything he could to remain in the king's favor despite his inability to participate in the war.
During the political chaos of 1648 he was again imprisoned, this time for nearly a year. When he was released in April 1649, the king had been executed and Lovelace's cause seemed lost. As in his previous incarceration, this experience led to creative production—this time in the cause of spiritual freedom, as reflected in the release of his first volume of poetry, "Lucasta".
Lovelace died in 1657 and was buried in St Bride's Church in Fleet Street in the City of London.
From the time Richard Lovelace started writing while he was a student at Oxford he wrote almost 200 poems. His first work was a drama, "The Scholars", never published but performed at college and then in London. In 1640, he wrote a tragedy, "The Soldier" based on his military experience. When serving in the Bishops' Wars, he wrote the sonnet "To Generall Goring", a poem of Bacchanalian celebration rather than a glorification of military action. "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres", written in 1640, concerned his first political action. "To Althea, From Prison" was written during his first imprisonment in 1642. Later that year, during his travels to Holland with General Goring, he wrote "The Rose", followed by "The Scrutiny". On 14 May 1649, "Lucasta" was published. He also wrote poems on animal life: "The Ant", "The Grasse-hopper", "The Snayl", "The Falcon", "The Toad and Spyder". In 1660, after Lovelace died, "Lucasta: Postume Poems" was published; it contains "A Mock-Song", which has a darker tone than his previous works.
William Winstanley thought highly of Lovelace's work and compared him to an idol: "I can compare no Man so like this Colonel Lovelace as Sir Philip Sidney" of which it is in an Epitaph made of him;
His most quoted excerpts are from the beginning of the last stanza of "To Althea, From Prison":
and the end of "To Lucasta. Going to the Warres": | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26200 |
Reduced instruction set computer
A reduced instruction set computer, or RISC (), is a computer with a small, highly-optimized set of instructions, rather than the more specialized set often found in other types of architecture, such as in a complex instruction set computer (CISC).
The main distinguishing feature of RISC architecture is that the instruction set is optimized with a large number of registers and a highly regular instruction pipeline, allowing a low number of clock cycles per instruction (CPI).
Another common RISC feature is the load/store architecture, in which memory is accessed through specific instructions rather than as a part of most instructions in the set.
Although a number of computers from the 1960s and 1970s have been identified as forerunners of RISCs, the modern concept dates to the 1980s. In particular, two projects at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley are most associated with the popularization of this concept. Stanford's MIPS would go on to be commercialized as the successful MIPS architecture, while Berkeley's RISC gave its name to the entire concept and was commercialized as the SPARC. Another success from this era was IBM's effort that eventually led to the IBM POWER instruction set architecture, PowerPC, and Power ISA. As these projects matured, a variety of similar designs flourished in the late 1980s and especially the early 1990s, representing a major force in the Unix workstation market as well as for embedded processors in laser printers, routers and similar products.
The many varieties of RISC designs include ARC, Alpha, Am29000, ARM, Atmel AVR, Blackfin, i860, i960, M88000, MIPS, PA-RISC, Power ISA (including PowerPC), RISC-V, SuperH, and SPARC. The use of ARM architecture processors in smartphones and tablet computers such as the iPad and Android devices provided a wide user base for RISC-based systems. RISC processors are also used in supercomputers, such as Fugaku, which, , is the world's fastest supercomputer.
Alan Turing's 1946 Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) design had many of the characteristics of a RISC architecture. A number of systems, going back to the 1960s, have been credited as the first RISC architecture, partly based on their use of load/store approach. The term RISC was coined by David Patterson of the Berkeley RISC project, although somewhat similar concepts had appeared before.
The CDC 6600 designed by Seymour Cray in 1964 used a load/store architecture with only two addressing modes (register+register, and register+immediate constant) and 74 operation codes, with the basic clock cycle being 10 times faster than the memory access time. Partly due to the optimized load/store architecture of the CDC 6600, Jack Dongarra says that it can be considered a forerunner of modern RISC systems, although a number of other technical barriers needed to be overcome for the development of a modern RISC system.
Michael J. Flynn views the first RISC system as the IBM 801 design, begun in 1975 by John Cocke and completed in 1980. The 801 was eventually produced in a single-chip form as the IBM ROMP in 1981, which stood for 'Research OPD [Office Products Division] Micro Processor'. As the name implies, this CPU was designed for "mini" tasks, and was also used in the IBM RT PC in 1986, which turned out to be a commercial failure. But the 801 inspired several research projects, including new ones at IBM that would eventually lead to the IBM POWER instruction set architecture.
In the mid-1970s, researchers (particularly John Cocke) at IBM (and similar projects elsewhere) demonstrated that the majority of combinations of these orthogonal addressing modes and instructions were not used by most programs generated by compilers available at the time. It proved difficult in many cases to write a compiler with more than limited ability to take advantage of the features provided by conventional CPUs. It was also discovered that, on microcoded implementations of certain architectures, complex operations tended to be "slower" than a sequence of simpler operations doing the same thing. This was in part an effect of the fact that many designs were rushed, with little time to optimize or tune every instruction; only those used most often were optimized, and a sequence of those instructions could be faster than a less-tuned instruction performing an equivalent operation as that sequence. One infamous example was the VAX's codice_1 instruction. As mentioned elsewhere, core memory had long since been slower than many CPU designs. The advent of semiconductor memory reduced this difference, but it was still apparent that more registers (and later caches) would allow higher CPU operating frequencies. Additional registers would require sizeable chip or board areas which, at the time (1975), could be made available if the complexity of the CPU logic was reduced.
The most public RISC designs, however, were the results of university research programs run with funding from the DARPA VLSI Program. The VLSI Program, practically unknown today, led to a huge number of advances in chip design, fabrication, and even computer graphics. The Berkeley RISC project started in 1980 under the direction of David Patterson and Carlo H. Sequin.
Berkeley RISC was based on gaining performance through the use of pipelining and an aggressive use of a technique known as register windowing. In a traditional CPU, one has a small number of registers, and a program can use any register at any time. In a CPU with register windows, there are a huge number of registers, e.g., 128, but programs can only use a small number of them, e.g., eight, at any one time. A program that limits itself to eight registers per procedure can make very fast procedure calls: The call simply moves the window "down" by eight, to the set of eight registers used by that procedure, and the return moves the window back. The Berkeley RISC project delivered the RISC-I processor in 1982. Consisting of only 44,420 transistors (compared with averages of about 100,000 in newer CISC designs of the era) RISC-I had only 32 instructions, and yet completely outperformed any other single-chip design. They followed this up with the 40,760 transistor, 39 instruction RISC-II in 1983, which ran over three times as fast as RISC-I.
The MIPS project grew out of a graduate course by John L. Hennessy at Stanford University in 1981, resulted in a functioning system in 1983, and could run simple programs by 1984. The MIPS approach emphasized an aggressive clock cycle and the use of the pipeline, making sure it could be run as "full" as possible. The MIPS system was followed by the MIPS-X and in 1984 Hennessy and his colleagues formed MIPS Computer Systems. The commercial venture resulted in a new architecture that was also called MIPS and the R2000 microprocessor in 1985.
In the early 1980s, significant uncertainties surrounded the RISC concept, and it was uncertain if it could have a commercial future, but by the mid-1980s the concepts had matured enough to be seen as commercially viable. In 1986 Hewlett Packard started using an early implementation of their PA-RISC in some of their computers. In the meantime, the Berkeley RISC effort had become so well known that it eventually became the name for the entire concept and in 1987 Sun Microsystems began shipping systems with the SPARC processor, directly based on the Berkeley RISC-II system.
The US government Committee on Innovations in Computing and Communications credits the acceptance of the viability of the RISC concept to the success of the SPARC system. The success of SPARC renewed interest within IBM, which released new RISC systems by 1990 and by 1995 RISC processors were the foundation of a $15 billion server industry.
Since 2010 a new open source instruction set architecture (ISA), RISC-V, has been under development at the University of California, Berkeley, for research purposes and as a free alternative to proprietary ISAs. As of 2014, version 2 of the user space ISA is fixed. The ISA is designed to be extensible from a barebones core sufficient for a small embedded processor to supercomputer and cloud computing use with standard and chip designer defined extensions and coprocessors. It has been tested in silicon design with the ROCKET SoC which is also available as an open-source processor generator in the CHISEL language.
A common misunderstanding of the phrase "reduced instruction set computer" is the mistaken idea that instructions are simply eliminated, resulting in a smaller set of instructions.
In fact, over the years, RISC instruction sets have grown in size, and today many of them have a larger set of instructions than many CISC CPUs. Some RISC processors such as the PowerPC have instruction sets as large as the CISC IBM System/370, for example; conversely, the DEC PDP-8—clearly a CISC CPU because many of its instructions involve multiple memory accesses—has only 8 basic instructions and a few extended instructions.
The term "reduced" in that phrase was intended to describe the fact that the amount of work any single instruction accomplishes is reduced—at most a single data memory cycle—compared to the "complex instructions" of CISC CPUs that may require dozens of data memory cycles in order to execute a single instruction. In particular, RISC processors typically have separate instructions for I/O and data processing.
The term load/store architecture is sometimes preferred.
Most RISC architectures have fixed-length instructions (commonly 32 bits) and a simple encoding, which simplifies fetch, decode, and issue logic considerably. One drawback of 32-bit instructions is reduced code density, which is more adverse a characteristic in embedded computing than it is in the workstation and server markets RISC architectures were originally designed to serve. To address this problem, several architectures, such as ARM, Power ISA, MIPS, RISC-V, and the Adapteva Epiphany, have an optional short, feature-reduced instruction format or instruction compression feature. The SH5 also follows this pattern, albeit having evolved in the opposite direction, having added longer media instructions to an original 16-bit encoding.
For any given level of general performance, a RISC chip will typically have far fewer transistors dedicated to the core logic which originally allowed designers to increase the size of the register set and increase internal parallelism.
Other features of RISC architectures include:
RISC designs are also more likely to feature a Harvard memory model, where the instruction stream and the data stream are conceptually separated; this means that modifying the memory where code is held might not have any effect on the instructions executed by the processor (because the CPU has a separate instruction and data cache), at least until a special synchronization instruction is issued. On the upside, this allows both caches to be accessed simultaneously, which can often improve performance.
Many early RISC designs also shared the characteristic of having a branch delay slot, an instruction space immediately following a jump or branch. The instruction in this space is executed, whether or not the branch is taken (in other words the effect of the branch is delayed). This instruction keeps the ALU of the CPU busy for the extra time normally needed to perform a branch. Nowadays the branch delay slot is considered an unfortunate side effect of a particular strategy for implementing some RISC designs, and modern RISC designs generally do away with it (such as PowerPC and more recent versions of SPARC and MIPS).
Some aspects attributed to the first RISC-"labeled" designs around 1975 include the observations that the memory-restricted compilers of the time were often unable to take advantage of features intended to facilitate "manual" assembly coding, and that complex addressing modes take many cycles to perform due to the required additional memory accesses. It was argued that such functions would be better performed by sequences of simpler instructions if this could yield implementations small enough to leave room for many registers, reducing the number of slow memory accesses. In these simple designs, most instructions are of uniform length and similar structure, arithmetic operations are restricted to CPU registers and only separate "load" and "store" instructions access memory. These properties enable a better balancing of pipeline stages than before, making RISC pipelines significantly more efficient and allowing higher clock frequencies.
Yet another impetus of both RISC and other designs came from practical measurements on real-world programs. Andrew Tanenbaum summed up many of these, demonstrating that processors often had oversized immediates. For instance, he showed that 98% of all the constants in a program would fit in 13 bits, yet many CPU designs dedicated 16 or 32 bits to store them. This suggests that, to reduce the number of memory accesses, a fixed length machine could store constants in unused bits of the instruction word itself, so that they would be immediately ready when the CPU needs them (much like immediate addressing in a conventional design). This required small opcodes in order to leave room for a reasonably sized constant in a 32-bit instruction word.
Since many real-world programs spend most of their time executing simple operations, some researchers decided to focus on making those operations as fast as possible. The clock rate of a CPU is limited by the time it takes to execute the slowest "sub-operation" of any instruction; decreasing that cycle-time often accelerates the execution of other instructions. The focus on "reduced instructions" led to the resulting machine being called a "reduced instruction set computer" (RISC). The goal was to make instructions so simple that they could "easily" be pipelined, in order to achieve a "single clock" throughput at "high frequencies".
Later, it was noted that one of the most significant characteristics of RISC processors was that external memory was only accessible by a "load" or "store" instruction. All other instructions were limited to internal registers. This simplified many aspects of processor design: allowing instructions to be fixed-length, simplifying pipelines, and isolating the logic for dealing with the delay in completing a memory access (cache miss, etc.) to only two instructions. This led to RISC designs being referred to as "load/store" architectures.
Some CPUs have been specifically designed to have a very small set of instructions – but these designs are very different from classic RISC designs, so they have been given other names such as minimal instruction set computer (MISC) or transport triggered architecture (TTA).
RISC architectures have traditionally had few successes in the desktop PC and commodity server markets, where the x86-based platforms remain the dominant processor architecture. However, this may change, as ARM-based processors are being developed for higher performance systems. Manufacturers including Cavium, AMD, and Qualcomm have released server processors based on the ARM architecture. ARM is further partnered with Cray in 2017 to produce an ARM-based supercomputer. On the desktop, Microsoft announced that it planned to support the PC version of Windows 10 on Qualcomm Snapdragon-based devices in 2017 as part of its partnership with Qualcomm. These devices will support x86-based Win32 software via an x86 processor emulator.
Outside of the desktop arena, however, the ARM RISC architecture is in widespread use in smartphones, tablets and many forms of embedded device. It is also the case that since the Pentium Pro (P6), Intel has been using an internal RISC processor core for its processors.
While early RISC designs differed significantly from contemporary CISC designs, by 2000 the highest-performing CPUs in the RISC line were almost indistinguishable from the highest-performing CPUs in the CISC line.
RISC architectures are now used across a range of platforms, from smartphones and tablet computers to some of the world's fastest supercomputers such as Summit, the fastest on the TOP500 list .
By the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of low-end and mobile systems relied on RISC architectures. Examples include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26201 |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."
Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, "" (1841) and "" (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance", "The Over-Soul", "Circles", "The Poet", and "Experience." Together with "Nature", these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for mankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world."
He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. "In all my lectures," he wrote, "I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man." Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.
Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25, 1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. He was named after his mother's brother Ralph and his father's great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo. Ralph Waldo was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood; the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley, and Charles. Three other children—Phebe, John Clarke, and Mary Caroline—died in childhood. Emerson was entirely of English ancestry, and his family had been in New England since the early colonial period.
Emerson's father died from stomach cancer on May 12, 1811, less than two weeks before Emerson's eighth birthday. Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of the other women in the family; his aunt Mary Moody Emerson in particular had a profound effect on him. She lived with the family off and on and maintained a constant correspondence with Emerson until her death in 1863.
Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine. In October 1817, at age 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. Midway through his junior year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called "Wide World". He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel and aunt Sarah Ripley in Waltham, Massachusetts. By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo. Emerson served as Class Poet; as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18. He did not stand out as a student and graduated in the exact middle of his class of 59 people. In the early 1820s, Emerson was a teacher at the School for Young Ladies (which was run by his brother William). He would next spend two years living in a cabin in the Canterbury section of Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he wrote and studied nature. In his honor, this area is now called Schoolmaster Hill in Boston’s Franklin Park.
In 1826, faced with poor health, Emerson went to seek a warmer climate. He first went to Charleston, South Carolina, but found the weather was still too cold. He then went farther south, to St. Augustine, Florida, where he took long walks on the beach and began writing poetry. While in St. Augustine he made the acquaintance of Prince Achille Murat, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. Murat was two years his senior; they became good friends and enjoyed each other's company. The two engaged in enlightening discussions of religion, society, philosophy, and government. Emerson considered Murat an important figure in his intellectual education.
While in St. Augustine, Emerson had his first encounter with slavery. At one point, he attended a meeting of the Bible Society while a slave auction was taking place in the yard outside. He wrote, "One ear therefore heard the glad tidings of great joy, whilst the other was regaled with 'Going, gentlemen, going!'"
After Harvard, Emerson assisted his brother William in a school for young women established in their mother's house, after he had established his own school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts; when his brother William went to Göttingen to study law in mid-1824, Ralph Waldo closed the school but continued to teach in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until early 1825. Emerson was accepted into the Harvard Divinity School in late 1824, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1828. Emerson's brother Edward, two years younger than he, entered the office of the lawyer Daniel Webster, after graduating from Harvard first in his class. Edward's physical health began to deteriorate, and he soon suffered a mental collapse as well; he was taken to McLean Asylum in June 1828 at age 23. Although he recovered his mental equilibrium, he died in 1834, apparently from long-standing tuberculosis. Another of Emerson's bright and promising younger brothers, Charles, born in 1808, died in 1836, also of tuberculosis, making him the third young person in Emerson's innermost circle to die in a period of a few years.
Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire, on Christmas Day, 1827, and married her when she was 18. The couple moved to Boston, with Emerson's mother, Ruth, moving with them to help take care of Ellen, who was already ill with tuberculosis. Less than two years later, on February 8, 1831, Ellen died, at the age of 20, after uttering her last words: "I have not forgotten the peace and joy". Emerson was heavily affected by her death and visited her grave in Roxbury daily. In a journal entry dated March 29, 1832, he wrote, "I visited Ellen's tomb & opened the coffin".
Boston's Second Church invited Emerson to serve as its junior pastor, and he was ordained on January 11, 1829. His initial salary was $1,200 a year, increasing to $1,400 in July, but with his church role he took on other responsibilities: he was the chaplain of the Massachusetts legislature and a member of the Boston school committee. His church activities kept him busy, though during this period, facing the imminent death of his wife, he began to doubt his own beliefs.
After his wife's death, he began to disagree with the church's methods, writing in his journal in June 1832, "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers". His disagreements with church officials over the administration of the Communion service and misgivings about public prayer eventually led to his resignation in 1832. As he wrote, "This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That is reason enough why I should abandon it". As one Emerson scholar has pointed out, "Doffing the decent black of the pastor, he was free to choose the gown of the lecturer and teacher, of the thinker not confined within the limits of an institution or a tradition".
Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and later wrote of his travels in "English Traits" (1856). He left aboard the brig "Jasper" on Christmas Day, 1832, sailing first to Malta. During his European trip, he spent several months in Italy, visiting Rome, Florence and Venice, among other cities. When in Rome, he met with John Stuart Mill, who gave him a letter of recommendation to meet Thomas Carlyle. He went to Switzerland, and had to be dragged by fellow passengers to visit Voltaire's home in Ferney, "protesting all the way upon the unworthiness of his memory". He then went on to Paris, a "loud modern New York of a place", where he visited the Jardin des Plantes. He was greatly moved by the organization of plants according to Jussieu's system of classification, and the way all such objects were related and connected. As Robert D. Richardson says, "Emerson's moment of insight into the interconnectedness of things in the Jardin des Plantes was a moment of almost visionary intensity that pointed him away from theology and toward science".
Moving north to England, Emerson met William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle in particular was a strong influence on him; Emerson would later serve as an unofficial literary agent in the United States for Carlyle, and in March 1835, he tried to persuade Carlyle to come to America to lecture. The two maintained a correspondence until Carlyle's death in 1881.
Emerson returned to the United States on October 9, 1833, and lived with his mother in Newton, Massachusetts. In October 1834, he moved to Concord, Massachusetts to live with his step-grandfather, Dr. Ezra Ripley, at what was later named The Old Manse. Seeing the budding Lyceum movement, which provided lectures on all sorts of topics, Emerson saw a possible career as a lecturer. On November 5, 1833, he made the first of what would eventually be some 1,500 lectures, "The Uses of Natural History", in Boston. This was an expanded account of his experience in Paris. In this lecture, he set out some of his important beliefs and the ideas he would later develop in his first published essay, "Nature":
On January 24, 1835, Emerson wrote a letter to Lidian Jackson proposing marriage. Her acceptance reached him by mail on the 28th. In July 1835, he bought a house on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts, which he named Bush; it is now open to the public as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House. Emerson quickly became one of the leading citizens in the town. He gave a lecture to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the town of Concord on September 12, 1835. Two days later, he married Lidian Jackson in her home town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and moved to the new home in Concord together with Emerson's mother on September 15.
Emerson quickly changed his wife's name to Lidian, and would call her Queenie, and sometimes Asia, and she called him Mr. Emerson. Their children were Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson. Edward Waldo Emerson was the father of Raymond Emerson. Ellen was named for his first wife, at Lidian's suggestion.
Emerson was poor when he was at Harvard, but was later able to support his family for much of his life. He inherited a fair amount of money after his first wife's death, though he had to file a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it. He received $11,600 in May 1834, and a further $11,674.49 in July 1837. In 1834, he considered that he had an income of $1,200 a year from the initial payment of the estate, equivalent to what he had earned as a pastor.
On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of "Nature", Emerson met with Frederic Henry Hedge, George Putnam and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals. This was the beginning of the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement. Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836. On September 1, 1837, women attended a meeting of the Transcendental Club for the first time. Emerson invited Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Hoar and Sarah Ripley for dinner at his home before the meeting to ensure that they would be present for the evening get-together. Fuller would prove to be an important figure in transcendentalism.
Emerson anonymously published his first essay, "Nature", on September 9, 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, he delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar", then entitled "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays (which included the first general publication of "Nature") in 1849. Friends urged him to publish the talk, and he did so, at his own expense, in an edition of 500 copies, which sold out in a month. In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe. James Russell Lowell, who was a student at Harvard at the time, called it "an event without former parallel on our literary annals". Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address".
In 1837, Emerson befriended Henry David Thoreau. Though they had likely met as early as 1835, in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on to be a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau. Emerson's own journal was published in 16 large volumes, in the definitive Harvard University Press edition issued between 1960 and 1982. Some scholars consider the journal to be Emerson's key literary work.
In March 1837, Emerson gave a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at the Masonic Temple in Boston. This was the first time he managed a lecture series on his own, and it was the beginning of his career as a lecturer. The profits from this series of lectures were much larger than when he was paid by an organization to talk, and he continued to manage his own lectures often throughout his lifetime. He eventually gave as many as 80 lectures a year, traveling across the northern United States as far as St. Louis, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and California.
On July 15, 1838, Emerson was invited to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School, to deliver the school's graduation address, which came to be known as the "Divinity School Address". Emerson discounted biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God: historical Christianity, he said, had turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo". His comments outraged the establishment and the general Protestant community. He was denounced as an atheist and a poisoner of young men's minds. Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put forward a defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years.
The transcendental group began to publish its flagship journal, "The Dial", in July 1840. They planned the journal as early as October 1839, but work did not begin until the first week of 1840. George Ripley was the managing editor. Margaret Fuller was the first editor, having been approached by Emerson after several others had declined the role. Fuller stayed on for about two years, when Emerson took over, utilizing the journal to promote talented young writers including Ellery Channing and Thoreau.
In 1841 Emerson published "Essays", his second book, which included the famous essay "Self-Reliance". His aunt called it a "strange medley of atheism and false independence", but it gained favorable reviews in London and Paris. This book, and its popular reception, more than any of Emerson's contributions to date laid the groundwork for his international fame.
In January 1842 Emerson's first son, Waldo, died of scarlet fever. Emerson wrote of his grief in the poem "Threnody" ("For this losing is true dying"), and the essay "Experience". In the same month, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather.
Bronson Alcott announced his plans in November 1842 to find "a farm of a hundred acres in excellent condition with good buildings, a good orchard and grounds". Charles Lane purchased a farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, in May 1843 for what would become Fruitlands, a community based on Utopian ideals inspired in part by transcendentalism. The farm would run based on a communal effort, using no animals for labor; its participants would eat no meat and use no wool or leather. Emerson said he felt "sad at heart" for not engaging in the experiment himself. Even so, he did not feel Fruitlands would be a success. "Their whole doctrine is spiritual", he wrote, "but they always end with saying, Give us much land and money". Even Alcott admitted he was not prepared for the difficulty in operating Fruitlands. "None of us were prepared to actualize practically the ideal life of which we dreamed. So we fell apart", he wrote. After its failure, Emerson helped buy a farm for Alcott's family in Concord which Alcott named "Hillside".
"The Dial" ceased publication in April 1844; Horace Greeley reported it as an end to the "most original and thoughtful periodical ever published in this country".
In 1844, Emerson published his second collection of essays, "Essays: Second Series". This collection included "The Poet", "Experience", "Gifts", and an essay entitled "Nature", a different work from the 1836 essay of the same name.
Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and much of the rest of the country. He had begun lecturing in 1833; by the 1850s he was giving as many as 80 lectures per year. He addressed the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the Gloucester Lyceum, among others. Emerson spoke on a wide variety of subjects, and many of his essays grew out of his lectures. He charged between $10 and $50 for each appearance, bringing him as much as $2,000 in a typical winter lecture season. This was more than his earnings from other sources. In some years, he earned as much as $900 for a series of six lectures, and in another, for a winter series of talks in Boston, he netted $1,600. He eventually gave some 1,500 lectures in his lifetime. His earnings allowed him to expand his property, buying of land by Walden Pond and a few more acres in a neighboring pine grove. He wrote that he was "landlord and waterlord of 14 acres, more or less".
Emerson was introduced to Indian philosophy through the works of the French philosopher Victor Cousin. In 1845, Emerson's journals show he was reading the "Bhagavad Gita" and Henry Thomas Colebrooke's "Essays on the Vedas". He was strongly influenced by Vedanta, and much of his writing has strong shades of nondualism. One of the clearest examples of this can be found in his essay "The Over-soul":
The central message Emerson drew from his Asian studies was that "the purpose of life was spiritual transformation and direct experience of divine power, here and now on earth."
In 1847–48, he toured the British Isles. He also visited Paris between the French Revolution of 1848 and the bloody June Days. When he arrived, he saw the stumps of trees that had been cut down to form barricades in the February riots. On May 21, he stood on the Champ de Mars in the midst of mass celebrations for concord, peace and labor. He wrote in his journal, "At the end of the year we shall take account, & see if the Revolution was worth the trees." The trip left an important imprint on Emerson's later work. His 1856 book "English Traits" is based largely on observations recorded in his travel journals and notebooks. Emerson later came to see the American Civil War as a "revolution" that shared common ground with the European revolutions of 1848.
In a speech in Concord, Massachusetts on May 3, 1851, Emerson denounced the Fugitive Slave Act:
That summer, he wrote in his diary:
In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited an edition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850. Within a week of her death, her New York editor, Horace Greeley, suggested to Emerson that a biography of Fuller, to be called "Margaret and Her Friends", be prepared quickly "before the interest excited by her sad decease has passed away". Published under the title "The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli", Fuller's words were heavily censored or rewritten. The three editors were not concerned about accuracy; they believed public interest in Fuller was temporary and that she would not survive as a historical figure. Even so, it was the best-selling biography of the decade and went through thirteen editions before the end of the century.
Walt Whitman published the innovative poetry collection "Leaves of Grass" in 1855 and sent a copy to Emerson for his opinion. Emerson responded positively, sending Whitman a flattering five-page letter in response. Emerson's approval helped the first edition of "Leaves of Grass" stir up significant interest and convinced Whitman to issue a second edition shortly thereafter. This edition quoted a phrase from Emerson's letter, printed in gold leaf on the cover: "I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career". Emerson took offense that this letter was made public and later was more critical of the work.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the summer of 1858, would venture into the great wilderness of upstate New York.
Joining him were nine of the most illustrious intellectuals ever to camp out in the Adirondacks to connect with nature: Louis Agassiz, James Russell Lowell, John Holmes, Horatio Woodman, Ebenezer Rockwell Hoar, Jeffries Wyman, Estes Howe, Amos Binney, and William James Stillman. Invited, but unable to make the trip for diverse reasons, were: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Charles Eliot Norton, all members of the Saturday Club (Boston, Massachusetts).
This social club was mostly a literary membership that met the last Saturday of the month at the Boston Parker House Hotel (Omni Parker House). William James Stillman was a painter and founding editor of an art journal called the Crayon. Stillman was born and grew up in Schenectady which was just south of the Adirondack mountains. He would later travel there to paint the wilderness landscape and to fish and hunt. He would share his experiences in this wilderness to the members of the Saturday Club, raising their interest in this unknown region.
James Russell Lowell and William Stillman would lead the effort to organize a trip to the Adirondacks. They would begin their journey on August 2, 1858, traveling by train, steam boat, stagecoach and canoe guide boats. News that these cultured men were living like "Sacs and Sioux" in the wilderness appeared in newspapers across the nation. This would become known as the ""Philosophers Camp""
This event was a landmark in the 19th-century intellectual movement, linking nature with art and literature.
Although much has been written over many years by scholars and biographers of Emerson's life, little has been written of what has become known as the "Philosophers Camp". Yet, his epic poem "Adirondac" reads like a journal of his day to day detailed description of adventures in the wilderness with his fellow members of the Saturday Club. This two week camping excursion (1858 in the Adirondacks) brought him face to face with a true wilderness, something he spoke of in his essay "Nature" published in 1836. He said, "in the wilderness I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages".
Emerson was staunchly opposed to slavery, but he did not appreciate being in the public limelight and was hesitant about lecturing on the subject. But in the years leading up to the Civil War, he did give a number of lectures, beginning as early as November, 1837. A number of his friends and family members were more active abolitionists than he, at first, but from 1844 on, he more actively opposed slavery. He gave a number of speeches and lectures, and welcomed John Brown to his home during Brown's visits to Concord. He voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, but was disappointed that Lincoln was more concerned about preserving the Union than eliminating slavery outright. Once the American Civil War broke out, Emerson made it clear that he believed in immediate emancipation of the slaves.
Around this time, in 1860, Emerson published "The Conduct of Life", his seventh collection of essays. It "grappled with some of the thorniest issues of the moment," and "his experience in the abolition ranks is a telling influence in his conclusions." In these essays Emerson strongly embraced the idea of war as a means of national rebirth: "Civil war, national bankruptcy, or revolution, [are] more rich in the central tones than languid years of prosperity."
Emerson visited Washington, D.C, at the end of January 1862. He gave a public lecture at the Smithsonian on January 31, 1862, and declared:, "The South calls slavery an institution ... I call it destitution ... Emancipation is the demand of civilization". The next day, February 1, his friend Charles Sumner took him to meet Lincoln at the White House. Lincoln was familiar with Emerson's work, having previously seen him lecture. Emerson's misgivings about Lincoln began to soften after this meeting. In 1865, he spoke at a memorial service held for Lincoln in Concord: "Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain as this has caused, or will have caused, on its announcement." Emerson also met a number of high-ranking government officials, including Salmon P. Chase, the secretary of the treasury; Edward Bates, the attorney general; Edwin M. Stanton, the secretary of war; Gideon Welles, the secretary of the navy; and William Seward, the secretary of state.
On May 6, 1862, Emerson's protégé Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. Emerson delivered his eulogy. He often referred to Thoreau as his best friend, despite a falling-out that began in 1849 after Thoreau published "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers". Another friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, died two years after Thoreau, in 1864. Emerson served as a pallbearer when Hawthorne was buried in Concord, as Emerson wrote, "in a pomp of sunshine and verdure".
He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1864.
Starting in 1867, Emerson's health began declining; he wrote much less in his journals. Beginning as early as the summer of 1871 or in the spring of 1872, he started experiencing memory problems and suffered from aphasia. By the end of the decade, he forgot his own name at times and, when anyone asked how he felt, he responded, "Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well".
In the spring of 1871, Emerson took a trip on the transcontinental railroad, barely two years after its completion. Along the way and in California he met a number of dignitaries, including Brigham Young during a stopover in Salt Lake City. Part of his California visit included a trip to Yosemite, and while there he met a young and unknown John Muir, a signature event in Muir's career.
Emerson's Concord home caught fire on July 24, 1872. He called for help from neighbors and, giving up on putting out the flames, all tried to save as many objects as possible. The fire was put out by Ephraim Bull Jr., the one-armed son of Ephraim Wales Bull. Donations were collected by friends to help the Emersons rebuild, including $5,000 gathered by Francis Cabot Lowell, another $10,000 collected by LeBaron Russell Briggs, and a personal donation of $1,000 from George Bancroft. Support for shelter was offered as well; though the Emersons ended up staying with family at the Old Manse, invitations came from Anne Lynch Botta, James Elliot Cabot, James Thomas Fields and Annie Adams Fields. The fire marked an end to Emerson's serious lecturing career; from then on, he would lecture only on special occasions and only in front of familiar audiences.
While the house was being rebuilt, Emerson took a trip to England, continental Europe, and Egypt. He left on October 23, 1872, along with his daughter Ellen while his wife Lidian spent time at the Old Manse and with friends. Emerson and his daughter Ellen returned to the United States on the ship "Olympus" along with friend Charles Eliot Norton on April 15, 1873. Emerson's return to Concord was celebrated by the town and school was canceled that day.
In late 1874, Emerson published an anthology of poetry called "Parnassus", which included poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Julia Caroline Dorr, Jean Ingelow, Lucy Larcom, Jones Very, as well as Thoreau and several others. The anthology was originally prepared as early as the fall of 1871 but was delayed when the publishers asked for revisions.
The problems with his memory had become embarrassing to Emerson and he ceased his public appearances by 1879. As Holmes wrote, "Emerson is afraid to trust himself in society much, on account of the failure of his memory and the great difficulty he finds in getting the words he wants. It is painful to witness his embarrassment at times". On April 21, 1882, Emerson was found to be suffering from pneumonia. He died six days later. Emerson is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts. He was placed in his coffin wearing a white robe given by the American sculptor Daniel Chester French.
Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine. Critics believed that Emerson was removing the central God figure; as Henry Ware Jr. said, Emerson was in danger of taking away "the Father of the Universe" and leaving "but a company of children in an orphan asylum". Emerson was partly influenced by German philosophy and Biblical criticism. His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature. When asked his religious belief, Emerson stated, "I am more of a Quaker than anything else. I believe in the 'still, small voice,' and that voice is Christ within us."
Emerson did not become an ardent abolitionist until 1844, though his journals show he was concerned with slavery beginning in his youth, even dreaming about helping to free slaves. In June 1856, shortly after Charles Sumner, a United States Senator, was beaten for his staunch abolitionist views, Emerson lamented that he himself was not as committed to the cause. He wrote, "There are men who as soon as they are born take a bee-line to the axe of the inquisitor. ... Wonderful the way in which we are saved by this unfailing supply of the moral element". After Sumner's attack, Emerson began to speak out about slavery. "I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom", he said at a meeting at Concord that summer. Emerson used slavery as an example of a human injustice, especially in his role as a minister. In early 1838, provoked by the murder of an abolitionist publisher from Alton, Illinois named Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Emerson gave his first public antislavery address. As he said, "It is but the other day that the brave Lovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the rights of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to live". John Quincy Adams said the mob-murder of Lovejoy "sent a shock as of any earthquake throughout this continent". However, Emerson maintained that reform would be achieved through moral agreement rather than by militant action. By August 1, 1844, at a lecture in Concord, he stated more clearly his support for the abolitionist movement: "We are indebted mainly to this movement, and to the continuers of it, for the popular discussion of every point of practical ethics".
Emerson is often known as one of the most liberal democratic thinkers of his time who believed that through the democratic process, slavery should be abolished. While being an avid abolitionist who was known for his criticism of the legality of slavery, Emerson struggled with the implications of race. His usual liberal leanings did not clearly translate when it came to believing that all races had equal capability or function, which was a common conception for the period in which he lived. Many critics believe that it was his views on race that inhibited him from becoming an abolitionist earlier in his life and also inhibited him from being more active in the antislavery movement. Much of his early life, he was silent on the topic of race and slavery. Not until he was well into his 30s did Emerson begin to publish writings on race and slavery, and not until he was in his late 40s and 50s did he became known as an antislavery activist.
During his early life, Emerson seems to develop a hierarchy of races based on faculty to reason or rather, whether African slaves were distinguishably equal to white men based on their ability to reason. In a journal entry written in 1822, Emerson wrote about a personal observation: "It can hardly be true that the difference lies in the attribute of reason. I saw ten, twenty, a hundred large lipped, lowbrowed black men in the streets who, except in the mere matter of language, did not exceed the sagacity of the elephant. Now is it true that these were created superior to this wise animal, and designed to control it? And in comparison with the highest orders of men, the Africans will stand so low as to make the difference which subsists between themselves & the sagacious beasts inconsiderable."
As with many supporters of slavery, during his early years, Emerson seems to have thought that the faculties of African slaves were not equal to their white owners. But this belief in racial inferiorities did not make Emerson a supporter of slavery. Emerson wrote later that year that "No ingenious sophistry can ever reconcile the unperverted mind to the pardon of Slavery; nothing but tremendous familiarity, and the bias of private interest". Emerson saw the removal of people from their homeland, the treatment of slaves, and the self-seeking benefactors of slaves as gross injustices. For Emerson, slavery was a moral issue, while superiority of the races was an issue he tried to analyze from a scientific perspective based what he believed to be inherited traits.
Emerson saw himself as a man of "Saxon descent". In a speech given in 1835 titled "Permanent Traits of the English National Genius", he said, "The inhabitants of the United States, especially of the Northern portion, are descended from the people of England and have inherited the traits of their national character". He saw direct ties between race based on national identity and the inherent nature of the human being. White Americans who were native-born in the United States and of English ancestry were categorized by him as a separate "race", which he thought had a position of being superior to other nations. His idea of race was based on a shared culture, environment, and history. He believed that native-born Americans of English descent were superior to European immigrants, including the Irish, French, and Germans, and also as being superior to English people from England, whom he considered a close second and the only really comparable group.
Later in his life, Emerson's ideas on race changed when he became more involved in the abolitionist movement while at the same time he began to more thoroughly analyze the philosophical implications of race and racial hierarchies. His beliefs shifted focus to the potential outcomes of racial conflicts. Emerson's racial views were closely related to his views on nationalism and national superiority, specifically that of the Saxons of ancient England, which was a common view in the United States of that time. Emerson used contemporary theories of race and natural science to support a theory of race development. He believed that the current political battle and the current enslavement of other races was an inevitable racial struggle, one that would result in the inevitable union of the United States. Such conflicts were necessary for the dialectic of change that would eventually allow the progress of the nation. In much of his later work, Emerson seems to allow the notion that different races will eventually mix in America. This hybridization process would lead to a superior race that would be to the advantage of the superiority of the United States.
Emerson was a supporter of the spread of community libraries in the 19th century, having this to say of them: "Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom."
Emerson may have had erotic thoughts about at least one man. During his early years at Harvard, he found himself attracted to a young freshman named Martin Gay about whom he wrote sexually charged poetry. He also had a number of romantic interests in various women throughout his life, such as Anna Barker and Caroline Sturgis.
As a lecturer and orator, Emerson—nicknamed the Sage of Concord—became the leading voice of intellectual culture in the United States. James Russell Lowell, editor of the "Atlantic Monthly" and the "North American Review", commented in his book "My Study Windows" (1871), that Emerson was not only the "most steadily attractive lecturer in America," but also "one of the pioneers of the lecturing system." Herman Melville, who had met Emerson in 1849, originally thought he had "a defect in the region of the heart" and a "self-conceit so intensely intellectual that at first one hesitates to call it by its right name", though he later admitted Emerson was "a great man". Theodore Parker, a minister and transcendentalist, noted Emerson's ability to influence and inspire others: "the brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter nights, and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that great new star, a beauty and a mystery, which charmed for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspiration, as it led them forward along new paths, and towards new hopes".
Emerson's work not only influenced his contemporaries, such as Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, but would continue to influence thinkers and writers in the United States and around the world down to the present. Notable thinkers who recognize Emerson's influence include Nietzsche and William James, Emerson's godson. There is little disagreement that Emerson was the most influential writer of 19th-century America, though these days he is largely the concern of scholars. Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and William James were all positive Emersonians, while Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James were Emersonians in denial—while they set themselves in opposition to the sage, there was no escaping his influence. To T. S. Eliot, Emerson's essays were an "encumbrance". Waldo the Sage was eclipsed from 1914 until 1965, when he returned to shine, after surviving in the work of major American poets like Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane.
In his book "The American Religion", Harold Bloom repeatedly refers to Emerson as "The prophet of the American Religion", which in the context of the book refers to indigenously American religions such as Mormonism and Christian Science, which arose largely in Emerson's lifetime, but also to mainline Protestant churches that Bloom says have become in the United States more gnostic than their European counterparts. In "The Western Canon", Bloom compares Emerson to Michel de Montaigne: "The only equivalent reading experience that I know is to reread endlessly in the notebooks and journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American version of Montaigne." Several of Emerson's poems were included in Bloom's "The Best Poems of the English Language", although he wrote that none of the poems are as outstanding as the best of Emerson's essays, which Bloom listed as "Self-Reliance", "Circles", "Experience", and "nearly all of "Conduct of Life"". In his belief that line lengths, rhythms, and phrases are determined by breath, Emerson's poetry foreshadowed the theories of Charles Olson.
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Women in Judaism
The role of women in Judaism is determined by the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law (the corpus of rabbinic literature), by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature mention various female role models, religious law treats women differently in various circumstances.
Gender has a bearing on familial lines: In traditional Judaism, Jewishness is passed down through the mother, although the father's name is used to describe sons and daughters in the Torah, e. g., "Dinah, daughter of Jacob".
The status of Levi is only given to a Jewish male descended patrilineally from Levi; likewise a Kohen descends from Aharon, the first Kohen. A Bat-Kohen or Bat-Levi has that status from her Jewish father with the corresponding HaKohen/HaLevi title.
Compared to men, relatively few women are mentioned in the Bible by name and role. Those who are mentioned include the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah; Miriam the prophetess; Deborah the Judge; Huldah the prophetess; Abigail, who married David; Rahab; and Esther. A common phenomenon in the Bible is the pivotal role that women take in subverting man-made power structures. The result is often a more just outcome than what would have taken place under ordinary circumstances. Today, many of them are considered foundational by feminists because of the insights they provide into the lives of Jewish women during those times, albeit as notable examples of women who broke the male dominance of historical documentation of the time compared to the poor documentation of most women's lives.
According to Jewish tradition, a covenant was formed between the Israelites and the God of Abraham at Mount Sinai. The Torah relates that both Israelite men and Israelite women were present at Sinai; however, the covenant was worded in such a way that it bound men to act upon its requirements, and to ensure that the members of their household (wives, children, and slaves) met these requirements as well. In this sense, the covenant bound women as well, though indirectly.
Marriage and family law in biblical times favored men over women. For example, a husband could divorce a wife if he chose to, but a wife could not divorce a husband without his consent. The practice of levirate marriage applied to widows of childless deceased husbands, not to widowers of childless deceased wives; though, if either he or she did not consent to the marriage, a different ceremony called "chalitza" is done instead, which basically involves the widow's removing her brother-in-law's shoe, spitting in front of him, and proclaiming, "This is what happens to someone who will not build his brother's house!" Laws concerning the loss of female virginity have no male equivalent. Many of these laws, such as levirate marriage, are no longer practiced in Judaism (chalitzah is practiced in lieu of levitate marriage). These and other gender differences found in the Torah suggest that biblical society viewed continuity, property, and family unity as paramount; however, they also suggest that women were subordinate to men during biblical times. Men were required to perform some specific obligations for their wives, but these often reinforced the gendered roles in the culture of the time. These included the provision of clothing, food, and sexual relations to their wives.
Women also had a role in ritual life. Women (as well as men) were required to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem once a year (men each of the three main festivals if they could) and offer the Passover sacrifice. They would also do so on special occasions in their lives such as giving a "todah" ("thanksgiving") offering after childbirth. Hence, they participated in many of the major public religious roles that non-Levitical men could, albeit less often and on a somewhat smaller and generally more discreet scale.
According to Jewish tradition, Michal, the daughter of Saul and David's first wife, accepted the commandments of tefillin and tzitzit although these requirements applied only to men. Many of the mitzvot that applied to men applied to women as well; however, women were usually exempt from positive time-bound commandments (requirements to perform a duty at a specific time, as opposed to requirements to perform a duty at any time or requirements to abstain from an act). There are two prominent theories about why this is: pragmatism (because the role of women in household duties consumes their time) and spirituality (because according to some traditions, "women have superior inherent spiritual wisdom", known as bina, that makes them less dependent than men on the performance of timely religious practices to retain a strong spiritual connection to God).
Women depended on men economically. Women generally did not own property except in the rare case of inheriting land from a father who did not bear sons. Even "in such cases, women would be required to remarry within the tribe so as not to reduce its land holdings".
Women are required by "halacha" to do all negative "mitzvot" (i. e., commandments that prohibit action such as "Thou shalt not commit adultery"), but they are excused from doing most time-bound, positive "mitzvot" (i. e., commandments that proscribe ritual action that must be done at certain times such as hearing a shofar on Rosh Hashanah). A woman would not, however, be prohibited from doing a "mitzvah" from which she was excused. "Halacha" also provides women with material and emotional protections that most non-Jewish women did not enjoy during the first millennium of the Common Era. The penal and civil law of the time treated men and women equally.
There is evidence that, at least among the elite, women were educated in the Bible and in "halacha". The daughter of a scholar was considered a good prospect for marriage in part because of her education. There are stories in the Talmud about women whose husbands died or were exiled and yet were still able to educate their children because of their own level of learning.
Classical Jewish rabbinical literature contains quotes that may be seen as both laudatory and derogatory of women. The Talmud states that:
While few women are mentioned by name in rabbinic literature, and none are known to have authored a rabbinic work, those who are mentioned are portrayed as having a strong influence on their husbands. Occasionally they have a public persona. Examples are Bruriah, the wife of the Tanna Rabbi Meir; Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva; and Yalta, the wife of Rabbi Nachman. Eleazar ben Arach's wife Ima Shalom counselled her husband in assuming leadership over the Sanhedrin. When Eleazar ben Arach was asked to assume the role of "Nasi" ("Prince" or President of the Sanhedrin), he replied that he must first take counsel with his wife, which he did.
Since Jews were seen as second-class citizens in the Christian and Muslim world (legally known in the Muslim world as dhimmi), it was even harder for Jewish women to establish their own status. Avraham Grossman argues in his book, "Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe", that three factors affected how Jewish women were perceived by the society around them: "the biblical and talmudic heritage; the situation in the non-Jewish society within which the Jews lived and functioned; and the economic status of the Jews, including the woman's role in supporting the family." Grossman uses all three factors to argue that women's status overall during this period actually rose.
During the Middle Ages, there was a conflict between Judaism's lofty religious expectations of women and the reality of society in which these Jewish women lived; this is similar to the lives of Christian women in the same period. This prompted the kabbalistic work "Sefer Hakanah" to demand that women fulfill the "mitzvot" in a way that would be equal to men. There is evidence that in some communities of Ashkenaz in the 15th century, the wife of the rabbi wore "tzitzit" just like her husband.
Religious developments during the medieval period included relaxation on prohibitions against teaching women Torah, and the rise of women's prayer groups. One place that women participated in Jewish practices publicly was the synagogue. Women probably learned how to read the liturgy in Hebrew.
According to John Bowker, traditionally, Jewish "men and women pray separately. This goes back to ancient times when women could go only as far as the second court of the Temple." In most synagogues, the women were given their own section, most likely a balcony; some synagogues had a separate building.
Separation from the men was created by the Rabbis in the Mishnah and the Talmud. The reasoning behind the Halacha was that a woman and her body would distract men and give them impure thoughts during prayer. Due to this rabbinical interpretation, scholars have seen the women's role in the synagogue as limited and sometimes even non-existent. However, recent research has shown that women actually had a larger role in the synagogue and the community at large. Women usually attended synagogue, for example, on the Shabbat and the holidays.
Depending on the location of the women in the synagogue, they may have followed the same service as the men or they conducted their own services. Since the synagogues were large, there would be a designated woman who would be able to follow the cantor and repeat the prayers aloud for the women. Women had always attended services on Shabbat and holidays, but beginning in the eleventh century, women became more involved in the synagogue and its rituals. Women sitting separately from the men became a norm in synagogues around the beginning of the thirteenth century. Women, however, did much more than pray in the synagogue. One of the main jobs for women was to beautify the building. There are Torah ark curtains and Torah covers that women sewed and survive today. The synagogue was a communal place for both men and women where worship, learning and community activities occurred.
The rise and increasing popularity of Kabbalah, which emphasized the shechinah and female aspects of the divine presence and human-divine relationship, and which saw marriage as a holy covenant between partners rather than just a civil contract, had great influence. Kabbalists explained the phenomenon of menstruation as expressions of the demonic or sinful character of the menstruant. These changes were accompanied by increased pietistic strictures, including greater requirements for modest dress, and greater strictures during the period of menstruation. At the same time, there was a rise in philosophical and midrashic interpretations depicting women in a negative light, emphasizing a duality between matter and spirit in which femininity was associated, negatively, with earth and matter. The gentile society was also seen as a negative influence on the Jewish community. For example, it seems that Jews would analyze the modesty of their non-Jewish neighbors before officially moving into a new community because they knew that their children would be influenced by the local gentiles.
After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, women became virtually the only source of Jewish ritual and tradition in the Catholic world in a phenomenon known as crypto-Judaism. Crypto-Jewish women would slaughter their own animals and made sure to keep as many of the Jewish dietary laws and life cycle rituals as possible without raising suspicion. Occasionally, these women were prosecuted by Inquisition officials for suspicious behavior such as lighting candles to honor the Sabbath or refusing to eat pork when it was offered to them. The Inquisition targeted crypto-Jewish women at least as much as it targeted crypto-Jewish men because women were accused of perpetuating Jewish tradition while men were merely permitting their wives and daughters to organize the household in this manner.
Marriage, domestic violence and divorce are all topics discussed by Jewish sages of the Medieval world. Marriage is an important institution in Judaism (see Marriage in Judaism). The sages of this period discussed this topic at length. The wife and mother in Hebrew, is called "akeret habayit," which in English translation means "mainstay of the house." In traditional and Orthodox Judaism the "akeret habayit", or woman of the house, tends to the family and household duties.
Rabbeinu Gershom instituted a rabbinic decree (Takkanah) prohibiting polygyny among Ashkenazic Jews. At the time, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews did not recognize the validity of the ban.
The rabbis instituted legal methods to enable women to petition a rabbinical court to compel a divorce. Maimonides ruled that a woman who found her husband "repugnant" could ask a court to compel a divorce by flogging the recalcitrant husband "because she is not like a captive, to be subjected to intercourse with one who is hateful to her". Furthermore, Maimonides ruled that a woman may "consider herself as divorced and remarry" if her husband became absent for three years or more. This was to prevent women married to traveling merchants from becoming an agunah if the husband never returned.
The rabbis also instituted and tightened prohibitions on domestic violence. Rabbi Peretz ben Elijah ruled, "The cry of the daughters of our people has been heard concerning the sons of Israel who raise their hands to strike their wives. Yet who has given a husband the authority to beat his wife?" Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg ruled that, "For it is the way of the Gentiles to behave thus, but Heaven forbid that any Jew should do so. And one who beats his wife is to be excommunicated and banned and beaten." Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg also ruled that a battered wife could petition a rabbinical court to compel a husband to grant a divorce, with a monetary fine owed to her on top of the regular ketubah money. These rulings occurred in the midst of societies where wife-beating was legally sanctioned and routine.
Jewish women had a limited education. They were taught to read, write, run a household. They were also given some education in religious law that was essential to their daily lives, such as keeping kosher. Both Christian and Jewish girls were educated in the home. Although Christian girls may have had a male or female tutor, most Jewish girls had a female tutor. Higher learning was uncommon for women. (See Female Education in the Medieval Period). There are more sources of education for Jewish women living in Muslim-controlled lands. For example, Middle Eastern Jewry had an abundance of female literates. The Cairo Geniza is filled with correspondences written (sometimes dictated) between family members and spouses. Many of these letters are pious and poetic and express a desire to be in closer or more frequent contact with a loved one that is far enough away to only be reached by written correspondence. There are also records of wills and other personal legal documents as well as written petitions to officials in cases of spouse spousal abuse or other conflicts between family members written or dictated by women.
Many women gained enough education to help their husbands out in business or even hold their own. Just like Christian women who ran their own business, Jewish women were engaged in their own occupations as well as helping their husbands. Jewish women seem to have lent money to Christian women throughout Europe. Women were also copyists, midwives, spinners, and weavers.
Bruriah is one of several women quoted as a sage in the Talmud. She was the wife of the Tanna Rabbi Meir and the daughter of Rabbi Hananiah Ben Teradion, who is listed as one of the "Ten Martyrs". She is greatly admired for her breadth of knowledge in matters pertaining to both halachah and aggadah, and is said to have learned from the rabbis 300 halachot on a single cloudy day (Tractate Pesachim 62b). Her parents were put to death by the Romans for teaching Torah, but she carried on their legacy.
Bruriah was very involved in the halachic discussions of her time, and even challenges her father on a matter of ritual purity (Tosefta Keilim Kamma 4:9). Her comments there are praised by Rabbi Judah ben Bava. In another instance, Rabbi Joshua praises her intervention in a debate between Rabbi Tarfon and the sages, saying "Bruriah has spoken correctly" (Tosefta Keilim Metzia 1:3).
She is mentioned at least four times in the Talmudic discourse regarding her law decrees first Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 10a then in Tosefta Pesahim 62b in Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 53b–54a and Babylonian Talmud Avodah Zarah 18b. In one case, she gave an interpretation of the religious sense (to "paskin din") of "klaustra" a rare Greek word referring to a "door-bolt" in the Talmud. However, Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi did not believe women could be credited with "paskining din". Because, as the saying goes, 'do not speak too much to women' (Tannah Rabbi Jesse the Galilean), he credited the law to Rabbi Joshua, who may be considered to have been her father.
Bruriah however was actually remembered with great respect in the Talmud where she is lauded to have been reputed as such a genius as to study "three hundred Halachot from three hundred sages in just one day" (Pesachim 62b). This praise was in clear contradiction of the common injunction against women studying the Torah.
Rashi had no sons, and taught the Mishnah and Talmud to his daughters, until they knew it by heart, as Jewish tradition teaches; they then transferred their knowledge of original Mishnah commentary to the Ashkenazi men of the next generation. However, women of great standing were allowed to undertake time-bound mitzvahs as long as it did not interfere with their work in the household.
When Maimonides wrote responsa concerning women, he tended to elevate their status above what was common practice in the Middle Ages. For example, Maimonides permitted women to study Torah, despite the fact that other legal opinions from his time and before did not.
The Hida, wrote (Tuv Ayin, no. 4) woman should study Mishnah only if they do want to. 'We cannot force a woman to learn, like we do to boys'. However, if she wants to learn, then not only may she do so on her own, but men may teach her from the start, and she can then teach other women if they so choose. According to Hida, the prohibition of teaching women does not apply to a motivated woman or girl. Other Mizrahi Rabbis disputed this with him.
His response to detractors was that indeed, in truth, there is a prohibition against teaching Mishnah to any student—male or female—who one knows is not properly prepared and motivated. This response referred to a "talmid she-eino hagun" (Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah 246:7). Babylonian Talmud Berakhos 28a which relates that Rabban Gam(a)liel would announce that any student who is not pure enough so that 'his outer self is like his inner self' may not enter the study hall. While this approach, requiring absolute purity, was rejected by other ancient Rabbis, for example 'he who is not for the name of God, will become for the name of God', and a middle approach was adopted by Jews as standard. If one has knowledge that a particular Mishnayot student is definitely bad then he may not be taught. Gam(a)liel claimed that 'it seems that for women there is a higher standard and she must be motivated in order to have this permission to learn'; this was cited by Rishonim and Acharonim in response to the Mizrahi tradition.
Sarah Schenirer was the creator of the Bait Yaakov system.
One of the most important Ashkenazic rabbanim of the past century, Yisrael Meir Kagan, known popularly as the "Chofetz Chaim", favored Torah education for girls to counteract the French "finishing schools" prevalent in his day for the daughters of the bourgeoisie.
Rabbi Yoseph Solovetchik "amended" the teachings of The Hafetz Haim. Rabbi Solovetchik taught that all religious Ashkenazi Jews with the exception of hard-line Hasidim, not merely should, or solely if they show motivation, but must teach their female children Gemarah like the boy school children. He, among others, fully institutionalized the teaching of Mishnah and Talmud to girls, from an autobiography on him by Rabbi Mayor Twersky called "A Glimpse of the Rav" in R. Menachem Genack ed., Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: Man of Halacha, Man of Faith, page 113:
Orthodox Judaism is based on gendered understandings of Jewish practice - i. e., that there are different roles for men and women in religious life. This reflects the view that everyone is created "unique" (i.e., not "equal"); this emphasizes the view that everyone is created with a specialized, unique role in the world. There are different opinions among Orthodox Jews concerning these differences. Most claim that men and women have complementary, yet different, roles in religious life, resulting in different religious obligations. For example, women are not burdened with time-bounded mitzvahs. Others believe that some of these differences are not a reflection of religious law, but rather of cultural, social, and historical causes. In the area of education, women were historically exempted from any study beyond an understanding of the practical aspects of Torah, and the rules necessary in running a Jewish household, both of which they have an obligation to learn. Until the twentieth century, women were often discouraged from learning Talmud and other advanced Jewish texts. In the past 100 years, Orthodox Jewish education for women has advanced tremendously. This is most embodied in the development of the Bais Yaakov system.
There have been many areas in which Orthodox women have been working towards change within religious life over the past 20 years: promoting advanced women's learning and scholarship, promoting women's ritual inclusion in synagogue, promoting women's communal and religious leadership, and more. Women have been advancing change, despite often vocal opposition by rabbinic leaders. Some Orthodox rabbis try to discount changes by claiming that women are motivated by sociological reasons, and not by "true" religious motivation. For example, Orthodox, Haredi, and Hasidic rabbis discourage women from wearing a kippah, tallit, or tefillin.
In most Orthodox synagogues, women do not give a "d'var Torah" (brief discourse, generally on the weekly Torah portion) after or between services. Furthermore, many Orthodox synagogues have physical barriers (known as a "mechitzot") dividing the left and right sides of the synagogue (rather than the usual division between the main floor and large balconies), with the women's section on one side, and the men's section on the other. Technically, a "mechitzah" of over four feet or so (ten handbreadths) suffices, even if the men can see the women, though it is not preferable. The mechitza serves to enhance the quality of prayer by ensuring that men are not distracted by the opposite sex. A typical "mechitzah" consists of wheeled wooden panels, often topped with one-way glass to allow women to view the Torah reading.
Although Judaism prescribes modesty for both men and women, the importance of modesty in dress and conduct is particularly stressed among women and girls in Orthodox society. Most Orthodox women only wear skirts, and avoid wearing trousers, and most married Orthodox women cover their hair with a scarf ("tichel"), snood, hat, beret, or wig.
In accordance with Jewish Law, Orthodox Jewish women refrain from bodily contact with their husbands while they are menstruating, and for a period of 7 clean days after menstruating, and after the birth of a child. The Israeli Rabbinate has recently approved women acting as "yoatzot", halakhic advisers on sensitive personal matters such as family purity.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, a leader of profound influence in modern Orthodoxy in the United States, discouraged women from serving as presidents of synagogues or any other official positions of leadership, from performing other mitzvot (commandments) traditionally performed by males exclusively, such as wearing a tallit or tefillin. A minor reason argued for why men only wear tefillin is that the tefillin help men keep them from thinking impure thoughts. Women are thought not to need help with this.) Soloveitchik wrote that while women do not lack the capability to perform such acts, there is no "mesorah" (Jewish tradition) that permits it. In making his decision, he relied upon Jewish oral law, including a mishnah in Chulin 2a and a Beit Yoseph in the Tur Yoreh Deah stating that a woman can perform a specific official communal service for her own needs, but not those of others.
Women's issues garnered more interest with the advent of feminism. Many Modern Orthodox Jewish women and Modern Orthodox rabbis sought to provide greater and more advanced Jewish education for women. Since most Modern Orthodox women attend college, and many receive advanced degrees in a variety of fields, Modern Orthodox communities promote women's secular education. A few Modern Orthodox Synagogues have women serving as clergy, including Gilah Kletenik at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. In 2013, Yeshivat Maharat, located in the United States, became the first Orthodox institution to consecrate female clergy. The graduates of Yeshivat Maharat did not call themselves "rabbis". The title they were given is "maharat". However, in 2015, Yaffa Epstein was ordained as Rabba by Yeshivat Maharat. Also in 2015, Lila Kagedan was ordained as Rabbi by that same organization, making her their first graduate to take the title "Rabbi".
In 2013, Malka Schaps became the first female Haredi dean at an Israeli university when she was appointed dean of Bar Ilan University's Faculty of Exact Sciences. Also in 2013, the first class of female halachic advisers trained to practice in the US graduated; they graduated from the North American branch of Nishmat's yoetzet halacha program in a ceremony at Congregation Sheartith Israel, Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Manhattan, and SAR High School in Riverdale, New York, began allowing girls to wrap tefillin during Shacharit-morning prayer in an all-female prayer group; it is probably the first Modern Orthodox high school in the U.S. to do so.
In 2014, the first-ever book of halachic decisions written by women who were ordained to serve as poskot (Idit Bartov and Anat Novoselsky) was published. The women were ordained by the municipal chief rabbi of Efrat, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, after completing Midreshet Lindenbaum women's college's five-year ordination course in advanced studies in Jewish law, as well as passing examinations equivalent to the rabbinate's requirement for men.
In 2010, Sara Hurwitz became the first woman to ordained as a "Rabba", or female equivalent of a rabbi, when she started serving as an "Open Orthodox" spiritual leader at Riverdale, Bronx, New York On June 10, 2015, Dr. Meesh Hammer-Kossoy and Rahel Berkovits became the first two women to be ordained as Modern Orthodox Jewish Rabbas in Israel.
In June 2015, Lila Kagedan was ordained by Yeshivat Maharat and in keeping with newer policies, was given the freedom to choose her own title, and she chose to be addressed as "Rabbi". She officially became the first female Modern Orthodox rabbi in the United States of America when the Modern Orthodox Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, New Jersey hired her as a spiritual leader in January 2016. As of 2019, Kagedan is working as the rabbi at Walnut Street Synagogue.
In the fall of 2015, the Agudath Israel of America denounced moves to ordain women, and went even further, declaring Yeshivat Maharat, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Open Orthodoxy, and other affiliated entities to be similar to other dissident movements throughout Jewish history in having rejected basic tenets of Judaism.
Also in the fall of 2015, the Rabbinical Council of America passed a resolution which states, "RCA members with positions in Orthodox institutions may not ordain women into the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title used; or hire or ratify the hiring of a woman into a rabbinic position at an Orthodox institution; or allow a title implying rabbinic ordination to be used by a teacher of Limudei Kodesh in an Orthodox institution."
Also in 2015, Jennie Rosenfeld became the first female Orthodox spiritual advisor in Israel. (Specifically, she became the spiritual advisor, also called manhiga ruchanit, for the community of Efrat.)
In 2016, it was announced that Ephraim Mirvis created the job of ma'ayan by which women would be advisers on Jewish law in the area of family purity and as adult educators in Orthodox synagogues. This requires a part-time training course for 18 months, which is the first such course in the United Kingdom. On August 23, 2016, Karmit Feintuch became the first woman in Jerusalem, Israel, to be hired as a Modern Orthodox "rabbanit" and serve as a spiritual leader.
In 2017, the Orthodox Union adopted a policy banning women from serving as clergy, from holding titles such as "rabbi", or from doing common clergy functions even without a title, in its congregations in the United States.
Separate Jewish women's prayer groups were a sanctioned custom among German Jews in the Middle Ages. The "Kol Bo" provides, in the laws for Tisha B'Av:
In Germany, in the 12th and 13th centuries, women's prayer groups were led by female cantors. Rabbi Eliezer of Worms, in his elegy for his wife Dulca, praised her for teaching the other women how to pray and embellishing the prayer with music. The gravestone of Urania of Worms, who died in 1275, contains the inscription "who sang "piyyutim" for the women with musical voice". In the Nurnberg Memorial Book, one Richenza was inscribed with the title "prayer leader of the women".
Orthodox women more recently began holding organized women's "tefila" (prayer) groups beginning in the 1970s. While all Orthodox legal authorities agree that women are prohibited from forming a "minyan" (prayer quorum) for the purpose of regular services, women in these groups have read the prayers and study Torah. A number of leaders from all segments of Orthodox Judaism have commented on this issue, but it has had a little, although growing, impact on Haredi and Sephardi Judaism. However, the emergence of this phenomenon has enmeshed Modern Orthodox Judaism in a debate which still continues today. There are three schools of thought on this issue:
In 2013, the Israeli Orthodox rabbinical organization Beit Hillel issued a halachic ruling which allows women, for the first time, to say the Kaddish prayer in memory of their deceased parents.
Traditionally, women are not generally permitted to serve as witnesses in an Orthodox Beit Din (rabbinical court), although they have recently been permitted to serve as "toanot" (advocates) in those courts. This limitation has exceptions which have required exploration under rabbinic law, as the role of women in society and the obligations of religious groups under external civil law have been subject to increasing recent scrutiny.
The recent case of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, the first rabbi to be expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America following allegations of sexual harassment, illustrated the importance of clarification of Orthodox halakha in this area. Rabbi Tendler claimed that the tradition of exclusion of women's testimony should compel the RCA to disregard the allegations. He argued that since the testimony of a woman could not be admitted in Rabbinical court, there were no valid witnesses against him, and hence, the case for his expulsion had to be thrown out for lack of evidence. In a ruling of importance for Orthodox women's capacity for legal self-protection under Jewish law, Haredi Rabbi Benzion Wosner, writing on behalf of the "Shevet Levi" Beit Din (Rabbinical court) of Monsey, New York, identified sexual harassment cases as coming under a class of exceptions to the traditional exclusion, under which "even children or women" have not only a right, but an obligation, to testify, and can be relied upon by a rabbinical court as valid witnesses:
The Rabbinical Council of America, while initially relying on its own investigation, chose to rely on the Halakhic ruling of the Haredi Rabbinical body as authoritative in the situation.
Leaders of the Haredi community have been steadfast in their opposition to a change in the role of women, arguing that the religious and social constraints on women, as dictated by traditional Jewish texts, are timeless, and are not affected by contemporary social change. Many also argue that giving traditionally male roles to women will only detract from both women's and men's ability to lead truly fulfilling lives. Haredim have also sometimes perceived arguments for liberalization as in reality stemming from antagonism to Jewish law and beliefs generally, arguing that preserving faith requires resisting secular and "un-Jewish" ideas.
Modern Orthodox Judaism, particularly in its more liberal variants, has tended to look at proposed changes in the role of women on a specific, case-by-case basis, focusing on arguments regarding the religious and legal role of specific prayers, rituals and activities individually. Such arguments have tended to focus on cases where the Talmud and other traditional sources express multiple or more liberal viewpoints, particularly where the role of women in the past was arguably broader than in more recent times. Feminist advocates within Orthodoxy have tended to stay within the traditional legal process of argumentation, seeking a gradualist approach, and avoiding wholesale arguments against the religious tradition as such. Nevertheless, a growing Orthodox feminist movement seeks to address gender inequalities.
Agunot (Hebrew: "chained women") are women who wish to divorce their husbands, but whose husbands refuse to give them a divorce contract (a "get"). The word can also refer to a woman whose husband disappeared and may or may not be dead. In Orthodox Judaism, only a man is able to serve a "get". In order to prevent the occurrence of the first type, many Jewish couples sign a prenuptial agreement designed to force the husband to serve a get or else be reported to the Jewish court.
Although the position of Conservative Judaism toward women originally differed little from the Orthodox position, it has in recent years minimized legal and ritual differences between men and women. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Rabbinical Assembly has approved a number of decisions and responsa on this topic. These provide for women's active participation in areas such as:
A rabbi may or may not decide to adopt particular rulings for the congregation; thus, some Conservative congregations will be more or less egalitarian than others. However, there are other areas where legal differences remain between men and women, including:
A Conservative Jewish "ketuba" includes a clause that puts a husband and wife on more equal footing when it comes to marriage and divorce law within "halacha".
The CJLS recently reaffirmed the obligation of Conservative women to observe "niddah" (sexual abstinence during and after menstruation) and "mikvah" (ritual immersion) following menstruation, although somewhat liberalizing certain details. Such practices, while requirements of Conservative Judaism, are not widely observed among Conservative laity.
Prior to 1973, Conservative Judaism had more limited roles for women and was more similar to current Orthodoxy. However, there were some notable changes in favor of expanded roles for women in Conservative Judaism prior to 1973. In 1946, the new Silverman siddur changed the traditional words of thanking God for "not making me a woman", instead using words thanking God for "making me a free person." In 1955, the CJLS of the Rabbinical Assembly issued a decision that allowed women to have an aliyah at Torah-readings services.
In 1973, the CJLS of the Rabbinical Assembly voted, without issuing an opinion, that women could count in a minyan.
There was a special commission appointed by the Conservative movement to study the issue of ordaining women as rabbis, which met between 1977 and 1978, and consisted of eleven men and three women; the women were Marian Siner Gordon, an attorney, Rivkah Harris, an Assyriologist, and Francine Klagsbrun, a writer. In 1983, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) faculty voted, also without accompanying opinion, to ordain women as rabbis and as cantors. Paula Hyman, among others, took part in the vote as a member of the JTS faculty.
In 2002, the CJLS adapted a responsum by Rabbi David Fine, "Women and the Minyan", which provides an official religious-law foundation for women counting in a minyan and explains the current Conservative approach to the role of women in prayer. This responsum holds that although Jewish women do not traditionally have the same obligations as men, Conservative women have, as a collective whole, voluntarily undertaken them. Because of this collective undertaking, the Fine responsum holds that Conservative women are eligible to serve as agents and decision-makers for others. The responsum also holds that traditionally minded communities and individual women can opt out without being regarded by the Conservative movement as sinning. By adopting this responsum, the CJLS found itself in a position to provide a considered Jewish-law justification for its egalitarian practices, without having to rely on potentially unconvincing arguments, undermine the religious importance of community and clergy, ask individual women intrusive questions, repudiate the "halakhic" tradition, or label women following traditional practices as sinners.
In 2006, the CJLS adopted three responsa on the subject of niddah, which reaffirmed an obligation of Conservative women to abstain from sexual relations during and following menstruation and to immerse in a mikvah prior to resumption, while liberalizing observance requirements including shortening the length of the niddah period, lifting restrictions on non-sexual contact during niddah, and reducing the circumstances under which spotting and similar conditions would mandate abstinence.
In all cases, continuing the Orthodox approach was also upheld as an option. Individual Conservative rabbis and synagogues are not required to adopt any of these changes, and a small number have adopted none of them.
Prior to 1973, Conservative approaches to change were generally on an individual, case-by-case basis. Between 1973 and 2002, the Conservative movement adapted changes through its official organizations, but without issuing explanatory opinions. Since 2002, the Conservative movement has coalesced around a single across-the board approach to the role of women in Jewish law.
In 1973, 1983, and 1993, individual rabbis and professors issued six major opinions which influenced change in the Conservative approach, the first and second Sigal, Blumenthal, Rabinowitz, and Roth responsa, and the Hauptman article. These opinions sought to provide for a wholesale shift in women's public roles through a single, comprehensive legal justification. Most such opinions based their positions on an argument that Jewish women always were, or have become, legally obligated to perform the same "mitzvot" as men and to do so in the same manner.
The first Sigal and the Blumenthal responsa were considered by the CJLS as part of its decision on prayer roles in 1973. They argued that women have always had the same obligations as men. The first Sigal responsum used the Talmud's general prayer obligation and examples of cases in which women were traditionally obligated to say specific prayers and inferred from them a public prayer obligation identical to that of men. The Blumenthal responsum extrapolated from a minority authority that a "minyan" could be formed with nine men and one woman in an emergency. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) declined to adopt either responsum. Rabbi Siegel reported to the Rabbinical Assembly membership that many on the CJLS, while agreeing with the result, found the arguments unconvincing.
The Rabinowitz, Roth, and second Sigal responsa were considered by the JTSA faculty as part of its decision to ordain women as rabbis in 1983. The Rabbinowitz responsum sidestepped the issue of obligation, arguing that there is no longer a religious need for a community representative in prayer and hence there is no need to decide whether a woman can "halakhically" serve as one. The CJLS felt that an argument potentially undermining the value of community and clergy was unconvincing: "We should not be afraid to recognize that the function of clergy is to help our people connect with the holy." The Roth and second Sigal responsa accepted that time-bound "mitzvot" were traditionally optional for women, but argued that women in modern times could change their traditional roles. The Roth responsum argued that women could individually voluntarily assume the same obligations as men, and that women who do so (e. g., pray three times a day regularly) could count in a "minyan" and serve as agents. The JTSA accordingly required female rabbinical students wishing to train as rabbis to personally obligate themselves, but synagogue rabbis, unwilling to inquire into individual religiosity, found it impractical. The second Sigal responsum called for a "takkanah", or rabbinical edict, "that would serve as a "halakhic" ERA", overruling all non-egalitarian provisions in law or, in the alternative, a new approach to "halakhic" interpretation independent of legal precedents. The CJLS, unwilling to use either an intrusive approach or a repudiation of the traditional legal process as bases for action, did not adopt either and let the JTS faculty vote stand unexplained.
In 1993, Professor Judith Hauptman of JTS issued an influential paper arguing that women had historically always been obligated in prayer, using more detailed arguments than the Blumenthal and first Sigal responsa. The paper suggested that women who followed traditional practices were failing to meet their obligations. Rabbi Roth argued that Conservative Judaism should think twice before adopting a viewpoint labeling its most traditional and often most committed members as sinners. The issue was again dropped.
In 2002, the CJLS returned to the issue of justifying its actions regarding women's status, and adopted a single authoritative approach, the Fine responsum, as the definitive Conservative halakha on role-of-women issues. This responsum holds that although Jewish women do not traditionally have the same obligations as men, Conservative women have, as a collective whole, voluntarily undertaken them. Because of this collective undertaking, the Fine responsum holds that Conservative women are eligible to serve as agents and decision-makers for others. The Responsum also holds that traditionally minded communities and individual women can opt out without being regarded by the Conservative movement as sinning. By adopting this Responsum, the CJLS found itself in a position to provide a considered Jewish-law justification for its egalitarian practices, without having to rely on potentially unconvincing arguments, undermine the religious importance of community and clergy, ask individual women intrusive questions, repudiate the "halakhic" tradition, or label women following traditional practices as sinners.
Reform Judaism believes in the equality of men and women. The Reform movement rejects the idea that halakha (Jewish law) is the sole legitimate form of Jewish decision making, and holds that Jews can and must consider their conscience and ethical principles inherent in the Jewish tradition when deciding upon a right course of action. There is widespread consensus among Reform Jews that traditional distinctions between the role of men and women are antithetical to the deeper ethical principles of Judaism. This has enabled Reform communities to allow women to perform many rituals traditionally reserved for men, such as:
Concerns about intermarriage have also influenced the Reform Jewish position on gender. In 1983, the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a resolution waiving the need for formal conversion for anyone with at least one Jewish parent who has made affirmative acts of Jewish identity. This departed from the traditional position requiring formal conversion to Judaism for children without a Jewish mother. The 1983 resolution of the American Reform movement has had a mixed reception in Reform Jewish communities outside of the United States. Most notably, the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism has rejected patrilineal descent and requires formal conversion for anyone without a Jewish mother. As well, a joint Orthodox, Traditional, Conservative and Reform Bet Din formed in Denver, Colorado to promote uniform standards for conversion to Judaism was dissolved in 1983, due to that Reform resolution. However, in 2015 the majority of Britain's Assembly of Reform Rabbis voted in favor of a position paper proposing "that individuals who live a Jewish life, and who are patrilineally Jewish, can be welcomed into the Jewish community and confirmed as Jewish through an individual process". Britain's Assembly of Reform Rabbis stated that rabbis "would be able to take local decisions – ratified by the Beit Din – confirming Jewish status".
Liberal prayerbooks tend increasingly to avoid male-specific words and pronouns, seeking that all references to God in translations be made in gender-neutral language. For example, the UK Liberal movement's "Siddur Lev Chadash" (1995) does so, as does the UK Reform Movement's "Forms of Prayer" (2008). In Mishkan T'filah, the American Reform Jewish prayer book released in 2007, references to God as "He" have been removed, and whenever Jewish patriarchs are named (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), so also are the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.) In 2015 the Reform Jewish High Holy Days prayer book Mishkan HaNefesh was released; it is intended as a companion to Mishkan T'filah. It includes a version of the High Holy Days prayer Avinu Malkeinu that refers to God as both "Loving Father" and "Compassionate Mother". Other notable changes are replacing a line from the Reform movement's earlier prayerbook, "Gates of Repentance", that mentioned the joy of a bride and groom specifically, with the line "rejoicing with couples under the chuppah [wedding canopy]", and adding a third, non-gendered option to the way worshippers are called to the Torah, offering "mibeit", Hebrew for "from the house of", in addition to the traditional "son of" or "daughter of".
In 2008, Stacy Offner became the first female vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, a position she held for two years. In 2015, Daryl Messinger became the first female chair of the Union.
Reform Judaism generally holds that the various differences between the roles of men and women in traditional Jewish law are not relevant to modern conditions and not applicable today. Accordingly, there has been no need to develop legal arguments analogous to those made within the Orthodox and Conservative movements.
The equality of women and men is a central tenet and hallmark of Reconstructionist Judaism. From the beginning, Reconstructionist Jewish ritual allowed men and women to pray together—a decision based on egalitarian philosophy. It was on this basis that Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan called for the full equality of women and men, despite the obvious difficulties reconciling this stance with norms of traditional Jewish practice. The Reconstructionist Movement ordained women rabbis from the start. In 1968, women were accepted into the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, under the leadership of Ira Eisenstein. The first ordained female Reconstructionist rabbi, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, served as rabbi of the Manhattan Reconstructionist Congregation in 1976, and gained a pulpit in 1977 at Beth El Zedeck congregation in Indianapolis. Sandy Eisenberg Sasso was accepted without debate or subsequent controversy. In 2005, 24 out of the movement's 106 synagogues in the US had women as senior or assistant rabbis. In 2013 Rabbi Deborah Waxman was elected as the President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. As the President, she is believed to be the first woman and first lesbian to lead a Jewish congregational union, and the first female rabbi and first lesbian to lead a Jewish seminary; the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College is both a congregational union and a seminary.
The Reconstructionist Community began including women in the minyan and allowing them to come up to the Torah for aliyot. They also continued the practice of bat mitzvah. Reconstructionist Judaism also allowed women to perform other traditional male tasks, such as serving as witnesses, leading services, public Torah reading, and wearing ritual prayer garments like kippot and tallitot. Female Reconstructionist rabbis have been instrumental in the creation of rituals, stories, and music that have begun to give women's experience a voice in Judaism. Most of the focus has been on rituals for life-cycle events. New ceremonies have been created for births, weddings, divorces, conversions, weaning, and the onset of menarche and menopause. The Reconstructionist movement as a whole has been committed to creating liturgy that is in consonance with gender equality and the celebration of women's lives. Another major step: The Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations has also developed educational programs that teach the full acceptance of lesbians, as well as rituals that affirm lesbian relationships. Reconstructionist rabbis officiate at same-sex weddings. Reconstructionist Judaism also allows openly LGBT men and women to be ordained as rabbis and cantors.
Several prominent members of the Reconstructionist community have focused on issues like domestic violence. Others have devoted energy to helping women gain the right of divorce in traditional Jewish communities. Many have spoken out for the right of Jewish women to pray aloud and read from the Torah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, particularly members of the Women of the Wall group.
When the roles of women in religion change, there may also be changed roles for men. With their acceptance of patrilineal descent in 1979, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association supported the principle that a man can pass Judaism on to the next generation as well as a woman.
Jewish Renewal is a recent movement in Judaism which endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with Kabbalistic, Hasidic, musical and meditative practices; it describes itself as "a worldwide, transdenominational movement grounded in Judaism's prophetic and mystical traditions". The Jewish Renewal movement ordains women as well as men as rabbis and cantors. Lynn Gottlieb became the first female rabbi in Jewish Renewal in 1981, and Avitall Gerstetter, who lives in Germany, became the first female cantor in Jewish Renewal (and the first female cantor in Germany) in 2002. In 2009 and 2012 respectively, OHALAH (Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal) issued a board statement and a resolution supporting Women of the Wall. The Statement of Principles of OHALAH states in part, "Our local communities will embody egalitarian and inclusive values, manifested in a variety of leadership and decision-making structures, ensuring that women and men are full and equal partners in every aspect of our communal Jewish life." In 2014 OHALAH issued a board resolution stating in part, "Therefore, be it resolved that: OHALAH supports the observance of Women's History Month, International Women's Day, and Women's Equality Day; OHALAH condemns all types of sexism; OHALAH is committed to gender equality, now and in all generations to come; and OHALAH supports equal rights regardless of gender." Also in 2014, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal issued a statement stating, "ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal supports the observance of Women's History Month, International Women's Day, and Women's Equality Day, condemns all types of sexism, is committed to gender equality, now and in all generations to come, and supports equal rights regardless of gender, in recognition and allegiance to the view that we are all equally created in the Divine Image."
Humanistic Judaism is a movement in Judaism that offers a non-theistic alternative in contemporary Jewish life. It ordains both men and women as rabbis, and its first rabbi was a woman, Tamara Kolton, who was ordained in 1999. Its first cantor was also a woman, Deborah Davis, ordained in 2001; however, Humanistic Judaism has since stopped ordaining cantors. The Society for Humanistic Judaism issued a statement in 1996 stating in part, "We affirm that a woman has the moral right and should have the continuing legal right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy in accordance with her own ethical standards. Because a decision to terminate a pregnancy carries serious, irreversible consequences, it is one to be made with great care and with keen awareness of the complex psychological, emotional, and ethical implications." They also issued a statement in 2011 condemning the then-recent passage of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" by the U.S. House of Representatives, which they called "a direct attack on a women's right to choose". In 2012, they issued a resolution opposing conscience clauses that allow religious-affiliated institutions to be exempt from generally applicable requirements mandating reproductive healthcare services to individuals or employees. In 2013 they issued a resolution stating in part, "Therefore, be it resolved that: The Society for Humanistic Judaism wholeheartedly supports the observance of Women's Equality Day on August 26 to commemorate the anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing women to vote; The Society condemns gender discrimination in all its forms, including restriction of rights, limited access to education, violence, and subjugation; and The Society commits itself to maintain vigilance and speak out in the fight to bring gender equality to our generation and to the generations that follow."
Sofrot is the feminine plural of Sofer. A Sopher, Sopher, Sofer STaM, or Sofer ST"M (Heb: "scribe", סופר סת״ם) is a Jewish scribe who is able and entitled to transcribe Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot, and other religious writings. (ST"M, סת״ם, is an abbreviation for Sefer Torahs, Tefillin, and Mezuzot. The masculine plural of sofer is "sofrim" סופרים).
Forming the basis for the discussion of women becoming sofrot, Talmud Gittin 45b states: "Sifrei Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot written by a heretic, a star-worshipper, a slave, a woman, a minor, a Cuthean, or an apostate Jew, are unfit for ritual use." The rulings on Mezuzah and Tefillin are virtually undisputed among those who hold to the Talmudic Law. As Arba'ah Turim does not include women in its list of those ineligible to write Sifrei Torah, some see this as proof that women are permitted to write a Torah scroll. However today, virtually all Orthodox (both Modern and Ultra) authorities contest the idea that a woman is permitted to write a Sefer Torah. Yet women are permitted to inscribe Ketubot (marriage contracts), STaM not intended for ritual use, and other writings of Sofrut beyond simple STaM. In 2003, Canadian Aviel Barclay became the world's first known traditionally trained female sofer. In 2007 Jen Taylor Friedman, a British woman, became the first female sofer to scribe a Sefer Torah. In 2010 the first Sefer Torah scribed by a group of women (six female sofers, who were from Brazil, Canada, Israel, and the United States) was completed; this was known as the Women's Torah Project. Also, not just any man may write a Sefer Torah; they should ideally be written by a "G-d-fearing person" who knows at least the first layer of meanings, some of them hidden, in the Torah.
From October 2010 until spring 2011, Julie Seltzer, one of the female sofers from the Women's Torah Project, scribed a Sefer Torah as part of an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. This makes her the first American female sofer to scribe a Sefer Torah; Julie Seltzer was born in Philadelphia and is non-denominationally Jewish. From spring 2011 until August 2012 she scribed another Sefer Torah, this time for the Reform congregation Beth Israel in San Diego. Seltzer was taught mostly by Jen Taylor Friedman. On September 22, 2013, Congregation Beth Elohim of New York dedicated a new Torah, which members of Beth Elohim said was the first Torah in New York City to be completed by a woman. The Torah was scribed by Linda Coppleson. As of 2014, there are an estimated 50 female sofers in the world.
General
Publications
Particular issues | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26204 |
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering and allows the "leaders" of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes they "ordered" others to do or assisted them in doing, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because they did not actually commit the crime personally.
RICO was enacted by section 901(a) of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 () and is codified at as . G. Robert Blakey, an adviser to the United States Senate Government Operations Committee, drafted the law under the close supervision of the committee's chairman, Senator John Little McClellan. It was enacted as Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and signed into law by Richard M. Nixon. While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread.
Beginning in 1972, 33 states adopted state RICO laws to be able to prosecute similar conduct.
Under RICO, a person who has committed "at least two acts of racketeering activity" drawn from a list of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an "enterprise". Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity."
When the U.S. Attorney decides to indict someone under RICO, they have the option of seeking a pre-trial restraining order or injunction to temporarily seize a defendant's assets and prevent the transfer of potentially forfeitable property, as well as require the defendant to put up a performance bond. This provision was placed in the law because the owners of Mafia-related shell corporations often absconded with the assets. An injunction or performance bond ensures that there is something to seize in the event of a guilty verdict.
In many cases, the threat of a RICO indictment can force defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges, in part because the seizure of assets would make it difficult to pay a defense attorney. Despite its harsh provisions, a RICO-related charge is considered easy to prove in court since it focuses on patterns of behavior as opposed to criminal acts.
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same. There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s) conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)). In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers. A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.
Both the criminal and civil components allow the recovery of treble damages (damages in triple the amount of actual/compensatory damages).
Although its primary intent was to deal with organized crime, Blakey said that Congress never intended it to merely apply to the Mob. He once told "Time," "We don't want one set of rules for people whose collars are blue or whose names end in vowels, and another set for those whose collars are white and have Ivy League diplomas."
Initially, prosecutors were skeptical of using RICO, mainly because it was unproven. The RICO Act was first used by the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York on September 18, 1979, in the United States v. Scotto. Scotto, who was convicted on charges of racketeering, accepting unlawful labor payments, and income tax evasion, headed the International Longshoreman's Association. During the 1980s and 1990s, federal prosecutors used the law to bring charges against several Mafia figures. The second major success was the Mafia Commission Trial, which ran from February 25, 1985, through November 19, 1986. Rudy Giuliani indicted 11 organized crime figures, including the heads of New York's so-called "Five Families", under the RICO Act on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. "Time" magazine called this "Case of Cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach is to wipe out the five families." Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano evaded conviction when he and his underboss, Thomas Bilotti, were murdered on the streets of Midtown Manhattan on December 16, 1985. However, three heads of the Five Families were sentenced to 100 years in prison on January 13, 1987. Genovese and Colombo leaders, Tony Salerno and Carmine Persico received additional sentences in separate trials, with 70-year and 39-year sentences to run consecutively. He was assisted by three Assistant United States Attorneys: Michael Chertoff, the eventual second United States Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act; John Savarese, now a partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz; and Gil Childers, a later deputy chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of New York and now managing director in the legal department at Goldman Sachs.
Beginning in 1972, 33 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, adopted state RICO laws to cover additional state offenses under a similar scheme.
Under the law, the meaning of racketeering activity is set out at . As currently amended it includes:
Pattern of racketeering activity requires at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years (excluding any period of imprisonment) after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity. The US Supreme Court has instructed federal courts to follow the continuity-plus-relationship test in order to determine whether the facts of a specific case give rise to an established pattern. The illegal acts comprising a pattern are called "predicate" offenses. Predicate acts are related if they "have the same or similar purposes, results, participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated events." Continuity is both a closed and open ended concept, referring to either a closed period of conduct, or to past conduct that by its nature projects into the future with a threat of repetition.
Although some of the RICO predicate acts are extortion and blackmail, one of the most successful applications of the RICO laws has been the ability to indict and or sanction individuals for their behavior and actions committed against witnesses and victims in alleged retaliation or retribution for cooperating with federal law enforcement or intelligence agencies.
Violations of the RICO laws can be alleged in civil lawsuit cases or for criminal charges. In these instances, charges can be brought against individuals or corporations in retaliation for said individuals or corporations working with law enforcement. Further, charges can also be brought against individuals or corporations who have sued or filed criminal charges against a defendant.
Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) laws can be applied in an attempt to curb alleged abuses of the legal system by individuals or corporations who use the courts as a weapon to retaliate against whistle blowers or victims or to silence another's speech. RICO could be alleged if it can be shown that lawyers or their clients conspired and collaborated to concoct fictitious legal complaints solely in retribution and retaliation for themselves having been brought before the courts.
Although the RICO laws may cover drug trafficking crimes in addition to other more traditional RICO predicate acts such as extortion, blackmail, and racketeering, large-scale and organized drug networks are now commonly prosecuted under the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute, also known as the "Kingpin Statute". The CCE laws target only traffickers who are responsible for long-term and elaborate conspiracies, whereas the RICO law covers a variety of organized criminal behaviors.
The RICO statute contains a provision that allows for the commencement of a civil action by a private party to recover damages sustained as a result of the commission of a RICO predicate offense.
In 1979, the United States Federal Government went after Sonny Barger and several members and associates of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels using RICO. In "United States vs. Barger", the prosecution team attempted to demonstrate a pattern of behavior to convict Barger and other members of the club of RICO offenses related to guns and illegal drugs. The jury acquitted Barger on the RICO charges with a hung jury on the predicate acts: "There was no proof it was part of club policy, and as much as they tried, the government could not come up with any incriminating minutes from any of our meetings mentioning drugs and guns."
On August 20, 2006, in Tampa, Florida, most of the state leadership members of street gang the Latin Kings were arrested in connection with RICO conspiracy charges to engage in racketeering and currently await trial. The operation, called "Broken Crown", targeted statewide leadership of the Latin Kings. The raid occurred at the Caribbean American Club. Along with Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Tampa Police Department, the State Attorney's Office, the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were involved in the operation.
Latin Kings in Chicago have been hit in 2009, their nation leader Augustin Zambrano, who was sentenced in 2012 to 60 years on 3 counts.
Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Gil Dozier, in office from 1976 to 1980, faced indictment with violations of both the Hobbs and the RICO laws. He was accused of compelling companies doing business with his department to make campaign contributions on his behalf. On September 23, 1980, the Baton Rouge-based United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana convicted Dozier of five counts of extortion and racketeering. The sentence of ten years imprisonment, later upgraded to eighteen when other offenses were determined, and a $25,000 fine was suspended pending appeal, and Dozier remained free on bail. He eventually served nearly four years until a presidential commutation freed him in 1986.
Around June 1984, the Key West Police Department located in Monroe County, Florida, was declared a criminal enterprise under the federal RICO statutes after a lengthy United States Department of Justice investigation. Several high-ranking officers of the department, including Deputy Police Chief Raymond Cassamayor, were arrested on federal charges of running a protection racket for illegal cocaine smugglers. At trial, a witness testified he routinely delivered bags of cocaine to the Deputy Chief's office at City Hall.
On 29 March 1989 American financier Michael Milken was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud relating to an investigation into an allegation of insider trading and other offenses. Milken was accused of using a wide-ranging network of contacts to manipulate stock and bond prices. It was one of the first occasions that a RICO indictment was brought against an individual with no ties to organized crime. Milken pleaded guilty to six lesser felonies of securities fraud and tax evasion rather than risk spending the rest of his life in prison and ended up serving 22 months in prison. Milken was also ordered banned for life from the securities industry.
On September 7, 1988, Milken's employer, Drexel Burnham Lambert, was threatened with RICO charges "respondeat superior", the legal doctrine that corporations are responsible for their employees' crimes. Drexel avoided RICO charges by entering an Alford plea to lesser felonies of stock parking and stock manipulation. In a carefully worded plea, Drexel said it was "not in a position to dispute the allegations" made by the Government. If Drexel had been indicted under RICO statutes, it would have had to post a performance bond of up to $1 billion to avoid having its assets frozen. This would have taken precedence over all of the firm's other obligations—including the loans that provided 96 percent of its capital base. If the bond ever had to be paid, its shareholders would have been practically wiped out. Since banks will not extend credit to a firm indicted under RICO, an indictment would have likely put Drexel out of business. By at least one estimate, a RICO indictment would have destroyed the firm within a month. Years later, Drexel president and CEO Fred Joseph said that Drexel had no choice but to plead guilty because "a financial institution cannot survive a RICO indictment."
In 2001, Major League Baseball team owners voted to eliminate two teams, presumably the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos. In 2002, the former minority owners of the Expos filed charges under the RICO Act against MLB commissioner Bud Selig and former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria, claiming that Selig and Loria deliberately conspired to devalue the team for personal benefit in preparation for a move. If found liable, Major League Baseball could have been responsible for up to $300 million in punitive damages. The case lasted two years, successfully stalling the Expos' move to Washington or contraction during that time. It was eventually sent to arbitration, where the arbiters ruled in favor of Major League Baseball, permitting the move to Washington to take place.
In April 2000, federal judge William J. Rea in Los Angeles, ruling in one Rampart scandal case, said that the plaintiffs could pursue RICO claims against the LAPD, an unprecedented finding. The idea that a police organization could be characterized as a racketeering enterprise shook up City Hall and further damaged the already-tarnished image of the LAPD. However, in July 2001, US District Judge Gary A. Feess said that the plaintiffs do not have standing to sue the LAPD under RICO because they are alleging personal injuries rather than economic or property damage.
On April 26, 2006, the Supreme Court heard "Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Williams", , which concerned what sort of corporations fell under the scope of RICO. Mohawk Industries had allegedly hired illegal aliens, in violation of RICO. The court was asked to decide whether Mohawk Industries, along with recruiting agencies, constitutes an "enterprise" that can be prosecuted under RICO, but in June of that year dismissed the case and remanded it to Court of Appeals.
John Gotti and Frank Locascio were convicted on April 2, 1992 under the RICO Act and later sentenced to life in prison.
In Tampa, on October 16, 2006, four members of the Gambino crime family (Capo Ronald Trucchio, Terry Scaglione, Steven Catallono, and Anthony Mucciarone and associate Kevin McMahon) were tried under RICO statutes, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison.
In the mid-1990s, prosecuting attorneys Gregory O'Connell and Charles Rose used RICO charges to bring down the Lucchese family within an 18-month period. Dismantling the Lucchese family had a profound financial impact on previously Mafia held businesses such as construction, garment, and garbage hauling. Here they dominated and extorted money through taxes, dues, and fees. An example of this extortion was through the garbage business. Hauling of garbage from the World Trade Center cost the building owners $1.2 million per year to be removed when the Mafia monopolized the business, as compared to $150,000 per year when competitive bids could be sought.
Bonanno crime family boss Joseph Massino's trial began on May 24, 2004, with judge Nicholas Garaufis presiding and Greg D. Andres and Robert Henoch heading the prosecution. He now faced 11 RICO counts for seven murders (due to the prospect of prosecutors seeking the death penalty for the Sciascia murder, that case was severed to be tried separately), arson, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling, and money laundering. After deliberating for five days, the jury found Massino guilty of all 11 counts on July 30, 2004. His sentencing was initially scheduled for October 12, and he was expected to receive a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. The jury also approved the prosecutors' recommended $10 million forfeiture of the proceeds of his reign as Bonanno boss on the day of the verdict.
Immediately after his July 30 conviction, as court was adjourned, Massino requested a meeting with Judge Garaufis, where he made his first offer to cooperate. He did so in hopes of sparing his life; he was facing the death penalty if found guilty of Sciascia's murder. Indeed, one of John Ashcroft's final acts as Attorney General was to order federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Massino. Massino thus stood to be the first Mafia boss to be executed for his crimes, and the first mob boss to face the death penalty since Lepke Buchalter was executed in 1944. Massino was the first sitting boss of a New York crime family to turn state's evidence, and the second in the history of the American Mafia to do so (Philadelphia crime family boss Ralph Natale had flipped in 1999 when facing drug charges).
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice's Operation Family Secrets indicted 14 Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, or the Organization) members and associates under RICO predicates. Five defendants were convicted of RICO violations and other crimes. Six pleaded guilty, two died before trial and one was too sick to be tried.
A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Pennsylvania handed down a 48-count indictment against former Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella. The judges were charged with RICO after allegedly committing acts of mail and wire fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, and honest services fraud. The judges were accused of taking kickbacks for housing juveniles, that the judges convicted of mostly petty crimes, at a private detention center. The incident was dubbed by many local and national newspapers as the "Kids for cash scandal". On February 18, 2011, a federal jury found Michael Ciavarella guilty of racketeering because of his involvement in accepting illegal payments from Robert Mericle, the developer of PA Child Care, and Attorney Robert Powell, a co-owner of the facility. Ciavarella is facing 38 other counts in federal court.
Scott W. Rothstein is a disbarred lawyer and the former managing shareholder, chairman, and chief executive officer of the now-defunct Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm. He was accused of funding his philanthropy, political contributions, law firm salaries, and an extravagant lifestyle with a massive 1.2 billion dollar Ponzi scheme. On December 1, 2009, Rothstein turned himself in to federal authorities and was subsequently arrested on charges related to RICO. Although his arraignment plea was not guilty, Rothstein cooperated with the government and reversed his plea to guilty of five federal crimes on January 27, 2010. Bond was denied by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin Rosenbaum, who ruled that due to his ability to forge documents, he was considered a flight risk. On June 9, 2010, Rothstein received a 50-year prison sentence after a hearing in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.
Eleven defendants were indicted on RICO charges for allegedly assisting AccessHealthSource, a local health care provider, in obtaining and maintaining lucrative contracts with local and state government entities in the city of El Paso, Texas, "through bribery of and kickbacks to elected officials or himself and others, extortion under color of authority, fraudulent schemes and artifices, false pretenses, promises and representations and deprivation of the right of citizens to the honest services of their elected local officials" (see indictment).
Fourteen defendants affiliated with FIFA were indicted under the RICO act on 47 counts for "racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offenses, in connection with the defendants' participation in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer." The defendants include many current and former high-ranking officers of FIFA and its affiliate CONCACAF. The defendants had allegedly used the enterprise as a front to collect millions of dollars in bribes, which may have influenced Russia and Qatar's winning bids to host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, respectively.
In 2015, the Drummond Company sued attorneys Terrence P. Collingsworth and William R. Scherer, the advocacy group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates), and Dutch businessman Albert van Bilderbeek, one of the owners of Llanos Oil, accusing them of violating RICO by alleging that Drummond had worked alongside Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia to murder labor union leaders within proximity of their Colombian coal mines, which Drummond denies.
In 2005, a federal jury ordered Fasano to pay $500,000 under RICO for illegally helping a client hide their assets in a bankruptcy case.
The US RICO legislation has other equivalents in the rest of the world. In spite of Interpol having a standardized definition of RICO-like crimes, the interpretation and national implementation in legislation (and enforcement) widely varies. Most nations cooperate with the US on RICO enforcement only where their own related laws are specifically broken, but this is in line with the Interpol protocols for such matters.
By nation, alphabetically:
Without other nations enforcing similar legislation to RICO, many cross border RICO cases would not be possible. In the overall body of RICO cases that went to trial, at least 50% have had some non-US enforcement component to them. The offshoring of money away from the US finance system as part racketeering (and especially money laundering) is typically a major contributing factor to this.
However, other countries have laws that enable the government to seize property with unlawful origins. Colombia and Mexico both have specific laws that define the participation in criminal organizations as a separate crime as well as separate laws that allow the seizure of goods related to these crimes. This latter provides a specific chapter titled "International Cooperation", which instructs Mexican authorities to cooperate with foreign authorities with respect to organized crime assets within Mexico, and provides the framework by which Mexican authorities may politely request the cooperation of foreign authorities with respect to assets located outside of Mexico, in terms of any international instruments they may be party to.
Arguably, this may be construed as allowing the application of the RICO Act in Mexico, provided the relevant international agreements exist among Mexico and countries with RICO or RICO-equivalent provisions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26211 |
Rhombicuboctahedron
In geometry, the rhombicuboctahedron, or small rhombicuboctahedron, is an Archimedean solid with eight triangular and eighteen square faces. There are 24 identical vertices, with one triangle and three squares meeting at each one. (Note that six of the squares only share vertices with the triangles while the other twelve share an edge.) The polyhedron has octahedral symmetry, like the cube and octahedron. Its dual is called the deltoidal icositetrahedron or trapezoidal icositetrahedron, although its faces are not really true trapezoids.
Johannes Kepler in Harmonices Mundi (1618) named this polyhedron a "rhombicuboctahedron", being short for "truncated cuboctahedral rhombus", with "cuboctahedral rhombus" being his name for a rhombic dodecahedron. There are different truncations of a rhombic dodecahedron into a topological rhombicuboctahedron: Prominently its rectification (left), the one that creates the uniform solid (center), and the rectification of the dual cuboctahedron (right), which is the core of the dual compound.
It can also be called an "expanded" or "cantellated" cube or octahedron, from truncation operations on either uniform polyhedron.
There are distortions of the rhombicuboctahedron that, while some of the faces are not regular polygons, are still vertex-uniform. Some of these can be made by taking a cube or octahedron and cutting off the edges, then trimming the corners, so the resulting polyhedron has six square and twelve rectangular faces. These have octahedral symmetry and form a continuous series between the cube and the octahedron, analogous to the distortions of the rhombicosidodecahedron or the tetrahedral distortions of the cuboctahedron. However, the rhombicuboctahedron also has a second set of distortions with six rectangular and sixteen trapezoidal faces, which do not have octahedral symmetry but rather Th symmetry, so they are invariant under the same rotations as the tetrahedron but different reflections.
The lines along which a Rubik's Cube can be turned are, projected onto a sphere, similar, topologically identical, to a rhombicuboctahedron's edges. In fact, variants using the Rubik's Cube mechanism have been produced which closely resemble the rhombicuboctahedron.
The rhombicuboctahedron is used in three uniform space-filling tessellations: the cantellated cubic honeycomb, the runcitruncated cubic honeycomb, and the runcinated alternated cubic honeycomb.
The rhombicuboctahedron can be dissected into two square cupolae and a central octagonal prism. A rotation of one cupola by 45 degrees creates the "pseudorhombicuboctahedron". Both of these polyhedra have the same vertex figure: 3.4.4.4.
There are three pairs of parallel planes that each intersect the rhombicuboctahedron in a regular octagon. The rhombicuboctahedron may be divided along any of these to obtain an octagonal prism with regular faces and two additional polyhedra called square cupolae, which count among the Johnson solids; it is thus an "elongated square orthobicupola". These pieces can be reassembled to give a new solid called the elongated square gyrobicupola or "pseudorhombicuboctahedron", with the symmetry of a square antiprism. In this the vertices are all locally the same as those of a rhombicuboctahedron, with one triangle and three squares meeting at each one, but are not all identical with respect to the entire polyhedron, since some are closer to the symmetry axis than others.
The "rhombicuboctahedron" has six special orthogonal projections, centered, on a vertex, on two types of edges, and three types of faces: triangles, and two squares. The last two correspond to the B2 and A2 Coxeter planes.
The rhombicuboctahedron 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.
A half symmetry form of the rhombicuboctahedron, , exists with pyritohedral symmetry, [4,3+], (3*2) as Coxeter diagram , Schläfli symbol s2{3,4}, and can be called a "cantic snub octahedron". This form can be visualized by alternatingly coloring the edges of the 6 squares. These squares can then be distorted into rectangles, while the 8 triangles remain equilateral. The 12 diagonal square faces will become isosceles trapezoids. In the limit, the rectangles can be reduced to edges, and the trapezoids become triangles, and an icosahedron is formed, by a "snub octahedron" construction, , s{3,4}. (The compound of two icosahedra is constructed from both alternated positions.)
Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of a rhombicuboctahedron centred at the origin, with edge length 2 units, are all the even permutations of
If the original rhombicuboctahedron has unit edge length, its dual strombic icositetrahedron has edge lengths
The area "A" and the volume "V" of the rhombicuboctahedron of edge length "a" are:
The optimal packing fraction of rhombicuboctahedra is given by
It was noticed that this optimal value is obtained in a Bravais lattice by . Since the rhombicuboctahedron is contained in a rhombic dodecahedron whose inscribed sphere is identical to its own inscribed sphere, the value of the optimal packing fraction is a corollary of the Kepler conjecture: it can be achieved by putting a rhombicuboctahedron in each cell of the rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb, and it cannot be surpassed, since otherwise the optimal packing density of spheres could be surpassed by putting a sphere in each rhombicuboctahedron of the hypothetical packing which surpasses it.
The 1495 "Portrait of Luca Pacioli", traditionally attributed to Jacopo de' Barbari, includes a glass rhombicuboctahedron half-filled with water, which may have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci.
The first printed version of the rhombicuboctahedron was by Leonardo and appeared in Pacioli's "Divina proportione" (1509).
A spherical 180° × 360° panorama can be projected onto any polyhedron; but the rhombicuboctahedron provides a good enough approximation of a sphere while being easy to build. This type of projection, called "Philosphere", is possible from some panorama assembly software. It consists of two images that are printed separately and cut with scissors while leaving some flaps for assembly with glue.
The Freescape games "Driller" and "Dark Side" both had a game map in the form of a rhombicuboctahedron.
The "Hurry-Scurry Galaxy" and "Sea Slide Galaxy" in the videogame "Super Mario Galaxy" have planets in the similar shape of a rhombicuboctahedron.
"Sonic the Hedgehog 3"'s Icecap Zone features pillars topped with rhombicuboctahedra.
During the Rubik's Cube craze of the 1980s, at least two twisty puzzles sold had the form of a rhombicuboctahedron (the mechanism was of course that of a Rubik's Cube).
The rhombicuboctahedron is one of a family of uniform polyhedra related to the cube and regular octahedron.
This polyhedron is topologically related as a part of sequence of cantellated polyhedra with vertex figure (3.4."n".4), and continues as tilings of the hyperbolic plane. These vertex-transitive figures have (*"n"32) reflectional symmetry.
It shares its vertex arrangement with three nonconvex uniform polyhedra: the stellated truncated hexahedron, the small rhombihexahedron (having the triangular faces and six square faces in common), and the small cubicuboctahedron (having twelve square faces in common).
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a rhombicuboctahedral graph is the graph of vertices and edges of the rhombicuboctahedron, one of the Archimedean solids. It has 24 vertices and 48 edges, and is a quartic graph Archimedean graph. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26213 |
Reverse transcriptase
A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by retroviruses to replicate their genomes, by retrotransposon mobile genetic elements to proliferate within the host genome, by eukaryotic cells to extend the telomeres at the ends of their linear chromosomes, and by some non-retroviruses such as the hepatitis B virus, a member of the "Hepadnaviridae", which are dsDNA-RT viruses.
Retroviral RT has three sequential biochemical activities: RNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity, ribonuclease H (RNAse H), and DNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity. Collectively, these activities enable the enzyme to convert single-stranded RNA into double-stranded cDNA. In retroviruses and retrotransposons, this cDNA can then integrate into the host genome, from which new RNA copies can be made via host-cell transcription. The same sequence of reactions is widely used in the laboratory to convert RNA to DNA for use in molecular cloning, RNA sequencing, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or genome analysis.
Reverse transcriptases were discovered by Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Rous sarcoma virions and independently isolated by David Baltimore in 1970 at MIT from two RNA tumour viruses: murine leukemia virus and again Rous sarcoma virus. For their achievements, they shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Renato Dulbecco).
Well-studied reverse transcriptases include:
The enzymes are encoded and used by viruses that use reverse transcription as a step in the process of replication. Reverse-transcribing RNA viruses, such as retroviruses, use the enzyme to reverse-transcribe their RNA genomes into DNA, which is then integrated into the host genome and replicated along with it. Reverse-transcribing DNA viruses, such as the hepadnaviruses, can allow RNA to serve as a template in assembling and making DNA strands. HIV infects humans with the use of this enzyme. Without reverse transcriptase, the viral genome would not be able to incorporate into the host cell, resulting in failure to replicate.
Reverse transcriptase creates double-stranded DNA from an RNA template.
In virus species with reverse transcriptase lacking DNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity, creation of double-stranded DNA can possibly be done by host-encoded DNA polymerase δ, mistaking the viral DNA-RNA for a primer and synthesizing a double-stranded DNA by similar mechanism as in primer removal, where the newly synthesized DNA displaces the original RNA template.
The process of reverse transcription, also called retrotranscription or retrotras, is extremely error-prone, and it is during this step that mutations may occur. Such mutations may cause drug resistance.
Retroviruses, also referred to as class VI ssRNA-RT viruses, are RNA reverse-transcribing viruses with a DNA intermediate. Their genomes consist of two molecules of positive-sense single-stranded RNA with a 5' cap and 3' polyadenylated tail. Examples of retroviruses include the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV). Creation of double-stranded DNA occurs in the cytosol as a series of these steps:
Creation of double-stranded DNA also involves "strand transfer", in which there is a translocation of short DNA product from initial RNA-dependent DNA synthesis to acceptor template regions at the other end of the genome, which are later reached and processed by the reverse transcriptase for its DNA-dependent DNA activity.
Retroviral RNA is arranged in 5’ terminus to 3’ terminus. The site where the primer is annealed to viral RNA is called the primer-binding site (PBS). The RNA 5’end to the PBS site is called U5, and the RNA 3’ end to the PBS is called the leader. The tRNA primer is unwound between 14 and 22 nucleotides and forms a base-paired duplex with the viral RNA at PBS. The fact that the PBS is located near the 5’ terminus of viral RNA is unusual because reverse transcriptase synthesize DNA from 3’ end of the primer in the 5’ to 3’ direction (with respect to the newly synthesized DNA strand). Therefore, the primer and reverse transcriptase must be relocated to 3’ end of viral RNA. In order to accomplish this reposition, multiple steps and various enzymes including DNA polymerase, ribonuclease H(RNase H) and polynucleotide unwinding are needed.
The HIV reverse transcriptase also has ribonuclease activity that degrades the viral RNA during the synthesis of cDNA, as well as DNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity that copies the sense cDNA strand into an "antisense" DNA to form a double-stranded viral DNA intermediate (vDNA).
Self-replicating stretches of eukaryotic genomes known as retrotransposons utilize reverse transcriptase to move from one position in the genome to another via an RNA intermediate. They are found abundantly in the genomes of plants and animals. Telomerase is another reverse transcriptase found in many eukaryotes, including humans, which carries its own RNA template; this RNA is used as a template for DNA replication.
Initial reports of reverse transcriptase in prokaryotes came as far back as 1971 (Beljanski et al., 1971a, 1972). These have since been broadly described as part of bacterial Retrons, distinct sequences that code for reverse transcriptase, and are used in the synthesis of msDNA. In order to initiate synthesis of DNA, a primer is needed. In bacteria, the primer is synthesized during replication.
Valerian Dolja of Oregon State argues that viruses, due to their diversity, have played an evolutionary role in the development of cellular life, with reverse transcriptase playing a central role.
The reverse transcriptase employs a "right hand" structure similar to that found in other viral nucleic acid polymerases. In addition to the transcription function, retroviral reverse transcriptases have a domain belonging to the RNase H family, which is vital to their replication. By degrading the RNA template, it allows the other strand of DNA to be synthesized. Some fragments from the digestion also serves as the primer for the DNA polymerase (either the same enzyme or a host protein), responsible for making the other (plus) strand.
There are three different replication systems during the life cycle of a retrovirus. First of all, the reverse transcriptase synthesizes viral DNA from viral RNA, and then from newly made complementary DNA strand. The second replication process occurs when host cellular DNA polymerase replicates the integrated viral DNA. Lastly, RNA polymerase II transcribes the proviral DNA into RNA, which will be packed into virions. Therefore, mutation can occur during one or all of these replication steps.
Reverse transcriptase has a high error rate when transcribing RNA into DNA since, unlike most other DNA polymerases, it has no proofreading ability. This high error rate allows mutations to accumulate at an accelerated rate relative to proofread forms of replication. The commercially available reverse transcriptases produced by Promega are quoted by their manuals as having error rates in the range of 1 in 17,000 bases for AMV and 1 in 30,000 bases for M-MLV.
Other than creating single-nucleotide polymorphisms, reverse transcriptases have also been shown to be involved in processes such as transcript fusions, exon shuffling and creating artificial antisense transcripts. It has been speculated that this "template switching" activity of reverse transcriptase, which can be demonstrated completely "in vivo", may have been one of the causes for finding several thousand unannotated transcripts in the genomes of model organisms.
Two RNA genomes are packaged into each retrovirus particle, but, after an infection, each virus generates only one provirus. After infection, reverse transcription is accompanied by template switching between the two genome copies (copy choice recombination). From 5 to 14 recombination events per genome occur at each replication cycle. Template switching (recombination) appears to be necessary for maintaining genome integrity and as a repair mechanism for salvaging damaged genomes.
As HIV uses reverse transcriptase to copy its genetic material and generate new viruses (part of a retrovirus proliferation circle), specific drugs have been designed to disrupt the process and thereby suppress its growth. Collectively, these drugs are known as reverse-transcriptase inhibitors and include the nucleoside and nucleotide analogues zidovudine (trade name Retrovir), lamivudine (Epivir) and tenofovir (Viread), as well as non-nucleoside inhibitors, such as nevirapine (Viramune).
Reverse transcriptase is commonly used in research to apply the polymerase chain reaction technique to RNA in a technique called reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The classical PCR technique can be applied only to DNA strands, but, with the help of reverse transcriptase, RNA can be transcribed into DNA, thus making PCR analysis of RNA molecules possible. Reverse transcriptase is used also to create cDNA libraries from mRNA. The commercial availability of reverse transcriptase greatly improved knowledge in the area of molecular biology, as, along with other enzymes, it allowed scientists to clone, sequence, and characterise RNA.
Reverse transcriptase has also been employed in insulin production. By inserting eukaryotic mRNA for insulin production along with reverse transcriptase into bacteria, the mRNA could be inserted into the prokaryote's genome. Large amounts of insulin can then be created, sidestepping the need to harvest pig pancreas and other such traditional sources. Directly inserting eukaryotic DNA into bacteria would not work because it carries introns, so would not translate successfully using the bacterial ribosomes. Processing in the eukaryotic cell during mRNA production removes these introns to provide a suitable template. Reverse transcriptase converted this edited RNA back into DNA so it could be incorporated in the genome. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26214 |
Riemann mapping theorem
In complex analysis, the Riemann mapping theorem states that if "U" is a non-empty simply connected open subset of the complex number plane C which is not all of C, then there exists a biholomorphic mapping "f" (i.e. a bijective holomorphic mapping whose inverse is also holomorphic) from "U" onto the open unit disk
This mapping is known as a Riemann mapping.
Intuitively, the condition that "U" be simply connected means that "U" does not contain any “holes”. The fact that "f" is biholomorphic implies that it is a conformal map and therefore angle-preserving. Intuitively, such a map preserves the shape of any sufficiently small figure, while possibly rotating and scaling (but not reflecting) it.
Henri Poincaré proved that the map "f" is essentially unique: if "z"0 is an element of "U" and φ is an arbitrary angle, then there exists precisely one "f" as above such that "f"("z"0) = 0 and such that the argument of the derivative of "f" at the point "z"0 is equal to φ. This is an easy consequence of the Schwarz lemma.
As a corollary of the theorem, any two simply connected open subsets of the Riemann sphere which both lack at least two points of the sphere can be conformally mapped into each other.
The theorem was stated (under the assumption that the boundary of "U" is piecewise smooth) by Bernhard Riemann in 1851 in his PhD thesis. Lars Ahlfors wrote once, concerning the original formulation of the theorem, that it was “ultimately formulated in terms which would defy any attempt of proof, even with modern methods”. Riemann's flawed proof depended on the Dirichlet principle (which was named by Riemann himself), which was considered sound at the time. However, Karl Weierstrass found that this principle was not universally valid. Later, David Hilbert was able to prove that, to a large extent, the Dirichlet principle is valid under the hypothesis that Riemann was working with. However, in order to be valid, the Dirichlet principle needs certain hypotheses concerning the boundary of "U" which are not valid for simply connected domains in general. Simply connected domains with arbitrary boundaries were first treated by .
The first proof of the theorem is due to Constantin Carathéodory, who published it in 1912. His proof used Riemann surfaces and it was simplified by Paul Koebe two years later in a way which did not require them.
Another proof, due to Lipót Fejér and to Frigyes Riesz, was published in 1922 and it was rather shorter than the previous ones. In this proof, like in Riemann's proof, the desired mapping was obtained as the solution of an extremal problem. The Fejér–Riesz proof was further simplified by Alexander Ostrowski and by Carathéodory.
The following points detail the uniqueness and power of the Riemann mapping theorem:
Given "U" and a point "z"0 in "U", we want to construct a function "f" which maps "U" to the unit disk and "z"0 to 0. For this sketch, we will assume that "U" is bounded and its boundary is smooth, much like Riemann did. Write
where "g" = "u" + "iv" is some (to be determined) holomorphic function with real part "u" and imaginary part "v". It is then clear that "z"0 is the only zero of "f". We require |"f"("z")| = 1 for "z" ∈ ∂"U", so we need
on the boundary. Since "u" is the real part of a holomorphic function, we know that "u" is necessarily a harmonic function; i.e., it satisfies Laplace's equation.
The question then becomes: does a real-valued harmonic function "u" exist that is defined on all of "U" and has the given boundary condition? The positive answer is provided by the Dirichlet principle. Once the existence of "u" has been established, the Cauchy–Riemann equations for the holomorphic function "g" allow us to find "v" (this argument depends on the assumption that "U" be simply connected). Once "u" and "v" have been constructed, one has to check that the resulting function "f" does indeed have all the required properties.
The Riemann mapping theorem can be generalized to the context of Riemann surfaces: If "U" is a non-empty simply-connected open subset of a Riemann surface, then "U" is biholomorphic to one of the following: the Riemann sphere, C or "D". This is known as the uniformization theorem.
In the case of a simply connected bounded domain with smooth boundary, the Riemann mapping function and all its derivatives extend by continuity to the closure of the domain. This can be proved using regularity properties of solutions of the Dirichlet boundary value problem, which follow either from the theory of Sobolev spaces for planar domains or from classical potential theory. Other methods for proving the smooth Riemann mapping theorem include the theory of kernel functions or the Beltrami equation.
Computational conformal mapping is prominently featured in problems of applied analysis and mathematical physics, as well as in engineering disciplines, such as image processing.
In the early 1980s an elementary algorithm for computing conformal maps was discovered. Given points formula_4 in the plane, the algorithm computes an explicit conformal map of the unit disk onto a region bounded by a Jordan curve formula_5 with formula_6 This algorithm converges for Jordan regions in the sense of uniformly close boundaries. There are corresponding uniform estimates on the closed region and the closed disc for the mapping functions and their inverses. Improved estimates are obtained if the data points lie on a formula_7 curve or a K-quasicircle. The algorithm was discovered as an approximate method for conformal welding; however, it can also be viewed as a discretization of the Loewner differential equation.
The following is known about numerically approximating the conformal mapping between two planar domains.
Positive results:
Negative results: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26215 |
Rhodesia
Rhodesia (, ) was an unrecognised state in southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the "de facto" successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since achieving responsible government in 1923. A landlocked nation, Rhodesia was bordered by South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland (later Botswana) to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique (a Portuguese province until 1975) to the east.
In the late 19th century, the territory north of the Transvaal was chartered to the British South Africa Company, led by Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes and his Pioneer Column marched north in 1890, acquiring a huge block of territory that the company would rule until the early 1920s. In 1923, the company's charter was revoked, and Southern Rhodesia attained self-government and established a legislature. Between 1953 and 1963, Southern Rhodesia was joined with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
The decolonisation of Africa in the early 1960s alarmed a significant proportion of Rhodesia's white population. In an effort to delay the transition to black majority rule, Rhodesia's predominantly white government issued its own Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. (The government of the United Kingdom supported Rhodesia's transition to a multiracial democracy.) The UDI administration initially sought recognition as an autonomous realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, but reconstituted itself as a republic in 1970. The Rhodesian Bush War, which pitted the government against two African nationalist organisations, ZANU and ZAPU, intensified in the 1970s, prompting Rhodesian premier Ian Smith to concede to multiracial democracy in 1978. However, a provisional government subsequently headed by Smith and his moderate colleague Abel Muzorewa failed in appeasing international critics or halting the bloodshed. By December 1979, Muzorewa had replaced Smith as Prime Minister and secured an agreement with the militant nationalists, allowing Rhodesia to briefly revert to colonial status pending elections under a universal franchise. It finally achieved internationally recognised independence in April 1980 as the Republic of Zimbabwe.
Rhodesia's largest cities were Salisbury (its capital city, now known as Harare) and Bulawayo. The white population, which grew to nearly 300,000, dominated the country's politics and economy, though they never made up more than 8% of the total population. Rhodesia developed an economy largely dependent on agriculture, manufacturing, and mining. Its largest exports were chromium, tobacco, and steel. International sanctions put increasing pressure on the country as time went on. The unicameral Legislative Assembly was predominantly white by law, although a small minority of seats was reserved for blacks as a result of reforms made in 1958. Following the declaration of a republic in 1970, this was replaced by a bicameral Parliament with a House of Assembly and a Senate. The Westminster system was retained, with the President acting as ceremonial head of state, and the Prime Minister, heading the Cabinet, as head of government.
The official name of the country, according to the constitution adopted concurrently with the UDI in 1965, was Rhodesia. This was not the case under British law, however, which considered the territory's legal name to be Southern Rhodesia, the name given to the country in 1898 during the British South Africa Company's administration of the Rhodesias, and retained by the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia after the end of company rule in 1923.
This naming dispute dated back to October 1964, when Northern Rhodesia became independent from the UK and concurrently changed its name to Zambia. The Southern Rhodesian colonial government in Salisbury felt that in the absence of a "Northern" Rhodesia, the continued use of "Southern" was superfluous. It passed legislation to become simply Rhodesia, but the British government refused to approve this on the grounds that the country's name was defined by British legislation, so could not be altered by the colonial government. Salisbury went on using the shortened name in an official manner nevertheless, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26219 |
Relational model
The relational model (RM) for database management is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd, where all data is represented in terms of tuples, grouped into relations. A database organized in terms of the relational model is a relational database.
The purpose of the relational model is to provide a declarative method for specifying data and queries: users directly state what information the database contains and what information they want from it, and let the database management system software take care of describing data structures for storing the data and retrieval procedures for answering queries.
Most relational databases use the SQL data definition and query language; these systems implement what can be regarded as an engineering approximation to the relational model. A "table" in an SQL database schema corresponds to a predicate variable; the contents of a table to a relation; key constraints, other constraints, and SQL queries correspond to predicates. However, SQL databases deviate from the relational model in many details, and Codd fiercely argued against deviations that compromise the original principles.
The relational model's central idea is to describe a database as a collection of predicates over a finite set of predicate variables, describing constraints on the possible values and combinations of values. The content of the database at any given time is a finite (logical) model of the database, i.e. a set of relations, one per predicate variable, such that all predicates are satisfied. A request for information from the database (a database query) is also a predicate.
Other models include the hierarchical model and network model. Some systems using these older architectures are still in use today in data centers with high data volume needs, or where existing systems are so complex and abstract that it would be cost-prohibitive to migrate to systems employing the relational model. Also of note are newer object-oriented databases.
There have been several attempts to produce a true implementation of the relational database model as originally defined by Codd and explained by Date, Darwen and others, but none have been popular successes so far. Rel is one of the more recent attempts to do this.
The relational model was the first database model to be described in formal mathematical terms. Hierarchical and network databases existed before relational databases, but their specifications were relatively informal. After the relational model was defined, there were many attempts to compare and contrast the different models, and this led to the emergence of more rigorous descriptions of the earlier models; though the procedural nature of the data manipulation interfaces for hierarchical and network databases limited the scope for formalization.
Structural database analytics employing relational modality protocols frequently employ data sequence differentials to maintain hierarchical architecture designations with incorporation of new input. These systems are functionally similar in concept to alternative relay algorithms, which form the foundation of cloud database infrastructure.
The relational model was invented by Edgar F. Codd as a general model of data, and subsequently promoted by Chris Date and Hugh Darwen among others. In The Third Manifesto (first published in 1995) Date and Darwen attempt to show how the relational model can allegedly accommodate certain "desired" object-oriented features.
Some years after publication of his 1970 model, Codd proposed a three-valued logic (True, False, Missing/NULL) version of it to deal with missing information, and in his "The Relational Model for Database Management Version 2" (1990) he went a step further with a four-valued logic (True, False, Missing but Applicable, Missing but Inapplicable) version. These have never been implemented, presumably because of attending complexity. SQL's NULL construct was intended to be part of a three-valued logic system, but fell short of that due to logical errors in the standard and in its implementations.
The fundamental assumption of the relational model is that all data is represented as mathematical "n"-ary relations, an "n"-ary relation being a subset of the Cartesian product of "n" domains. In the mathematical model, reasoning about such data is done in two-valued predicate logic, meaning there are two possible evaluations for each proposition: either "true" or "false" (and in particular no third value such as "unknown", or "not applicable", either of which are often associated with the concept of NULL). Data are operated upon by means of a relational calculus or relational algebra, these being equivalent in expressive power.
The relational model of data permits the database designer to create a consistent, logical representation of information. Consistency is achieved by including declared constraints in the database design, which is usually referred to as the "logical schema". The theory includes a process of database normalization whereby a design with certain desirable properties can be selected from a set of logically equivalent alternatives. The access plans and other implementation and operation details are handled by the DBMS engine, and are not reflected in the logical model. This contrasts with common practice for SQL DBMSs in which performance tuning often requires changes to the logical model.
The basic relational building block is the domain or data type, usually abbreviated nowadays to type. A "tuple" is an ordered set of attribute values. An attribute is an ordered pair of attribute name and type name. An attribute value is a specific valid value for the type of the attribute. This can be either a scalar value or a more complex type.
A relation consists of a heading and a body. A heading is a set of attributes. A body (of an "n"-ary relation) is a set of "n"-tuples. The heading of the relation is also the heading of each of its tuples.
A relation is defined as a set of "n"-tuples. In both mathematics and the relational database model, a set is an "unordered" collection of unique, non-duplicated items, although some DBMSs impose an order to their data. In mathematics, a tuple has an order, and allows for duplication. E.F. Codd originally defined tuples using this mathematical definition. Later, it was one of E.F. Codd's great insights that using attribute names instead of an ordering would be more convenient (in general) in a computer language based on relations . This insight is still being used today. Though the concept has changed, the name "tuple" has not. An immediate and important consequence of this distinguishing feature is that in the relational model the Cartesian product becomes commutative.
A table is an accepted visual representation of a relation; a tuple is similar to the concept of a "row".
A "relvar" is a named variable of some specific relation type, to which at all times some relation of that type is assigned, though the relation may contain zero tuples.
The basic principle of the relational model is the Information Principle: all information is represented by data values in relations. In accordance with this Principle, a relational database is a set of relvars and the result of every query is presented as a relation.
The consistency of a relational database is enforced, not by rules built into the applications that use it, but rather by "constraints", declared as part of the logical schema and enforced by the DBMS for all applications. In general, constraints are expressed using relational comparison operators, of which just one, "is subset of" (⊆), is theoretically sufficient. In practice, several useful shorthands are expected to be available, of which the most important are candidate key (really, superkey) and foreign key constraints.
To fully appreciate the relational model of data it is essential to understand the intended "interpretation" of a relation.
The body of a relation is sometimes called its extension. This is because it is to be interpreted as a representation of the extension of some predicate, this being the set of true propositions that can be formed by replacing each free variable in that predicate by a name (a term that designates something).
There is a one-to-one correspondence between the free variables of the predicate and the attribute names of the relation heading. Each tuple of the relation body provides attribute values to instantiate the predicate by substituting each of its free variables. The result is a proposition that is deemed, on account of the appearance of the tuple in the relation body, to be true. Contrariwise, every tuple whose heading conforms to that of the relation, but which does not appear in the body is deemed to be false. This assumption is known as the closed world assumption: it is often violated in practical databases, where the absence of a tuple might mean that the truth of the corresponding proposition is unknown. For example, the absence of the tuple ('John', 'Spanish') from a table of language skills cannot necessarily be taken as evidence that John does not speak Spanish.
For a formal exposition of these ideas, see the section Set-theoretic Formulation, below.
A data type as used in a typical relational database might be the set of integers, the set of character strings, the set of dates, or the two boolean values "true" and "false", and so on. The corresponding type names for these types might be the strings "int", "char", "date", "boolean", etc. It is important to understand, though, that relational theory does not dictate what types are to be supported; indeed, nowadays provisions are expected to be available for "user-defined" types in addition to the "built-in" ones provided by the system.
Attribute is the term used in the theory for what is commonly referred to as a column. Similarly, table is commonly used in place of the theoretical term relation (though in SQL the term is by no means synonymous with relation). A table data structure is specified as a list of column definitions, each of which specifies a unique column name and the type of the values that are permitted for that column. An attribute "value" is the entry in a specific column and row, such as "John Doe" or "35".
A tuple is basically the same thing as a row, except in an SQL DBMS, where the column values in a row are ordered. (Tuples are not ordered; instead, each attribute value is identified solely by the attribute name and never by its ordinal position within the tuple.) An attribute name might be "name" or "age".
A relation is a table structure definition (a set of column definitions) along with the data appearing in that structure. The structure definition is the heading and the data appearing in it is the body, a set of rows. A database relvar (relation variable) is commonly known as a base table. The heading of its assigned value at any time is as specified in the table declaration and its body is that most recently assigned to it by invoking some update operator (typically, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE). The heading and body of the table resulting from evaluation of some query are determined by the definitions of the operators used in the expression of that query. (Note that in SQL the heading is not always a set of column definitions as described above, because it is possible for a column to have no name and also for two or more columns to have the same name. Also, the body is not always a set of rows because in SQL it is possible for the same row to appear more than once in the same body.)
SQL, initially pushed as the standard language for relational databases, deviates from the relational model in several places. The current ISO SQL standard doesn't mention the relational model or use relational terms or concepts. However, it is possible to create a database conforming to the relational model using SQL if one does not use certain SQL features.
The following deviations from the relational model have been noted in SQL. Note that few database servers implement the entire SQL standard and in particular do not allow some of these deviations. Whereas NULL is ubiquitous, for example, allowing duplicate column names within a table or anonymous columns is uncommon.
Users (or programs) request data from a relational database by sending it a query that is written in a special language, usually a dialect of SQL. Although SQL was originally intended for end-users, it is much more common for SQL queries to be embedded into software that provides an easier user interface. Many Web sites, such as Wikipedia, perform SQL queries when generating pages.
In response to a query, the database returns a result set, which is just a list of rows containing the answers. The simplest query is just to return all the rows from a table, but more often, the rows are filtered in some way to return just the answer wanted.
Often, data from multiple tables are combined into one, by doing a join. Conceptually, this is done by taking all possible combinations of rows (the Cartesian product), and then filtering out everything except the answer. In practice, relational database management systems rewrite ("optimize") queries to perform faster, using a variety of techniques.
There are a number of relational operations in addition to join. These include project (the process of eliminating some of the columns), restrict (the process of eliminating some of the rows), union (a way of combining two tables with similar structures), difference (that lists the rows in one table that are not found in the other), intersect (that lists the rows found in both tables), and product (mentioned above, which combines each row of one table with each row of the other). Depending on which other sources you consult, there are a number of other operators – many of which can be defined in terms of those listed above. These include semi-join, outer operators such as outer join and outer union, and various forms of division. Then there are operators to rename columns, and summarizing or aggregating operators, and if you permit relation values as attributes (relation-valued attribute), then operators such as group and ungroup. The SELECT statement in SQL serves to handle all of these except for the group and ungroup operators.
The flexibility of relational databases allows programmers to write queries that were not anticipated by the database designers. As a result, relational databases can be used by multiple applications in ways the original designers did not foresee, which is especially important for databases that might be used for a long time (perhaps several decades). This has made the idea and implementation of relational databases very popular with businesses.
Relations are classified based upon the types of anomalies to which they're vulnerable. A database that's in the first normal form is vulnerable to all types of anomalies, while a database that's in the domain/key normal form has no modification anomalies. Normal forms are hierarchical in nature. That is, the lowest level is the first normal form, and the database cannot meet the requirements for higher level normal forms without first having met all the requirements of the lesser normal forms.
An idealized, very simple example of a description of some relvars (relation variables) and their attributes:
In this design we have six relvars: Customer, Order, Order Line, Invoice, Invoice Line and Product. The bold, underlined attributes are "candidate keys". The non-bold, underlined attributes are "foreign keys".
Usually one candidate key is chosen to be called the primary key and used in preference over the other candidate keys, which are then called alternate keys.
A "candidate key" is a unique identifier enforcing that no tuple will be duplicated; this would make the relation into something else, namely a bag, by violating the basic definition of a set. Both foreign keys and superkeys (that includes candidate keys) can be composite, that is, can be composed of several attributes. Below is a tabular depiction of a relation of our example Customer relvar; a relation can be thought of as a value that can be attributed to a relvar.
If we attempted to "insert" a new customer with the ID "1234567890", this would violate the design of the relvar since Customer ID is a "primary key" and we already have a customer "1234567890". The DBMS must reject a transaction such as this that would render the database inconsistent by a violation of an integrity constraint.
"Foreign keys" are integrity constraints enforcing that the value of the attribute set is drawn from a "candidate key" in another relation. For example, in the Order relation the attribute Customer ID is a foreign key. A "join" is the operation that draws on information from several relations at once. By joining relvars from the example above we could "query" the database for all of the Customers, Orders, and Invoices. If we only wanted the tuples for a specific customer, we would specify this using a restriction condition.
If we wanted to retrieve all of the Orders for Customer "1234567890", we could query the database to return every row in the Order table with Customer ID "1234567890" and join the Order table to the Order Line table based on Order No.
There is a flaw in our database design above. The Invoice relvar contains an Order No attribute. So, each tuple in the Invoice relvar will have one Order No, which implies that there is precisely one Order for each Invoice. But in reality an invoice can be created against many orders, or indeed for no particular order. Additionally the Order relvar contains an Invoice No attribute, implying that each Order has a corresponding Invoice. But again this is not always true in the real world. An order is sometimes paid through several invoices, and sometimes paid without an invoice. In other words, there can be many Invoices per Order and many Orders per Invoice. This is a many-to-many relationship between Order and Invoice (also called a "non-specific relationship"). To represent this relationship in the database a new relvar should be introduced whose role is to specify the correspondence between Orders and Invoices:
Now, the Order relvar has a "one-to-many relationship" to the OrderInvoice table, as does the Invoice relvar. If we want to retrieve every Invoice for a particular Order, we can query for all orders where Order No in the Order relation equals the Order No in OrderInvoice, and where Invoice No in OrderInvoice equals the Invoice No in Invoice.
Basic notions in the relational model are "relation names" and "attribute names". We will represent these as strings such as "Person" and "name" and we will usually use the variables formula_1 and formula_2 to range over them. Another basic notion is the set of "atomic values" that contains values such as numbers and strings.
Our first definition concerns the notion of "tuple", which formalizes the notion of row or record in a table:
The next definition defines "relation" that formalizes the contents of a table as it is defined in the relational model.
Such a relation closely corresponds to what is usually called the extension of a predicate in first-order logic except that here we identify the places in the predicate with attribute names. Usually in the relational model a database schema is said to consist of a set of relation names, the headers that are associated with these names and the constraints that should hold for every instance of the database schema.
One of the simplest and most important types of relation constraints is the "key constraint". It tells us that in every instance of a certain relational schema the tuples can be identified by their values for certain attributes.
A superkey is a set of column headers for which the values of those columns concatenated are unique across all rows. Formally:
A candidate key is a superkey cannot be further subdivided to form another superkey.
Functional dependency is the property that a value in a tuple may be derived from another value in that tuple.
algorithm derive candidate keys from functional dependencies is | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26220 |
Rathaus Schöneberg
Rathaus Schöneberg is the city hall for the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg in Berlin. From 1949 until 1990 it served as the seat of the state senate of West Berlin and from 1949 until 1991 as the seat of the Governing Mayor.
The sandstone building was constructed between 1911 and 1914, when it replaced the old town hall of Schöneberg, at that time an independent city () not yet incorporated into Greater Berlin, which took place in 1920. The Nazi authorities had a series of war murals by Franz Eichhorst added to the interior in 1938. In World War II the building was severely damaged by Allied bombing and during the final Battle of Berlin.
After the war the undestroyed "Neues Stadthaus", former head office of Berlin's municipal fire insurance "Feuersozietät", on Parochialstraße in Mitte, served as intermittent city hall, replacing the ruined Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall, also in East Berlin), the traditional seat of the Berlin government. With the division of Berlin's city government and administration in September 1948 the "Neues Stadthaus" was in the Communist "Ostsektor" (eastern sector) and became off limits to West Berlin. As a "temporary" measure the barely repaired Rathaus Schöneberg on Rudolph-Wilde-Platz became the city hall for West Berlin. In 1950 the Freedom Bell ("Freiheitsglocke"), a gift by the United States, was installed in the rebuilt tower.
During the Berlin Blockade, the Uprising of 1953, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Rudolph-Wilde-Platz in front of the building became a gathering place for protest rallies. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg were the location where U.S. President John F. Kennedy spoke on 26 June 1963, proclaiming "Ich bin ein Berliner". On the night of his assassination, several thousand Berliners spontaneously gathered at the square, which was officially renamed John-F.-Kennedy-Platz three days later. A large memorial plaque, mounted on a column at the entrance of the building, and the room above the entrance overlooking the square are dedicated to Kennedy and his visit.
There was a large assembly in front of the Rathaus on 10 November 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Prominent people attending were chancellor Helmut Kohl, former chancellor Willy Brandt, and foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
After reunification, Rathaus Schöneberg reverted to its original purpose of being Schöneberg Borough Town Hall. Upon the 2001 Berlin administrative reform, Rathaus Schöneberg became the town hall for the newly constituted borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.
It was also the permanent home to an exhibition of the life of Willy Brandt (1913–1992), Mayor of West Berlin from 1957 to 1966 and Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany 1969–74. The exhibition was closed as from January 2010; it is planned to open again at another site in the city.
Since 2005, the exhibition called "Wir waren Nachbarn – Biografien jüdischer Zeitzeugen" (English title:"We were Neighbours once – Biographies of Jews in Schöneberg and Tempelhof under the Nazi Regime") takes place in the exhibition hall of the Rathaus Schöneberg. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26221 |
Rædwald of East Anglia
Rædwald ( , 'power in counsel'), also written as Raedwald or Redwald, was a king of East Anglia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom which included the present-day English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was the son of Tytila of East Anglia and a member of the Wuffingas dynasty (named after his grandfather, Wuffa), who were the first kings of the East Angles. Details about Rædwald's reign are scarce, primarily because the Viking invasions of the 9th century destroyed the monasteries in East Anglia where many documents would have been kept. Rædwald reigned from about 599 until his death around 624, initially under the overlordship of Æthelberht of Kent. In 616, as a result of fighting the Battle of the River Idle and defeating Æthelfrith of Northumbria, he was able to install Edwin, who was acquiescent to his authority, as the new king of Northumbria. During the battle, both Æthelfrith and Rædwald's son Rægenhere were killed.
From around 616, Rædwald was the most powerful of the English kings south of the River Humber. According to Bede he was the fourth ruler to hold "imperium" over other southern Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: he was referred to in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", written centuries after his death, as a "bretwalda" (an Old English term meaning 'Britain-ruler' or 'wide-ruler'). He was the first king of the East Angles to become a Christian, converting at Æthelberht's court some time before 605, whilst at the same time maintaining a pagan temple. In receiving the faith he helped to ensure the survival of Christianity in East Anglia during the apostasy of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Essex and Kent. He is generally considered by historians to be the most favoured candidate for the occupant of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, although other theories have been advanced.
The kingdom of East Anglia () was a small independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom that comprised what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Cambridgeshire Fens. Few sources have survived that were written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, and East Anglia has even less documentary evidence than most of the kingdoms existing at that time. The historian Barbara Yorke has suggested that the reason for the paucity of East Anglian sources was almost certainly the Viking expansion in the 9th century as the monks and scribes of East Anglia produced as much work as those living in other parts of England. The devastation caused by the Vikings is thought to have destroyed all the books and charters that may have been kept there.
Rædwald is the first king of the East Angles of whom more than a name is known, though no details of his life before his accession are known. The earliest and most substantial source for Rædwald is the "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum" ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People"), completed in 731 by Bede, a Northumbrian monk. Bede placed Rædwald's reign between the advent of the Gregorian mission to Kent in 597 and the marriage and conversion of Edwin of Northumbria during 625–26.
Later medieval chroniclers, such as Roger of Wendover, gave some information about East Anglian events, but Yorke suggests that the annalistic format used forced these writers to guess the dates of the key events they recorded. Such later sources are therefore treated with caution. The "Anglian collection", which dates from the late 8th century, contains an East Anglian genealogical tally, but Rædwald is not included. Rædwald is however referred to in the 8th century "Vita" of St Gregory the Great, written by a member of the religious community at Whitby. The Battle of the River Idle, in which Rædwald and his forces defeated the Northumbrians, is described in the 12th century "Historia Anglorum", written by Henry of Huntingdon.
The Anglo-Saxons, who are known to have included Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, began to arrive in Britain in the 5th century. By 600, a number of kingdoms had begun to form in the conquered territories. By the beginning of the 7th century, southern England was almost entirely under their control.
During Rædwald's youth, the establishment of other ruling houses was accomplished. Sometime before 588, Æthelberht of Kent married Bercta, the Christian daughter of the Frankish ruler Charibert. As early as 568, Ceawlin of Wessex, the most powerful ruler south of the River Humber, repulsed Æthelberht. According to later sources, Mercia was founded by Creoda in 585, although a paucity of sources makes it difficult to know how the Mercian royal line became established.
North of the Humber, the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia possessed rival royal dynasties. Ælla ruled Deira until his death in 588, leaving his daughter Acha, his son Edwin, and another unknown sibling. The Bernician dynasty, allied by kinship to the kingdom of Wessex, gained ascendancy over Deira, forcing Edwin to live in exile in the court of Cadfan ap Iago of Gwynedd. In various wars, Æthelfrith of Bernicia consolidated the Northumbrian state, and in around 604 he was able to bring Deira under his dominion.
Rædwald, which in Old English means 'power in counsel', was born around 560–580. The son of Tytila, whom he succeeded, he was the elder brother of Eni. According to Bede, he was descended from Wuffa, the founder of the Wuffingas dynasty: filius Tytili, cuius pater fuit UUffa ('the son of Tytil, whose father was Wuffa').
At some time during the 590s, Rædwald married a woman whose name is unknown, though it is known from Bede that she was pagan. By her he fathered at least two sons, Rægenhere and Eorpwald. He also had an older son, Sigeberht, whose name is unlike other Wuffingas names but which is typical of the East Saxon dynasty. It has been suggested that Rædwald's queen had previously been married to a member of the Essex royal family and that Sigeberht was Rædwald's stepson, as was stated by William of Malmesbury in the 12th century. Sigeberht earned the enmity of his step-father, who drove him into exile in Gaul, possibly to protect the Wuffingas bloodline.
Events that occurred during the early years of Rædwald's reign include the arrival of Augustine of Canterbury and his mission from Rome in 597, the conversions of Æthelberht of Kent and Saeberht of Essex, and the establishment of new bishoprics in their kingdoms. Bede, when relating the conversion of Rædwald's son Eorpwald in his "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum", mentioned that Rædwald received the Christian sacraments in Kent. This happened in perhaps 604 or later, presumably at the invitation of Æthelberht, who may have been his baptismal sponsor. The date of his conversion is unknown, but it would have occurred after the arrival of the Gregorian mission in 597. Since it is claimed that Augustine, who died in about 605, dedicated a church near Ely, it may have followed Saebert's conversion fairly swiftly. Rædwald's marriage to a member of the royal dynasty of Essex helped form a diplomatic alliance between the neighbouring kingdoms of East Anglia and Essex. His conversion in Kent would have affiliated him with Æthelberht, bringing him directly into the sphere of Kent.
In East Anglia, Rædwald's conversion was not universally accepted by his household or his own queen. According to the historian Steven Plunkett, she and her pagan teachers persuaded him to default in part from his commitment to the Christian faith. As a result, he kept in the temple two altars, one dedicated to pagan Gods and the other to Christ. Bede, writing decades later, described how Ealdwulf of East Anglia, a grandson of Rædwald's brother Eni, recalled seeing the temple when he was a boy. It may have been located at Rendlesham, emerging focus of the "regio" of the Wuffing dynasty, according to Plunkett. Barbara Yorke argues that Rædwald was not willing to fully embrace Christianity because conversion via Æthelberht would have been acknowledgment of an inferior status to the Kentish king. Rædwald's lack of commitment towards Christianity earned him the enmity of Bede, who regarded him as a renouncer of the faith.
Æthelfrith of Northumbria may have married Acha, who was the mother of his son Oswald (born in about 604), according to Bede. Æthelfrith pursued Acha's exiled brother Edwin in an attempt to destroy him and ensure that the Bernician rulership of Northumbria would be unchallenged. Edwin found hospitality in the household of Cearl of Mercia and later married Cearl's daughter. Edwin's nephew Hereric, an exile in the British kingdom of Elmet, was slain there under treacherous circumstances. Edwin eventually sought the protection of Rædwald, where he was received willingly. Rædwald promised to protect him, and Edwin lived with the king amongst his royal companions. When news of Edwin reached Æthelfrith in Northumbria, he sent messengers to Rædwald offering money in return for Edwin's death, but Rædwald refused to comply. Æthelfrith sent messengers a second and a third time, offering even greater gifts of silver and promising war if these were not accepted. Rædwald then weakened and promised either to kill Edwin or to hand him over to ambassadors.
When a chance arose for him to escape to a safe country, Edwin chose to remain at Rædwald's court. He was then visited by a stranger who was aware of Rædwald's deliberations. The source for this story, written at Whitby, stated that the stranger was Paulinus of York, a member of the Canterbury mission, who offered Edwin the hope of Rædwald's support and held out the prospect that Edwin might someday attain greater royal power than any previous English king. Paulinus was assured by Edwin that he would accept his religious teaching. His vision of Paulinus was afterwards made the means of his decision to embrace Christianity, on the condition that he survived and achieved power. If, as is supposed by some, Paulinus appeared to him in the flesh, the bishop's presence at Rædwald's court would throw some light on the king's position regarding religion.
Rædwald's pagan queen admonished him for acting in a manner dishonourable for a king by betraying his trust for the sake of money and wanting to sell his imperiled friend in exchange for riches. As a result of her admonishment, once Æthelfrith's ambassadors had gone, Rædwald resolved on war.
In 616 or 617, Rædwald assembled an army and marched north, accompanied by his son Rægenhere, to confront Æthelfrith. They met on the western boundary of the kingdom of Lindsey, on the east bank of the River Idle. The battle was fierce and was long commemorated in the saying, ‘The river Idle was foul with the blood of Englishmen’. During the fighting, Æthelfrith and Rædwald's son Rægenhere were both slain. Edwin then succeeded Æthelfrith as the king of Northumbria, and Æthelfrith's sons were subsequently forced into exile.
A separate account of the battle, given by Henry of Huntingdon, stated that Rædwald's army was split into three formations, led by Rædwald, Rægenhere, and Edwin. With more experienced fighters, Æthelfrith attacked in loose formation. At the sight of Rægenhere, perhaps thinking he was Edwin, Æthelfrith's men cut their way through to him and slew him. After the death of his son, Rædwald furiously breached his lines, killing Æthelfrith amid a great slaughter of the Northumbrians.
D.P. Kirby has argued that the battle was more than a clash between two kings over the treatment of an exiled nobleman but was "part of a protracted struggle to determine the military and political leadership of the Anglian peoples" at that time.
On 24 February 616, the year of the Battle of the River Idle, Æthelberht of Kent died and was succeeded by his pagan son Eadbald. After the death of the Christian Saebert of Essex, his three sons shared the kingdom, returning it to pagan rule, and drove out the Gregorian missionaries led by Mellitus. The Canterbury mission had removed to Gaul before Eadbald was brought back into the fold. During this period the only royal Christian altar in England belonged to Rædwald. By the time of his death, the mission in Kent had been fully re-established.
Rædwald's power became great enough for Bede to recognise him as the successor to the "imperium" of Æthelberht. Bede also called him "Rex Anglorum", the 'King of the Angles', a term that Rædwald's contemporaries would have used for their overlord. It is unclear where his power was centred or even how he established his authority over the Angles of eastern England.
By Edwin's debt of allegiance to him, Rædwald became the first foreign king to hold direct influence in Northumbria. He would have been instrumental in Edwin's secure establishment as king of both Deira and Bernicia.
During the first quarter of the 7th century, the quayside settlement at Gipeswic (Ipswich) became an important estuarine trading centre, receiving imported goods such as pottery from other trading markets situated around the coasts of the North Sea. Steven Plunkett suggests that the founding of Gipeswic took place under Wuffingas supervision. It took another hundred years for the settlement to develop into a town, but its beginnings can be seen as a reflection of the personal importance of Rædwald during the period of his supremacy.
The excavated grave-goods of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Gipeswic, including those found in burials under small barrows, were not particularly wealthy or elaborate. They lacked the strong characterization of a neighbouring late 6th century cemetery at a higher crossing of the river. One exception was a furnished grave that has been suggested to be that of a visitor from the Rhineland.
Rædwald is believed to have died around 624: his death can be located only within a few years. He must have reigned for some time after Æthelberht died, in order for him to have been noted as a "bretwalda". Barbara Yorke suggests that he died before Edwin converted to Christianity in 627 and also before Paulinus became bishop of Northumbria in 625. His death is recorded twice by Roger of Wendover, in 599 and in 624, in a history that dates from the 13th century but appears to include earlier annals of unknown origin and reliability. Plunkett notes that the earlier date of 599 is now taken as a mistaken reference to the death of Rædwald’s father, Tytila, and the later date is commonly given for the death of Rædwald.
He was succeeded by his pagan son Eorpwald, who was later persuaded to adopt Christianity by Edwin of Northumbria.
Rædwald lived at a time when eminent individuals were buried in barrows at the cemetery at Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. There, large mounds—which were originally much higher and more visible—can still be seen, overlooking the upper estuary of the River Deben.
In 1939, a mound at Sutton Hoo, now known as Mound 1, was discovered to contain an Anglo-Saxon ship-burial of unparalleled richness. The mound enclosed a ship, long, which had seen use on the seas and had been repaired. In the centre of the ship was a chamber containing a collection of jewellery and other rich grave goods, including silver bowls, drinking vessels, clothing and weaponry. One unusual item was a large 'sceptre' in the form of a whetstone that showed no sign of previous use as a tool: it has been suggested that this was a symbol of the office of "bretwalda". The gold and garnet body-equipment found with the other goods was produced for a patron who employed a goldsmith the equal or better than any in Europe and was designed to project an image of imperial power. The Mediterranean silverware in the grave is a unique assemblage for its period in Europe.
The magnificence of the objects, both the personal possessions and those items designed to denote the authority of the dead individual, point to the death of a person connected with the royal court, according to Rupert Bruce-Mitford, who regards the burial as "very likely the monument of the High King or "bretwalda" Raedwald". Yorke suggests that the treasures buried with the ship reflect the size of the tribute paid to Rædwald by subject kings during his period as "bretwalda". Bruce-Mitford has suggested that the inclusion of bowls and spoons amongst the treasures fits with Bede's account of Raedwald's conversion: the spoons may have been a present for a convert from paganism and the bowls had Christian significance. Coins found in the burial have been dated to the approximate date of Rædwald's death. The controversy surrounding the identity of the person for whom the mound was built are reflected in the comments in the article on Rædwald in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" ("It has been argued, more strongly than convincingly, that Rædwald must be the man buried in Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo") and by McClure and Collins, who note that the evidence for Raedwald is "almost non-existent".
Alternative suggestions as candidates include other East Anglian kings or a prestigious foreign visitor. There are alternative explanations: the person may have been a wealthy status-seeker, rather than a king, though Rendlesham, a known residence of the East Anglian kings, is only away.
Swedish cultural influence has been detected at Sutton Hoo: there are strong similarities in both the armour and the burial with Vendel-age finds from Sweden. Bruce-Mitford suggested that the connection is close enough to imply that the Wuffing dynasty came from that part of Scandinavia. There are also significant differences, and exact parallels with the workmanship and style of the Sutton Hoo artefacts cannot be found elsewhere; as a result the connection is generally regarded as unproven.
It is also possible that the mound is actually a cenotaph rather than a grave, the only sign of body being a chemical stain which could have had other origins; indeed, the site includes burials of both meat and companion animals. Further, there is a lack of shroud ties, and no clear evidence of items which might have adorned a body being left in the expected places in relation to the stain. The cenotaph theory may be consistent with the transition from pagan burial to Christian burial; certainly as far as Rædwald is concerned, he could have received a Christian burial, and the mound, whether completed before or after his conversion, being used as a memorial and as symbol of the status of the Kingship of East Anglia.
Primary sources
Secondary sources | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26225 |
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, exactly the same sound) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for effect in the final positions of lines of poems and songs. More broadly, a rhyme may also variously refer to other types of similar sounds near the ends of two or more words. Furthermore, the word "rhyme" has come to be sometimes used as a shorthand term for any brief poem, such as a rhyming couplet or nursery rhyme.
The word derives from Old French "rime" or "ryme", which might be derived from Old Frankish "rīm", a Germanic term meaning "series, sequence" attested in Old English (Old English "rīm" meaning "enumeration, series, numeral") and Old High German "rīm", ultimately cognate to Old Irish "rím", Greek ' "arithmos" "number". Alternatively, the Old French words may derive from Latin "rhythmus", from Greek ' ("rhythmos", rhythm).
The spelling "rhyme" (from original "rime") was introduced at the beginning of the Modern English period from a learned (but perhaps etymologically incorrect) association with Latin "rhythmus". The older spelling "rime" survives in Modern English as a rare alternative spelling; cf. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". A distinction between the spellings is also sometimes made in the study of linguistics and phonology for which "rime/rhyme" is used to refer to the nucleus and coda of a syllable. Some prefer to spell it "rime" to separate it from the poetic rhyme covered by this article (see syllable rime).
Rhyme partly seems to be enjoyed simply as a repeating pattern that is pleasant to hear. It also serves as a powerful mnemonic device, facilitating memorization. The regular use of tail rhyme helps to mark off the ends of lines, thus clarifying the metrical structure for the listener. As with other poetic techniques, poets use it to suit their own purposes; for example William Shakespeare often used a rhyming couplet to mark off the end of a scene in a play.
The word "rhyme" can be used in a specific and a general sense. In the specific sense, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical; two lines of poetry rhyme if their final strong positions are filled with rhyming words. A rhyme in the strict sense is also called a perfect rhyme. Examples are "sight" and "flight", "deign" and "gain", "madness" and "sadness", "love" and "dove".
Perfect rhymes can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme, which is dictated by the location of the final stressed syllable.
In the general sense, "general rhyme" can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:
Identical rhymes are considered less than perfect in English poetry; but are valued more highly in other literatures such as, for example, "rime riche" in French poetry.
Though homophones and homonyms satisfy the first condition for rhyming—that is, that the stressed vowel sound is the same—they do not satisfy the second: that the preceding consonant be different. As stated above, in a perfect rhyme the last stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical in both words.
If the sound preceding the stressed vowel is also identical, the rhyme is sometimes considered to be inferior and not a perfect rhyme after all. An example of such a "super-rhyme" or "more than perfect rhyme" is the "identical rhyme", in which not only the vowels but also the onsets of the rhyming syllables are identical, as in "gun" and "begun". Punning rhymes, such as "bare" and "bear" are also identical rhymes. The rhyme may extend even farther back than the last stressed vowel. If it extends all the way to the beginning of the line, so that there are two lines that sound very similar or identical, it is called a "holorhyme" ("For I scream/For ice cream").
In poetics these would be considered "identity", rather than rhyme.
Eye rhymes or sight rhymes or spelling rhymes refer to similarity in spelling but not in sound where the final sounds are spelled identically but pronounced differently. Examples in English are "cough", "bough", and "love", "move".
Some early written poetry appears to contain these, but in many cases the words used rhymed at the time of writing, and subsequent changes in pronunciation have meant that the rhyme is now lost.
Mind rhyme is a kind of substitution rhyme similar to rhyming slang, but it is less generally codified and is “heard” only when generated by a specific verse context. For instance, “this sugar is neat / and tastes so sour.” If a reader or listener thinks of the word “sweet” instead of “sour,” a mind rhyme has occurred.
Rhymes may be classified according to their position in the verse:
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem.
In many languages, including modern European languages and Arabic, poets use rhyme in set patterns as a structural element for specific poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets and rhyming couplets. Some rhyming schemes have become associated with a specific language, culture or period, while other rhyming schemes have achieved use across languages, cultures or time periods. However, the use of structural rhyme is not universal even within the European tradition. Much modern poetry avoids traditional rhyme schemes.
The earliest surviving evidence of rhyming is the Chinese Shi Jing (ca. 10th century BC). Rhyme is also occasionally used in the Bible. Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not usually rhyme, but rhyme was used very occasionally. For instance, Catullus includes partial rhymes in the poem "Cui dono lepidum novum libellum". The ancient Greeks knew rhyme, and rhymes in "The Wasps" by Aristophanes are noted by a translator.
Rhyme is central to classical Arabic poetry tracing back to its 6th century pre-Islamic roots. According to some archaic sources, Irish literature introduced the rhyme to Early Medieval Europe, but that is a disputed claim. In the 7th century, the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection. The leonine verse is notable for introducing rhyme into High Medieval literature in the 12th century.
Rhyme entered European poetry in the High Middle Ages, in part under the influence of the Arabic language in Al Andalus (modern Spain). Arabic language poets used rhyme extensively from the first development of literary Arabic in the sixth century, as in their long, rhyming qasidas.
Since dialects vary and languages change over time, lines that rhyme in a given register or era may not rhyme in another, and it may not be clear whether one should pronounce the words so that they rhyme. An example is this couplet from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus:
Rhyming in the Celtic Languages takes a drastically different course from most other Western rhyming schemes despite strong contact with the Romance and English patterns. Even today, despite extensive interaction with English and French culture, Celtic rhyme continues to demonstrate native characteristics. Brian Ó Cuív sets out the rules of rhyme in Irish poetry of the classical period: the last stressed vowel and any subsequent long vowels must be identical in order for two words to rhyme. Consonants are grouped into six classes for the purpose of rhyme: they need not be identical, but must belong to the same class. Thus 'b' and 'd' can rhyme (both being 'voiced plosives'), as can 'bh' and 'l' (which are both 'voiced continuants') but 'l', a 'voiced continuant', cannot rhyme with 'ph', a 'voiceless continuant'. Furthermore, "for perfect rhyme a palatalized consonant may be balanced only by a palatalized consonant and a velarized consonant by a velarized one." In the post-Classical period, these rules fell into desuetude, and in popular verse simple assonance often suffices, as can be seen in an example of Irish Gaelic rhyme from the traditional song "Bríd Óg Ní Mháille":
Here the vowels are the same, but the consonants, although both palatalized, do not fall into the same class in the bardic rhyming scheme.
Besides the vowel/consonant aspect of rhyming, Chinese rhymes often include tone quality (that is, tonal contour) as an integral linguistic factor in determining rhyme.
Use of rhyme in Classical Chinese poetry typically but not always appears in the form of paired couplets, with end-rhyming in the final syllable of each couplet.
Another important aspect of rhyme in regard to Chinese language studies is the study or reconstruction of past varieties of Chinese, such as Middle Chinese.
Old English poetry is mostly alliterative verse. One of the earliest rhyming poems in English is The Rhyming Poem.
As stress is important in English, lexical stress is one of the factors that affects the similarity of sounds for the perception of rhyme. Perfect rhyme can be defined as the case when two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical.
Some words in English, such as "orange" and "silver", are commonly regarded as having no rhyme. Although a clever writer can get around this (for example, by obliquely rhyming "orange" with combinations of words like "door hinge" or with lesser-known words like "Blorenge" – a hill in Wales – or the surname Gorringe), it is generally easier to move the word out of rhyming position or replace it with a synonym ("orange" could become "amber", while "silver" could become a combination of "bright and argent").A skilled orator might be able to tweak the pronunciation of certain words to facilitate a stronger rhyme (for example, pronouncing 'orange' as 'oringe' to rhyme with 'door hinge')
One view of rhyme in English is from John Milton's preface to "Paradise Lost":
A more tempered view is taken by W. H. Auden in The Dyer's Hand:
Forced or clumsy rhyme is often a key ingredient of doggerel.
In French poetry, unlike in English, it is common to have "identical rhymes", in which not only the vowels of the final syllables of the lines rhyme, but their onset consonants ("consonnes d'appui") as well. To the ear of someone accustomed to English verse, this often sounds like a very weak rhyme. For example, an English perfect rhyme of homophones, "flour" and "flower", would seem weak, whereas a French rhyme of homophones "doigt" ("finger") and "doit" ("must") or "point" ("point") and "point" ("not") is not only acceptable but quite common.
Rhymes are sometimes classified into the categories of "rime pauvre" ("poor rhyme"), "rime suffisante" ("sufficient rhyme"), "rime riche" ("rich rhyme") and "rime richissime" ("very rich rhyme"), according to the number of rhyming sounds in the two words or in the parts of the two verses. For example, to rhyme "tu" with "vu" would be a poor rhyme (the words have only the vowel in common), to rhyme "pas" with "bras" a sufficient rhyme (with the vowel and the silent consonant in common), and "tante" with "attente" a rich rhyme (with the vowel, the onset consonant, and the coda consonant with its mute "e" in common). Authorities disagree, however, on exactly where to place the boundaries between the categories.
"Holorime" is an extreme example of "rime richissime" spanning an entire verse. Alphonse Allais was a notable exponent of holorime. Here is an example of a holorime couplet from Marc Monnier:
Classical French rhyme not only differs from English rhyme in its different treatment of onset consonants. It also treats coda consonants in a distinctive way.
French spelling includes several final letters that are no longer pronounced, and that in many cases have never been pronounced. Such final unpronounced letters continue to affect rhyme according to the rules of Classical French versification. They are encountered in almost all of the pre-20th-century French verse texts, but these rhyming rules are almost never taken into account from the 20th century.
The most important "silent" letter is the "mute e". In spoken French today, final "e" is, in some regional accents (in Paris for example), omitted after consonants; but in Classical French prosody, it was considered an integral part of the rhyme even when following the vowel. "Joue" could rhyme with "boue", but not with "trou". Rhyming words ending with this silent "e" were said to make up a "double rhyme", while words not ending with this silent "e" made up a "single rhyme". It was a principle of stanza-formation that single and double rhymes had to alternate in the stanza. Virtually all 17th-century French plays in verse alternate masculine and feminine couplets.
The now-silent final consonants present a more complex case. They, too, were traditionally an integral part of the rhyme, such that "pont" rhymed with "vont" but not with "long"; but spelling and pronunciation did not coincide exactly—"pont" also rhymed with "rond". There are a few rules that govern most word-final consonants in archaic French pronunciation:
Because German phonology features a wide array of vowel sounds, certain imperfect rhymes are widely admitted in German poetry. These include rhyming "e" with "ä" and "ö", rhyming "i" with "ü", rhyming "ei" with "eu" (spelled "äu" in some words) and rhyming a long vowel with its short counterpart.
Some examples of imperfect rhymes (all from Friedrich Schiller's "An die Freude"):
Ancient Greek poetry is strictly metrical. Rhyme is used, if at all, only as an occasional rhetorical flourish.
The first Greek to write rhyming poetry was the fourteenth-century Cretan Stephanos Sachlikis. Rhyme is now a common fixture of Greek poetry.
Ancient Hebrew rarely employed rhyme, e.g. in Exodus 29 35: ועשית לאהרן ולבניו כָּכה, ככל אשר צויתי אֹתָכה (the identical part in both rhyming words being / 'axa/ ). Rhyme became a permanent - even obligatory - feature of poetry in Hebrew language, around the 4th century CE. It is found in the Jewish liturgical poetry written in the Byzantine empire era. This was realized by scholars only recently, thanks to the thousands of piyyuts that have been discovered in the Cairo Geniza. It is assumed that the principle of rhyme was transferred from Hebrew liturgical poetry to the poetry of the Syriac Christianity (written in Aramaic), and through this mediation introduced into Latin poetry and then into all other languages of Europe.
In Latin rhetoric and poetry homeoteleuton and alliteration were frequently used devices.
Tail rhyme was occasionally used, as in this piece of poetry by Cicero:
But tail rhyme was not used as a prominent structural feature of Latin poetry until it was introduced under the influence of local vernacular traditions in the early Middle Ages. This is the Latin hymn "Dies Irae":
Medieval poetry may mix Latin and vernacular languages. Mixing languages in verse or rhyming words in different languages is termed macaronic.
Portuguese classifies rhymes in the following manner:
Rhyme was introduced into Russian poetry in the 18th century. Folk poetry had generally been unrhymed, relying more on dactylic line endings for effect. Two words ending in an accented vowel are only considered to rhyme if they share a preceding consonant. Vowel pairs rhyme—even though non-Russian speakers may not perceive them as the same sound. Consonant pairs rhyme if both are devoiced. As in French, formal poetry traditionally alternates between masculine and feminine rhymes.
Early 18th-century poetry demanded perfect rhymes that were also grammatical rhymes—namely that noun endings rhymed with noun endings, verb endings with verb endings, and so on. Such rhymes relying on morphological endings become much rarer in modern Russian poetry, and greater use is made of approximate rhymes.
Spanish mainly differentiates two types of rhymes:
Spanish rhyme is also classified by stress type since different types cannot rhyme with each other:
In Polish literature rhyme was used from the beginning. Unrhymed verse was never popular, although it was sometimes imitated from Latin. Homer's, Virgil's and even Milton's epic poems were furnished with rhymes by Polish translators. Because of paroxytonic accentuation in Polish, feminine rhymes always prevailed. Rules of Polish rhyme were established in 16th century. Then only feminine rhymes were allowed in syllabic verse system. Together with introducing syllabo-accentual metres, masculine rhymes began to occur in Polish poetry. They were most popular at the end of 19th century. The most frequent rhyme scheme in Old Polish (16th - 18th centuries) was couplet AABBCCDD..., but Polish poets, having perfect knowledge of Italian language and literature, experimented with other schemes, among others ottava rima (ABABABCC) and sonnet (ABBA ABBA CDC DCD or ABBA ABBA CDCD EE).
The metre of Mickiewicz's sonnet is the Polish alexandrine (tridecasyllable, in Polish "trzynastozgłoskowiec"): 13(7+6) and its rhymes are feminine: [anu] and [odzi].
Rhymes were widely spread in the Arabian peninsula around the 6th century, in letters, poems and songs, as well as long, rhyming qasidas. In addition, the Quran uses a form of rhymed prose named saj'.
Patterns of rich rhyme ("prāsa") play a role in modern Sanskrit poetry, but only to a minor extent in historical Sanskrit texts. They are classified according to their position within the "pada" (metrical foot): "ādiprāsa" (first syllable), "dvitīyākṣara prāsa" (second syllable), "antyaprāsa" (final syllable) etc.
There are some unique rhyming schemes in Dravidian languages like Tamil. Specifically, the rhyme called "etukai" (anaphora) occurs on the second consonant of each line.
The other rhyme and related patterns are called "mōnai" (alliteration), "toṭai" (epiphora) and "iraṭṭai kiḷavi" (parallelism).
Some classical Tamil poetry forms, such as "veṇpā", have rigid grammars for rhyme to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar.
Rhymes are used in Vietnamese to produce similes. The following is an example of a Rhyming Simile:
Nghèo như con mèo
/ŋɛu ɲɯ kɔn mɛu/
"Poor as a cat"
Compare the above Vietnamese example, which is a "rhyming" simile, to the English phrase "(as) poor as a church mouse", which is only a "semantic" simile. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26226 |
Rhythm
Rhythm (from Greek , "rhythmos", "any regular recurring motion, symmetry" ) generally means a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions" . This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds (as with the riff in a rock music song); to several minutes or hours, or, at the most extreme, even over many years.
Rhythm is related to and distinguished from pulse, meter, and beats:
In the performance arts, rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences that occur over time, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. In some performing arts, such as hip hop music, the rhythmic delivery of the lyrics is one of the most important elements of the style. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space" and a common language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry. For example, architects often speak of the rhythm of a building, referring to patterns in the spacing of windows, columns, and other elements of the facade. In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by Maury , Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff , Jonathan Kramer, Christopher , Godfried , William , Joel Lester , and Guerino Mazzola.
In his television series "How Music Works", Howard Goodall presents theories that human rhythm recalls the regularity with which we walk and the heartbeat . Other research suggests that it does not relate to the heartbeat directly, but rather the speed of emotional affect, which also influences heartbeat. Yet other researchers suggest that since certain features of human music are widespread, it is "reasonable to suspect that beat-based rhythmic processing has ancient evolutionary roots" . Justin London writes that musical metre "involves our initial perception as well as subsequent anticipation of a series of beats that we abstract from the rhythm surface of the music as it unfolds in time" . The "perception" and "abstraction" of rhythmic measure is the foundation of human instinctive musical participation, as when we divide a series of identical clock-ticks into "tick-tock-tick-tock" (; ).
Joseph Jordania recently suggested that the sense of rhythm was developed in the early stages of hominid evolution by the forces of natural selection . Plenty of animals walk rhythmically and hear the sounds of the heartbeat in the womb, but only humans have the ability to be engaged (entrained) in rhythmically coordinated vocalizations and other activities. According to Jordania, development of the sense of rhythm was central for the achievement of the specific neurological state of the battle trance, crucial for the development of the effective defense system of early hominids. Rhythmic war cry, rhythmic drumming by shamans, rhythmic drilling of the soldiers and contemporary professional combat forces listening to the heavy rhythmic rock music all use the ability of rhythm to unite human individuals into a shared collective identity where group members put the interests of the group above their individual interests and safety.
Some types of parrots can know rhythm . Neurologist Oliver Sacks states that chimpanzees and other animals show no similar appreciation of rhythm yet posits that human affinity for rhythm is fundamental, so that a person's sense of rhythm cannot be lost (e.g. by stroke). "There is not a single report of an animal being trained to tap, peck, or move in synchrony with an auditory beat" (, cited in , who adds, "No doubt many pet lovers will dispute this notion, and indeed many animals, from the Lippizaner horses of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna to performing circus animals appear to 'dance' to music. It is not clear whether they are doing so or are responding to subtle visual or tactile cues from the humans around them.") Human rhythmic arts are possibly to some extent rooted in courtship ritual .
The establishment of a basic beat requires the perception of a regular sequence of distinct short-duration pulses and, as a subjective perception of loudness is relative to background noise levels, a pulse must decay to silence before the next occurs if it is to be really distinct. For this reason, the fast-transient sounds of percussion instruments lend themselves to the definition of rhythm. Musical cultures that rely upon such instruments may develop multi-layered polyrhythm and simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature, called polymeter. Such are the cross-rhythms of Sub-Saharan Africa and the interlocking "kotekan" rhythms of the "gamelan".
For information on rhythm in Indian music see Tala (music). For other Asian approaches to rhythm see Rhythm in Persian music, Rhythm in Arabic music and "Usul"—Rhythm in Turkish music and Dumbek rhythms.
Most music, dance and oral poetry establishes and maintains an underlying "metric level", a basic unit of time that may be audible or implied, the pulse or "tactus" of the mensural level (; ; ), or "beat level", sometimes simply called the beat. This consists of a (repeating) series of identical yet distinct periodic short-duration stimuli perceived as points in time . The "beat" pulse is not necessarily the fastest or the slowest component of the rhythm but the one that is perceived as fundamental: it has a tempo to which listeners entrain as they tap their foot or dance to a piece of music . It is currently most often designated as a crotchet or quarter note in western notation (see time signature). Faster levels are "division levels", and slower levels are "multiple levels" . Maury Yeston clarified "Rhythms of recurrence" arise from the interaction of two levels of motion, the faster providing the pulse and the slower organizing the beats into repetitive groups . "Once a metric hierarchy has been established, we, as listeners, will maintain that organization as long as minimal evidence is present" .
A durational pattern that synchronises with a pulse or pulses on the underlying metric level may be called a "rhythmic unit". These may be classified as:
A rhythmic gesture is any durational pattern that, in contrast to the rhythmic unit, does not occupy a period of time equivalent to a pulse or pulses on an underlying metric level. It may be described according to its beginning and ending or by the rhythmic units it contains. Rhythms that begin on a strong pulse are "thetic", those beginning on a weak pulse are "anacrustic" and those beginning after a rest or tied-over note are called "initial rest". Endings on a strong pulse are "strong", on a weak pulse, "weak" and those that end on a strong or weak upbeat are "upbeat" .
Rhythm is marked by the regulated succession of opposite elements: the dynamics of the strong and weak beat, the played beat and the inaudible but implied rest beat, or the long and short note. As well as perceiving rhythm humans must be able to anticipate it. This depends on repetition of a pattern that is short enough to memorize.
The alternation of the strong and weak beat is fundamental to the ancient language of poetry, dance and music. The common poetic term "foot" refers, as in dance, to the lifting and tapping of the foot in time. In a similar way musicians speak of an upbeat and a downbeat and of the "on" and "off" beat. These contrasts naturally facilitate a dual hierarchy of rhythm and depend on repeating patterns of duration, accent and rest forming a "pulse-group" that corresponds to the poetic foot. Normally such pulse-groups are defined by taking the most accented beat as the first and counting the pulses until the next accent (; ). A rhythm that accents another beat and de-emphasises the downbeat as established or assumed from the melody or from a preceding rhythm is called syncopated rhythm.
Normally, even the most complex of meters may be broken down into a chain of duple and triple pulses (; ) either by addition or division. According to Pierre Boulez, beat structures beyond four, in western music, are "simply not natural" .
The tempo of the piece is the speed or frequency of the "tactus", a measure of how quickly the beat flows. This is often measured in 'beats per minute' (bpm): 60 bpm means a speed of one beat per second, a frequency of 1 Hz. A rhythmic unit is a durational pattern that has a period equivalent to a pulse or several pulses . The duration of any such unit is inversely related to its tempo.
Musical sound may be analyzed on five different time scales, which Moravscik has arranged in order of increasing duration .
Curtis Roads takes a wider view by distinguishing nine-time scales, this time in order of decreasing duration. The first two, the infinite and the supra musical, encompass natural periodicities of months, years, decades, centuries, and greater, while the last three, the sample and subsample, which take account of digital and electronic rates "too brief to be properly recorded or perceived", measured in millionths of seconds (microseconds), and finally the infinitesimal or infinitely brief, are again in the extra-musical domain. Roads' Macro level, encompassing "overall musical architecture or form" roughly corresponds to Moravcsik's "very long" division while his Meso level, the level of "divisions of form" including movements, sections, phrases taking seconds or minutes, is likewise similar to Moravcsik's "long" category. Roads' Sound object (; ): "a basic unit of musical structure" and a generalization of note (Xenakis' mini structural time scale); fraction of a second to several seconds, and his Microsound (see granular synthesis) down to the threshold of audible perception; thousands to millionths of seconds, are similarly comparable to Moravcsik's "short" and "supershort" levels of duration.
The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody (see also: prosody (music)): it is a topic in linguistics and poetics, where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented. Music inherited the term "meter or metre" from the terminology of poetry (; ; ).
The metric structure of music includes meter, tempo and all other rhythmic aspects that produce temporal regularity against which the foreground details or durational patterns of the music are projected (). The terminology of western music is notoriously imprecise in this area . preferred to speak of "time" and "rhythmic shape", Imogen Holst of "measured rhythm".
Dance music has instantly recognizable patterns of beats built upon a characteristic tempo and measure. The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing defines the tango, for example, as to be danced in time at approximately 66 beats per minute. The basic slow step forwards or backwards, lasting for one beat, is called a "slow", so that a full "right–left" step is equal to one measure ("See Rhythm and dance").
The general classifications of "metrical rhythm", "measured rhythm", and "free rhythm" may be distinguished . Metrical or divisive rhythm, by far the most common in Western music calculates each time value as a multiple or fraction of the beat. Normal accents re-occur regularly providing systematical grouping (measures). Measured rhythm (additive rhythm) also calculates each time value as a multiple or fraction of a specified time unit but the accents do not recur regularly within the cycle. Free rhythm is where there is neither , such as in Christian chant, which has a basic pulse but a freer rhythm, like the rhythm of prose compared to that of verse . "See Free time (music)".
Finally some music, such as some graphically scored works since the 1950s and non-European music such as Honkyoku repertoire for shakuhachi, may be considered "ametric" . "Senza misura" is an Italian musical term for "without meter", meaning to play without a beat, using time to measure how long it will take to play the bar ().
A "composite rhythm" is the durations and patterns (rhythm) produced by amalgamating all sounding parts of a musical texture. In music of the common practice period, the composite rhythm usually confirms the meter, often in metric or even-note patterns identical to the pulse on a specific metric level. White defines "composite rhythm" as, "the resultant overall rhythmic articulation among all the voices of a contrapuntal texture" . This concept was concurrently defined as “attack point rhythm” by Maury Yeston in 1976 as “the extreme rhythmic foreground of a composition – the absolute surface of articulated movement” .
In the Griot tradition of Africa everything related to music has been passed on orally. Babatunde Olatunji (1927–2003) developed a simple series of spoken sounds for teaching the rhythms of the hand-drum, using six vocal sounds, "Goon, Doon, Go, Do, Pa, Ta", for three basic sounds on the drum, each played with either the left or the right hand. The debate about the appropriateness of staff notation for African music is a subject of particular interest to outsiders while African scholars from Kyagambiddwa to Kongo have, for the most part, accepted the conventions and limitations of staff notation, and produced transcriptions to inform and enable discussion and debate .
John Miller has argued that West African music is based on the tension between rhythms, polyrhythms created by the simultaneous sounding of two or more different rhythms, generally one dominant rhythm interacting with one or more independent competing rhythms. These often oppose or complement each other and the dominant rhythm. Moral values underpin a musical system based on repetition of relatively simple patterns that meet at distant cross-rhythmic intervals and on call-and-response form. Collective utterances such as proverbs or lineages appear either in phrases translated into "drum talk" or in the words of songs. People expect musicians to stimulate participation by reacting to people dancing. Appreciation of musicians is related to the effectiveness of their upholding community values .
Indian music has also been passed on orally. Tabla players would learn to speak complex rhythm patterns and phrases before attempting to play them. Sheila Chandra, an English pop singer of Indian descent, made performances based on her singing these patterns. In Indian classical music, the Tala of a composition is the rhythmic pattern over which the whole piece is structured.
In the 20th century, composers like Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich wrote more rhythmically complex music using odd meters, and techniques such as phasing and additive rhythm. At the same time, modernists such as Olivier Messiaen and his pupils used increased complexity to disrupt the sense of a regular beat, leading eventually to the widespread use of irrational rhythms in New Complexity. This use may be explained by a comment of John Cage's where he notes that regular rhythms cause sounds to be heard as a group rather than individually; the irregular rhythms highlight the rapidly changing pitch relationships that would otherwise be subsumed into irrelevant rhythmic groupings . La Monte Young also wrote music in which the sense of a regular beat is absent because the music consists only of long sustained tones (drones). In the 1930s, Henry Cowell wrote music involving multiple simultaneous periodic rhythms and collaborated with Léon Theremin to invent the rhythmicon, the first electronic rhythm machine, in order to perform them. Similarly, Conlon Nancarrow wrote for the player piano.
In linguistics, rhythm or isochrony is one of the three aspects of prosody, along with stress and intonation. Languages can be categorized according to whether they are syllable-timed, mora-timed, or stress-timed. Speakers of syllable-timed languages such as Spanish and Cantonese put roughly equal time on each syllable; in contrast, speakers of stressed-timed languages such as English and Mandarin Chinese put roughly equal time lags between stressed syllables, with the timing of the unstressed syllables in between them being adjusted to accommodate the stress timing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26227 |
Riboflavin
Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, is a vitamin found in food and used as a dietary supplement. It is required by the body for cellular respiration.
Food sources include eggs, green vegetables, milk and other dairy product, meat, mushrooms, and almonds. Some countries require its addition to grains.
As a supplement it is used to prevent and treat riboflavin deficiency. At amounts far in excess of what is needed to meet dietary needs as a nutrient, riboflavin may prevent migraines. Riboflavin may be given by mouth or injection. It is nearly always well tolerated. Normal doses are safe during pregnancy.
Riboflavin was discovered in 1920, isolated in 1933, and first made in 1935. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. Riboflavin is available as a generic medication and over the counter. In the United States a month of supplements was priced (in 2015) at less than 25 USD.
Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, is a vitamin.
Mild deficiencies can exceed 50% of the population in Third World countries and in refugee situations. Deficiency is uncommon in the United States and in other countries that have wheat flour, bread, pasta, corn meal or rice enrichment regulations. In the U.S., starting in the 1940s, flour, corn meal and rice have been fortified with B vitamins as a means of restoring some of what is lost in milling, bleaching and other processing. For adults 20 and older, average intake from food and beverages is 1.8 mg/day for women and 2.5 mg/day for men. An estimated 23% consume a riboflavin-containing dietary supplement that provides on average 10 mg. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services conducts National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey every two years and reports food results in a series of reports referred to as "What We Eat In America." From NHANES 2011–2012, estimates were that 8% of women and 3% of men consumed less than the RDA. When compared to the lower Estimated Average Requirements, fewer than 3% did not achieve the EAR level.
Riboflavin deficiency (also called ariboflavinosis) results in stomatitis including painful red tongue with sore throat, chapped and fissured lips (cheilosis), and inflammation of the corners of the mouth (angular stomatitis). There can be oily scaly skin rashes on the scrotum, vulva, philtrum of the lip, or the nasolabial folds. The eyes can become itchy, watery, bloodshot and sensitive to light. Due to interference with iron absorption, even mild to moderate riboflavin deficiency results in an anemia with normal cell size and normal hemoglobin content (i.e. normochromic normocytic anemia). This is distinct from anemia caused by deficiency of folic acid (B9) or cyanocobalamin (B12), which causes anemia with large blood cells (megaloblastic anemia). Deficiency of riboflavin during pregnancy can result in birth defects including congenital heart defects and limb deformities. Prolonged riboflavin insufficiency is also known to cause degeneration of the liver and nervous system.
The stomatitis symptoms are similar to those seen in pellagra, which is caused by niacin (B3) deficiency. Therefore, riboflavin deficiency is sometimes called "pellagra sine pellagra" (pellagra without pellagra), because it causes stomatitis but not widespread peripheral skin lesions characteristic of niacin deficiency.
Riboflavin deficiency prolongs recovery from malaria, despite preventing growth of plasmodium (the malaria parasite).
Riboflavin is continuously excreted in the urine of healthy individuals, making deficiency relatively common when dietary intake is insufficient. Riboflavin deficiency is usually found together with other nutrient deficiencies, particularly of other water-soluble vitamins.
A deficiency of riboflavin can be primary – poor vitamin sources in one's daily diet – or secondary, which may be a result of conditions that affect absorption in the intestine, the body not being able to use the vitamin, or an increase in the excretion of the vitamin from the body.
Subclinical deficiency has also been observed in women taking oral contraceptives, in the elderly, in people with eating disorders, chronic alcoholism and in diseases such as HIV, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes and chronic heart disease. The Celiac Disease Foundation points out that a gluten-free diet may be low in riboflavin (and other nutrients) as enriched wheat flour and wheat foods (bread, pasta, cereals, etc.) is a major dietary contribution to total riboflavin intake.
Overt clinical signs are rarely seen among inhabitants of the developed countries. The assessment of riboflavin status is essential for confirming cases with unspecific symptoms where deficiency is suspected.
Multi-vitamin dietary supplements often contain 100% of the U.S. Daily Value (1.3 mg) for riboflavin, and can be used by persons concerned about an inadequate diet. Over-the-counter dietary supplements are available in the United States with doses as high as 100 mg, but there is no evidence that these high doses have any additional benefit for healthy people.
Corneal ectasia is a progressive thinning of the cornea; the most common form of this condition is keratoconus. Collagen cross-linking by applying riboflavin topically then shining UV light is a method to slow progression of corneal ectasia by strengthening corneal tissue.
A 2017 review found that riboflavin taken daily in amounts roughly 200 to 400 times the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) may be useful to prevent migraines in adults, but found that clinical trials in adolescents and children had mixed outcomes. A hypothesis has been proposed that riboflavin improves mitochondrial energy production.
In humans, there is no evidence for riboflavin toxicity produced by excessive intakes, in part because it has lower water solubility than other B vitamins, because absorption becomes less efficient as doses increase, and because what exceeds the absorption is excreted via the kidneys into urine. Even when 400 mg of riboflavin per day was given orally to subjects in one study for three months to investigate the efficacy of riboflavin in the prevention of migraine headache, no short-term side effects were reported. Any excess at nutritionally relevant doses is excreted in the urine, imparting a bright yellow color when in large quantities. The limited data available on riboflavin's adverse effects do not mean, however, that high intakes have no adverse effects, and the Food and Nutrition Board urges people to be cautious about consuming excessive amounts of riboflavin.
Flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) function as cofactors for a variety of flavoprotein enzyme reactions:
For the molecular mechanism of action see main articles flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD)
The National Academy of Medicine (then the U.S. Institute of Medicine [IOM]) updated Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) and Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for riboflavin in 1998. The current EARs for riboflavin for women and men ages 14 and up are 0.9 mg/day and 1.1 mg/day, respectively; the RDAs are 1.1 and 1.3 mg/day, respectively. RDAs are higher than EARs so as to identify amounts that will cover people with higher than average requirements. RDA for pregnancy is 1.4 mg/day. RDA for lactation is 1.6 mg/day. For infants up to 12 months the Adequate Intake (AI) is 0.3–0.4 mg/day. and for children ages 1–13 years the RDA increases with age from 0.5 to 0.9 mg/day. As for safety, the IOM sets Tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) for vitamins and minerals when evidence is sufficient. In the case of riboflavin there is no UL, as there is no human data for adverse effects from high doses. Collectively the EARs, RDAs, AIs and ULs are referred to as Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs).
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) refers to the collective set of information as Dietary Reference Values, with Population Reference Intake (PRI) instead of RDA, and Average Requirement instead of EAR. AI and UL defined the same as in United States. For women and men ages 15 and older the PRI is set at 1.6 mg/day. PRI for pregnancy is 1.9 mg/day, for lactation 2.0 mg/day. For children ages 1–14 years the PRIs increase with age from 0.6 to 1.4 mg/day. These PRIs are higher than the U.S. RDAs. The EFSA also reviewed the safety question and like the U.S., decided that there was not sufficient information to set an UL.
For U.S. food and dietary supplement labeling purposes the amount in a serving is expressed as a percent of Daily Value (%DV). For riboflavin labeling purposes 100% of the Daily Value was 1.7 mg, but as of May 27, 2016, it was revised to 1.3 mg to bring it into agreement with the RDA. Compliance with the updated labeling regulations was required by 1 January 2020, for manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales, and by 1 January 2021 for manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales. During the first six months following the 1 January 2020 compliance date, the FDA plans to work cooperatively with manufacturers to meet the new Nutrition Facts label requirements and will not focus on enforcement actions regarding these requirements during that time. A table of the old and new adult Daily Values is provided at Reference Daily Intake.
Food and beverages that provide riboflavin without fortification are milk, cheese, eggs, leaf vegetables, liver, kidneys, lean meats, legumes, mushrooms, and almonds.
The milling of cereals results in considerable loss (up to 60%) of vitamin B2, so white flour is enriched in some countries by addition of the vitamin. The enrichment of bread and ready-to-eat breakfast cereals contributes significantly to the dietary supply of vitamin B2. Polished rice is not usually enriched, because the vitamin's yellow color would make the rice visually unacceptable to the major rice-consuming populations. However, most of the flavin content of whole brown rice is retained if the rice is steamed (parboiled) prior to milling. This process drives the flavins in the germ and aleurone layers into the endosperm. Free riboflavin is naturally present in foods along with protein-bound FMN and FAD. Bovine milk contains mainly free riboflavin, with a minor contribution from FMN and FAD. In whole milk, 14% of the flavins are bound noncovalently to specific proteins. Milk and yogurt contain some of the highest riboflavin content. Egg white and egg yolk contain specialized riboflavin-binding proteins, which are required for storage of free riboflavin in the egg for use by the developing embryo.
Riboflavin is added to baby foods, breakfast cereals, pastas and vitamin-enriched meal replacement products. It is difficult to incorporate riboflavin into liquid products because it has poor solubility in water, hence the requirement for riboflavin-5'-phosphate (E101a), a more soluble form of riboflavin. Riboflavin is also used as a food coloring and as such is designated in Europe as the E number E101.
In other animals, riboflavin deficiency results in lack of growth, failure to thrive, and eventual death. Experimental riboflavin deficiency in dogs results in growth failure, weakness, ataxia, and inability to stand. The animals collapse, become comatose, and die. During the deficiency state, dermatitis develops together with hair loss. Other signs include corneal opacity, lenticular cataracts, hemorrhagic adrenals, fatty degeneration of the kidney and liver, and inflammation of the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract. Post-mortem studies in rhesus monkeys fed a riboflavin-deficient diet revealed about one-third the normal amount of riboflavin was present in the liver, which is the main storage organ for riboflavin in mammals. Riboflavin deficiency in birds results in low egg hatch rates.
As a chemical compound, riboflavin is a yellow-orange solid substance with poor solubility in water compared to other B vitamins. Visually, it imparts color to vitamin supplements (and bright yellow color of urine in persons taking it).
Because riboflavin is fluorescent under UV light, dilute solutions (0.015–0.025% w/w) are often used to detect leaks or to demonstrate coverage in an industrial system such a chemical blend tank or bioreactor.
The industrial scale production of riboflavin using diverse microorganisms, including filamentous fungi such as "Ashbya gossypii", "Candida famata" and "Candida flaveri", as well as the bacteria "Corynebacterium ammoniagenes" and "Bacillus subtilis". The latter organism, genetically modified to both increase the production of riboflavin and to introduce an antibiotic (ampicillin) resistance marker, is employed at a commercial scale to produce riboflavin for feed and food fortification. The chemical company BASF has installed a plant in South Korea, which is specialized on riboflavin production using "Ashbya gossypii". The concentrations of riboflavin in their modified strain are so high that the mycelium has a reddish/brownish color and accumulates riboflavin crystals in the vacuoles, which will eventually burst the mycelium. Riboflavin is sometimes overproduced, possibly as a protective mechanism, by some bacteria in the presence of high concentrations of hydrocarbons or aromatic compounds. One such organism is "Micrococcus luteus" (American Type Culture Collection strain number ATCC 49442), which develops a yellow color due to production of riboflavin while growing on pyridine, but not when grown on other substrates, such as succinic acid.
The name "riboflavin" comes from "ribose" (the sugar whose reduced form, ribitol, forms part of its structure) and "flavin", the ring-moiety which imparts the yellow color to the oxidized molecule (from Latin "flavus", "yellow"). The reduced form, which occurs in metabolism along with the oxidized form, is colorless.
"Vitamin B" was originally considered to have two components, a heat-labile vitamin B1 and a heat-stable vitamin B2. In the 1920s, vitamin B2 was initially thought to be the factor necessary for preventing pellagra. In 1923, Paul Gyorgy in Heidelberg was investigating egg-white injury in rats; the curative factor for this condition was called vitamin H, which is now called biotin. Since both pellagra and vitamin H deficiency were associated with dermatitis, Gyorgy decided to test the effect of vitamin B2 on vitamin H deficiency in rats. He enlisted the service of Wagner-Jauregg in Kuhn's laboratory. In 1933, Kuhn, Gyorgy, and Wagner found that thiamin-free extracts of yeast, liver, or rice bran prevented the growth failure of rats fed a thiamin-supplemented diet.
Further, the researchers noted that a yellow-green fluorescence in each extract promoted rat growth, and that the intensity of fluorescence was proportional to the effect on growth. This observation enabled them to develop a rapid chemical and bioassay to isolate the factor from egg white in 1933. The same group then isolated the same preparation (a growth-promoting compound with yellow-green fluorescence) from whey using the same procedure (lactoflavin). In 1934, Kuhn's group identified the structure of so-called flavin and synthesized vitamin B2, leading to evidence in 1939 that riboflavin was essential for human health.
Donated whole blood can be treated with riboflavin and then with ultraviolet light as a pathogen reduction technology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26229 |
Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum (; ) is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw.
The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague on 19 November 1798 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace and later in the Trippenhuis. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1885. On 13 April 2013, after a ten-year renovation which cost € 375 million, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix. In 2013 and 2014, it was the most visited museum in the Netherlands with record numbers of 2.2 million and 2.47 million visitors. It is also the largest art museum in the country.
The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer. The museum also has a small Asian collection, which is on display in the Asian pavilion.
In 1795, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed. The Minister of Finance Isaac Gogel argued that a national museum, following the French example of The Louvre, would serve the national interest. On 19 November 1798, the government decided to found the museum.
On 31 May 1800, the National Art Gallery (Dutch: "Nationale Kunst-Galerij"), precursor of the Rijksmuseum, opened in Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. The museum exhibited around 200 paintings and historic objects from the collections of the Dutch stadtholders.
In 1805, the National Art Gallery moved within The Hague to the Prince William V Gallery, on the Buitenhof.
In 1806, the Kingdom of Holland was established by Napoleon Bonaparte. On the orders of king Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, the museum moved to Amsterdam in 1808. The paintings owned by that city, such as "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt, became part of the collection. In 1809, the museum opened in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.
In 1817, the museum moved to the Trippenhuis. The Trippenhuis turned out to be unsuitable as a museum. In 1820, the historical objects were moved to the Mauritshuis in The Hague and in 1838, the 19th-century paintings ""of living masters"" were moved to King Louis Bonaparte's former summer palace Paviljoen Welgelegen in Haarlem.
In 1863, there was a design contest for a new building for the Rijksmuseum, but none of the submissions was considered to be of sufficient quality. Pierre Cuypers also participated in the contest and his submission reached the second place.
In 1876, a new contest was held and this time Pierre Cuypers won. The design was a combination of gothic and renaissance elements. The construction began on 1 October 1876. On both the inside and the outside, the building was richly decorated with references to Dutch art history. Another contest was held for these decorations. The winners were B. van Hove and J.F. Vermeylen for the sculptures, G. Sturm for the tile tableaus and painting and W.F. Dixon for the stained glass. The museum was opened at its new location on 13 July 1885.
In 1890, a new building was added a short distance to the south-west of the Rijksmuseum. As the building was made out of fragments of demolished buildings, the building offers an overview of the history of Dutch architecture and has come to be known informally as the 'fragment building'. It is also known as the 'south wing' and is currently (in 2013) branded the "Philips Wing".
In 1906, the hall for the "Night Watch" was rebuilt. In the interior more changes were made between the 1920s and 1950s - most multi-coloured wall decorations were painted over. In the 1960s exposition rooms and several floors were built into the two courtyards. The building had some minor renovations and restorations in 1984, 1995–1996 and 2000.
A renovation of the south wing of the museum, also known as the 'fragment building' or 'Philips Wing', was completed in 1996, the same year that the museum held its first major photography exhibition featuring its extensive collection of 19th-century photos.
In December 2003, the main building of the museum closed for a major renovation. During this renovation, about 400 objects from the collection were on display in the 'fragment building', including Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" and other 17th-century masterpieces.
The restoration and renovation of the Rijksmuseum are based on a design by Spanish architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz. Many of the old interior decorations were restored and the floors in the courtyards were removed. The renovation would have initially taken five years, but was delayed and eventually took almost ten years to complete. The renovation cost € 375 million.
The reconstruction of the building was completed on 16 July 2012. In March 2013, the museum's main pieces of art were moved back from the 'fragment building' (Philips Wing) to the main building. "The Night Watch" returned to the Night Watch Room, at the end of the Hall of Fame. On 13 April 2013, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix. On 1 November 2014, the Philips Wing reopened with the exhibition .
The building of the Rijksmuseum was designed by Pierre Cuypers and opened in 1885. It consists of two squares with an atrium in each centre. In the central axis is a tunnel with the entrances at ground level and the Gallery of Honour at the first floor. The building also contains a library. The fragment building, branded Philips wing, contains building fragments that show the history of architecture in the Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum is a "rijksmonument" (national heritage site) since 1970 and was listed in the Top 100 Dutch heritage sites in 1990. The Asian pavilion was designed by Cruz y Ortiz and opened in 2013.
According to Muriel Huisman, Project Architect for the Rijksmuseum's renovation, "Cruz y Ortiz always like to look for synergy between old and new, and we try not to explain things with our architecture.” With the Rijks, “there’s no cut between old and new; we’ve tried to merge it. We did this by looking for materials that were true to the original building, resulting in a kind of silent architecture."
The collection of the Rijksmuseum consists of 1 million objects and is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history from the years 1200 to 2000. Around 8,000 objects are currently on display in the museum.
The collection contains more than 2,000 paintings from the Dutch Golden Age by notable painters such as Jacob van Ruisdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, Rembrandt, and Rembrandt's pupils.
The museum also has a small Asian collection which is on display in the Asian pavilion.
It also displays the stern of HMS "Royal Charles" which was captured in the Raid on the Medway, and the Hartog plate.
In 2012, the museum took the unusual step of making some 125,000 high-resolution images available for download via its Rijksstudio webplatform, with plans to add another 40,000 images per year until the entire collection of one million works is available, according to Taco Dibbits, director of collections.
The 20th-century visitor record of 1,412,000 was reached in the year 1975.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Rijksmuseum was annually visited by 0.9 to 1.3 million people. On 7 December 2003, the main building of the museum was closed for a renovation until 13 April 2013. In the preceding decade, the number of visitors had slightly decreased to 0.8 to 1.1 million people. The museum says after the renovation, the museum's capacity is 1.5 to 2.0 million visitors annually. Within eight months since the reopening in 2013, the museum was visited by 2 million people.
The museum had 2.2 million visitors in 2013 and reached an all-time record of 2.47 million visitors in 2014. The museum was the most visited museum in the Netherlands and the 19th most visited art museum in the world in 2013 and 2014.
The Rijksmuseum Research Library is part of the Rijksmuseum, and is the best and the largest public art history research library in The Netherlands.
Rijks, stylized as RIJKS®, is a restaurant with 140 seats in the Philips Wing. Joris Bijdendijk has been the chef de cuisine since the opening in 2014. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star in 2017. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26230 |
Ruhollah Khomeini
Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ( , ; ; 24 September 19023 June 1989), also known in the Western world as Ayatollah Khomeini, was an Iranian politician, revolutionary, and cleric. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which saw the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the end of the 2,500 year old Persian monarchy. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader, a position created in the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation, which he held until his death. He was succeeded by Ali Khamenei on 4 June 1989.
Khomeini was born in 1902 in Khomeyn, in what is now Iran's Markazi Province. His father was murdered in 1903 when Khomeini was five months old. He began studying the Quran and the Persian language from a young age and was assisted in his religious studies by his relatives, including his mother's cousin and older brother.
Khomeini was a "marja" ("source of emulation") in Twelver Shia Islam, a Mujtahid or "faqih" (an expert in Sharia) and author of more than 40 books, but he is primarily known for his political activities. He spent more than 15 years in exile for his opposition to the last shah. In his writings and preachings he expanded the theory of "welayat-el faqih", the "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist (clerical authority)", to include theocratic . This principle (though not known to the wider public before the revolution), was appended to the new Iranian constitution after being put to a referendum. According to "The New York Times", Khomeini called democracy the equivalent of prostitution. Whether Khomeini's ideas are compatible with democracy and whether he intended the Islamic Republic to be democratic is disputed. He was "Time" magazine's Man of the Year in 1979 for his international influence, and Khomeini has been described as the "virtual face of Shia Islam in Western popular culture". In 1982, he survived one military coup attempt. Khomeini was known for his support of the hostage takers during the Iran hostage crisis, his fatwa calling for the murder of British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, and for referring to the United States as the "Great Satan" and Soviet Union as the "Lesser Satan." Khomeini has been criticized for these acts and for human rights violations of Iranians (including his ordering of execution of thousands of political prisoners, war criminals and prisoners of the Iran–Iraq War).
He has also been lauded as a "charismatic leader of immense popularity", a "champion of Islamic revival" by Shia scholars, who attempted to establish good relations between Sunnis and Shias, and a major innovator in political theory and religious-oriented populist political strategy. Khomeini held the title of Grand Ayatollah and is officially known as Imam Khomeini inside Iran and by his supporters internationally. He is generally referred to as Ayatollah Khomeini by others. In Iran, his gold-domed tomb in Tehran's Behesht-e Zahrāʾ cemetery has become a shrine for his adherents, and he is legally considered "inviolable", with Iranians regularly punished for insulting him. A cult of personality developed around Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution.
Ruhollah Khomeini's ancestors migrated towards the end of the 18th century from their original home in Nishapur, Khorasan Province, in northeastern part of Iran, for a short stay, to the Kingdom of Awadh – a region in the modern state of Uttar Pradesh, India – whose rulers were Twelver Shia Muslims of also Nishapur origin. During their rule they extensively invited, and received, a steady stream of Persian scholars, poets, jurists, architects, and painters. The family eventually settled in the small town of Kintoor, near Lucknow, the capital of Awadh. Ayatollah Khomeini's paternal grandfather, Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi, was born in Kintoor. He left Lucknow in 1830, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Imam Ali in Najaf, Ottoman Iraq (now Iraq) and never returned. According to Moin, this migration was to escape from the spread of British power in India. In 1834 Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi visited Persia, and in 1839 he settled in Khomein. Although he stayed and settled in Iran, he continued to be known as "Hindi", indicating his stay in India, and Ruhollah Khomeini even used "Hindi" as a pen name in some of his ghazals. There are also claims that Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi departed from Kashmir, instead of Lucknow. Khomeini's grandfather, Mirza Ahmad Mojtahed-e Khonsari was the cleric issuing a fatwa to forbid usage of Tobacco during the Tobacco Protest.
Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, whose first name means "spirit of Allah", was born on 24 September 1902 in Khomeyn, Markazi Province. He was raised by his mother, Hajieh Agha Khanum, and his aunt, Sahebeth, following the murder of his father, Mustapha Musavi, five months after his birth in 1903.
Ruhollah began to study the Qur'an and elementary Persian at the age of six. The following year, he began to attend a local school, where he learned religion, "noheh khani" (lamentation recital), and other traditional subjects. Throughout his childhood, he continued his religious education with the assistance of his relatives, including his mother's cousin, Ja'far, and his elder brother, Morteza Pasandideh.
After World War I arrangements were made for him to study at the Islamic seminary in Isfahan, but he was attracted instead to the seminary in Arak. He was placed under the leadership of Ayatollah Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi. In 1920, Khomeini moved to Arak and commenced his studies. The following year, Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi transferred to the Islamic seminary in the holy city of Qom, southwest of Tehran, and invited his students to follow. Khomeini accepted the invitation, moved, and took up residence at the Dar al-Shafa school in Qom. Khomeini's studies included Islamic law ("sharia") and jurisprudence ("fiqh"), but by that time, Khomeini had also acquired an interest in poetry and philosophy ("irfan"). So, upon arriving in Qom, Khomeini sought the guidance of Mirza Ali Akbar Yazdi, a scholar of philosophy and mysticism. Yazdi died in 1924, but Khomeini continued to pursue his interest in philosophy with two other teachers, Javad Aqa Maleki Tabrizi and Rafi'i Qazvini. However, perhaps Khomeini's biggest influences were another teacher, Mirza Muhammad 'Ali Shahabadi, and a variety of historic Sufi mystics, including Mulla Sadra and Ibn Arabi.
Khomeini studied Greek philosophy and was influenced by both the philosophy of Aristotle, whom he regarded as the founder of logic, and Plato, whose views "in the field of divinity" he regarded as "grave and solid". Among Islamic philosophers, Khomeini was mainly influenced by Avicenna and Mulla Sadra.
Apart from philosophy, Khomeini was interested in literature and poetry. His poetry collection was released after his death. Beginning in his adolescent years, Khomeini composed mystic, political and social poetry. His poetry works were published in three collections: "The Confidant", "The Decanter of Love and Turning Point", and "Divan". His knowledge of poetry is further attested by the modern poet Nader Naderpour (1929–2000), who "had spent many hours exchanging poems with Khomeini in the early 1960s". Naderpour remembered: "For four hours we recited poetry. Every single line I recited from any poet, he recited the next."
Ruhollah Khomeini was a lecturer at Najaf and Qom seminaries for decades before he was known on the political scene. He soon became a leading scholar of Shia Islam. He taught political philosophy, Islamic history and ethics. Several of his students – for example, Morteza Motahhari – later became leading Islamic philosophers and also "marja'". As a scholar and teacher, Khomeini produced numerous writings on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics. He showed an exceptional interest in subjects like philosophy and mysticism that not only were usually absent from the curriculum of seminaries but were often an object of hostility and suspicion.
Inaugurating his teaching career at the age of 27 by giving private lessons on irfan and Mulla Sadra to a private circle, around the same time, in 1928, he also released his first publication, "Sharh Du'a al-Sahar" (Commentary on the Du'a al-Baha), "a detailed commentary, in Arabic, on the prayer recited before dawn during Ramadan by Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq", followed, some years later, by "Sirr al-Salat" (Secret of the Prayer), where "the symbolic dimensions and inner meaning of every part of the prayer, from the ablution that precedes it to the salam that concludes it, are expounded in a rich, complex, and eloquent language that owes much to the concepts and terminology of Ibn 'Arabi. As Sayyid Fihri, the editor and translator of "Sirr al-Salat", has remarked, the work is addressed only to the foremost among the spiritual elite (akhass-i khavass) and establishes its author as one of their number." The second book has been translated by Sayyid Amjad Hussain Shah Naqavi and released by BRILL in 2015, under the title "The Mystery of Prayer: The Ascension of the Wayfarers and the Prayer of the Gnostics".
His seminary teaching often focused on the importance of religion to practical social and political issues of the day, and he worked against secularism in the 1940s. His first political book, "Kashf al-Asrar" (Uncovering of Secrets) published in 1942, was a point-by-point refutation of "Asrar-e hezar sale" (Secrets of a Thousand Years), a tract written by a disciple of Iran's leading anti-clerical historian, Ahmad Kasravi, as well as a condemnation of innovations such as international time zones, and the banning of hijab by Reza Shah. In addition, he went from Qom to Tehran to listen to Ayatullah Hasan Mudarris, the leader of the opposition majority in Iran's parliament during the 1920s. Khomeini became a "marja"' in 1963, following the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Husayn Borujerdi.
Most Iranians had a deep respect for the Shi'a clergy or Ulama, and tended to be religious, traditional, and alienated from the process of Westernization pursued by the Shah. In the late 19th century the clergy had shown themselves to be a powerful political force in Iran initiating the Tobacco Protest against a concession to a foreign (British) interest.
At the age of 61, Khomeini found the arena of leadership open following the deaths of Ayatollah Sayyed Husayn Borujerdi (1961), the leading, although quiescent, Shi'ah religious leader; and Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani (1962), an activist cleric. The clerical class had been on the defensive ever since the 1920s when the secular, anti-clerical modernizer Reza Shah Pahlavi rose to power. Reza's son Mohammad Reza Shah, instituted a "White Revolution", which was a further challenge to the Ulama.
In January 1963, the Shah announced the "White Revolution", a six-point programme of reform calling for land reform, nationalization of the forests, the sale of state-owned enterprises to private interests, electoral changes to enfranchise women and allow non-Muslims to hold office, profit-sharing in industry, and a literacy campaign in the nation's schools. Some of these initiatives were regarded as dangerous, especially by the powerful and privileged Shi'a ulama (religious scholars), and as Westernizing trends by traditionalists (Khomeini viewed them as "an attack on Islam"). Ayatollah Khomeini summoned a meeting of the other senior marjas of Qom and persuaded them to decree a boycott of the referendum on the White Revolution. On 22 January 1963 Khomeini issued a strongly worded declaration denouncing the Shah and his plans. Two days later the Shah took an armored column to Qom, and delivered a speech harshly attacking the ulama as a class.
Khomeini continued his denunciation of the Shah's programmes, issuing a manifesto that bore the signatures of eight other senior Iranian Shia religious scholars. In it he listed the various ways in which the Shah had allegedly violated the constitution, condemned the spread of moral corruption in the country, and accused the Shah of submission to the United States and Israel. He also decreed that the Nowruz celebrations for the Iranian year 1342 (which fell on 21 March 1963) be canceled as a sign of protest against government policies.
On the afternoon of 'Ashura (3 June 1963), Khomeini delivered a speech at the Feyziyeh madrasah drawing parallels between the Sunni Muslim caliph Yazid, who is perceived as a 'tyrant' by Shias, and the Shah, denouncing the Shah as a "wretched, miserable man," and warning him that if he did not change his ways the day would come when the people would offer up thanks for his departure from the country.
On 5 June 1963 (15 of Khordad) at 3:00 am, two days after this public denunciation of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Khomeini was detained in Qom and transferred to Tehran. Following this action, there were three days of major riots throughout Iran and the deaths of some 400 people. That event is now referred to as the Movement of 15 Khordad. Khomeini was kept under house arrest and released in August.
On 26 October 1964, Khomeini denounced both the Shah and the United States. This time it was in response to the "capitulations" or diplomatic immunity granted by the Shah to American military personnel in Iran. The "capitulation" law (or "status-of-forces agreement") allowed members of the U.S. armed forces in Iran to be tried in their own military courts. Khomeini was arrested in November 1964 and held for half a year. Upon his release, he was brought before Prime Minister Hasan Ali Mansur, who tried to convince Khomeini that he should apologize and drop his opposition to the government. When Khomeini refused, Mansur slapped Khomeini's face in a fit of rage. Two months later, Mansur was assassinated on his way to parliament. Four members of the Fadayan-e Islam were later executed for the murder.
Khomeini spent more than 14 years in exile, mostly in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf. Initially, he was sent to Turkey on 4 November 1964 where he stayed in Bursa in the home of Colonel Ali Cetiner of the Turkish Military Intelligence. In October 1965, after less than a year, he was allowed to move to Najaf, Iraq, where he stayed until 1978, when he was expelled by then-Vice President Saddam Hussein. By this time discontent with the Shah was becoming intense and Khomeini visited Neauphle-le-Château, a suburb of Paris, France on a tourist visa on 6 October 1978.
By the late 1960s, Khomeini was a marja-e taqlid (model for imitation) for "hundreds of thousands" of Shia, one of six or so models in the Shia world. While in the 1940s Khomeini accepted the idea of a limited monarchy under the Iranian Constitution of 1906–07 – as evidenced by his book "Kashf al-Asrar" – by the 1970s he had rejected the idea. In early 1970, Khomeini gave a series of lectures in Najaf on Islamic government, later published as a book titled variously "Islamic Government" or "" ("Hokumat-e Islami: Velayat-e faqih").
This was his best known and most influential work, and laid out his ideas on governance (at that time):
A modified form of this "wilayat al-faqih" system was adopted after Khomeini and his followers took power, and Khomeini was the Islamic Republic's first "Guardian" or "Supreme Leader". In the meantime, however, Khomeini was careful not to publicize his ideas for clerical rule outside of his Islamic network of opposition to the Shah which he worked to build and strengthen over the next decade. In Iran, a number of actions of the Shah including his repression of opponents began to build opposition to his regime.
Cassette copies of his lectures fiercely denouncing the Shah as (for example) "the Jewish agent, the American serpent whose head must be smashed with a stone", became common items in the markets of Iran, helping to demythologize the power and dignity of the Shah and his reign. Aware of the importance of broadening his base, Khomeini reached out to Islamic reformist and secular enemies of the Shah, despite his long-term ideological incompatibility with them.
After the 1977 death of Ali Shariati (an Islamic reformist and political revolutionary author/academic/philosopher who greatly assisted the Islamic revival among young educated Iranians), Khomeini became the most influential leader of the opposition to the Shah. Adding to his mystique was the circulation among Iranians in the 1970s of an old Shia saying attributed to the Imam Musa al-Kadhem. Prior to his death in 799, al-Kadhem was said to have prophesied that "A man will come out from Qom and he will summon people to the right path". In late 1978, a rumour swept the country that Khomeini's face could be seen in the full moon. Millions of people were said to have seen it and the event was celebrated in thousands of mosques. He was perceived by many Iranians as the spiritual as well as political leader of the revolt. Additionally, the episode with Khomeini's face in the moon showed that in late 1978 he was increasingly regarded as a messianic figure in Iran.
As protests grew, so did his profile and importance. Although several thousand kilometers away from Iran in Paris, Khomeini set the course of the revolution, urging Iranians not to compromise and ordering work stoppages against the regime. During the last few months of his exile, Khomeini received a constant stream of reporters, supporters, and notables, eager to hear the spiritual leader of the revolution.
According to the BBC, Khomeini's contact with the US "is part of a trove of newly declassified US government documents—diplomatic cables, policy memos, meeting records". The documents suggest that the Carter administration helped Khomeini return to Iran by preventing the Iranian army from launching a military coup, and that Khomeini told an American in France to convey a message to Washington that "There should be no fear about oil. It is not true that we wouldn't sell to the US." Guardian wrote that it "did not have access to the newly declassified documents and was not able to independently verify them".
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denied the report, and described the documents as “fabricated”. Other Iranian politicians including Ebrahim Yazdi, Khomeini's spokesman, and adviser at the time of the revolution, have questioned the BBC's documents. Mark Toner, deputy spokesperson at the state department, when asked about contact between the Carter administration and Khomeini, responded "I apologise. I’m not – I’m not aware of that and I don’t have any updates to offer". Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Carter from 1977 to 1981, said "I do not have any special information particularly on the Ayatollah and his role in it. Probably in some fashion there was some involvement but nothing specific that I can recall."
According to the BBC, "these document show that in his long quest for power, he [Khomeini] was tactically flexible; he played the moderate even pro-American card to take control but once change had come he put in place an anti-America legacy that would last for decades."
Khomeini was not allowed to return to Iran during the Shah's reign (as he had been in exile). On 16 January 1979, the Shah left the country for medical treatment (ostensibly "on vacation"), never to return. Two weeks later, on Thursday, 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned in triumph to Iran, welcomed by a joyous crowd estimated (by the BBC) to be of up to five million people. On his chartered Air France flight back to Tehran, he was accompanied by 120 journalists, including three women. One of the journalists, Peter Jennings, asked: "Ayatollah, would you be so kind as to tell us how you feel about being back in Iran?" Khomeini answered via his aide Sadegh Ghotbzadeh: ""Hichi"" (Nothing). This statement—much discussed at the time and since—was considered by some reflective of his mystical beliefs and non-attachment to ego. Others considered it a warning to Iranians who hoped he would be a "mainstream nationalist leader" that they were in for disappointment. To others, it was a reflection of an unfeeling leader incapable or unconcerned with understanding the thoughts, beliefs, or the needs of the Iranian populace.
Khomeini adamantly opposed the provisional government of Shapour Bakhtiar, promising "I shall kick their teeth in. I appoint the government." On 11 February (Bahman 22), Khomeini appointed his own competing interim prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, demanding, "since I have appointed him, he must be obeyed." It was "God's government," he warned, disobedience against him or Bazargan was considered a "revolt against God."
As Khomeini's movement gained momentum, soldiers began to defect to his side and Khomeini declared ill fortune on troops who did not surrender. On 11 February, as revolt spread and armories were taken over, the military declared neutrality and the Bakhtiar regime collapsed. On 30 and 31 March 1979, a referendum to replace the monarchy with an Islamic Republic passed with 98% voting in favour of the replacement, with the question: "should the monarchy be abolished in favour of an Islamic Government?"
Although revolutionaries were now in charge and Khomeini was their leader, some opposition groups claim that several secular and religious groups were unaware of Khomeini's plan for Islamic government by "wilayat al-faqih", which involved rule by a marja' Islamic cleric. They claim that this provisional constitution for the Islamic Republic did not include the post of supreme Islamic clerical ruler. The Islamic government was clearly defined by Khomeini in his book "" (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist) which was published while Khomeini was in exile in 1970, smuggled into Iran, and distributed to Khomeini's supporters. This book included Khomeini's notion of "wilayat al-faqih" (Governance of the Jurist) as well as the reasoning and in his view, the necessity of it in running an Islamic state.
Khomeini and his supporters worked to suppress some former allies and rewrote the proposed constitution. Some newspapers were closed, and those protesting the closings were attacked. Opposition groups such as the National Democratic Front and Muslim People's Republican Party were attacked and finally banned. Through popular support, Khomeini supporters gained an overwhelming majority of the seats in the Assembly of Experts which revised the proposed constitution. The newly proposed constitution included an Islamic jurist Supreme Leader of the country, and a Council of Guardians to veto un-Islamic legislation and screen candidates for office, disqualifying those found un-Islamic.
In November 1979, the new constitution of the Islamic Republic was adopted by national referendum. Khomeini himself became instituted as the Supreme Leader (Guardian Jurist), and officially became known as the "Leader of the Revolution." On 4 February 1980, Abolhassan Banisadr was elected as the first president of Iran. Critics complain that Khomeini had gone back on his word to advise, rather than rule the country.
On 22 October 1979, the United States admitted the exiled and ailing Shah into the country for cancer treatment. In Iran, there was an immediate outcry, with both Khomeini and leftist groups demanding the Shah's return to Iran for trial and execution.
On 4 November, a group of Iranian college students calling themselves the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, took control of the American Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 embassy staff hostage for 444 days – an event known as the Iran hostage crisis. In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as a flagrant violation of international law and aroused intense anger and anti-Iranian sentiments.
In Iran, the takeover was immensely popular and earned the support of Khomeini under the slogan "America can't do a damn thing against us." The seizure of the embassy of a country he called the "Great Satan" helped to advance the cause of theocratic government and outflank politicians and groups who emphasized stability and normalized relations with other countries. Khomeini is reported to have told his president: "This action has many benefits ... this has united our people. Our opponents do not dare act against us. We can put the constitution to the people's vote without difficulty, and carry out presidential and parliamentary elections." The new constitution was successfully passed by referendum a month after the hostage crisis began.
The crisis had the effect of splitting of the opposition into two groups – radicals supporting the hostage taking, and the moderates opposing it. On 23 February 1980, Khomeini proclaimed Iran's Majlis would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages, and demanded that the United States hand over the Shah for trial in Iran for crimes against the nation. Although the Shah died a few months later, during the summer, the crisis continued. In Iran, supporters of Khomeini named the embassy a "Den of Espionage", publicizing details regarding armaments, espionage equipment and many volumes of official and classified documents which they found there.
Khomeini believed in Muslim unity and solidarity and the export of his revolution throughout the world. He believed Shia and (the significantly more numerous) Sunni Muslims should be "united and stand firmly against Western and arrogant powers."
"Establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution." He declared the birth week of Muhammad (the week between 12th to 17th of Rabi' al-awwal) as the "Unity week". Then he declared the last Friday of Ramadan as International Day of Quds in 1981.
Shortly after assuming power, Khomeini began calling for Islamic revolutions across the Muslim world, including Iran's Arab neighbor Iraq, the one large state besides Iran with a Shia majority population. At the same time Saddam Hussein, Iraq's secular Arab nationalist Ba'athist leader, was eager to take advantage of Iran's weakened military and (what he assumed was) revolutionary chaos, and in particular to occupy Iran's adjacent oil-rich province of Khuzestan, and to undermine Iranian Islamic revolutionary attempts to incite the Shi'a majority of his country.
In September 1980, Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran, beginning the Iran–Iraq War (September 1980 – August 1988). A combination of fierce resistance by Iranians and military incompetence by Iraqi forces soon stalled the Iraqi advance and, despite Saddam's internationally condemned use of poison gas, Iran had by early 1982 regained almost all of the territory lost to the invasion. The invasion rallied Iranians behind the new regime, enhancing Khomeini's stature and allowing him to consolidate and stabilize his leadership. After this reversal, Khomeini refused an Iraqi offer of a truce, instead demanding reparations and the toppling of Saddam Hussein from power. In 1982, there was an attempted military coup against Khomeini. The Iran–Iraq War ended in 1988, with 320,000–720,000 Iranian soldiers and militia killed.
Although Iran's population and economy were three times the size of Iraq's, the latter was aided by neighboring Persian Gulf Arab states, as well as the Soviet Bloc and Western countries. The Persian Gulf Arabs and the West wanted to be sure the Islamic revolution did not spread across the Persian Gulf, while the Soviet Union was concerned about the potential threat posed to its rule in central Asia to the north. However, Iran had large amounts of ammunition provided by the United States of America during the Shah's era and the United States illegally smuggled arms to Iran during the 1980s despite Khomeini's anti-Western policy (see Iran–Contra affair).
During war Iranians used human wave attacks (people walking to certain death including child soldiers) on Iraq, with his promise that they would automatically go to paradise—al Janna— if they died in battle, and his pursuit of victory in the Iran–Iraq War that ultimately proved futile. By March 1984, Iran's population had dropped by well over two million. This included an estimated one and a half million that had fled Iran, victims of political executions, and the hundreds of thousands of "martyrs" from Khomeini's bloody "human wave " attacks on Iraq.
In July 1988, Khomeini, in his words, "drank the cup of poison" and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations. Despite the high cost of the war – 450,000 to 950,000 Iranian casualties and US$300 billion – Khomeini insisted that extending the war into Iraq in an attempt to overthrow Saddam had not been a mistake. In a "Letter to Clergy" he wrote: "... we do not repent, nor are we sorry for even a single moment for our performance during the war. Have we forgotten that we fought to fulfill our religious duty and that the result is a marginal issue?"
In an interview with Gareth Porter, Mohsen Rafighdoost, the eight-year war time minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, disclosed how Khomeini had opposed his proposal for beginning work on both nuclear and chemical weapons by a fatwa which had never been made public in details of when and how it was issued.
In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwā calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, an India-born British author. Rushdie's book, "The Satanic Verses", published in 1988, was alleged to commit blasphemy against Islam and Khomeini's juristic ruling (fatwā) prescribed Rushdie's assassination by any Muslim. The fatwā required not only Rushdie's execution, but also the execution of "all those involved in the publication" of the book.
Khomeini's fatwā was condemned across the Western world by governments on the grounds that it violated the universal human rights of free speech and freedom of religion. The fatwā has also been attacked for violating the rules of fiqh by not allowing the accused an opportunity to defend himself, and because "even the most rigorous and extreme of the classical jurist only require a Muslim to kill anyone who insults the Prophet in his hearing and in his presence."
Though Rushdie publicly regretted "the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam", the fatwa was not revoked.
Rushdie himself was not killed but Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book "The Satanic Verses", was murdered and two other translators of the book survived murder attempts.
In a speech on 1 February 1979 delivered to a huge crowd after returning to Iran from exile, Khomeini made a variety of promises to Iranians for his coming Islamic regime: a popularly elected government that would represent the people of Iran and with which the clergy would not interfere. He promised that "no one should remain homeless in this country," and that Iranians would have free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their doorstep.
Under Khomeini's rule, Sharia (Islamic law) was introduced, with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women by Islamic Revolutionary Guards and other Islamic groups. Women were required to cover their hair, and men were not allowed to wear shorts. Alcoholic drinks, most Western movies, and the practice of men and women swimming or sunbathing together were banned. The Iranian educational curriculum was Islamized at all levels with the Islamic Cultural Revolution; the "Committee for Islamization of Universities" carried this out thoroughly. The broadcasting of any music other than martial or religious on Iranian radio and television was banned by Khomeini in July 1979. The ban lasted 10 years (approximately the rest of his life).
According to Janet Afari, "the newly established regime of Ayatollah Khomeini moved quickly to repress feminists, ethnic and religious minorities, liberals, and leftists - all in the name of Islam."
Khomeini took on extensive and proactive support of the female populace during the ouster of Shah and his subsequent homecoming, advocating for mainstreaming of women into all spheres of life and even hypothesizing about a woman head of state. However, once he returned, his stances on women's rights exhibited drastic changes. He opposed the grant of the voting franchise to women and criticized a law that allowed Muslim women to divorce at will and remarry, which was allegedly contrary to Islamic scriptures, and hence equivalent to adultery.
A mere three weeks after assuming power, under the pretext of reversing the Shah's excessive affinity for westernization and backed by a vocal conservative section of Iranian society, he revoked the divorce law. Khomeini went on to lower the minimum age of marriage for girls to 13 and even permitted girls as young as seven years old to be married if a physician signed a certificate agreeing to their sexual maturity, in keeping with Sharia law which dictates no minimum age for marriage beyond puberty. Khomeini, in his subsequent writings, also approved of adults satisfying their sexual lusts with children provided such activities stopped short of any penetration. Laws were passed that encouraged polygamy, made it impossible for women to divorce men, and treated adultery as the highest form of criminal offense. Women were compelled to wear veils, as the images of Western women was carefully reconstructed as a symbol of impiety. Morality and modesty were perceived as fundamental womanly traits that needed state protection, and western concepts of individual gender rights were relegated to women's social rights as ordained in Islam. Fatima was widely presented as the ideal emulatable woman.
At the same times, amidst the religious orthodoxy, there was an active effort to rehabilitate women into employment. Female participation in healthcare, education and the workforce increased drastically during his regime.
Reception among women of his regime has been mixed. Whilst a section were dismayed at the increasing Islamisation and concurrent degradation of women's rights, others did notice more opportunities and mainstreaming of relatively religiously conservative women.
Shortly after his accession as supreme leader in February 1979, Khomeini imposed capital punishment on homosexuals. Between February and March, sixteen Iranians were executed due to offenses related to sexual violations. Khomeini also created the "Revolutionary Tribunals". According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeini encouraged the clerical courts to continue implementing their version of the Shari’a. As part of the campaign to "cleanse" the society, these courts executed over 100 drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, rapists, and adulterers on the charge of "sowing corruption on earth." According to author Arno Schmitt, "Khomeini asserted that 'homosexuals' had to be exterminated because they were parasites and corruptors of the nation by spreading the 'stain of wickedness.'" Transsexuality was designated by Khomeini as a sickness that was able to be cured through surgery. In 1979, he had declared that the execution of homosexuals (as well as prostitutes and adulterers) was reasonable in a moral civilization in the same sense as cutting off decayed skin.
Khomeini is said to have stressed "the spiritual over the material". Six months after his first speech he expressed exasperation with complaints about the sharp drop in Iran's standard of living, saying that: "I cannot believe that the purpose of all these sacrifices was to have less expensive melons." On another occasion emphasizing the importance of martyrdom over material prosperity, he said: "Could anyone wish his child to be martyred to obtain a good house? This is not the issue. The issue is another world." He also reportedly answered a question about his economic policies by declaring that 'economics is for donkeys'. This disinterest in economic policy is said to be "one factor explaining the inchoate performance of the Iranian economy since the revolution." Other factors include the long war with Iraq, the cost of which led to government debt and inflation, eroding personal incomes, and unprecedented unemployment, ideological disagreement over the economy, and "international pressure and isolation" such as US sanctions following the hostage crisis.
Due to the Iran–Iraq War, poverty is said to have risen by nearly 45% during the first 6 years of Khomeini's rule. Emigration from Iran also developed, reportedly for the first time in the country's history. Since the revolution and war with Iraq, an estimated "two to four million entrepreneurs, professionals, technicians, and skilled craftspeople (and their capital)" have emigrated to other countries.
In a talk at the Fayzieah School in Qom on 30 August 1979, Khomeini warned pro-imperialist opponents: "Those who are trying to bring corruption and destruction to our country in the name of democracy will be oppressed. They are worse than Bani-Ghorizeh Jews, and they must be hanged. We will oppress them by God's order and God's call to prayer."
However, in 1983, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped him by providing a list of Soviet KGB agents and collaborators operating in Iran to Khomeini, who then executed up to 200 suspects and closed down the Communist Tudeh Party of Iran.
The Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family left Iran and escaped harm, but hundreds of former members of the overthrown monarchy and military met their ends in firing squads, with exiled critics complaining of "secrecy, vagueness of the charges, the absence of defense lawyers or juries", or the opportunity of the accused "to defend themselves." In later years these were followed in larger numbers by the erstwhile revolutionary allies of Khomeini's movement—Marxists and socialists, mostly university students—who opposed the theocratic regime. Following the 1981 Hafte Tir bombing, Khomeini declared the Mojahedin and anyone violently opposed to the government, "enemies of God" and pursued a mass campaign against members of the Mojahedin, Fadaiyan, and Tudeh parties as well as their families, close friends, and even anyone who was accused of counterrevolutionary behavior.
In the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, following the People's Mujahedin of Iran unsuccessful operation Forough-e Javidan against the Islamic Republic, Khomeini issued an order to judicial officials to judge every Iranian political prisoner (mostly but not all Mujahedin) and kill those judged to be apostates from Islam ("mortad") or "waging war on God" ("moharebeh"). Almost all of those interrogated were killed, around 30,000 of them. Because of the large number, prisoners were loaded into forklift trucks in groups of six and hanged from cranes in half-hour intervals.
Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians are officially recognized and protected by the government. Shortly after Khomeini's return from exile in 1979, he issued a fatwa ordering that Jews and other minorities (except Bahá'ís) be treated well. In power, Khomeini distinguished between Zionism as a secular political party that employs Jewish symbols and ideals and Judaism as the religion of Moses.
Senior government posts were reserved for Muslims. Schools set up by Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians had to be run by Muslim principals. Conversion to Islam was encouraged by entitling converts to inherit the entire share of their parents (or even uncle's) estate if their siblings (or cousins) remain non-Muslim. Iran's non-Muslim population has decreased. For example, the Jewish population in Iran dropped from 80,000 to 30,000. The Zoroastrian population has also decreased, due to suffering from renewed persecution and the revived legal contrasts between a Muslim and Zoroastrian, which mirrors the laws that Zoroastrians experienced under earlier Islamic regimes. The view that Zoroastrians are "najis" ("unclean") has also been renewed.
Four of the 270 seats in parliament were reserved for each three non-Muslim minority religions, under the Islamic constitution that Khomeini oversaw. Khomeini also called for unity between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. Sunni Muslims make up 9% of the entire Muslim population in Iran.
One non-Muslim group treated differently were the 300,000 members of the Bahá'í Faith. Starting in late 1979 the new government systematically targeted the leadership of the Bahá'í community by focusing on the Bahá'í National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) and Local Spiritual Assemblies (LSAs); prominent members of NSAs and LSAs were often detained and even executed. "Some 200 of whom have been executed and the rest forced to convert or subjected to the most horrendous disabilities."
Like most conservative Muslims, Khomeini believed Bahá'í to be apostates. He claimed they were a political rather than a religious movement,
declaring:
After the Shah left Iran in 1979, a Kurdish delegation traveled to Qom to present the Kurds' demands to Khomeini. Their demands included language rights and the provision for a degree of political autonomy. Khomeini responded that such demands were unacceptable since it involved the division of the Iranian nation. The following months saw numerous clashes between Kurdish militia groups and the Revolutionary Guards. The referendum on the Islamic Republic was massively boycotted in Kurdistan, where it was thought 85 to 90% of voters abstained. Khomeini ordered additional attacks later on in the year, and by September most of Iranian Kurdistan was under direct martial law.
Khomeini's health declined several years prior to his death. After spending eleven days in Jamaran hospital, Ruhollah Khomeini died on 3 June 1989 after suffering five heart attacks in just ten days, at the age of 86 just before midnight. He was succeeded as Supreme Leader by Ali Khamenei. Large numbers of Iranians took to the streets to publicly mourn his death and in the scorching summer heat, fire trucks sprayed water on the crowds to cool them. At least 10 mourners were trampled to death, more than 400 were badly hurt and several thousand more were treated for injuries sustained in the ensuing pandemonium.
According to Iran's official estimates, 10.2 million people lined the route to Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on 11 June 1989, for the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Western agencies estimated that 2 million paid their respects as the body lay in state.
Figures about Khomeini's initial funeral attendance which took place on 4 June range around 2.5–3.5 million people. Early the following day, Khomeini's corpse was flown in by helicopter for burial at the Paradise of Zahra cemetery. Iranian officials postponed Khomeini's first funeral after a huge mob stormed the funeral procession, destroying Khomeini's wooden coffin in order to get a last glimpse of his body or touch of his coffin. In some cases, armed soldiers were compelled to fire warning shots in the air to restrain the crowds. At one point, Khomeini's body fell to the ground, as the crowd ripped off pieces of the death shroud, trying to keep them as if they were holy relics. According to journalist James Buchan:
The second funeral was held under much tighter security five hours later. This time, Khomeini's casket was made of steel, and in accordance with Islamic tradition, the casket was only to carry the body to the burial site. In 1995, his son Ahmad was buried next to him. Khomeini's grave is now housed within a larger mausoleum complex.
Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, a former student of Khomeini and a major figure of the Revolution, was chosen by Khomeini to be his successor as Supreme Leader and approved as such by the Assembly of Experts in November 1985. The principle of "velayat-e faqih" and the Islamic constitution called for the Supreme Leader to be a "marja" (a grand ayatollah), and of the dozen or so grand ayatollahs living in 1981 only Montazeri qualified as a potential Leader (this was either because only he accepted totally Khomeini's concept of rule by Islamic jurists, or, as at least one other source stated, because only Montazeri had the "political credentials" Khomeini found suitable for his successor). The execution of Mehdi Hashemi in September 1987 on charges of counterrevolutionary activities was a blow to Ayatollah Montazeri, who knew Hashemi since their childhood. In 1989 Montazeri began to call for liberalization, freedom for political parties. Following the execution of thousands of political prisoners by the Islamic government, Montazeri told Khomeini: "Your prisons are far worse than those of the Shah and his SAVAK." After a letter of his complaints was leaked to Europe and broadcast on the BBC, a furious Khomeini ousted him in March 1989 from his position as official successor. His portraits were removed from offices and mosques.
To deal with the disqualification of the only suitable "marja", Khomeini called for an 'Assembly for Revising the Constitution' to be convened. An amendment was made to Iran's constitution removing the requirement that the Supreme Leader be a Marja and this allowed Ali Khamenei, the new favoured jurist who had suitable revolutionary credentials but lacked scholarly ones and who was not a Grand Ayatollah, to be designated as successor. Ayatollah Khamenei was elected Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts on 4 June 1989. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri continued his criticism of the regime and in 1997 was put under house arrest for questioning what he regarded to be an unaccountable rule exercised by the supreme leader.
The anniversary of Khomeini's death is a public holiday. To commemorate Khomeini, people visit his mausoleum placed on Behesht-e Zahra to hear sermons and practice prayers on his death day.
According to at least one scholar, politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran "are largely defined by attempts to claim Khomeini's legacy" and that "staying faithful to his ideology has been the litmus test for all political activity" there. Throughout his many writings and speeches, Khomeini's views on governance evolved. Originally declaring rule by monarchs or others permissible so long as sharia law was followed Khomeini later adamantly opposed monarchy, arguing that only rule by a leading Islamic jurist (a marja') would ensure Sharia was properly followed (wilayat al-faqih), before finally insisting the ruling jurist need not be a leading one and Sharia rule could be overruled by that jurist if necessary to serve the interests of Islam and the "divine government" of the Islamic state.
Khomeini's concept of (ولایت فقیه, "velayat-e faqih") as Islamic government did not win the support of the leading Iranian Shi'i clergy of the time. Towards the 1979 Revolution, many clerics gradually became disillusioned with the rule of the Shah, although none came around to supporting Khomeini's vision of a theocratic Islamic Republic.
There is much debate to as whether Khomeini's ideas are or are not compatible with democracy and whether he intended the Islamic Republic to be a democratic republic. According to the state-run "Aftab News", both ultraconservative (Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi) and reformist opponents of the regime (Akbar Ganji and Abdolkarim Soroush) believe he did not, while regime officials and supporters like Ali Khamenei, Mohammad Khatami and Mortaza Motahhari believe Khomeini intended the Islamic republic to be democratic and that it is so. Khomeini himself also made statements at different times indicating both support and opposition to democracy.
One scholar, Shaul Bakhash, explains this disagreement as coming from Khomeini's belief that the huge turnout of Iranians in anti-Shah demonstrations during the revolution constituted a 'referendum' in favor of an Islamic republic. Khomeini also wrote that since Muslims must support a government based on Islamic law, Sharia-based government will always have more popular support in Muslim countries than any government based on elected representatives.
Khomeini offered himself as a "champion of Islamic revival" and unity, emphasizing issues Muslims agreed upon – the fight against Zionism and imperialism – and downplaying Shia issues that would divide Shia from Sunni.
Khomeini strongly opposed close relations with either Eastern or Western Bloc nations, believing the Islamic world should be its own bloc, or rather converge into a single unified power. He viewed Western culture as being inherently decadent and a corrupting influence upon the youth. The Islamic Republic banned or discouraged popular Western fashions, music, cinema, and literature. In the Western world it is said "his glowering visage became the virtual face of Islam in Western popular culture" and "inculcated fear and distrust towards Islam," making the word 'Ayatollah' "a synonym for a dangerous madman ... in popular parlance." This has particularly been the case in the United States where some Iranians complained that even at universities they felt the need to hide their Iranian identity for fear of physical attack. There Khomeini and the Islamic Republic are remembered for the American embassy hostage taking and accused of sponsoring hostage-taking and terrorist attacks, and which continues to apply economic sanctions against Iran.
Before taking power Khomeini expressed support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "We would like to act according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We would like to be free. We would like independence." However once in power Khomeini took a firm line against dissent, warning opponents of theocracy for example: "I repeat for the last time: abstain from holding meetings, from blathering, from publishing protests. Otherwise I will break your teeth."
Many of Khomeini's political and religious ideas were considered to be progressive and reformist by leftist intellectuals and activists prior to the Revolution. However, once in power his ideas often clashed with those of modernist or secular Iranian intellectuals. This conflict came to a head during the writing of the Islamic constitution when many newspapers were closed by the government. Khomeini angrily told the intellectuals:
Yes, we are reactionaries, and you are enlightened intellectuals: You intellectuals do not want us to go back 1400 years. You, who want freedom, freedom for everything, the freedom of parties, you who want all the freedoms, you intellectuals: freedom that will corrupt our youth, freedom that will pave the way for the oppressor, freedom that will drag our nation to the bottom.
In contrast to his alienation from Iranian intellectuals, and "in an utter departure from all other Islamist movements," Khomeini embraced international revolution and Third World solidarity, giving it "precedence over Muslim fraternity." From the time Khomeini's supporters gained control of the media until his death, the Iranian media "devoted extensive coverage to non-Muslim revolutionary movements (from the Sandinistas to the African National Congress and the Irish Republican Army) and downplayed the role of the Islamic movements considered conservative, such as the Afghan mujahidin."
Khomeini's legacy to the economy of the Islamic Republic has been expressions of concern for the "mustazafin" (a Quranic term for the oppressed or deprived), but not always results that aided them. During the 1990s the "mustazafin" and disabled war veterans rioted on several occasions, protesting the demolition of their shantytowns and rising food prices, etc. Khomeini's disdain for the science of economics ("economics is for donkeys") is said to have been "mirrored" by the populist redistribution policies of former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who allegedly wears "his contempt for economic orthodoxy as a badge of honour", and has overseen sluggish growth and rising inflation and unemployment.
In 1963, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wrote a book in which he stated that there is no religious restriction on corrective surgery for transgender individuals. At the time Khomeini was an anti-Shah revolutionary and his fatwas did not carry any weight with the Imperial government, which did not have any specific policies regarding transsexual individuals.
However, after 1979, his fatwa "formed the basis for a national policy" and perhaps in part because of a penal code that "allows for the execution of homosexuals", as of 2005 Iran "permits and partly finances seven times as many gender reassignment operation as the entire European Union".
Khomeini was described as "slim", but athletic and "heavily boned".
He was known for his punctuality:
Khomeini was also known for his aloofness and austere demeanor. He is said to have had "variously inspired admiration, awe, and fear from those around him." His practice of moving "through the halls of the madresehs never smiling at anybody or anything; his practice of ignoring his audience while he taught, contributed to his charisma."
Khomeini adhered to traditional beliefs of Islamic hygienical jurisprudence holding that things like urine, excrement, blood, wine etc. and also non-Muslims were some of eleven ritualistically "impure" things that physical contact with which while wet required ritual washing or Ghusl before prayer or salat. He is reported to have refused to eat or drink in a restaurant unless he knew for sure the waiter was a Muslim.
Khomeini was noted by many for his mystique. Before the revolution he benefited from the widespread circulation of a Hadith attributed to the Imam Musa al-Kazim who is said to have prophesied shortly before his death in 799 that:
According to Baqer Moin, as part of Khomeini's personality cult, he "had been transformed into a semi-divine figure. He was no longer a grand ayatollah and deputy of the Imam, one who represents the Hidden Imam, but simply 'The Imam'." Khomeini's personality cult fills a central position in foreign- and domestically-targeted Iranian publications. The methods used to create his personality cult have been compared to those used by such figures as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro.
Khomeini was the first and only Iranian cleric to be addressed as "Imam", a title hitherto reserved in Iran for the twelve infallible leaders of the early Shi'a. He was also associated with the "Mahdi" or 12th Imam of Shia belief in a number of ways. One of his titles was "Na'eb-e Imam" (Deputy to the Twelfth Imam). His enemies were often attacked as "taghut" and "Mofsed-e-filarz", religious terms used for enemies of the Twelfth Imam. Many of the officials of the overthrown Shah's government executed by Revolutionary Courts were convicted of "fighting against the Twelfth Imam". When a deputy in the majlis asked Khomeini directly if he was the 'promised Mahdi', Khomeini did not answer, "astutely" neither confirming nor denying the title.
As the revolution gained momentum, even some non-supporters exhibited awe, called him "magnificently clear-minded, single-minded and unswerving." His image was as "absolute, wise, and indispensable leader of the nation"
The Imam, it was generally believed, had shown by his uncanny sweep to power, that he knew how to act in ways which others could not begin to understand. His timing was extraordinary, and his insight into the motivation of others, those around him as well as his enemies, could not be explained as ordinary knowledge. This emergent belief in Khomeini as a divinely guided figure was carefully fostered by the clerics who supported him and spoke up for him in front of the people.
Even many secularists who firmly disapproved of his policies were said to feel the power of his "messianic" appeal. Comparing him to a father figure who retains the enduring loyalty even of children he disapproves of, journalist Afshin Molavi writes that defenses of Khomeini are "heard in the most unlikely settings":
Another journalist tells the story of listening to bitter criticism of the regime by an Iranian who tells her of his wish for his son to leave the country and who "repeatedly" makes the point "that life had been better" under the Shah. When his complaint is interrupted by news that "the Imam" — over 85 years old at the time — might be dying, the critic becomes "ashen faced" and speechless, pronouncing "this is terrible for my country."
An example of Khomeini's charisma is the effect a half-hour-long, 1982 speech on the Quran by him had on a Muslim Scholar from South Africa, Sheikh Ahmad Deedat:
In 1929, Khomeini married Khadijeh Saqafi, the 16-year-old daughter of a cleric in Tehran. Some sources claim that Khomeini married Saqafi when she was ten years old, while others claim she was fifteen years old. By all accounts their marriage was harmonious and happy. She died in 2009. They had seven children, though only five survived infancy. His daughters all married into either merchant or clerical families, and both his sons entered into religious life. Mostafa, the elder son, died in 1977 while in exile in Najaf, Iraq with his father and was rumored by supporters of his father to have been murdered by SAVAK. Ahmad Khomeini, who died in 1995 at the age of 50, was also rumoured to be a victim of foul play, but at the hands of the regime. Perhaps his "most prominent daughter", Zahra Mostafavi, is a professor at the University of Tehran, and still alive.
Khomeini's fifteen grandchildren include:
Khomeini was a prolific writer and speaker (200 of his books are online) who authored commentaries on the Qur'an, on Islamic jurisprudence, the roots of Islamic law, and Islamic traditions. He also released books about philosophy, gnosticism, poetry, literature, government and politics.
His books include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26232 |
Tensor product
In mathematics, the tensor product of two vector spaces and (over the same field) is itself a vector space, endowed with the operation of bilinear composition, denoted by , from ordered pairs in the Cartesian product to in a way that generalizes the outer product.
Essentially the difference between a tensor product of two vectors and an ordered pair of vectors is that if one vector is multiplied by a nonzero scalar and the other is multiplied by the reciprocal of that scalar, the result is a different ordered pair of vectors, but the same tensor product of two vectors.
The tensor product of and is the vector space generated by the symbols , with and , in which the relations of bilinearity are imposed for the product operation , "and no other relations" are assumed to hold. The tensor product space is thus the "freest" (or most general) such vector space, in the sense of having the fewest constraints.
The tensor product of (finite-dimensional) vector spaces has dimension equal to the product of the dimensions of the two factors:
In particular, this distinguishes the tensor product from the direct sum vector space, whose dimension is the sum of the dimensions of the two summands:
More generally, the tensor product can be extended to other categories of mathematical objects in addition to vector spaces, such as to matrices, tensors, algebras, topological vector spaces, and modules. In each such case the tensor product is characterized by a similar universal property: it is the freest bilinear operation. The general concept of a "tensor product" is captured by monoidal categories; that is, the class of all things that have a tensor product is a monoidal category.
The intuitive motivation for the tensor product relies on the concept of tensors more generally. In particular, a tensor is an object that can be considered a special type of multilinear map, which takes in a certain number of vectors (its "order") and outputs a scalar. Such objects are useful in a number of areas of application, such as Riemannian geometry, famous for its use in Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity in modern physics, where the metric tensor is a fundamental concept. In particular, the metric tensor takes in two vectors, conceived of roughly as small arrows emanating from a specific point within a curved space, or manifold, and returns a "local" dot product of them relative to that particular point—an operation that encodes some information about the vectors' lengths as well as the angle between them. As the dot product is a scalar, the metric tensor is thus seen to deserve its name. There is one metric tensor at each point of the manifold, and variation in the metric tensor thus encodes how distance and angle concepts, and so the laws of analytic geometry, vary throughout the manifold.
One can think of the tensor product of two vector spaces, formula_3 and formula_4, as representing the set of all tensors that take a vector from formula_3 and a vector from formula_4 and output a scalar within their common base field (and thus can only be defined if they have such a common base field). The two spaces may be the same—in the above they are vectors in the "tangent space" at a point: roughly the flat space a tiny piece of the manifold most "looks like" when you zoom very, very close in to a particular point therein, and thus the metric tensor lives in the tensor product of that space with itself. But the two spaces may also be different.
If we have a basis for each of the vector spaces, and the vector spaces are finite-dimensional, we can represent the vectors in terms of components under those basis vectors:
where each column vector stands for the components in the particular basis—i.e., formula_8 (and likewise for formula_9).
A tensor is then a map formula_10 that works as above, returning a scalar and is linear in both of its arguments. Such a tensor can be represented using a matrix multiplication:
where the superscript formula_12 denotes the matrix transpose, which sends the vector formula_13 to its dual vector.
Given two vectors, we can form a tensor of their own from them rather naturally using the outer product, which is denoted formula_14 and equals formula_15. This tensor comes out as the matrix
and this matrix corresponds to the tensor by the prior construction, which is reminiscent of how it corresponds to a linear map (by multiplying on one side only). These tensors themselves generate a vector space by adding them together and multiplying them by scalars in the usual ways that we do for matrices and functions, and the collection of all such tensors so formed is the "tensor product" formula_17 of the two vector spaces themselves. In fact, this space is equivalent to the space of maps represented by every possible matrix of the above size, as can be seen by noting that the simple tensor products formula_18 (here formula_19 is the basis of the other vector space, formula_4) have a "1" in the formula_21-th position and "0"s everywhere else, which allows them to be multiplied by any number and then added up to get a matrix with arbitrary entries.
The purpose of the succeeding sections is to find a definition that is equivalent to this where it is applicable but that does not require a specific choice of basis and that can also more easily be applied to infinite-dimensional settings where the usual basis concepts (Hamel basis) may be ill-behaved. Not requiring a specific basis is useful from a theoretical point of view since while every vector space has a basis, not all bases are necessarily constructible, and moreover that result itself depends on the acceptance of the axiom of choice, which may be rejected in some systems of mathematics. Also, it is useful to find an abstract construction for analysis from the point of view of category theory—the theory of the very zoomed-out "big picture of maths" and how all mathematical objects relate to each other in a very general sense. A very important real-life use for having such a definition can be found in quantum mechanics: the tensor product in this form allows us to talk of the wave function of a system of two particles as an abstract Hilbert space vector without having to specify a particular basis of observables.
The first step we will consider involves introducing something called a "free vector space" over a given set. The thrust behind this idea basically consists of what we said in the last point: since a tensor formula_22 can be written by the double sum
the most natural way to approach this problem is somehow to figure out how we can "forget" about the specific choice of bases formula_24 and formula_25 that are used here. In mathematics, the way we "forget" about representational details of something is to establish an identification that tells us that two different things that are to be considered representations of the same thing are in fact such, i.e. which, given those says either "yes, they are" or "no, they aren't", and then "lump together" all representations as constituting the "thing represented" without reference to any one in particular by packaging them all together into a single set. In formal terms, we first build an equivalence relation, and then take the quotient set by that relation.
But before we can do that, we first need to develop what we are going to take the equivalence relation over. The way we do that is to approach this the other way around, from the "bottom up": since we are not guaranteed a, at least constructible, basis when starting from arbitrary vector spaces, we might instead try to start by guaranteeing we have one—that is, we will start first by considering a "basis", on its own, as given, and then building the vector space on top. To that end, we accomplish the following: suppose that formula_26 is some set, which we could call an "abstract basis set". Now consider all "formal" expressions of the form
of arbitrary, but finite, length formula_28 and for which formula_29 are scalars and formula_30 are members of formula_26. Intuitively, this is a linear combination of the basis vectors in the usual sense of expanding an element of a vector space. We call this a "formal expression" because technically it is illegal to multiply formula_32 since there is no defined multiplication operation by default on an arbitrary set and arbitrary field of scalars. Instead, we will "pretend" (similar to defining the imaginary numbers) that this refers to something, and then will go about manipulating it according to the rules we expect for a vector space, e.g. the sum of two such strings using the same sequence of members of formula_26 is
where we have used the associative, commutative, and distributive laws to rearrange the first sum into the second. Continuing this way for scalar multiples and all different-length combinations of vectors allows us to build up a vector addition and scalar multiplication on this set of formal expressions, and we call it the free vector space over formula_26, writing formula_36. Note that the elements of formula_26, considered as length-one formal expressions with coefficient 1 out front, form a Hamel basis for this space.
The tensor product expression is then abstracted by considering that if formula_30 and formula_39 represent "abstract basis vectors" from two sets formula_26 and formula_41, i.e. that "formula_42" and "formula_43", then pairs of these in the Cartesian product formula_44, i.e. formula_45 are taken as standing for the tensor products formula_18. (Note that the tensor products in the expression are in some sense "atomic", i.e. additions and scalar multiplications do not split them up into anything else, so we can replace them with something different without altering the mathematical structure.) With such an identification, we can thus define the tensor product of two free vector spaces formula_36 and formula_48 as being something (yet to be decided) that is isomorphic to formula_49.
The above definition will work for any vector space in which we "can" specify a basis, since we can just rebuild it as the free vector space over that basis: the above construction exactly mirrors how you represent vectors via the Hamel basis construction by design. In effect, we haven't gained anything ... until we do this.
Now, we are not assuming access to bases for vector spaces formula_3 and formula_4 that we want to form the tensor product formula_17 of. Instead, we will take "all" of formula_3 and formula_4 as "basis" to build up the tensors. This is the next best thing and the one thing we are "guaranteed" to be able to do, regardless of any concerns in finding a specific basis; this corresponds to adding together arbitrary outer products formula_14 of arbitrary vectors in the last part of the "Intuitive motivation" section. The only difference here is that if we use the free vector space construction and form the obvious formula_56, it will have many redundant versions of what should be the same tensor; going back to our basisful case if we consider the example where formula_57 in the standard basis, we may consider that the tensor formed by the vectors formula_58 and formula_59, i.e.
could "also" be represented by other sums, such as the sum using individual basic tensors formula_61, e.g.
These, while equal expressions in the concrete case, would correspond to distinct elements of the free vector space formula_63, namely
in the first case and
in the second case. Thus we must condense them—this is where the equivalence relation comes into play. The trick to building it is to note that given any vector formula_66 in a vector space, it is always possible to represent it as the sum of two other vectors formula_67 and formula_68 not equal to the original. If nothing else, let formula_67 be any vector and then take formula_70—which also shows that if we are given one vector and then a second vector, we can write the first vector in terms of the second together with a suitable third vector (indeed in many ways—just consider scalar multiples of the second vector in the same subtraction.).
This is useful to us because the outer product satisfies the following linearity properties, which can be proven by simple algebra on the corresponding matrix expressions:
If we want to relate the outer product formula_14 to, say, formula_73, we can use the first relation above together with a suitable expression of formula_13 as a sum of some vector and some scalar multiple of formula_75.
Equality between two concrete tensors is then obtained if using the above rules will permit us to rearrange one sum of outer products into the other by suitably decomposing vectors—regardless of if we have a set of actual basis vectors. Applying that to our example above, we see that of course we have
for which substitution in
gives us
and judicious use of the distributivity properties lets us rearrange to the desired form. Likewise, there is a corresponding "mirror" manipulation in terms of the free vector space elements formula_79 and formula_80, formula_81, etc., and this finally leads us to the formal definition of the tensor product.
The abstract tensor product of two vector spaces formula_3 and formula_4 over a common base field formula_84 is the quotient vector space
where formula_86 is the equivalence relation of "formal equality" generated by assuming that, for each formula_87 and formula_88 taken as formal expressions in the free vector space formula_63, the following hold:
and then testing equivalence of generic formal expressions through suitable manipulations based thereupon. Arithmetic is defined on the tensor product by choosing representative elements, applying the arithmetical rules, and finally taking the equivalence class. Moreover, given any two vectors formula_100 and formula_101, the equivalence class formula_102 is denoted formula_103.
Elements of are often referred to as "tensors", although this term refers to many other related concepts as well. If belongs to and belongs to , then the equivalence class of is denoted by , which is called the tensor product of with . In physics and engineering, this use of the symbol refers specifically to the outer product operation; the result of the outer product is one of the standard ways of representing the equivalence class . An element of that can be written in the form is called a "pure" or "simple tensor". In general, an element of the tensor product space is not a pure tensor, but rather a finite linear combination of pure tensors. For example, if and are linearly independent, and and are also linearly independent, then cannot be written as a pure tensor. The number of simple tensors required to express an element of a tensor product is called the tensor rank (not to be confused with tensor order, which is the number of spaces one has taken the product of, in this case 2; in notation, the number of indices), and for linear operators or matrices, thought of as tensors (elements of the space ), it agrees with matrix rank.
Given bases and for and respectively, the tensors form a basis for . Therefore, if and are finite-dimensional, the dimension of the tensor product is the product of dimensions of the original spaces; for instance is isomorphic to .
The tensor product also operates on linear maps between vector spaces. Specifically, given two linear maps and between vector spaces, the "tensor product of the two linear maps" and is a linear map
defined by
In this way, the tensor product becomes a bifunctor from the category of vector spaces to itself, covariant in both arguments.
If and are both injective, surjective or (in the case that , , , and are normed vector spaces or topological vector spaces) continuous, then is injective, surjective or continuous, respectively.
By choosing bases of all vector spaces involved, the linear maps and can be represented by matrices. Then, depending on how the tensor formula_103 is vectorized, the matrix describing the tensor product is the Kronecker product of the two matrices. For example, if , and above are all two-dimensional and bases have been fixed for all of them, and and are given by the matrices
respectively, then the tensor product of these two matrices is
The resultant rank is at most 4, and thus the resultant dimension is 4. Note that "rank" here denotes the tensor rank i.e. the number of requisite indices (while the matrix rank counts the number of degrees of freedom in the resulting array).
A dyadic product is the special case of the tensor product between two vectors of the same dimension.
In the context of vector spaces, the tensor product formula_17 and the associated bilinear map formula_112 are characterized up to isomorphism by a universal property regarding bilinear maps. (Recall that a bilinear map is a function that is "separately" linear in each of its arguments.) Informally, formula_113 is the most general bilinear map out of formula_114.
This characterization can simplify proofs about the tensor product. For example, the tensor product is symmetric, meaning there is a canonical isomorphism:
To construct, say, a map from formula_17 to formula_117, it suffices to give a bilinear map formula_118 that maps formula_119 to formula_120. Then the universal property of formula_17 means formula_122 factors into a map formula_123.
A map formula_124 in the opposite direction is similarly defined, and one checks that the two linear maps formula_125 and formula_126 are inverse to one another by again using their universal properties.
The universal property is extremely useful in showing that a map to a tensor product is injective. For example, suppose we want to show that formula_127 is isomorphic to formula_128. Since all simple tensors are of the form formula_129, and hence all elements of the tensor product are of the form formula_130 by additivity in the first coordinate, we have a natural candidate for an isomorphism formula_131 given by mapping formula_132 to formula_130, and this map is trivially surjective.
Showing injectivity directly would involve somehow showing that there are no non-trivial relationships between formula_130 and formula_135 for formula_136, which seems daunting. However, we know that there is a bilinear map formula_137 given by multiplying the coordinates together, and the universal property of the tensor product then furnishes a map of vector spaces formula_138 which maps formula_130 to formula_132, and hence is an inverse of the previously constructed homomorphism, immediately implying the desired result. Note that, a priori, it is not even clear that this inverse map is well-defined, but the universal property and associated bilinear map together imply this is the case.
Similar reasoning can be used to show that the tensor product is associative, that is, there are natural isomorphisms
Therefore, it is customary to omit the parentheses and write formula_142.
The category of vector spaces with tensor product is an example of a symmetric monoidal category.
The universal-property definition of a tensor product is valid in more categories than just the category of vector spaces. Instead of using multilinear (bilinear) maps, the general tensor product definition uses multimorphisms.
Let be a non-negative integer. The th tensor power of the vector space is the -fold tensor product of with itself. That is
A permutation of the set determines a mapping of the th Cartesian power of as follows:
Let
be the natural multilinear embedding of the Cartesian power of into the tensor power of . Then, by the universal property, there is a unique isomorphism
such that
The isomorphism is called the braiding map associated to the permutation .
For non-negative integers and a type tensor on a vector space is an element of
Here is the dual vector space (which consists of all linear maps from to the ground field ).
There is a product map, called the "(tensor) product of tensors"
It is defined by grouping all occurring "factors" together: writing for an element of and for an element of the dual space,
Picking a basis of and the corresponding dual basis of naturally induces a basis for (this basis is described in the article on Kronecker products). In terms of these bases, the components of a (tensor) product of two (or more) tensors can be computed. For example, if and are two covariant tensors of orders and respectively (i.e. , and ), then the components of their tensor product are given by
Thus, the components of the tensor product of two tensors are the ordinary product of the components of each tensor. Another example: let be a tensor of type with components , and let be a tensor of type with components . Then
and
Tensors equipped with their product operation form an algebra, called the tensor algebra.
For tensors of type there is a canonical evaluation map
defined by its action on pure tensors:
More generally, for tensors of type , with , there is a map, called tensor contraction,
On the other hand, if is "finite-dimensional", there is a canonical map in the other direction (called the coevaluation map)
where is any basis of , and is its dual basis. This map does not depend on the choice of basis.
The interplay of evaluation and coevaluation can be used to characterize finite-dimensional vector spaces without referring to bases.
The tensor product formula_158 may be naturally viewed as a module for the Lie algebra by means of the diagonal action: for simplicity let us assume , then, for each ,
where in is the transpose of , that is, in terms of the obvious pairing on ,
There is a canonical isomorphism formula_161 given by
Under this isomorphism, every in may be first viewed as an endomorphism of formula_163 and then viewed as an endomorphism of . In fact it is the adjoint representation of .
Given two finite dimensional vector spaces , over the same field , denote the dual space of as , and the -vector space of all linear maps from to as . There is an isomorphism,
defined by an action of the pure tensor formula_165 on an element of formula_166,
Its "inverse" can be defined using a basis formula_168 and its dual basis formula_169 as in the section "Evaluation map and tensor contraction" above:
This result implies
which automatically gives the important fact that formula_172 forms a basis for formula_173 where formula_174 are bases of and .
Furthermore, given three vector spaces , , the tensor product is linked to the vector space of "all" linear maps, as follows:
This is an example of adjoint functors: the tensor product is "left adjoint" to Hom.
The tensor product of two modules and over a "commutative" ring is defined in exactly the same way as the tensor product of vector spaces over a field:
where now is the free -module generated by the cartesian product and is the -module generated by the same relations as above.
More generally, the tensor product can be defined even if the ring is non-commutative. In this case has to be a right--module and is a left--module, and instead of the last two relations above, the relation
is imposed. If is non-commutative, this is no longer an -module, but just an abelian group.
The universal property also carries over, slightly modified: the map defined by is a middle linear map (referred to as "the canonical middle linear map".); that is, it satisfies:
The first two properties make a bilinear map of the abelian group . For any middle linear map of , a unique group homomorphism of satisfies , and this property determines formula_179 within group isomorphism. See the main article for details.
Let "A" be a right "R"-module and "B" be a left "R"-module. Then the tensor product of "A" and "B" is an abelian group defined by
where formula_181 is a free abelian group over formula_182 and G is a subgroup of formula_181 generated by relations
The universal property can be stated as follows. Let "G" be an abelian group with a map formula_185 that is bilinear, in the sense that
Then there is a unique map formula_187 such that formula_188 for all formula_189 and formula_190.
Furthermore, we can give formula_191 a module structure under some extra conditions:
For vector spaces, the tensor product is quickly computed since bases of of immediately determine a basis of , as was mentioned above. For modules over a general (commutative) ring, not every module is free. For example, is not a free abelian group (-module). The tensor product with is given by
More generally, given a presentation of some -module , that is, a number of generators together with relations
the tensor product can be computed as the following cokernel:
Here , and the map is determined by sending some in the th copy of to (in ). Colloquially, this may be rephrased by saying that a presentation of gives rise to a presentation of . This is referred to by saying that the tensor product is a right exact functor. It is not in general left exact, that is, given an injective map of -modules , the tensor product
is not usually injective. For example, tensoring the (injective) map given by multiplication with , with yields the zero map , which is not injective. Higher Tor functors measure the defect of the tensor product being not left exact. All higher Tor functors are assembled in the derived tensor product.
Let be a commutative ring. The tensor product of -modules applies, in particular, if and are -algebras. In this case, the tensor product is an -algebra itself by putting
For example,
A particular example is when and are fields containing a common subfield . The tensor product of fields is closely related to Galois theory: if, say, , where is some irreducible polynomial with coefficients in , the tensor product can be calculated as
where now is interpreted as the same polynomial, but with its coefficients regarded as elements of . In the larger field , the polynomial may become reducible, which brings in Galois theory. For example, if is a Galois extension of , then
is isomorphic (as an -algebra) to the .
Square matrices formula_209 with entries in a field formula_84 represent linear maps of vector spaces, say formula_211, and thus linear maps formula_212 of projective spaces over formula_84. If formula_209 is nonsingular then formula_215 is well-defined everywhere, and the eigenvectors of formula_209 correspond to the fixed points of formula_215. The "eigenconfiguration" of formula_209 consists of formula_28 points in formula_220, provided formula_209 is generic and formula_84 is algebraically closed. The fixed points of nonlinear maps are the eigenvectors of tensors. Let formula_223 be a formula_224-dimensional tensor of format formula_225 with entries formula_226 lying in an algebraically closed field formula_84 of characteristic zero. Such a tensor formula_228 defines polynomial maps formula_211 and formula_230 with coordinates
Thus each of the formula_28 coordinates of formula_215 is a homogeneous polynomial formula_234 of degree formula_235 in formula_236. The eigenvectors of formula_209 are the solutions of the constraint
and the eigenconfiguration is given by the variety of the formula_239 minors of this matrix.
Hilbert spaces generalize finite-dimensional vector spaces to countably-infinite dimensions. The tensor product is still defined; it is the tensor product of Hilbert spaces.
When the basis for a vector space is no longer countable, then the appropriate axiomatic formalization for the vector space is that of a topological vector space. The tensor product is still defined, it is the topological tensor product.
Some vector spaces can be decomposed into direct sums of subspaces. In such cases, the tensor product of two spaces can be decomposed into sums of products of the subspaces (in analogy to the way that multiplication distributes over addition).
Vector spaces endowed with an additional multiplicative structure are called algebras. The tensor product of such algebras is described by the Littlewood–Richardson rule.
Given two multilinear forms formula_240 and formula_241 on a vector space formula_3 over the field formula_84 their tensor product is the multilinear form
This is a special case of the product of tensors if they are seen as multilinear maps (see also tensors as multilinear maps). Thus the components of the tensor product of multilinear forms can be computed by the Kronecker product.
It should be mentioned that, though called "tensor product", this is not a tensor product of graphs in the above sense; actually it is the category-theoretic product in the category of graphs and graph homomorphisms. However it is actually the Kronecker tensor product of the adjacency matrices of the graphs. Compare also the section Tensor product of linear maps above.
The most general setting for the tensor product is the monoidal category. It captures the algebraic essence of tensoring, without making any specific reference to what is being tensored. Thus, all tensor products can be expressed as an application of the monoidal category to some particular setting, acting on some particular objects.
A number of important subspaces of the tensor algebra can be constructed as quotients: these include the exterior algebra, the symmetric algebra, the Clifford algebra, the Weyl algebra, and the universal enveloping algebra in general.
The exterior algebra is constructed from the exterior product. Given a vector space , the exterior product formula_245 is defined as
Note that when the underlying field of does not have characteristic 2, then this definition is equivalent to
The image of formula_248 in the exterior product is usually denoted formula_249 and satisfies, by construction, formula_250. Similar constructions are possible for formula_251 ( factors), giving rise to formula_252, the th exterior power of . The latter notion is the basis of differential -forms.
The symmetric algebra is constructed in a similar manner, from the symmetric product
More generally
That is, in the symmetric algebra two adjacent vectors (and therefore all of them) can be interchanged. The resulting objects are called symmetric tensors.
Array programming languages may have this pattern built in. For example, in APL the tensor product is expressed as codice_1 (for example codice_2 or codice_3). In J the tensor product is the dyadic form of codice_4 (for example codice_5 or codice_6).
Note that J's treatment also allows the representation of some tensor fields, as codice_7 and codice_8 may be functions instead of constants. This product of two functions is a derived function, and if codice_7 and codice_8 are differentiable, then codice_5 is differentiable.
However, these kinds of notation are not universally present in array languages. Other array languages may require explicit treatment of indices (for example, MATLAB), and/or may not support higher-order functions such as the Jacobian derivative (for example, Fortran/APL). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30844 |
Tiramisu
Tiramisu (from the Italian language, spelled "tiramisù", , meaning "pick me up" or "cheer me up") is a coffee-flavoured Italian dessert. It is made of ladyfingers (savoiardi) dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar and mascarpone cheese, flavoured with cocoa. The recipe has been adapted into many varieties of cakes and other desserts. Its origins are often disputed among Italian regions Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia.
Tiramisu appears to have been invented in the 1960s or 1970s, but beyond that, its origins are unclear.
Recipes named "tiramisu" are unknown in cookbooks before the 1960s. The word appears in print in Italian in 1980, and in English in 1982.
Some accounts of the origin of tiramisu date its invention to the 1960s in the region of Veneto, Italy, at the restaurant "Le Beccherie" in Treviso.
Specifically, the dish is claimed to have first been created by a confectioner named Roberto Linguanotto, owner of "Le Beccherie".
Some debate remains, however.
It is sometimes claimed that Tiramisu has aphrodisiac effects and was served in brothels in Treviso. Le Beccherie is supposed to have invented it on 24 December 1969. Other sources report the creation of the cake as originating towards the end of the 17th century in Siena in honour of Grand Duke Cosimo III.
There is also evidence of a "Tiremesù" semi-frozen dessert served by the Vetturino restaurant in Pieris, in the Friuli Venezia Giulia, since 1938. This may be the name's origin, while the recipe for Tiramisu may have originated as a variation of another layered dessert, "Zuppa Inglese".
It is mentioned in a 1983 cookbook devoted to cooking of the Veneto.
Tiramisu is similar to other desserts, in particular with the Charlotte, in some versions composed of a Bavarian cream surrounded by a crown of ladyfingers and covered by a sweet cream; the Turin cake ("dolce Torino"), consisting of ladyfingers soaked in rosolio and alchermes with a spread made of butter, egg yolks, sugar, milk, and dark chocolate; and the "Bavarese Lombarda", which is a similar composition of ladyfingers and egg yolks (albeit cooked ones). In "Bavarese", butter and rosolio (or alchermes) are also used, but not mascarpone cream nor coffee.
Interest in tiramisu in the United States increased in 1993 when Tom Hanks' protagonist in the comedy "Sleepless in Seattle" heard of it only as a mysterious thing that modern women loved.
On July 29, 2017, Tiramisu was entered by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies on the list of traditional Friulian and Giulian agri-food products in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region.
Traditional tiramisu contains a short list of ingredients: finger biscuits, egg yolks, sugar, coffee, mascarpone cheese, cocoa powder and sometimes liquor.
The original shape of the cake is round, although the shape of the biscuits also allows the use of a rectangular or square pan. However, it is often assembled in round glasses, which show the various layers, or pyramid. Modern versions can have the addition of whipped cream or whipped egg, or both, combined with mascarpone cream. This makes the dish lighter, thick and foamy. Among the most common alcoholic changes includes the addition of Marsala. The cake is usually eaten cold.
Another variation involves the preparation of the cream with eggs heated to sterilize it, but not so much that the eggs scramble.
Over time, replacing some of the ingredients, mainly coffee, there arose numerous variants such as tiramisu with chocolate, amaretto, berry, lemon, strawberry, pineapple, yogurt, banana, raspberry, and coconut. These are however not considered true Tiramisu as these variations only share the layered characteristic of Tiramisu; these examples more closely resemble variations of trifle.
Numerous variations of Tiramisu exist. Some cooks use other cakes or sweet, yeasted breads, such as "panettone", in place of ladyfingers (savoiardi). Bakers living in different Italian regions often debate the use and structural qualities of utilising other types of cookies, such as pavesini for instance, in the recipe. Other cheese mixtures are used as well, some containing raw eggs, and others containing no eggs at all. Marsala wine can be added to the recipe, but other liquors are frequently substituted for it in both the coffee and the cheese mixture, including dark rum, Madeira, port, brandy, Malibu, or Irish cream and especially coffee-flavoured liqueurs such as Tia Maria and Kahlúa. Disaronno is also often used to enhance the taste of tiramisu. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30845 |
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto, Ontario. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. The team plays its home games at Rogers Centre.
The name "Blue Jays" originates from the bird of the same name, and blue is also the traditional colour of two of Toronto's other professional sports teams: the Maple Leafs (ice hockey) and the Argonauts (Canadian football). In addition, the team was originally owned by the Labatt Brewing Company, makers of the popular beer Labatt's Blue. Colloquially nicknamed the "Jays", the team's official colours are royal blue, navy blue, red, and white. An expansion franchise, the club was founded in Toronto in 1977. Originally based at Exhibition Stadium, the team began playing its home games at SkyDome upon its opening in 1989. Since 2000, the Blue Jays have been owned by Rogers Communications and in 2004, SkyDome was purchased by that company, which renamed it Rogers Centre. They are the second MLB franchise to be based outside the United States, and currently the only team based outside the U.S. after the first Canadian franchise, the Montreal Expos, became the Washington Nationals in 2005.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Blue Jays went through struggles typical of an expansion team, frequently finishing in last place in its division. In 1983, the team had its first winning season and two years later, they became division champions. From 1985 to 1993, they were an AL East powerhouse, winning five division championships in nine seasons, including three consecutive from 1991 to 1993. During that run, the team also became back-to-back World Series champions in 1992 and 1993, led by a core group of award-winning All-Star players, including Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter, John Olerud, and Devon White. The Blue Jays became the first (and, to date, only) team outside the U.S. to appear in and win a World Series, and the fastest AL expansion team to do so, winning in its 16th year. As of 2019, they are one of only two MLB franchises that are undefeated through multiple World Series appearances, along with the National League's Miami Marlins. After 1993, the Blue Jays failed to qualify for the playoffs for 21 consecutive seasons, until clinching a playoff berth and division championship in 2015. The team clinched a second consecutive playoff berth in 2016, after securing an AL wild card position. In both years, the Jays won the AL Division Series but lost the AL Championship Series.
The Blue Jays and the Atlanta Braves are the only two MLB teams under corporate ownership; the Blue Jays are also the only American League team to be under such ownership.
From 1977–2020, the Blue Jays' overall win-loss record is 3383–3458 (a 0.495 winning percentage).
The Blue Jays were approved as part of the 1977 Major League Baseball expansion discussions, after Toronto's original plan of getting a Major League Baseball team by luring the Giants from San Francisco fell through; they would be added alongside the Seattle Mariners. The team was represented by legal counsel Herb Solway and Gord Kirke. Kirke prepared the original documents which led to the foundation of the team in 1976.
The Blue Jays played their first game on April 7, 1977 against the Chicago White Sox before a home crowd of 44,649. The game is now perhaps best remembered for the minor snowstorm which began just before the game started. Toronto won the snowy affair 9–5, led by Doug Ault's two home runs. That win would be one of only 54 of the 1977 season, as the Blue Jays finished last in the AL East, with a record of 54–107. After the season, assistant general manager Pat Gillick succeeded Peter Bavasi as general manager of the team, a position he would hold until 1994.
In 1978, the team improved their record by five games, but remained last, with a record of 59–102. In 1979, after a 53–109 last place finish, shortstop Alfredo Griffin was named American League co-Rookie of the Year. In addition, the Blue Jays' first mascot, BJ Birdy, made its debut in 1979.
In 1980, Bobby Mattick became manager, succeeding Roy Hartsfield, the Blue Jays' original manager. In Mattick's first season as manager, although they remained at the bottom, Toronto almost reached the 70-win mark, finishing with a record of 67–95, a 14-win improvement on 1979. Jim Clancy led with 13 wins and John Mayberry became the first Jay to hit 30 home runs in a season.
In the strike-divided season of 1981, the Blue Jays finished in last place in the AL East in both halves of the season. They were a dismal 16–42 in the first half, but improved dramatically, finishing the 48-game second half at 21–27, for a combined record of 37–69.
Under new manager Bobby Cox, Toronto's first solid season came in 1982 as they finished 78–84. Their pitching staff was led by starters Dave Stieb, Jim Clancy, and Luis Leal, and the outfield featured a young Lloyd Moseby and Jesse Barfield. 1982 was also the Blue Jays' first season outside the bottom, as they finished sixth in the East out of seven teams.
In 1983, the Blue Jays compiled their first winning record, 89–73, finishing in fourth place, nine games behind the eventual World Series champions, the Baltimore Orioles. First baseman Willie Upshaw became the first Blue Jay to have at least 100 RBIs in a season.
The Blue Jays' progress continued in 1984, finishing with the same 89–73 record, but this time in a distant second place behind another World Series champion, the Detroit Tigers. After 1984, Alfredo Griffin went to the Oakland Athletics, thus giving a permanent spot to young Dominican shortstop Tony Fernández, who would become a fan favourite for many years.
In 1985, Toronto won its first championship of any sort: the first of their six American League East division titles. The Blue Jays featured strong pitching and a balanced offence. Tony Fernández excelled in his first full season, and veteran pitcher Doyle Alexander led the team with 17 wins, including a division-clinching complete game win. Their mid-season call up of relief pitcher Tom Henke also proved to be important. They finished 99–62 (the franchise record for most wins), two games in front of the New York Yankees. The Blue Jays faced the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series (ALCS), and took a three games to one lead. However, Kansas City won three consecutive games to win the series 4–3, on the way to their first World Series championship. The Blue Jays' successful season was dubbed the "Drive of '85".
After the playoffs, Cox, the AL Manager of the Year, suddenly left the Blue Jays to become general manager of the Atlanta Braves, the team he previously managed.
With Jimy Williams taking over for Cox as manager, the Blue Jays could not duplicate their success in 1986, sliding to a fourth-place tie at 86–76. Jesse Barfield and George Bell led the way with 40 and 31 home runs, respectively, while Jim Clancy, Mark Eichhorn, and Jimmy Key tied for the team wins lead with 14 each.
In 1987, the Blue Jays held a 3½-game lead with a week to go in the season, then lost their last seven in a row to finish two games back of the Detroit Tigers, getting swept on the last weekend by the Tigers. The Blue Jays finished with a 96–66 record, second best in the major leagues, but to no avail. However, George Bell (.308 AVG, 47 HR, 134 RBI) was named the AL's Most Valuable Player (MVP), the first Blue Jay to earn that honour.
In 1988, however, Toronto could not duplicate the successes of the previous season. They tied the Milwaukee Brewers for third in the division at 87–75, only two games behind the division champion Boston Red Sox. Still, the season had numerous highlights. First baseman Fred McGriff hit 34 home runs, and Dave Stieb had back-to-back starts in which he lost a no-hitter with two out and two strikes in the ninth inning.
In 1989, the Blue Jays' new retractable roofed home, SkyDome, opened mid-season. It also marked the beginning of an extremely successful five-year period for the team. In May, management fired manager Jimy Williams and replaced him with Cito Gaston, the team's hitting instructor. The club had a dismal 12–24 record at the time of the firing, but went 77–49 under Gaston to win the AL East title by two games, with an 89–73 record. On May 28, George Bell's walk-off home run, off of Chicago White Sox closer Bobby Thigpen, marked the end of the Exhibition Stadium era. The first game at the new stadium took place on June 5 against the Milwaukee Brewers; the Jays lost 5–3. In the 1989 ALCS, Rickey Henderson led the World Series champion Oakland Athletics to a 4–1 series win.
In 1990, the Blue Jays again had a strong season, but finished in second place, two games behind the Boston Red Sox. Dave Stieb pitched his only no-hitter, beating the Cleveland Indians 3–0 in front of a less than capacity crowd at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. As of 2018, it remains the only no-hitter ever pitched by a Blue Jay. During the offseason, the Blue Jays made one of the two biggest trades in franchise history, sending All-Star shortstop Tony Fernández and first baseman Fred McGriff to the San Diego Padres in exchange for outfielder Joe Carter and second baseman Roberto Alomar. The Jays also obtained centre fielder Devon White from the California Angels. These deals, particularly the trade with San Diego, were instrumental in the team's future success.
Carter, Alomar and White would prove to be extremely effective additions, as the Blue Jays again won the division in 1991, as Carter drove in Alomar for the division-winning run. Once again, however, they fell short in the postseason, losing to the Minnesota Twins, who were on the way to their second World Series victory in five seasons, in the ALCS. In 1991, the Blue Jays became the first Major League club ever to draw over four million fans in one season.
After the 1991 season had ended, the Blue Jays acquired pitcher Jack Morris, who had led the Minnesota Twins to victory in the World Series by pitching a 10-inning complete game shutout in Game 7 and had been named the World Series MVP. To add veteran leadership to their explosive offence, Toronto signed Dave Winfield to be the team's designated hitter.
The 1992 regular season went well, as the Jays clinched their second straight AL East crown with a final record of 96–66, four games ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers. They also went the entire season without being swept in any series, becoming the first team in 49 years to accomplish the feat. The Blue Jays met the Oakland Athletics (who had the same record as the Jays and won the AL West by six games over the defending champion Twins) in the ALCS, winning four games to two. The pivotal game of the series was Game 4, considered by many to be one of the most important games in Blue Jays history: the Blue Jays rallied back from a 6–1 deficit after seven innings, capped off by Roberto Alomar's huge game-tying two-run homer off A's closer Dennis Eckersley in the top of the ninth. This paved the way for a 7–6 victory in 11 innings, a 3-games-to-1 lead in the series and an eventual 4–2 ALCS series win.
The Blue Jays then faced the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. The Braves returned after being beaten by the Twins the previous year. The pivotal game in this series turned out to be Game 2, in which reserve player Ed Sprague hit a 9th-inning two-run home run off Braves closer Jeff Reardon to give the Blue Jays a 5–4 lead, which would hold up. After winning Game 3 thanks to Candy Maldonado's ninth inning RBI hit and Game 4 due to Jimmy Key's superb 7⅓ inning pitching effort in which he retired 15 straight batters (five innings), the Jays could not win the Series on home turf as the Braves struck back with a 7–2 win in Game 5. Game 6 in Atlanta, with the Blue Jays leading 3 games to 2, was a very close game. Toronto was one strike away from winning in the bottom of the 9th inning, 2–1, but Otis Nixon singled in the tying run off the Blue Jays' closer Tom Henke. It was the first run the Toronto bullpen had given up in the series. The game was decided in the 11th inning, when Dave Winfield doubled down the left-field line, driving in two runs. The Braves would again come within one run in the bottom of the 11th, but Jays reliever Mike Timlin fielded Otis Nixon's bunt, throwing to Joe Carter at first base for the final out. The Blue Jays became the first team based outside of the United States to win the World Series. Pat Borders, the Jays' catcher, was the unlikely player who was named MVP after hitting .450 with one home run in the World Series. Oddly, Morris was acquired in large part for his reputation as a clutch postseason pitcher, but he went 0–3 in the playoffs. Morris, however, pitched well in the regular season, becoming the Blue Jays' first 20-game winner, with a record of 21–6 and an ERA of 4.04.
After the 1992 season, the Blue Jays let World Series hero Dave Winfield and longtime closer Tom Henke go, but signed two key free agents: designated hitter Paul Molitor from the Milwaukee Brewers and perennial playoff success Dave Stewart from the Oakland Athletics.
In 1993, the Blue Jays had seven All-Stars: outfielders Devon White and Joe Carter, infielders John Olerud and Roberto Alomar, designated hitter Molitor, plus starting pitcher Pat Hentgen, and closer Duane Ward. In August, the Jays acquired former nemesis Rickey Henderson from the Athletics. The Blue Jays cruised to a 95–67 record, seven games ahead of the New York Yankees, winning their third straight division title. The Jays beat the Chicago White Sox four games to two in the ALCS, and then the Philadelphia Phillies, four games to two, for their second straight World Series victory. The World Series featured several exciting games, including Game 4, played under a slight rain, in which the Blue Jays came back from a 14–9 deficit to win 15–14 and take a 3 games to 1 lead in the series. It remains the highest scoring game in World Series history. Game 6 in Toronto saw the Blue Jays lead 5–1, but give up 5 runs in the 7th inning to trail 6–5. In the bottom of the 9th inning, Joe Carter hit a one-out, three-run walk-off home run to clinch the series off of Phillies closer Mitch Williams. Only the second World Series–winning walk-off home run in the history of Major League Baseball (following Bill Mazeroski's in Game 7 in 1960), Carter's hit differed from the first in that Toronto, while not facing elimination, was trailing in the bottom of the 9th. The home run is also memorable for late Blue Jays broadcaster Tom Cheek's call:
Molitor was named the World Series MVP after hitting .500 in the series. In the regular season, three Blue Jays—Olerud, Molitor and Alomar—finished 1–2–3 for the AL batting crown, led by Olerud's franchise record .363 average. It was the first time in 100 years that the top three hitters in the league were from the same team.
Expectations were high for the Blue Jays for the 1994 season, following back-to-back championships, but they slumped to a 55–60 record and a third-place finish (16 games back of the New York Yankees) before the players' strike. It was their first losing season since 1982. Joe Carter, Paul Molitor and John Olerud enjoyed good years at the plate, but the pitching fell off. Juan Guzmán slumped considerably from his first three years (40–11, 3.28 ERA), finishing 1994 at 12–11 with a 5.68 ERA. Three young players, Alex Gonzalez, Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green, did show much promise for the future. At the time of the strike, their fellow Canadian cousins, the Montreal Expos, had the best record in the majors, leading some to consider the possibility of a Canadian three-peat in 1994.
On October 31, 1994, Gillick, the longtime Blue Jays general manager, resigned and handed the reins of the team to assistant general manager and Toronto native Gord Ash, who would lead the team in its most tumultuous era yet.
In the 1995 season, the Blue Jays proved that they had lost their contending swagger of the past 12 years. Although they had most of the same cast of the World Series teams, the Blue Jays freefell to a dismal 56–88 record, last place in the AL East, 30 games behind the Boston Red Sox. That year, team owner Labatt Breweries was bought by Belgian-based brewer Interbrew, making the Blue Jays the second major league team owned by interests outside of North America, after their expansion cousins, the Seattle Mariners (who were then owned by Nintendo).
1996 was another mediocre year for the Blue Jays, despite Pat Hentgen's Cy Young Award (20–10, 3.22 ERA). Ed Sprague had a career year, hitting 36 home runs and driving in 101 runs. However, the team's 74 wins did put them in 4th place, improving over a last place finish in 1995.
The Blue Jays started 1997 with high hopes. Not only did the Jays drastically change their uniforms, they signed former Boston Red Sox ace Roger Clemens to a $24.75 million contract. Clemens had one of the best pitching seasons ever as he won the pitcher's Triple Crown, leading the American League with a record of 21–7, a 2.05 ERA, and 292 strikeouts. This was not enough to lead the Blue Jays to the postseason, however, as they finished in last place for the second time in three years with a record of 76–86. Cito Gaston, the longtime manager who led the team to four division titles and two World Series crowns, was fired five games before the end of the season. The season did provide a unique experience for its fans with the advent of Interleague play, when the Blue Jays faced their Canadian rival, the Montreal Expos, for the first official games between the two teams.
Before the start of the 1998 season, the Blue Jays acquired closer Randy Myers and slugger Jose Canseco. Gaston was replaced with former Blue Jay Tim Johnson, a relative unknown as a manager. Despite mediocre hitting, strong pitching led by Clemens' second straight pitching Triple Crown (20–6, 2.65 ERA, 271 strikeouts) sparked the Blue Jays to an 88–74 record—their first winning season since 1993. However, this was only good enough to finish a distant third, 26 games behind the New York Yankees, who posted one of the greatest records in all of baseball history at 114–48. They were, however, in contention for the wildcard spot until the final week.
Before the 1999 season, the Blue Jays traded Clemens to the Yankees for starting pitcher David Wells, second baseman Homer Bush and relief pitcher Graeme Lloyd. They also fired manager Tim Johnson during spring training after he lied about several things (including killing people in the Vietnam War) to motivate his players. The Blue Jays had initially been willing to stand by Johnson. A blizzard of questions about his credibility during spring training, however, led Ash to fire him less than a month before opening day. Johnson was replaced with Jim Fregosi, who managed the Phillies when they lost to the Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series. The offence picked up somewhat in 1999, but the pitching suffered without Clemens, as the Blue Jays finished at 84–78, in third place. After the 1999 season, the Blue Jays' original mascot for 20 years, BJ Birdy, was replaced by a duo named Ace and Diamond.
On November 8, 1999, Toronto traded star outfielder Shawn Green to the Los Angeles Dodgers for left-handed relief pitcher Pedro Borbón and right-fielder Raúl Mondesí. Green had told the Jays that he would not be re-signing when his contract was up at the end of the year (he wished to play closer to his home in Southern California).
2000 proved to be a similar season, as the Jays had an 83–79 record, well out of the wild card race but only a slim 4½ games back of the three-time defending World Series champion Yankees in the AL East, the first time since 1993 they had contended for the division. Carlos Delgado had a stellar year, hitting .344 with 41 home runs, 57 doubles, 137 RBI, 123 walks and 115 runs. In addition, six other players hit 20 or more home runs, an outstanding feat.
On September 1, 2000, Rogers Communications Inc. purchased 80% of the baseball club for $160 million, with Interbrew (later InBev) maintaining 20% interest and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce relinquishing its 10% share. Rogers eventually acquired the 20% owned by Interbrew and now has full ownership of the team.
The 2001 season marked the 25th anniversary of the franchise's inception. Buck Martinez, a former catcher and broadcast announcer for the Blue Jays, took over as manager before the season began. The Blue Jays had a disappointing season, as the team fell back under .500, finishing at 80–82, with mediocre pitching and hitting. Delgado led the team again with 39 home runs and 102 RBI. After the 2001 season ended, the Blue Jays fired Gord Ash, ending a seven-year tenure as general manager.
J. P. Ricciardi, then director of player development under Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, was named the Blue Jays' General Manager and was expected to slash the payroll immediately, to stem the tide of red ink. During the off-season, the team traded or let go several popular players, including Alex Gonzalez, Paul Quantrill, Brad Fullmer and closer Billy Koch to let talented youngsters such as Eric Hinske and Felipe López get a chance to develop into major leaguers.
The Blue Jays started the 2002 season with slow progress in performance. Buck Martinez was fired about a third of the way through the season, with a 20–33 record. He was replaced by third base coach Carlos Tosca, an experienced minor league manager. They went 58–51 under Tosca to finish the season 78–84. Roy Halladay was relied on as the team's ace and rose to the challenge of being the team's top pitcher, finishing the season with a 19–7 record and 2.93 ERA. The hitters were led once again by Carlos Delgado. Promising young players were assigned to key roles; starting third baseman Eric Hinske won the Rookie of the Year Award at the season's conclusion, and 23-year-old centre fielder Vernon Wells had his first 100 RBI season.
The 2003 season was a surprise to both team management and baseball analysts. After a poor April, the team had its most successful month ever in May. Carlos Delgado led the majors in RBI, followed closely by Wells. Despite their hitting successes, poor pitching continued to plague the team. Halladay was an exception, winning his first Cy Young Award, going 22–7, with a 3.25 ERA. In July, Shannon Stewart was traded to the Minnesota Twins for Bobby Kielty, another outfielder with a much lower batting average than Stewart's. Although the Jays finished in third place in their division, Delgado was second in the voting for the American League MVP Award. In the off-season, Kielty was traded to the Oakland Athletics for starter Ted Lilly.
The 2004 season was a disappointing year for the Blue Jays right from the beginning. They started the season 0–8 at SkyDome and never started a lengthy winning streak. Much of that was due to injuries to All-Stars Carlos Delgado, Vernon Wells and Roy Halladay among others. Although the additions of starting pitchers Ted Lilly and Miguel Batista and reliever Justin Speier were relatively successful, veteran Pat Hentgen faltered throughout the season and retired on July 24. Rookies and minor league callups David Bush, Jason Frasor, Josh Towers and others filled the void in the rotation and the bullpen; however, inconsistent performances were evident. With the team struggling in last place and mired in a five-game losing streak, manager Carlos Tosca was fired on August 8, 2004, and was replaced by first base coach John Gibbons. Long-time first baseman Carlos Delgado became a free agent in the off-season. Nevertheless, prospects Russ Adams, Gabe Gross, and Alex Ríos provided excitement for the fans. Rookie pitchers David Bush, Gustavo Chacín and Jason Frasor also showed promise for the club's future. The Blue Jays' lone MLB All-Star Game representative was Lilly.
SkyDome was renamed Rogers Centre and was extensively renovated. The Blue Jays had a good start to the 2005 season. They led the AL East from early to mid-April and held their record around .500 until late August. The Jays were hit with the injury bug when third baseman Corey Koskie broke his finger, taking him out of the line-up, but the club was pleasantly surprised with the performance of rookie call-up Aaron Hill in his stead. On July 8, just prior to the All-Star break, Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay was struck on the shin by a line drive, resulting in a fractured leg. Though Halladay's injury was hoped to be minor, the recovery process was met with constant delays, and eventually, he was out for the rest of the season. Prior to his injury, the Blue Jays were in serious wild card contention, but soon fell out of the playoff race. The team received glimpses of the future from September call-ups Guillermo Quiróz, John-Ford Griffin, and Shaun Marcum. Marcum made himself noteworthy by posting an ERA of 0.00 over five relief appearances and eight innings in September. Josh Towers also stepped up, showing largely unseen potential by going 7–5 with a 2.91 ERA in the second half of the season.
In 2006, the team experienced its most successful season in years. On July 2, Troy Glaus, Vernon Wells, Roy Halladay, B. J. Ryan, and Alex Ríos were picked to represent the Blue Jays at the All-Star Game. It was the largest number of Blue Jay All-Stars selected for the game since 1993. The team played well in the critical month of September, going 18–10. This, combined with the slumping of the Boston Red Sox, enabled the Blue Jays to take sole possession of second place in the American League East by the end of the season. This marked the first time that the Jays had finished above third place in their division since their World Championship season of 1993, and with the most wins since the 1998 season. On December 18, the Blue Jays announced that they had re-signed centre fielder Wells to a seven-year contract worth $126 million, which came into effect after the 2007 season.
The 2007 season was blighted by persistent injuries, with 12 Blue Jays landing on the disabled list. The most serious injury was that of B. J. Ryan, who was out for the entire season having had Tommy John surgery. Prior to the season, the team signed starting pitchers John Thomson, Tomo Ohka, and Víctor Zambrano; each of them was released before the end of the season. However, young starters Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan had break-out years, with 12 wins each. On June 24, McGowan pitched a complete game one-hitter. On June 28, Frank Thomas became the 21st major league player to hit 500 career home runs. Aaron Hill also had a break-out year, setting a team record for second baseman with 47 doubles.
The Blue Jays' 2008 season featured a strong pitching staff, which led the major leagues with a 3.49 ERA. For much of the season, however, the team struggled to hit home runs and drive in runs. On May 24, starter Jesse Litsch set a team record, with 38 consecutive innings without giving up a walk. On June 20, following a five-game losing streak and with the Jays in last place in the AL East, management fired John Gibbons and several members of his coaching staff, and re-hired Cito Gaston. Meanwhile, Alex Ríos had 32 stolen bases, making him the first Blue Jay with 30 since 2001. On September 5, Roy Halladay earned his 129th career win, moving him into second spot on Toronto's all-time wins list. Halladay also came second in the voting for the Cy Young Award, after posting a 20–11 record and 2.78 ERA.
The 2009 season saw the addition of two new patches on the Blue Jays' uniforms: on the right arm, a bright red maple leaf (part of the Canadian flag), and on the left arm, a small black band with "TED" written on it, in reference to the late team owner Ted Rogers, who died in the off-season.
On Opening Day at the Rogers Centre, the Blue Jays, led by Roy Halladay, beat the Detroit Tigers 12–5. Aaron Hill and Roy Halladay both had excellent years and represented the Blue Jays at the 2009 All-Star Game in St. Louis. The Jays started the season well, posting a 27–14 record, however immediately afterwards the Jays fell into a nine-game losing streak and was never able to recover for the remainder of the season. In mid-August, GM J. P. Ricciardi allowed the Chicago White Sox to claim Alex Ríos off waivers. With two games remaining in what was a disappointing season, Ricciardi was fired on October 3. He was replaced by assistant general manager Alex Anthopoulos.
Despite a 75-win season, the Jays saw the strong return of Aaron Hill, who won the American League Comeback Player of the Year Award and the Silver Slugger for second base. Adam Lind, who also had a strong season, earned the Silver Slugger for designated hitter.
In the off-season, the Jays' ace Roy Halladay was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for Kyle Drabek, Travis d'Arnaud, and Michael Taylor; Taylor was immediately traded to the Oakland Athletics for Brett Wallace. The team's significant free agent signings were that of catcher John Buck and shortstop Álex González.
The 2010 season was a surprising 10-win improvement over the last season. It was a career year for José Bautista, who hit 54 home runs, breaking George Bell's franchise record of 47. In doing so, he became the 26th player to reach 50 home runs and the first since Alex Rodriguez and Prince Fielder achieved the feat in 2007. The Blue Jays also set a franchise record for the most home runs in a single season as they hit 257, 13 more than their previous record of 244 set by the 2000 Blue Jays. The Blue Jays tied the 1996 Baltimore Orioles for the third most home runs by a team in a single season. Seven players (José Bautista, Vernon Wells, Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Lyle Overbay, John Buck, and Edwin Encarnación) hit 20 home runs or more throughout the season, tying an MLB record previously set by four teams, including the 2000 Blue Jays.
On July 14, the Jays traded Álex González and two minor league prospects—left-handed pitcher Tim Collins and shortstop Tyler Pastornicky—to the Atlanta Braves for Jo-Jo Reyes and Yunel Escobar.
On August 7, catching prospect J. P. Arencibia made his major league debut. He went 4-for-5 with two home runs, including a home run hit on the first pitch he saw. The next day, starting pitcher Brandon Morrow came within one out of a no-hitter, finishing with 17 strikeouts in a complete game one-hitter.
Led by new manager John Farrell, the 2011 Blue Jays finished with a .500 record. After signing a five-year $64 million contract extension, José Bautista followed up his record-setting 2010 season with an arguably better season. He finished with a Major League-leading 43 home runs, along with 103 RBI, 132 walks, and a .302 average. Rookie J. P. Arencibia also had a successful year, setting a Blue Jays single-season record with 23 home runs by a catcher. In August, third base prospect Brett Lawrie made his Major League debut and hit .293 with 9 home runs, 4 triples, and 25 RBI, in just 43 games.
Starting pitcher and ace Ricky Romero led the team with 15 wins and a 2.92 ERA. He also became an All-Star for the first time in his career. The other starting pitchers were inconsistent, and Farrell used 12 different starters over the course of the season. Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco, both acquired in the off-season, shared the closer role. They both struggled through the first half of the season, though Francisco improved in the last two months of the season, and had six saves in September.
On July 31, the Blue Jays retired their first number, Roberto Alomar's #12, one week after Alomar became the first Hall of Famer to be inducted as a Blue Jay.
The 2012 season was an injury-plagued year for the Blue Jays, having used 31 total pitchers, which set a franchise record. In June, three starting pitchers (Brandon Morrow, Kyle Drabek, and Drew Hutchison) were lost to injury in a span of four days, two of whom required Tommy John surgery; in addition, starters Dustin McGowan and Jesse Litsch missed the entire season due to injury. In the second half of the season, some key players in Toronto's line-up, including All-Star José Bautista, missed a significant amount of playing time due to injury, sending the team into a freefall and culminating in a 73–89 record. Despite the underachievements of Ricky Romero and Adam Lind, Casey Janssen established himself as a reliable closer (22 SV, 2.52 ERA) and Edwin Encarnación developed into one of the league's best power hitters (.280 AVG, 42 HR, 110 RBI).
On April 5, 2012 the team opened on the road in Cleveland, where they beat the Indians 7–4 in 16 full innings,during this game they set the record of the longest opening-day game in the Major League history. The previous record of 15 innings had been set by the Washington Senators and Philadelphia Athletics on April 13, 1926, and tied by the Detroit Tigers and the Indians on April 19, 1960.
On April 20, the Jays turned a triple play against the Kansas City Royals in a 4–3 win. It was the first triple play they turned since September 21, 1979.
During the offseason, the Toronto Blue Jays traded Farrell to the Boston Red Sox per his wishes, and former manager John Gibbons returned to manage the Blue Jays. The Jays also made a blockbuster trade with the Miami Marlins, leading to a series of other blockbuster trades and signings, including with the New York Mets for National League Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey and free agents including Melky Cabrera. On June 8, the Blue Jays played the then-longest game in franchise history by innings, winning 4–3 in 18 innings against the visiting Texas Rangers, which would be broken one season later. The Jays matched their franchise record of 11 consecutive wins in a 13–5 home win over the Baltimore Orioles on June 23. However, the Jays had a losing season overall.
Pitcher Roy Halladay signed a one-day contract with the Blue Jays before retiring from baseball, citing injuries. The Jays had a nine-game win streak from May 20 to 28, as well as wins in 18 of 21 between May 15 and June 6.
On August 10, the Blue Jays played the longest game in franchise history by both time and innings, winning 6–5 in 19 innings and playing 6 hours, 37 minutes against the visiting Detroit Tigers.
During the off-season, the Jays signed Toronto-born catcher Russell Martin through free agency. The Jays acquired Marco Estrada, Devon Travis, All-Star third baseman Josh Donaldson, and Michael Saunders in trades. The Jays claimed Justin Smoak, Andy Dirks, and Chris Colabello off waivers. However, Dirks, along with John Mayberry Jr., were eventually non–tendered; the Jays later signed Dirks to a minor league contract. Melky Cabrera and Brandon Morrow left through free agency and Juan Francisco was claimed off waivers by the Boston Red Sox.
The Jays later traded José Reyes and pitching prospects Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman, and Jesus Tinoco to the Colorado Rockies for All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and reliever LaTroy Hawkins. Two days later, they acquired All-Star pitcher David Price from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for pitching prospects Daniel Norris, Matt Boyd, and Jairo Labourt.
The Jays had two 11-game winning streaks during this season. On September 25, the Blue Jays clinched a playoff berth, ending the longest active playoff drought in North American professional sports (see List of Major League Baseball franchise postseason droughts). They subsequently claimed the AL East division title on September 30, after defeating the Baltimore Orioles 15–2 in the first game of a doubleheader.
The Blue Jays faced the Texas Rangers in the ALDS. After losing back-to-back home games, they won the next three games in a row to take the five-game series, advancing to the ALCS; a three-game comeback series victory had not been accomplished since 2012 by the San Francisco Giants. During game five of the series in Toronto, Blue Jays' right fielder José Bautista executed what Andrew Keh of "The New York Times" described as possibly "the most ostentatious bat flip in MLB history" after hitting a go-ahead, three-run home run off Rangers relief pitcher Sam Dyson. Bautista wrote an article about the bat flip published in November 2015 in "The Players' Tribune".
The Blue Jays then faced the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS, losing the series 4–2 in Kansas City; the Royals would eventually win the World Series.
After the playoffs, Donaldson was named AL MVP, becoming the first Blue Jay to win the award since George Bell in 1987.
Upon the expiration of Paul Beeston's contract, Mark Shapiro replaced him as president of the Blue Jays. Alex Anthopoulos resigned two months after the hiring of Shapiro. Ross Atkins subsequently took his place.
During the off-season, David Price left the Blue Jays through free agency, signing with the Boston Red Sox, while the Blue Jays signed J. A. Happ. On March 4, 2016, infielder Maicer Izturis announced his retirement from baseball. A few weeks later, Brad Penny and Rafael Soriano, both veterans under minor league contract with the Blue Jays, retired from baseball as well.
On May 15, 2016, the Blue Jays and the Texas Rangers brawled against each other in Arlington, Texas. The brawl happened when Matt Bush threw a pitch at Jose Bautista, then Bautista made an illegal slide, and Rougned Odor punched Bautista. Bautista was later suspended for one game.
On May 31, 2016, the Blue Jays traded for Jason Grilli from the Atlanta Braves. Before the non-waiver trade deadline at 4 pm EDT on August 1, 2016, the Blue Jays traded for Joaquín Benoit, Melvin Upton Jr., Scott Feldman, and Francisco Liriano. On August 25, 2016, the Blue Jays re-acquired popular backup catcher Dioner Navarro in a trade with the Chicago White Sox. This was done before the August 31 trade deadline making Navarro eligible to be on the postseason roster.
On October 2, 2016, the Blue Jays clinched their first Wild Card berth with a Detroit Tigers loss to the Atlanta Braves. On October 4, 2016, the Blue Jays defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Wild Card Game in extra innings, via a walk-off three-run home run by Edwin Encarnación in the bottom of the 11th inning. On October 9, 2016, the Blue Jays completed a sweep of the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series to advance to the American League Championship Series for the second consecutive year. On October 19, 2016, the Blue Jays were eliminated from World Series contention with a 3–0 loss to the Cleveland Indians in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.
On November 11, 2016, it was announced that Toronto had signed designated hitter Kendrys Morales to a three-year, $33 million deal. The contract became official on November 18.
On December 5, 2016, Steve Pearce signed a two-year, $12.5 million contract with Toronto. On January 5, 2017, Edwin Encarnación signed a three-year, $60 million contract with the Cleveland Indians. On January 18, 2017, Bautista signed a one-year, $18 million contract with the Blue Jays. The contract includes a $17 million mutual option for the 2018 season, as well as a $20 million vesting option for 2019. The following day, Michael Saunders signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. However, in late June, the Phillies released Saunders and the Jays signed him to a minor league contract.
On April 2, one day before the start of the regular season, Melvin Upton Jr. was released. By the end of April, the Jays had the worst record in all of MLB.
On July 2, the Jays traded Grilli to the Texas Rangers for Eduard Pinto. Pearce hit two walk-off grand slams in a span of three days: one against the Oakland Athletics on July 27 and another against the Los Angeles Angels on July 30, the latter of which is an ultimate grand slam.
The Blue Jays wore special red-and-white uniforms at select games during the 2017 season to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada.
The Blue Jays declined their mutual option on José Bautista, allowing him to enter free agency. He then signed with the Atlanta Braves, later the New York Mets, and eventually with the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Blue Jays traded two prospects to the San Diego Padres for Yangervis Solarte. The Blue Jays also acquired Curtis Granderson and Seung-hwan Oh as free agents.
On June 22, Roberto Osuna was suspended for 75 games after being accused of sexual assault on May 8 and applied retroactively from the date of the incident.
In July, the Blue Jays traded Pearce to the Boston Red Sox for a prospect, Santiago Espinal. They also dealt three pitchers: J. A. Happ to the New York Yankees, Seung-hwan Oh to the Colorado Rockies, and Roberto Osuna to the Houston Astros.
In August, the Blue Jays traded Josh Donaldson to the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later, later revealed to be a pitching prospect, Julian Merryweather. The Blue Jays also traded Curtis Granderson to the Milwaukee Brewers for a prospect.
On September 26, it was confirmed by the Blue Jays that manager John Gibbons would not return for the 2019 season.
On October 25, 2018, the Blue Jays announced that Charlie Montoyo had been hired as their new manager.
Early in the season, the Blue Jays traded Kendrys Morales to the Oakland Athletics and Kevin Pillar to the San Francisco Giants.
During the season, the Blue Jays called up Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, and Bo Bichette for the first time. The three are second-generation Major League Baseball players with the first two also being sons of Hall of Famers Vladimir Guerrero Sr. and Craig Biggio, respectively; Bo Bichette is the son of Dante Bichette.
Nearing the trade deadline, the Blue Jays traded Marcus Stroman to the New York Mets and Aaron Sanchez to the Houston Astros.
Over the 2019–20 off-season, the Blue Jays signed free agents Tanner Roark and Hyun-jin Ryu. The Blue Jays also signed Shun Yamaguchi from the Yomiuri Giants, the first player the Blue Jays successfully signed via the posting system.
On January 18, 2020, the Toronto Blue Jays unveiled a new blue alternate uniform.
In 1977, after just 50 home games, the Blue Jays set an MLB record for a first-year expansion team, with an overall attendance of 1,219,551 during those games. By the end of the season, 1,701,152 fans had attended. After setting an attendance record in 1990, with 3,885,284 fans, in 1991, the Blue Jays became the first MLB team to attract over four million fans, with an attendance of 4,001,526, followed by 4,028,318 in 1992. Each of those records were broken in 1993 by the expansion Colorado Rockies, although the Blue Jays' 1993 attendance of 4,057,947 stood as an AL record for 12 years until it was broken by the 2005 New York Yankees.
Several Blue Jays became very popular in Toronto and across the major leagues, starting with Dave Stieb, whose seven All-Star selections is a franchise record. He is closely followed by Roy Halladay and José Bautista, who were selected six times each, and by Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter, who were selected five times each. Bautista set a major league record in 2011 (which only stood for just one year), with 7,454,753 All-Star votes. In his first season with the Blue Jays in 2015, Josh Donaldson set a new major league record by receiving 14,090,188 All-Star votes.
During the seventh-inning stretch of home games, before singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", Blue Jay fans sing and clap to "OK Blue Jays" by Keith Hampshire and The Bat Boys, which was released in 1983. The song was remixed in 2003, and since then, the new shortened version is played at home games.
From 1979 to 1999, BJ Birdy served as the Blue Jays' sole mascot, played by Kevin Shanahan. In 2000, he was replaced by a duo named Ace and Diamond. After the 2003 season, Diamond was removed by the team, leaving Ace as the team's sole mascot. Since the 2010s, Ace has been accompanied by his younger brother, Junior. This usually happens on the Jr. Jay Saturday promotions until the end of the 2017 season. The promotions were moved to select Sundays since the 2018 season, since the Blue Jays can no longer hold early Saturday afternoon games to accommodate American national broadcasts on Fox, though Fox did occasionally broadcast Blue Jays games at the Rogers Centre.
Since 2012, every Sunday home game, the Blue Jays pay tribute to a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. During the third inning, the team presents the honoured member a personalized jersey.
Since 2005, The Star-Spangled Banner has been sung before O Canada at every home game. In some home games, O Canada is sung in English and French. On June 29, 2019, O Canada was sung in Cree and English. For Blue Jays road games, O Canada is sung before the Star Spangled Banner as all road games (since the Expos moved to Washington, DC) for the Blue Jays are in the United States.
The Montreal Expos were the Blue Jays' geographic National League rival, being the other Canadian MLB team before it was relocated. From 1978 to 1986, the teams played an annual mid-season exhibition game, known as the Pearson Cup, named after former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. The teams began facing each other in the regular season in 1997, with the advent of interleague play. During the 2003 and 2004 seasons, the Expos' last two seasons before relocating to Washington, D.C. as the Nationals, the Pearson Cup was awarded after a pair of three-game sets.
The Detroit Tigers are the Blue Jays' geographic and traditional rival, dating back to the 1980s, when the teams were AL East contenders. The Tigers moved to the AL Central in 1998, and the rivalry has died down as a result, with the teams facing each other only six to seven times per year since 2011. Depending on traffic and border delays, Detroit is about a four-hour drive from Toronto. According to "The Detroit News", a July 2017 three-game series at Comerica Park against the Blue Jays drew a season-best-to-date total attendance of 115,088.
Although the Seattle Mariners are not a divisional rival, many Blue Jays fans from western Canada travel to Seattle when the Blue Jays play there. Depending on traffic and border delays, Seattle is about a three-hour drive from Vancouver. "The Seattle Times" estimated that Blue Jays fans represented around 70 percent of the crowd in Safeco Field for a June 2017 weekend series.
The Blue Jays' former radio play-by-play announcer, Tom Cheek, called every Toronto Blue Jays game from the team's inaugural contest on April 7, 1977 until June 3, 2004, when he took two games off following the death of his father—a streak of 4,306 consecutive regular season games and 41 postseason games. Cheek later died on October 9, 2005 and the team commemorated him during their 2006 season by wearing a circular patch on the left sleeve of their home and road game jerseys. The patch was adorned with the letters 'TC', Cheek's initials, as well as a stylized microphone. Cheek is also honoured with a place in the Blue Jays' "Level of Excellence" in the upper level of the Rogers Centre; the number 4,306 is depicted beside his name. In 2008, Cheek received the third most votes by fans to be nominated for the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence. Cheek finally received the Frick Award, posthumously, in 2013 after nine years on the ballot.
Radio broadcasts of Blue Jays games are originated from Sportsnet 590 CJCL in Toronto which, like the Blue Jays, is owned by Rogers Communications. Prior to 2018, Jerry Howarth, Cheek's longtime broadcasting partner, was the lead play-by-play announcer, with Mike Wilner as the secondary play-by-play announcer. During the 2007 to 2012 seasons, former Blue Jays catcher Alan Ashby was the colour commentator. Former Blue Jays pitcher Jack Morris served as the colour commentator during the 2013 season, after which he was replaced by former Montreal Expos catcher Joe Siddall since the 2014 season.
Former Blue Jays pitcher Dirk Hayhurst filled in for Morris for some games during the 2013 season.
Another former catcher for the Blue Jays, Gregg Zaun, has served as the occasional colour commentator from the 2011 season until the end of the 2017 season when he was terminated amid accusations of improper conduct from several female employees.
Following Howarth's retirement in the 2017 season, Ben Wagner was hired as the primary radio play-by-play announcer, splitting said duties with Dan Shulman and Mike Wilner.
The Toronto Blue Jays have the largest geographical home market in all of baseball, encompassing all of Canada. Despite this, the number of radio stations that broadcast games is actually quite small. Only twenty radio stations across the country aired at least some Blue Jays games during the 2011 season, which is fewer affiliates than most MLB teams which have more stations covering smaller geographic areas.
All Blue Jays games are carried nationally on Sportsnet (which, like the Blue Jays, is owned by Rogers Communications), with Buck Martinez as the play-by-play announcer, and Pat Tabler as the primary colour analyst. On select games, play-by-play is handled by Dan Shulman, with Martinez and Tabler on commentary. Blue Jays Central updates occur after the fourth inning and in the middle of the eighth inning. Toronto Raptors play-by-play announcer Matt Devlin has also filled in for Martinez in a select number of games. In previous years, the colour analyst role rotated between Pat Tabler, Rance Mulliniks, Darrin Fletcher, and since the 2011 season, Gregg Zaun. Sportsnet became the team's primary carrier soon after it launched in the late 1990s, and became the team's exclusive broadcaster in 2010. As of August 2010, Sportsnet One also broadcasts Blue Jays games (often in case of scheduling conflicts with the main Sportsnet channels). Rogers was, however, criticized by fans and critics due to Sportsnet One only being carried by Rogers Cable systems on launch.
Sportsnet's broadcasts of the 2015 American League Division Series involving the Blue Jays were among the highest-rated telecasts in network history, with Game 4 drawing an audience of 4.38 million viewers.
In September 2012, AMI-tv simulcast three Blue Jays games with described video provided by CJCL correspondent Sam Cosentino, which included explanations of on-screen graphics. Paul Beeston praised AMI's involvement, stating that "to our knowledge, we are the first sports organization to have our games provided through this revolutionary approach to accommodating the needs of the blind and low-vision community."
On June 27, 2013, Rogers' over-the-air Toronto multicultural Omni Television station CJMT-DT simulcast a Blue Jays game, scheduled to be started by Taiwanese player Chien-Ming Wang, with commentary in Mandarin, marking the first ever Canadian MLB broadcast in the language. In June 2018, Omni announced that it would air Sunday afternoon games in Tagalog, the most spoken language of the Philippines, through the remainder of the season. Sportsnet and Omni announced a regular season of Sunday broadcasts in Tagalog for the 2019 season.
TVA Sports has aired games in French since 2011, with Jacques Doucet on play-by-play and Rodger Brulotte on colour.
The Sports Network (TSN), which (like the Jays) was owned by Labatt from 1984 to 1995, served as the primary cable television outlet for the Blue Jays prior to the launch of Sportsnet. TSN (and later, its sister channel TSN2) continued to carry approximately ten Jays games through the 2009 season until May 2010; most recently, Rod Black handled play-by-play while Tabler served as colour commentator on these telecasts. CBC has carried Blue Jays games intermittently throughout the team's history, most recently in 2007 and 2008; those broadcasts featured Jim Hughson as the play-by-play announcer, and former Blue Jays Rance Mulliniks and Jesse Barfield on colour commentary. Games also aired on CTV (except in Montreal) from the team's inception until the late 1990s. The Blue Jays have not appeared over-the-air in Canada in English since 2008.
In 2008, Rogers Communications, owner of the Jays, was granted a license by the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) for a "Baseball TV" specialty channel. The channel would have been dedicated to coverage of baseball, combining content from the United States-based MLB Network with original Canadian content. However, the channel was never launched, and Rogers sponsored an application to allow distribution of the U.S. MLB Network on Canadian providers instead.
The Toronto Blue Jays farm system consists of eight minor league affiliates.
Only one Blue Jays pitcher has thrown a no-hitter in franchise history. It was accomplished by Dave Stieb on September 2, 1990, after losing three no-hit bids with two outs in the ninth inning. A no-hitter is officially recognized by Major League Baseball only “when a pitcher (or pitchers) allows no hits during the entire course of a game, which consists of at least nine innings”.
No perfect games, a special subcategory of no-hitter, have been thrown in Blue Jays history. The franchise came closest on August 4, 1989, when Stieb gave up a double to Yankees’ batter Roberto Kelly with two outs in the ninth and he scored by the next batter. As defined by Major League Baseball, “in a perfect game, no batter reaches any base during the course of the game.”
Roger Clemens won the pitching triple crown in 1997 and 1998.
Eight former Blue Jays, one former manager, and one former general manager, have been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Second baseman Roberto Alomar, elected to the Hall of Fame in 2011, is the first player to be inducted based primarily on service as a Blue Jay.
Bobby Doerr, a second baseman with the Boston Red Sox, served as a hitting coach with the Blue Jays early in their history, 1977–1981, and was the first person associated with the franchise to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1986.
Early Wynn, the Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher (1972) and career 300-game winner, was a radio broadcaster for the Blue Jays with Tom Cheek during their first few years, 1977–1981.
Soon after becoming the first person to be inducted in the Hall of Fame as a Blue Jay, on July 31, 2011, second baseman Roberto Alomar was the first person to have his number retired by the Blue Jays.
On March 29, 2018, the Blue Jays retired #32 in honour of Roy Halladay, who died in an airplane crash on November 7, 2017, becoming the second number to be retired by the Blue Jays.
The team has also instituted a "Level of Excellence" on the 400 level of the Rogers Centre, where the following Jays personnel are honoured:
Players' uniform numbers were listed—and in Tom Cheek's case, the number of consecutive games he called for the Blue Jays—until the 2013 All-Star Break, even though, with the exception of Roberto Alomar's, and Roy Halladay's these numbers have not been retired. During the 2013 All-Star Break, the Level of Excellence was redesigned for the addition of Carlos Delgado's name. The redesign removed all uniform numbers from the Level of Excellence aside from Roberto Alomar's retired #12, Roy Halladay's retired #32 and Tom Cheek's 4306 for his consecutive games called streak. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30847 |
Turbine
A turbine ( or ) (from the Latin "turbo", a vortex, related to the Greek , "tyrbē", meaning "turbulence") is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating electrical power when combined with a generator. A turbine is a turbomachine with at least one moving part called a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades so that they move and impart rotational energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples are windmills and waterwheels.
Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the steam turbine is given both to Anglo-Irish engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) for invention of the reaction turbine, and to Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) for invention of the impulse turbine. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery.
The word "turbine" was coined in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin from the Latin "turbo", or vortex, in a memo, "Des turbines hydrauliques ou machines rotatoires à grande vitesse", which he submitted to the Académie royale des sciences in Paris. Benoit Fourneyron, a former student of Claude Burdin, built the first practical water turbine.
A working fluid contains potential energy (pressure head) and kinetic energy (velocity head). The fluid may be compressible or incompressible. Several physical principles are employed by turbines to collect this energy:
Impulse turbines change the direction of flow of a high velocity fluid or gas jet. The resulting impulse spins the turbine and leaves the fluid flow with diminished kinetic energy. There is no pressure change of the fluid or gas in the turbine blades (the moving blades), as in the case of a steam or gas turbine, all the pressure drop takes place in the stationary blades (the nozzles). Before reaching the turbine, the fluid's "pressure head" is changed to "velocity head" by accelerating the fluid with a nozzle. Pelton wheels and de Laval turbines use this process exclusively. Impulse turbines do not require a pressure casement around the rotor since the fluid jet is created by the nozzle prior to reaching the blades on the rotor. Newton's second law describes the transfer of energy for impulse turbines. Impulse turbines are most efficient for use in cases where the flow is low and the inlet pressure is high.
Reaction turbines develop torque by reacting to the gas or fluid's pressure or mass. The pressure of the gas or fluid changes as it passes through the turbine rotor blades. A pressure casement is needed to contain the working fluid as it acts on the turbine stage(s) or the turbine must be fully immersed in the fluid flow (such as with wind turbines). The casing contains and directs the working fluid and, for water turbines, maintains the suction imparted by the draft tube. Francis turbines and most steam turbines use this concept. For compressible working fluids, multiple turbine stages are usually used to harness the expanding gas efficiently. Newton's third law describes the transfer of energy for reaction turbines. Reaction turbines are better suited to higher flow velocities or applications where the fluid head (upstream pressure) is low.
In the case of steam turbines, such as would be used for marine applications or for land-based electricity generation, a Parsons-type reaction turbine would require approximately double the number of blade rows as a de Laval-type impulse turbine, for the same degree of thermal energy conversion. Whilst this makes the Parsons turbine much longer and heavier, the overall efficiency of a reaction turbine is slightly higher than the equivalent impulse turbine for the same thermal energy conversion.
In practice, modern turbine designs use both reaction and impulse concepts to varying degrees whenever possible. Wind turbines use an airfoil to generate a reaction lift from the moving fluid and impart it to the rotor. Wind turbines also gain some energy from the impulse of the wind, by deflecting it at an angle. Turbines with multiple stages may use either reaction or impulse blading at high pressure. Steam turbines were traditionally more impulse but continue to move towards reaction designs similar to those used in gas turbines. At low pressure the operating fluid medium expands in volume for small reductions in pressure. Under these conditions, blading becomes strictly a reaction type design with the base of the blade solely impulse. The reason is due to the effect of the rotation speed for each blade. As the volume increases, the blade height increases, and the base of the blade spins at a slower speed relative to the tip. This change in speed forces a designer to change from impulse at the base, to a high reaction-style tip.
Classical turbine design methods were developed in the mid 19th century. Vector analysis related the fluid flow with turbine shape and rotation. Graphical calculation methods were used at first. Formulae for the basic dimensions of turbine parts are well documented and a highly efficient machine can be reliably designed for any fluid flow condition. Some of the calculations are empirical or 'rule of thumb' formulae, and others are based on classical mechanics. As with most engineering calculations, simplifying assumptions were made.
Velocity triangles can be used to calculate the basic performance of a turbine stage. Gas exits the stationary turbine nozzle guide vanes at absolute velocity "V"a1. The rotor rotates at velocity "U". Relative to the rotor, the velocity of the gas as it impinges on the rotor entrance is "V"r1. The gas is turned by the rotor and exits, relative to the rotor, at velocity "V"r2. However, in absolute terms the rotor exit velocity is "V"a2. The velocity triangles are constructed using these various velocity vectors. Velocity triangles can be constructed at any section through the blading (for example: hub, tip, midsection and so on) but are usually shown at the mean stage radius. Mean performance for the stage can be calculated from the velocity triangles, at this radius, using the Euler equation:
Hence:
where:
The turbine pressure ratio is a function of formula_7 and the turbine efficiency.
Modern turbine design carries the calculations further. Computational fluid dynamics dispenses with many of the simplifying assumptions used to derive classical formulas and computer software facilitates optimization. These tools have led to steady improvements in turbine design over the last forty years.
The primary numerical classification of a turbine is its specific speed. This number describes the speed of the turbine at its maximum efficiency with respect to the power and flow rate. The specific speed is derived to be independent of turbine size. Given the fluid flow conditions and the desired shaft output speed, the specific speed can be calculated and an appropriate turbine design selected.
The specific speed, along with some fundamental formulas can be used to reliably scale an existing design of known performance to a new size with corresponding performance.
Off-design performance is normally displayed as a turbine map or characteristic.
A large proportion of the world's electrical power is generated by turbo generators.
Turbines are used in gas turbine engines on land, sea and air.
Turbochargers are used on piston engines.
Gas turbines have very high power densities (i.e. the ratio of power to mass, or power to volume) because they run at very high speeds. The Space Shuttle main engines used turbopumps (machines consisting of a pump driven by a turbine engine) to feed the propellants (liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen) into the engine's combustion chamber. The liquid hydrogen turbopump is slightly larger than an automobile engine (weighing approximately 700 lb) with the turbine producing nearly 70,000 hp (52.2 MW).
Turboexpanders are used for refrigeration in industrial processes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30848 |
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo () is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most-populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according to the 2010 census, the 71st-largest city in the United States. With a population of 274,975, it serves as a major trade center for the North Central United States; its port is the fifth busiest in the Great Lakes and 54th biggest in the United States. The city was founded in 1833 on the west bank of the Maumee River, and originally incorporated as part of Monroe County, Michigan Territory. It was re-founded in 1837, after the conclusion of the Toledo War, when it was incorporated in Ohio.
After the 1845 completion of the Miami and Erie Canal, Toledo grew quickly; it also benefited from its position on the railway line between New York City and Chicago. The first of many glass manufacturers arrived in the 1880s, eventually earning Toledo its nickname: "The Glass City." It has since become a city with a distinctive and growing art community, auto assembly businesses, education, thriving healthcare, and well-supported local sports teams.
The region was part of a larger area controlled by the historic tribes of the Wyandot and the people of the Council of Three Fires (Ojibwe, Potawatomie and Odawa). The French established trading posts in the area by 1680 to take advantage of the lucrative fur trade. The Odawa moved from Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula at the invitation of the French, who established a trading post at Fort Detroit, about 60 miles to the north. They settled an area extending into northwest Ohio. By the early 18th century, the Odawa occupied areas along most of the Maumee River to its mouth. They served as middlemen between the French and tribes further to the west and north. The Wyandot occupied central Ohio, and the Shawnee and Lenape occupied the southern areas.
When the city of Toledo was preparing to pave its streets, it surveyed "two prehistoric semicircular earthworks, presumably for stockades." One was at the intersection of Clayton and Oliver streets on the south bank of Swan Creek; the other was at the intersection of Fassett and Fort streets on the right bank of the Maumee River. Such earthworks were typical of mound-building peoples.
According to Charles E. Slocum, the American military built Fort Industry at the mouth of Swan Creek about 1805, as a temporary stockade. No official reports support the 19th-century tradition of its earlier history there.
The United States continued to work to extinguish land claims of Native Americans. In the Treaty of Detroit (1807), the above four tribes ceded a large land area to the United States of what became southeastern Michigan and northwestern Ohio, to the mouth of the Maumee River (where Toledo later developed). Reserves for the Odawa were set aside in northwestern Ohio for a limited period of time. The Native Americans signed the treaty at Detroit, Michigan, on November 17, 1807, with William Hull, governor of the Michigan Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs, as the sole representative of the U.S.
More European-American settlers entered the area over the next few years, but many fled during the War of 1812, when British forces raided the area with their Indian allies. Resettlement began around 1818 after a Cincinnati syndicate purchased a tract at the mouth of Swan Creek and named it Port Lawrence, developing it as the modern downtown area of Toledo. Immediately to the north of that, another syndicate founded the town of Vistula, the historic north end. These two towns bordered each other across Cherry Street. This is why present-day streets on the street's northeast side run at a slightly different angle from those southwest of it.
In 1824, the Ohio state legislature authorized the construction of the Miami and Erie Canal and in 1833, its Wabash and Erie Canal extension. The canal's purpose was to connect the city of Cincinnati to Lake Erie for water transportation to eastern markets, including to New York City via the Erie Canal and Hudson River. At that time no highways had been built in the state, and it was very difficult for goods produced locally to reach the larger markets east of the Appalachian Mountains. During the canal's planning phase, many small towns along the northern shores of Maumee River heavily competed to be the ending terminus of the canal, knowing it would give them a profitable status. The towns of Port Lawrence and Vistula merged in 1833 to better compete against the upriver towns of Waterville and Maumee.
The inhabitants of this joined settlement chose the name Toledo:
"but the reason for this choice is buried in a welter of legends. One recounts that Washington Irving, who was traveling in Spain at the time, suggested the name to his brother, a local resident; this explanation ignores the fact that Irving returned to the United States in 1832. Others award the honor to Two Stickney, son of the major who quaintly numbered his sons and named his daughters after States. The most popular version attributes the naming to Willard J. Daniels, a merchant, who reportedly suggested Toledo because it 'is easy to pronounce, is pleasant in sound, and there is no other city of that name on the American continent.'"Despite Toledo's efforts, the canal built the final terminus in Manhattan, to the north of Toledo, because it was closer to Lake Erie. As a compromise, the state placed two sidecuts before the terminus, one in Toledo at Swan Creek and another in Maumee, about 10 miles to the southwest.
Among the numerous treaties made between the Ottawa and the United States were two signed in this area: at Miami (Maumee) Bay in 1831 and Maumee, Ohio, upriver of Toledo, in 1833. These actions were among US purchases or exchanges of land in order to accomplish Indian Removal of the Ottawa from areas wanted for European-American settlement. The last of the Odawa did not leave this area until 1839, when Ottokee, grandson of Pontiac, led his band from their village at the mouth of the Maumee River to Indian Territory in Kansas.
An almost bloodless conflict between Ohio and the Michigan Territory, called the Toledo War (1835–1836), was "fought" over a narrow strip of land from the Indiana border to Lake Erie, now containing the city and the suburbs of Sylvania and Oregon, Ohio. The strip—which varied between five and eight miles (13 km) in width—was claimed by both the state of Ohio and the Michigan Territory due to conflicting legislation concerning the location of the Ohio-Michigan state line. Militias from both states were sent to the border but never engaged. The only casualty of the conflict was a Michigan deputy sheriff—stabbed in the leg with a pen knife by Two Stickney during the arrest of his elder brother, One Stickney—and the loss of two horses, two pigs and a few chickens stolen from an Ohio farm by lost members of the Michigan militia. Major Benjamin Franklin Stickney, father of One and Two Stickney, had been instrumental in pushing Congress to rule in favor of Ohio gaining Toledo. In the end, the state of Ohio was awarded the land after the state of Michigan was given a larger portion of the Upper Peninsula in exchange. Stickney Avenue in Toledo is named for Major Stickney.
Toledo was very slow to expand during its first two decades of settlement. The first lot was sold in the Port Lawrence section of the city in 1833. It held 1,205 persons in 1835, and five years later it had gained just seven more persons. Settlers came and went quickly through Toledo and between 1833 and 1836, ownership of land had changed so many times that none of the original parties remained in the town. The canal and its Toledo sidecut entrance were completed in 1843. Soon after the canal was functional, the new canal boats had become too large to use the shallow waters at the terminus in Manhattan. More boats began using the Swan Creek sidecut than its official terminus, quickly putting the Manhattan warehouses out of business and triggering a rush to move business to Toledo. Most of Manhattan's residents moved out by 1844.
The 1850 census recorded Toledo as having 3,829 residents and Manhattan 541. The 1860 census shows Toledo with a population of 13,768 and Manhattan with 788. While the towns were only a mile apart, Toledo grew by 359% in ten years. Manhattan's growth was on a small base and never competed, given the drawbacks of its lesser canal outlet. By the 1880s, Toledo expanded over the vacant streets of Manhattan and Tremainsville, a small town to the west.
In the last half of the 19th century, railroads slowly began to replace canals as the major form of transportation. They were faster and had greater capacity. Toledo soon became a hub for several railroad companies and a hotspot for industries such as furniture producers, carriage makers, breweries, glass manufacturers, and others. Large immigrant populations came to the area.
In the 1920s, Toledo had one of the highest rates of industrial growth in the United States.
Toledo continued to expand in population and industry but because of its dependence on manufacturing, the city was hit hard by the Great Depression. Many large-scale WPA projects were constructed to reemploy citizens in the 1930s. Some of these include the amphitheater and aquarium at the Toledo Zoo and a major expansion to the Toledo Museum of Art.
The post-war job boom and Great Migration brought thousands of African Americans to Toledo to work in industrial jobs, where they had previously been denied. Due to redlining, many of them settled along Dorr Street, which, during the 1950s and 60s was lined with flourishing, Black owned businesses and homes. Desegregation, a failed urban renewal project and the construction of I-75 displaced those residents and left behind a struggling community with minimal resources, even as it also drew more established, middle-class people, White and Black, out of center cities for newer housing. The city rebounded, but the slump of American manufacturing in the second half of the 20th century during industrial restructuring cost many jobs.
By the 1980s, Toledo had a depressed economy. The destruction of many buildings downtown, along with several failed business ventures in housing in the core, led to a reverse city-suburb wealth problem common in small cities with land to spare.
In 2018, Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc. invested $700 million into an East Toledo location as the site of a new hot-briquetted iron plant, designed to modernize the steel industry. The plant is slated to create over 1200 jobs and be completed in 2020.
Several initiatives have been taken by Toledo's citizens to improve the cityscape by urban gardening and revitalizing their communities. Local artists, supported by organizations like the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo and the Ohio Arts Council, have contributed an array of murals and beautification works to replace long standing blight. Many downtown historical buildings such as the Oliver House and Standart Lofts have been renovated into restaurants, condominiums, offices and art galleries.
Toledo is located at (41.665682, −83.575337). The city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
The city straddles the Maumee River at its mouth at the southern end of Maumee Bay, the westernmost inlet of Lake Erie. The city is located north of what had been the Great Black Swamp, giving rise to another nickname, "Frog Town." Toledo sits within the borders of a sandy oak savanna called the Oak Openings Region, an important ecological site that once comprised more than .
Toledo is within by road from seven metro areas that have a population of more than two million people; they are Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Chicago.
Toledo, as with much of the Great Lakes region, has a humid continental climate (Köppen "Dfa"), characterized by four distinct seasons. Lake Erie moderates the climate somewhat, especially in late spring and fall, when air and water temperature differences are maximal. However, this effect is lessened in the winter because Lake Erie (unlike the other Great Lakes) usually freezes over, coupled with prevailing winds that are often westerly. And in the summer, prevailing winds south and west over the lake bring heat and moisture to the city.
Summers are hot and humid, with July averaging and temperatures of or more seen on 16.5 days. Winters are cold and somewhat snowy, with a January mean temperature of , and lows at or below on 6.2 nights. The spring months tend to be the wettest time of year, although precipitation is common year-round. November and December can get very cloudy, but January and February usually clear up after the lake freezes. July is the sunniest month overall. of snow falls per year, much less than the Snow Belt cities, because of the prevailing wind direction. Temperature extremes have ranged from on January 21, 1984, to on July 14, 1936.
The Old West End is a historic neighborhood of Victorian, Arts & Crafts, and other Edwardian-style houses. The historic district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
According to the US Census Bureau, the Toledo Metropolitan Area covers four Ohio counties and one Michigan county, which combines with other micropolitan areas and counties for a combined statistical area. Some of what are now considered its suburbs in Ohio include: Bowling Green, Holland, Lake Township, Maumee, Millbury, Monclova Township, Northwood, Oregon, Ottawa Hills, Perrysburg, Rossford, Springfield Township, Sylvania, Walbridge, Waterville, Whitehouse, and Washington Township. Bedford Township, Michigan including the communities of Lambertville, Michigan, Temperance, Michigan, and Erie Township, Michigan are Toledo's Michigan suburbs, just above the city over the state line in Monroe County.
As of the 2010 census, the city proper had a population of 287,128. It is the principal city in the Toledo Metropolitan Statistical Area which had a population of 651,429 and was the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the state of Ohio, behind Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Akron. The larger Toledo-Fremont Combined Statistical Area had a population of 712,373. According to the Toledo Metropolitan Council of Governments, the Toledo/Northwest Ohio region of 10 counties has over 1 million residents.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated Toledo's population as 297,806 in 2006 and 295,029 in 2007. In response to an appeal by the City of Toledo, the Census Bureau's July 2007 estimate was revised to 316,851, slightly more than in 2000, which would have been the city's first population gain in 40 years. However, the 2010 census figures released in March 2011 showed the population as of April 1, 2010, at 287,208, indicating a 25% loss of population since its zenith in 1970.
As of the census of 2010, there were 287,208 people, 119,730 households, and 68,364 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 138,039 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 64.8% White, 27.2% African American, 0.4% Native American, 1.1% Asian, 2.6% from other races, and 3.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.4% of the population (The majority are Mexican American at 5.1%.) Non-Hispanic Whites were 61.4% of the population in 2010, down from 84% in 1970.
There were 119,730 households, of which 30.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.6% were married couples living together, 19.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.7% had a male householder with no wife present, and 42.9% were non-families. 34.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 3.01. There was a total of 139,871 housing units in the city, of which 10,946 (9.8%) were vacant.
The median age in the city was 34.2 years. 24% of residents were under the age of 18; 12.8% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 26.3% were from 25 to 44; 24.8% were from 45 to 64; and 12.1% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.4% male and 51.6% female.
As of the census of 2000, there were 313,619 people, and 77,355 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,890.2 people per square mile (1,502.0/km2). There were 139,871 housing units at an average density of 1,734.9 per square mile (669.9/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 70.2% White, 23.5% African American, 0.3% Native American,1.0% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 2.3% from other races, and 2.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.5% of the population in 2000. The most common ancestries cited were German (23.4%), Irish (10.8%), Polish (10.1%), English (6.0%), American (3.9%), Italian (3.0%), Hungarian, (2.0%), Dutch (1.4%), and Arab (1.2%).
In 2000 there were 128,925 households in Toledo, out of which 29.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.2% were married couples living together, 17.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.0% were non-families. 32.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 3.04.
In the city the population was spread out, with 26.2% under the age of 18, 11.0% from 18 to 24, 29.8% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from 45 to 64, and 13.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $32,546, and the median income for a family was $41,175. Males had a median income of $35,407 versus $25,023 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,388. About 14.2% of families and 17.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.9% of those under age 18 and 10.4% of those age 65 or over.
In 2018, the city was ranked 43rd of the Top 100 Most Dangerous Cities in America.
In the second decade of the 21st century, the city had a gradual peak in violent crime. In 2010, there was a combined total of 3,272 burglaries, 511 robberies, 753 aggravated assaults, 25 homicides, as well as 574 motor vehicle thefts out of what was then a decreasing population of 287,208. In 2011, there were 1,562 aggravated assaults, 30 homicides, 1,152 robberies, 8,366 burglaries, and 1,465 cases of motor vehicle theft. In 2012, there were a combined total of 39 murders, 2,015 aggravated assaults, 6,739 burglaries, and 1,334 cases of motor vehicle theft. In 2013 it had a drop in the crime rate. According to a state government task force, Toledo has been identified as the fourth-largest recruitment site for human trafficking in the US.
Before the industrial revolution, Toledo was important as a port city on the Great Lakes. With the advent of the automobile, the city became best known for industrial manufacturing. Both General Motors and Chrysler had factories in metropolitan Toledo, and automobile manufacturing has been important at least since Kirk started manufacturing automobiles, which began operations early in the 20th century. The largest employer in Toledo was Jeep for much of the 20th century. Since the late 20th century, industrial restructuring reduced the number of these well-paying jobs.
The University of Toledo is influential in the city, contributing to the prominence of healthcare as the city's biggest employer. The metro area contains four Fortune 500 companies: Dana Holding Corporation, Owens Corning, The Andersons, and Owens Illinois. ProMedica is a Fortune 1000 company headquartered in Toledo. One SeaGate is the location of Fifth-Third Bank's Northwest Ohio headquarters.
Toledo is known as the Glass City because of its long history of glass manufacturing, including windows, bottles, windshields, construction materials, and glass art, of which the Toledo Museum of Art has a large collection. Several large glass companies have their origins here. Owens-Illinois, Owens Corning, Libbey Incorporated, Pilkington North America (formerly Libbey-Owens-Ford), and Therma-Tru have long been a staple of Toledo's economy. Other offshoots and spinoffs of these companies also continue to play important roles in Toledo's economy. Fiberglass giant Johns Manville's two plants in the metro area were originally built by a subsidiary of Libbey-Owens-Ford.
Several Fortune 500 automotive-related companies had their headquarters in Toledo, including Electric AutoLite, Sheller-Globe Corporation, Champion Spark Plug, Questor, and Dana Holding Corporation. Only the latter still operates as an independent entity.
Faurecia Exhaust Systems, a $2 billion subsidiary of France's Faurecia SA, is in Toledo.
Toledo is the Jeep headquarters and has two production facilities dubbed the Toledo Complex, one in the city and one in suburban Perrysburg. During World War II, the city's industries produced important products for the military, particularly the Willys Jeep. Willys-Overland was a major automaker headquartered in Toledo until 1953.
Industrial restructuring and loss of jobs caused the city to adopt new strategies to retain its industrial companies. It offered tax incentives to DaimlerChrysler to expand its Jeep plant. In 2001, a taxpayer lawsuit was filed against Toledo that challenged the constitutionality of that action. In 2006, the city won the case by a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in "DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno".
General Motors also has operated a transmission plant in Toledo since 1916. It manufactures and assembles GM's six-speed and eight-speed rear-wheel-drive and six-speed front-wheel-drive transmissions that are used in a variety of GM vehicles.
Belying its Rust Belt history, the city saw growth in "green jobs" related to solar energy in the 2000s. The University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University received Ohio grants for solar energy research. Xunlight and First Solar opened plants in Toledo and the surrounding area.
In May 2019 Balance Farms began operation of a 8,168 square foot indoor aquaponics farm in downtown Toledo.
Toledo is home to a range of classical performing arts institutions, including The Toledo Opera, The Toledo Symphony Orchestra, the Toledo Jazz Orchestra and the Toledo Ballet. The city is also home to several theaters and performing arts institutions, including the Stranahan Theater, the historic Valentine Theatre, the Toledo Repertoire Theatre, the Collingwood Arts Center and the Ohio Theatre.
The Toledo Museum of Art is located in a Greek Revival building in the city's Old West End neighborhood. The Peristyle is the concert hall in Greek Revival style in its East Wing; it is the home of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, and hosts many international orchestras as well. The Museum's Center for Visual Arts addition was designed by Frank Gehry and opened in the 21st century. In addition, the museum's new Glass Pavilion across Monroe Street opened in August 2006. Toledo was the first city in Ohio to adopt a One Percent for Art program and, as such, boasts many examples of public, outdoor art. A number of walking tours have been set up to explore these works, which include large sculptures, environmental structures, and murals by more than 40 artists, such as Alice Adams, Pierre Clerk, Dale Eldred, Penelope Jencks, Hans Van De Bovenkamp, Jerry Peart, and Athena Tacha.
Toledo has a rich history of music, dating back to their early to mid-20th century glory days as a jazz haven. During this time, Toledo produced or nurtured such jazz legends as Art Tatum, Jon Hendricks, trombonist Jimmy Harrison, pianist Claude Black, guitarist Arv Garrison, pianist Johnny O’Neal, and many, many others. Later jazz greats from Toledo include Stanley Cowell, Larry Fuller, Bern Nix and Jean Holden.
Other well-known singers and musicians with Toledo roots include Teresa Brewer, Tom Scholz, Anita Baker, Shirley Murdock, American Idol runner-up Crystal Bowersox, The Rance Allen Group, Lyfe Jennings and Weezer bassist Scott Shriner.
The hit television show M*A*S*H featured actor and Toledo native Jamie Farr as Corporal Maxwell Klinger, also a Toledo native who shared many local references in the show, making the minor-league Toledo Mud Hens baseball team and hot dog eatery Tony Packo's Cafe famous around the world.
The Kenny Rogers 1977 hit song "Lucille" was written by Hal Bynum and inspired by his trip to Toledo in 1975.
Toledo is mentioned in the song "Our Song" by Yes from their 1983 album "90125". According to Yes drummer Alan White, Toledo was especially memorable for a sweltering-hot 1977 show the group did at Toledo Sports Arena.
The season 1 episode of the Warner Bros television series "Supernatural" titled "Bloody Mary" was set in Toledo.
The popular phrase "Holy Toledo," is thought to originally be a reference to the city's array of grand church designs from Gothic, Renaissance and Spanish Mission. There are many other theories as well.
Toledo is the setting for the 2010 television comedy "Melissa & Joey", with the first-named character being a city councilwoman.
Other movies and TV shows set in a fictionalized version of Toledo include A.P. Bio, Feed and Kiss Toledo Goodbye. The Tony Curtis vehicle, Johnny Dark was primarily shot in Toledo.
Martin Sheen's character, Willard, in Apocalypse Now reveals to Marlon Brando's Kurtz that he is from Toledo.
John Denver recorded "Saturday Night In Toledo, Ohio," composed by Randy Sparks. He wrote it in 1967 after arriving in Toledo with his group and finding no nightlife at 10 p.m. After Denver performed the song on "The Tonight Show", Toledo residents objected. In response, the City Fathers recorded a song entitled "We're Strong For Toledo". Ultimately the controversy was such that John Denver cancelled a concert in Toledo shortly thereafter. But when he returned for a 1980 concert, he set a one-show attendance record at the venue, Centennial Hall, and sang the song to the approval of the crowd.
These higher education institutions operate campuses in Toledo:
Toledo Public Schools operates public schools within much of the city limits, along with the Washington Local School District in northern Toledo. Toledo is also home to several public charter schools including two Imagine Schools. Additionally, several private and parochial primary and secondary schools are present within the Toledo area. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo operates Roman Catholic primary and secondary schools in 19 counties in Northwest Ohio, including Lucas County and the Toledo area. Notable private high schools in Toledo include:
The eleven-county Northwest Ohio/Toledo/Fremont media market includes over 1 million residents. "The Blade", a daily newspaper founded in 1835, is the primary newspaper in Toledo. The front page claims that it is "One of America's Great Newspapers." The city's arts and entertainment weekly is the "Toledo City Paper". From March 2005 to 2015, the weekly newspaper "Toledo Free Press" was published, and it had a focus on news and sports. Other weeklies include the "West Toledo Herald", "El Tiempo", "La Prensa", "Sojourner's Truth", and "Toledo Journal". "Toledo Tales" provides satire and parody of life in the Glass City. The "Toledo Journal" is an African-American owned newspaper. It is published weekly, and normally focuses on African-American issues.
Eight television stations are in Toledo. They are: 11 WTOL – CBS, 13 WTVG – ABC, 13.2 - WTVG - CW, 24 WNWO-TV – NBC, 30 WGTE-TV – PBS, 36 WUPW – Fox, 38 W38DH – HSN, 40 WLMB – The Cowboy Channel and 48 "(Over-the-air Only)" and 58 "(Cable Only, per the "My 58" moniker)" WMNT-CD – Infomercials. 27 WBGU – PBS in Bowling Green is also viewable. Toledoans can also watch the adjacent Detroit and Ann Arbor market stations, both over-the air and on cable. There are also fourteen radio stations licensed in Toledo.
Three major interstate highways run through Toledo. Interstate 75 (I-75) travels north–south and provides a direct route to Detroit and Cincinnati. The Ohio Turnpike carries east–west traffic on I-80/90. The Turnpike serves Toledo via exits 52, 59, 64, 71, and 81. The Turnpike connects Toledo to Chicago in the west and Cleveland in the east.
In addition, there are two auxiliary interstate highways in the area. Interstate 475 is a 20-mile bypass that begins in Perrysburg and ends in west Toledo, meeting I-75 at both ends. It is cosigned with US 23 for its first 13 miles. Interstate 280 is a spur that connects the Ohio Turnpike to I-75 through east and central Toledo. The Veterans' Glass City Skyway is part of this route, which was the most expensive ODOT project ever at its completion. This tall bridge includes a glass covered pylon, which lights up at night, adding a distinctive feature to Toledo's skyline. The Anthony Wayne Bridge, a suspension bridge crossing the Maumee River, has been a staple of Toledo's skyline for more than 80 years. It is locally known as the "High-Level Bridge."
Local bus service is provided by the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority; commonly shortened to TARTA. Toledo area Paratransit Services; TARPS are used for the disabled. Intercity bus service is provided by Greyhound Lines whose station is located at Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza which it shares with Amtrak. Megabus also provides daily trips to Ann Arbor, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Toledo has various cab companies within its city limits and other ones that surround the metro.
Toledo Express Airport, located in the suburbs of Monclova and Swanton Townships, is the primary airport that serves the city. Additionally, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is 45 miles north. Toledo Executive Airport (formerly Metcalf Field) is a general aviation airport southeast of Toledo near the I-280 and Ohio SR 795 interchange. Toledo Suburban Airport is another general aviation airport located in Lambertville, MI just north of the state border.
Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to Toledo and other major cities under the "Capitol Limited" and the "Lake Shore Limited". Both lines stop at Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza, which was built as Central Union Terminal by the New York Central Railroad—along its Water Level Route—in 1950. Of the seven Ohio stations served by Amtrak, Toledo was the busiest in fiscal year 2011, boarding or detraining 66,413 passengers. Freight rail service presently in Toledo is operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway, CSX Transportation, Canadian National Railway, Ann Arbor Railroad, and Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. All except the Wheeling have local terminals; the Wheeling operates into Toledo from the east through trackage rights on Norfolk Southern to connect with the Ann Arbor and CN railroads.
Historically, Toledo was a major rail hub where the New York Central, Baltimore and Ohio, Wabash, Nickle Plate, Ann Arbor, Toledo Peoria and Western, Chesapeake and Ohio/Pere Marquette, Wheeling and Lake Erie railroads moved a large amount of freight to and from Toledo's many industries such as Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass, and Willys-Overland (Jeep) Motors.
Toledo had a streetcar system and interurban railways linking it to other nearby towns but these are no longer in existence. Seven interurban companies radiated from Toledo. In the early 1930s, three of the seven, the Cincinnati and Lake Erie from Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, and Springfield, the Lake Shore Electric from Cleveland, and the Eastern Michigan Ry from Detroit, moved a large amount of freight and passengers between those heavily industrialized cities. The Great Depression and growing inter city competition from trucks on newly improved roads by the Ohio caused abandonment of all by 1938, and some interurban lines much earlier. The interurban station where all lines met and exchanged passengers was on N. Summit Street. Freight was exchanged in a rail yard with a warehouse off Lucas Street.
Originating in Toledo, ProMedica is an integrated healthcare organization founded in 2009. It has grown rapidly to become the country's 15th largest non-profit health care system in the United States, with 2018 revenues of $7 billion. It is headquartered on Madison Avenue in Downtown Toledo and maintains 13 hospitals in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, including ProMedica Toledo Hospital, the largest acute care hospital in the area.
Mercy Health - St. Vincent Medical Center, Toledo's first hospital and part of Mercy Health Partners, holds the highest designation for treating high-risk mothers and babies, is a Level I Trauma Center for children & adults, and is an accredited Chest Pain Center. It is located in the Vistula Historic District on the city's north side.
There are also 18 community health centers in Toledo. Some examples include the Cordelia Martin Community Health Center, the East Toledo Community Health Center, and the Monroe Street Neighborhood Center.
The Division of Water Treatment filters an average of 80 million gallons of water per day for 500,000 people in the greater Toledo Metropolitan area. The Division of Water Distribution serves 136,000 metered accounts and 10,000 fire hydrants and maintains more than of water mains.
In August 2014, two samples from a water treatment plant toxin test showed signs of microcystis. Roughly 400,000, including residents of Toledo and several surrounding communities in Ohio and Michigan were affected by the water contamination. Residents were told not to use, drink, cook with, or boil any tap water on the evening of August 1, 2014. The Ohio National Guard delivered water and food to residents living in contaminated areas. , no one had reported being sick and the governor had declared a state of emergency in three counties. The ban was lifted on August 4.
Toledo was twinned with Toledo, Spain, in 1931, creating the first sister city relationship in the United States. In total, Toledo has thirteen sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International (SCI): | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30849 |
Toledo War
The Toledo War (1835–36), also known as the Michigan-Ohio War or Ohio-Michigan War, was an almost bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.
Poor geographical understanding of the Great Lakes helped produce conflicting state and federal legislation between 1787 and 1805, and varying interpretations of the laws led the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim jurisdiction over a region along the border, now known as the Toledo Strip. The situation came to a head when Michigan petitioned for statehood in 1835 and sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries. Both sides passed legislation attempting to force the other side's capitulation, while Ohio's Governor Robert Lucas and Michigan's 24-year-old "Boy Governor" Stevens T. Mason helped institute criminal penalties for citizens submitting to the other's authority. Both states deployed militias on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but besides mutual taunting, there was little interaction between the two forces. The single military confrontation of the "war" ended with a report of shots being fired into the air, incurring no casualties.
During the summer of 1836, Congress proposed a compromise whereby Michigan gave up its claim to the strip in exchange for its statehood and about three-quarters of the Upper Peninsula. Although the northern region's mineral wealth would later become an economic asset to Michigan, at the time the compromise was considered a poor outcome for the new state, and voters in a statehood convention in September soundly rejected the proposal. But in December, the Michigan government, facing a dire financial crisis and pressure from Congress and President Andrew Jackson, called another convention (called the "Frostbitten Convention") which accepted the compromise that resolved the Toledo War.
In 1787, the Congress of the Confederation enacted the Northwest Ordinance, which created the Northwest Territory in what is now the upper Midwestern United States. The Ordinance specified that the territory was eventually to be divided into "not less than three nor more than five" future states. It was determined that the north–south boundary for three of these states was to be "an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan" (now known to be approximately 41.62° N, near Marquette Park, Gary, Indiana).
At the time, the actual location of this extreme was unknown. The most highly regarded map of the time, the "Mitchell Map", placed it at a latitude near the mouth of the Detroit River (approximately 42.05° N). This meant that the entire shoreline of Lake Erie west of Pennsylvania would have belonged to the state that was to become Ohio. When Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1802, which authorized Ohio to begin the process of becoming a U.S. state, the language defining Ohio's northern boundary differed slightly from that used in the Northwest Ordinance: the border was to be "an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east ... until it shall intersect Lake Erie or the territorial line [with British North America], and thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line aforesaid".
Because the territorial boundary line between the U.S. and British North America (specifically, the province of Quebec until 1791 and Upper Canada thereafter) ran through the middle of Lake Erie and then up the Detroit River, combined with the prevailing belief regarding the location of the southern tip of Lake Michigan, the framers of the 1802 Ohio Constitution believed it was the intent of Congress that Ohio's northern boundary should certainly be north of the mouth of the Maumee River, and possibly even of the Detroit River. Ohio would thus be granted access to most or all of the Lake Erie shoreline west of Pennsylvania, and any other new states carved out of the Northwest Territory would have access to the Great Lakes only via Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior.
During the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1802, the delegates allegedly received reports from a fur trapper that Lake Michigan extended significantly farther south than had previously been believed (or mapped). Thus, it was possible that an east-west line extending east from Lake Michigan's southern tip might intersect Lake Erie somewhere east of Maumee Bay, or worse, might not intersect the lake at all; the farther south that Lake Michigan actually extended, the more land Ohio would lose, perhaps even the entire Lake Erie shoreline west of Pennsylvania.
Addressing this contingency, the Ohio delegates included a provision in the draft Ohio constitution that if the trapper's report about Lake Michigan's position was correct, the state boundary line would be angled slightly northeast so as to intersect Lake Erie at the "most northerly cape of the Miami [Maumee] Bay". This provision would guarantee that most of the Maumee River watershed and all of the southern shore of Lake Erie west of Pennsylvania would fall in Ohio. The draft constitution with this proviso was accepted by the United States Congress, but before Ohio's admission to the Union in February 1803, the proposed constitution was referred to a Congressional committee. The committee's report stated that the clause defining the northern boundary depended on "a fact not yet ascertained" (the latitude of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan), and the members "thought it unnecessary to take it [the provision], at the time, into consideration."
When Congress created the Michigan Territory in 1805, it used the Northwest Ordinance's language to define the territory's southern boundary, which therefore differed from that in Ohio's state constitution. This difference, and its potential ramifications, apparently went unnoticed at the time, but it established the legal basis for the conflict that would erupt 30 years later.
The location of the border was contested throughout the early 19th century. Residents of the Port of Miami—which would later become Toledo—urged the Ohio government to resolve the border issue. The Ohio legislature, in turn, passed repeated resolutions and requests asking Congress to take up the matter. In 1812, Congress approved a request for an official survey of the line. Delayed because of the War of 1812, it was only after Indiana's admission to the Union in 1816 that work on the survey commenced. U.S. Surveyor General Edward Tiffin, who was in charge of the survey, was a former Ohio governor. As a result, Tiffin employed surveyor William Harris to survey not the Ordinance Line, but the line as described in the Ohio Constitution of 1802. When completed, the "Harris Line" placed the mouth of the Maumee River completely in Ohio. When the results of the survey were made public, Michigan territorial governor Lewis Cass was unhappy, since it was not based on the Congressionally approved Ordinance Line. In a letter to Tiffin, Cass stated that the Ohio-biased survey "is only adding strength to the strong, and making the weak still weaker."
In response, Michigan commissioned a second survey that was carried out by John A. Fulton. The Fulton survey was based upon the original 1787 Ordinance Line, and after measuring the line eastward from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie, it found the Ohio boundary to lie south of the mouth of the Maumee River. The region between the Harris and Fulton survey lines formed what is now known as the "Toledo Strip". This ribbon of land between northern Ohio and southern Michigan spanned a region wide, over which both jurisdictions claimed sovereignty. While Ohio refused to cede its claim, Michigan quietly occupied it for the next several years, setting up local governments, building roads, and collecting taxes throughout the area.
The land known as the Toledo Strip was and still is a commercially important area. Prior to the rise of the railroad industry, rivers and canals were the major "highways of commerce" in the American Midwest. A small but important part of the Strip—the area around present-day Toledo and Maumee Bay—fell within the Great Black Swamp, and this area was nearly impossible to navigate by road, especially after spring and summer rains. Draining into Lake Erie, the Maumee River was not necessarily well-suited for large ships, but it did provide an easy connection to Indiana's Fort Wayne. At the time, there were plans to connect the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes through a series of canals. One such canal system approved by the Ohio legislature in 1825 was the Miami and Erie Canal that included a connection to the Ohio River and an outflow into Lake Erie via the Maumee River.
During the conflict over the Toledo Strip, the Erie Canal was built, linking New York City and the Eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes at Buffalo. The canal finished in 1825, immediately became a major route for trade and migration. Corn and other farm products (from the Midwest) could be shipped to eastern markets for much less expense than the older route along the Mississippi River. In addition, the migration of settlers to the Midwest increased sharply after the canal was finished, turning Buffalo and other port cities into boomtowns.
The success of the Erie Canal inspired many other canal projects. Because the western end of Lake Erie offered the shortest overland route to the frontiers of Indiana and Illinois, Maumee Harbor was seen as a site of immediate importance and great value. Detroit was up the Detroit River from Lake Erie, and faced the difficult barrier of the Great Black Swamp to the south. Because of this, Detroit was less suited to new transportation projects such as canals, and later railroads, than was Toledo. From this perspective on the rapidly developing Midwest of the 1820s and 1830s, both states had much to gain by controlling the land in the Toledo Strip.
In addition, the Strip west of the Toledo area is a prime location for agriculture, because of its well-drained, fertile loam soil. The area had for many years produced large amounts of corn and wheat per acre. Michigan and Ohio both wanted what seemed strategically and economically destined to become an important port and a prosperous region.
In 1820–21, the federal land surveys had reached the disputed area from two directions, progressing southward from a baseline in Michigan and northward from one in Ohio. For unknown reasons, Surveyor General Tiffin ordered the two surveys to close on the Northwest Ordinance (Fulton) line, rather than Harris' line, perhaps lending implicit support to Michigan's claims over Ohio's. Thus, townships that were established north of the line assumed they were part of the Michigan Territory. By the early 1820s, the growing territory reached the minimum population threshold of 60,000 to qualify for statehood. When Michigan sought to hold a state constitutional convention in 1833, Congress rejected the request because of the still-disputed Toledo Strip.
Ohio asserted that the boundary was firmly established in its constitution and thus Michigan's citizens were simply intruders; the state government refused to negotiate the issue with the Michigan Territory. The Ohio Congressional delegation was active in blocking Michigan from attaining statehood, lobbying other states to vote against Michigan. In January 1835, frustrated by the political stalemate, Michigan's acting territorial Governor Stevens T. Mason called for a constitutional convention to be held in May of that year despite Congress' refusal to approve an enabling act authorizing such a state constitution.
In February 1835, Ohio passed legislation that set up county governments in the Strip. The county in which Toledo sat would, later in 1835, be named after incumbent Governor Robert Lucas, a move that further exacerbated the growing tensions with Michigan. Also, during this period, Ohio attempted to use its power in Congress to revive a previously rejected boundary bill that would formally set the state border to be the Harris Line.
Michigan, led by the young and hot-headed Mason, responded with the passage of the Pains and Penalties Act just six days after Lucas County was formed; the act made it a criminal offense for Ohioans to carry out governmental actions in the Strip, under penalty of a fine up to $1,000, up to five years imprisonment at hard labor, or both. Acting as commander-in-chief of the territory, Mason appointed Brigadier General Joseph W. Brown of the Third U.S. Brigade to head the state militia, with the instructions to be ready to act against Ohio trespassers. Lucas obtained legislative approval for a militia of his own, and he soon sent forces to the Strip area. The Toledo War had begun.
Former United States President John Quincy Adams, who at the time represented Massachusetts in Congress, backed Michigan's claim. In 1833, when Congress rejected Michigan's request for a convention, Adams summed up his opinion on the dispute: "Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other."
Acting as commander-in-chief of Ohio's militia, Governor Lucas—along with General John Bell and about 600 other fully armed militiamen—arrived in Perrysburg, Ohio, southwest of Toledo, on March 31, 1835. Shortly thereafter, Governor Mason and General Brown arrived to occupy the city of Toledo proper with around 1,000 armed men, intending to prevent Ohio advances into the Toledo area as well as stopping further border marking from taking place.
In a desperate attempt to prevent armed battle and to avert the resulting political crisis, U.S. President Andrew Jackson consulted his Attorney General, Benjamin Butler, for his legal opinion on the border dispute. At the time, Ohio was a growing political power in the Union, with nineteen U.S. representatives and two senators. In contrast, Michigan, still being a territory, had only a single non-voting delegate. Ohio was a crucial swing state in presidential elections, and it would have been devastating to the fledgling Democratic Party to lose Ohio's electoral votes. Therefore, Jackson calculated that his party's best interest would be served by keeping the Toledo Strip a part of Ohio.
The response that Jackson received from Butler was unexpected: the Attorney General held that until Congress dictated otherwise, the land rightfully belonged to Michigan. This presented a political dilemma for Jackson that spurred him to take action that would greatly influence the outcome of the "war".
On April 3, 1835, Jackson sent two representatives from Washington, D.C., Richard Rush of Pennsylvania and Benjamin Chew Howard of Maryland, to Toledo to arbitrate the conflict and present a compromise to both governments. The proposal, presented on April 7, recommended that the re-survey to mark the Harris Line commence without further interruption by Michigan, and that the residents of the affected region be allowed to choose their own state or territorial governments until the Congress could definitively settle the matter.
Lucas reluctantly agreed to the proposal and began to disband his militia, believing the debate to be settled. Three days later, elections in the region were held under Ohio law. Mason refused the deal and he continued to prepare for possible armed conflict.
During the elections, Ohio officials were harassed by Michigan authorities and the area residents were threatened with arrest if they submitted to Ohio's authority. On April 8, 1835, the Monroe County, Michigan sheriff arrived at the home of Major Benjamin F. Stickney, an Ohio partisan. In the first contact between Michigan partisans and the Stickney family, the sheriff arrested two Ohioans under the Pains and Penalties Act on the basis that the men had voted in the Ohio elections.
Following the election, Lucas believed that the commissioners' actions had alleviated the situation and he once again sent out surveyors to mark the Harris Line. The project went without serious incident until April 26, 1835, when the surveying group was attacked by fifty to sixty members of General Brown's militia in what is now called the "Battle of Phillips Corners". The battle's name is sometimes used as a synonym for the entire Toledo War.
Surveyors wrote to Lucas afterwards that while observing "the blessings of the Sabbath", Michigan militia forces advised them to retreat. In the ensuing chase, "nine of our men, who did not leave the ground in time after being fired upon by the enemy, from thirty to fifty shots, were taken prisoners and carried away into Tecumseh, Michigan." While the details of the attack are disputed—Michigan claimed it fired no shots and had only discharged a few musket rounds in the air as the Ohio group retreated—the battle further infuriated both Ohioans and Michiganders and brought the two sides to the brink of all-out war.
In response to allegations that Michigan's militia fired upon Ohioans, Lucas called a special session of Ohio's legislature on June 8, 1835 to pass several more controversial acts, including the establishment of Toledo as the county seat of Lucas County, the establishment of a Court of Common Pleas in the city, a law to prevent the forcible abduction of Ohio citizens from the area, and a budget of $300,000 to implement the legislation. Michigan's territorial legislature responded with a budget appropriation of $315,000.00 to fund "its" militia.
In May and June 1835, Michigan drafted a State Constitution, with provisions for a bicameral legislature, a supreme court, and other components of a functional state government. Congress was still not willing to allow Michigan's entry into the Union, and President Jackson vowed to reject Michigan's statehood until the border issue and "war" were resolved.
Lucas ordered his adjutant general, Samuel C. Andrews, to conduct a count of the militia, and was told that 10,000 volunteers were ready to fight. That news became exaggerated as it traveled north, and soon thereafter the Michigan territorial press dared the Ohio "million" to enter the Strip as they "welcomed them to hospitable graves."
In June 1835, Lucas dispatched a delegation consisting of U.S. Attorney Noah Haynes Swayne, former Congressman William Allen, and David T. Disney to Washington D.C. to confer with President Andrew Jackson. The delegation presented Ohio's case and urged the President to act swiftly to address the situation.
Throughout mid-1835, both governments continued their practice of one-upmanship, and constant skirmishes and arrests occurred. Citizens of Monroe County joined together in a posse to make arrests in Toledo. Partisans from Ohio, angered by the harassment, targeted the offenders with criminal prosecutions. Lawsuits were not only rampant, they served as a basis for retaliatory lawsuits from the opposite side. Partisans from both sides organized spying parties to keep track of the sheriffs of Wood County, Ohio and Monroe County, Michigan who were entrusted with the security of the border.
On July 15, 1835, tensions and emotions finally overflowed and blood was spilled. Monroe County, Michigan, Deputy Sheriff Joseph Wood went into Toledo to arrest Major Benjamin Stickney, but when Stickney and his family resisted, the whole family was subdued and taken into custody. During the scuffle, Two Stickney, son of the major, stabbed Wood with a pen knife and fled south into Ohio. Wood's injuries were not life-threatening. When Lucas refused Mason's demand to extradite Two Stickney back to Michigan for trial, Mason wrote to President Jackson for help, suggesting that the matter be referred to the United States Supreme Court. At the time of the conflict it was not established that the Supreme Court could resolve state boundary disputes, and Jackson declined the offer. Looking for peace, Lucas began making his own efforts to end the conflict, again through federal intervention via Ohio's congressional delegation.
In August 1835, at the strong urging of Ohio's Congressmen, President Jackson removed Mason as Michigan's Territorial Governor and appointed John S. ("Little Jack") Horner in his stead. Before his replacement arrived, Mason ordered 1,000 Michigan militiamen to enter Toledo and prevent the symbolically important first session of the Ohio Court of Common Pleas. While the idea was popular with Michigan residents, the effort failed: the judges held a midnight court before quickly retreating south of the Maumee River, where Ohio forces were positioned.
Mason's successor Horner proved to be extremely unpopular as governor and his tenure was very short. Residents disliked him so much they burned him in effigy and pelted him with vegetables upon his entry into the territorial capital. In the October 1835 elections, voters approved the draft constitution and elected the popular Mason as state governor. The same election saw Isaac E. Crary chosen as Michigan's first U.S. Representative to Congress. Because of the dispute Congress refused to accept his credentials and seated him as a non-voting delegate. The two U.S. Senators chosen by the state legislature in November, Lucius Lyon and John Norvell, were treated with even less respect, being allowed to sit only as spectators in the Senate gallery.
On June 15, 1836, Jackson signed a bill that allowed Michigan to become a state, but only after it ceded the Toledo Strip. In exchange for this concession, Michigan would be granted the western three-quarters of what is now known as the Upper Peninsula (the easternmost portion had already been included in the state boundaries). Because of the perceived worthlessness of the Upper Peninsula's remote wilderness, a September 1836 special convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan, rejected the offer.
As the year wore on, Michigan found itself deep in a financial crisis and was nearly bankrupt, because of the high militia expenses. The government was spurred to action by the realization that a $400,000 surplus ($ in ) in the United States Treasury was about to be distributed to the 25 states, but not to territorial governments. Michigan would have been ineligible to receive a share of the money.
The "war" unofficially ended on December 14, 1836, at a second convention in Ann Arbor. Delegates passed a resolution to accept the terms set forth by the Congress. The calling of the convention was itself controversial. It had only come about because of an upswelling of private summonses, petitions, and public meetings. Since the legislature did not approve a call to convention, some said the convention was illegal. Whigs boycotted the convention. As a consequence, the resolution was rejected and ridiculed by many Michigan residents. Congress questioned the legality of the convention, but accepted the results of the convention regardless of its concerns. Because of these factors, as well as because of the notable cold spell at the time, the event later became known as the Frostbitten Convention.
On January 26, 1837, Michigan was finally admitted to the Union as the 26th state, without the Toledo Strip.
The Toledo strip became a permanent part of Ohio, while the Upper Peninsula was considered a worthless wilderness by almost all familiar with the area. The vast mineral riches of the land were unknown to the settlers until the discovery of copper in the Keweenaw Peninsula and iron in the Central Upper Peninsula; this discovery led to a mining boom that lasted long into the 20th century. Michigan's loss of of agricultural land and the port of Toledo was balanced by the gain of of timber and ore-rich land.
Differences of opinion about the exact boundary location continued until a definitive re-survey was performed in 1915. Re-survey protocol would ordinarily require the surveyors to follow the Harris line exactly, but in this case, the surveyors deviated from the line in places. This prevented the situation of certain residents near the border being subject to changes in state residence, or land owners having parcels on both sides of the border. The 1915 survey was delineated by 71 granite markers, wide by high. Upon completion, the two states' governors, Woodbridge N. Ferris of Michigan and Frank B. Willis of Ohio, shook hands at the border.
Traces of the original Ordinance Line can still be seen in northwestern Ohio and northern Indiana. The northernmost boundaries of Ottawa and Wood counties follow it, as well as many township boundaries in Fulton and Williams counties. Many old north–south roads are offset as they cross the line, forcing traffic to jog east while traveling north. The line is identified on United States Geological Survey topographical maps as the "South [Boundary] Michigan Survey", and on Lucas County and Fulton County road maps as "Old State Line Road".
While the border on land was firmly set in the early 20th century, the two states were still in disagreement on the path of the border to the east, in Lake Erie. In 1973, the two states finally obtained a hearing before the United States Supreme Court on their competing claims to the Lake Erie waters. In "Michigan v. Ohio", the court upheld a special master's report and ruled that the boundary between the two states in Lake Erie was angled to the northeast, as described in Ohio's state constitution, and not a straight east–west line. One consequence of the court decision was that tiny Turtle Island just outside Maumee Bay and originally treated as being wholly in Michigan, was split between the two states.
This decision was the last border adjustment, putting an end to years of debate over the official boundary line. In modern times, although a general rivalry between Michiganders and Ohioans persists, overt conflict between the states is restricted primarily to the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry in American football and to a lesser degree to the rivalry between the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians in American League baseball; the Toledo War is cited as the origins of the animosity represented in today's rivalry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30850 |
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region that is located in central Romania. Bound on the east and south by its natural borders, the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended westward to the Apuseni Mountains. The term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also parts of the historical regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally the Romanian part of Banat.
The region of Transylvania is known for the scenery of its Carpathian landscape and its rich history. It also contains major cities such as Cluj-Napoca, Brașov, Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, Alba Iulia, and Bistrița.
The Western world commonly associates Transylvania with vampires, thanks to the dominant influence of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" and the many films the tale inspired.
The earliest known reference to Transylvania appears in a Medieval Latin document of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1075 as , meaning "beyond the forest" ( meaning "beyond" or "on the far side of" and the accusative case of () "woods, forest"). Transylvania, with an alternative Latin prepositional prefix, means "on the other side of the woods". Hungarian historians claim that the Medieval Latin form , later , was a direct translation from the Hungarian form . That also was used as an alternative name in German (13th–14th centuries) and Ukrainian ().
Historical names of Transylvania are:
In Romanian, the region is known as () or ; in Hungarian as ; in German as ; and in Turkish as but historically as or ; see also other denominations.
Transylvania has been dominated by several different peoples and countries throughout its history. It was once the nucleus of the Kingdom of Dacia (82 BC – 106 AD). In 106 AD the Roman Empire conquered the territory, systematically exploiting its resources. After the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of various tribes, bringing it under the control of the Carpi, Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, and Slavs. From 9th to 11th century Bulgarians ruled Transylvania. It is a subject of dispute whether elements of the mixed Daco–Roman population survived in Transylvania through the Post-classical Era (becoming the ancestors of modern Romanians) or the first Vlachs/Romanians appeared in the area in the 13th century after a northward migration from the Balkan Peninsula. There is an ongoing scholarly debate over the ethnicity of Transylvania's population before the Hungarian conquest (see Origin of the Romanians).
The Magyars conquered much of Central Europe at the end of the 9th century. According to Gesta Hungarorum, the Vlach voivode Gelou ruled Transylvania before the Hungarians arrived. The Kingdom of Hungary established partial control over Transylvania in 1003, when king Stephen I, according to legend, defeated the prince named "Gyula". Some historians assert Transylvania was settled by Hungarians in several stages between the 10th and 13th centuries, while others claim that it was already settled, since the earliest Hungarian artifacts found in the region are dated to the first half of the 10th century.
Between 1003 and 1526, Transylvania was a voivodeship in the Kingdom of Hungary, led by a voivode appointed by the King of Hungary. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of János Szapolyai. Later, in 1570, the kingdom transformed into the Principality of Transylvania, which was ruled primarily by Calvinist Hungarian princes. During that time, the ethnic composition of Transylvania was estimated in Antun Vrančić's work, but according to how the original text was translated by Romanian or Hungarian scholars, there are two different variants of interpretations. According to the Romanian interpretations, Antun Vrančić wrote that Transylvania "is inhabited by three nations – Székelys, Hungarians and Saxons; I should also add the Romanians who – even though they easily equal the others in number – have no liberties, no nobility and no rights of their own, except for a small number living in the District of Hátszeg, where it is believed that the capital of Decebalus lay, and who were made nobles during the time of John Hunyadi, a native of that place, because they always took part tirelessly in the battles against the Turks", while according to the Hungarian interpretations the translation of the first part of the sentence would be "...I should also add the Romanians who – even though they easily equal "any of" the others in number...". In 1650, Vasile Lupu wrote in a letter to the Sultan that the Romanians already numbered more than one-third of the population of Transylvania. For most of this period, Transylvania, maintaining its internal autonomy, was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.
The Habsburgs acquired the territory shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683. In 1687, the rulers of Transylvania recognized the suzerainty of the Habsburg emperor Leopold I, and the region was officially attached to the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburgs acknowledged Principality of Transylvania as one of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, but the territory of principality was administratively separated from Habsburg Hungary and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor's governors. In 1699 the Turks legally acknowledged their loss of Transylvania in the Treaty of Karlowitz; however, some anti-Habsburg elements within the principality submitted to the emperor only in the 1711 Peace of Szatmár, and Habsburg control over Principality of Transylvania was consolidated. The Grand Principality of Transylvania was reintroduced 54 years later in 1765.
The Hungarian revolution against the Habsburgs started in 1848. The revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary grew into a war for the total independence from the Habsburg dynasty. Julius Jacob von Haynau, the leader of the Austrian army was appointed plenipotentiary to restore order in Hungary after the conflict. He ordered the execution of The 13 Hungarian Martyrs of Arad and Prime Minister Batthyány was executed the same day in Pest. After a series of serious Austrian defeats in 1849, the empire came close to the brink of collapse. Thus, the new young emperor Franz Joseph I had to call for Russian help in the name of the Holy Alliance. Czar Nicholas, I answered, and sent 200,000 men strong army with 80,000 auxiliary forces. Finally, the joint army of Russian and Austrian forces defeated the Hungarian forces. After the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under martial law. Following the Hungarian Army's surrender at Világos (now Șiria, Romania) in 1849, their revolutionary banners were taken to Russia by the Tsarist troops and were kept there both under the Tsarist and Communist systems (in 1940 the Soviet Union offered the banners to the Horthy government).
After the Ausgleich of 1867, the Principality of Transylvania was once again abolished. The territory then became part of Transleithania, an addition to the newly established Austro-Hungarian Empire. Romanian intellectuals issued the Blaj Pronouncement in protest.
The region was the site of an important battle during World War I, which caused the replacement of the German Chief of Staff, temporarily ceased German offensives on all the other fronts and created a unified Central Powers command under the German Kaiser. Following defeat in World War I, Austria-Hungary disintegrated. Elected representatives of the ethnic Romanians from Transylvania, Banat, Crişana and Maramureş backed by the mobilization of Romanian troops, proclaimed Union with Romania on 1 December 1918. The "Proclamation of Union" of Alba Iulia was adopted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania and supported one month later by the vote of the Deputies of the Saxons from Transylvania.
The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day (also called "Unification Day") occurring on December 1, celebrates this event. The holiday was established after the Romanian Revolution, and marks the unification not only of Transylvania but also of the provinces of Banat, Bessarabia and Bukovina with the Romanian Kingdom. These other provinces had all joined with the Kingdom of Romania a few months earlier. In 1920, the Treaty of Trianon established new borders, much of the proclaimed territories became part of Romania. Hungary protested against the new state borders, as they did not follow the real ethnic boundaries, for over 1.3 or 1.6 million Hungarian people, representing 25.5 or 31.6% of the Transylvanian population (depending on statistics used), were living on the Romanian side of the border, mainly in the Székely Land of Eastern Transylvania, and along the newly created border.
In August 1940, by the Second Vienna Award, with the arbitration of Germany and Italy, Hungary gained Northern Transylvania (including parts of Crișana and Maramureș) totaling over 40% of the territory lost in 1920. This award did not solve the nationality problem, as over 1.15–1.3 million Romanians (or 48% to more than 50% of the population of the ceded territory) remained in Northern Transylvania while 0.36–0.8 million Hungarians (or 11% to more than 20% of the population) continued to reside in Southern Transylvania. The Second Vienna Award was voided on 12 September 1944 by the Allied Commission through the Armistice Agreement with Romania (Article 19); and the 1947 Treaty of Paris reaffirmed the borders between Romania and Hungary, as originally defined in the Treaty of Trianon, 27 years earlier, thus confirming the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania.
From 1947 to 1989, Transylvania, along with the rest of Romania, was under a communist regime. The ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș occurred between ethnic Romanians and Hungarians in March 1990 after the fall of the communist regime and became the most notable inter-ethnic incident in the post-communist era.
The Transylvanian Plateau, high, is drained by the Mureș, Someș, Criș, and Olt rivers, as well as other tributaries of the Danube. This core of historical Transylvania roughly corresponds with nine counties of modern Romania. The plateau is almost entirely surrounded by the Eastern, Southern and Romanian Western branches of the Carpathian Mountains. The area includes the Transylvanian Plain. Other areas to the west and north are widely considered part of Transylvania. In common reference, the Western border of Transylvania has come to be identified with the present Romanian-Hungarian border, settled in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, though geographically the two are not identical.
Ethnographic areas:
The area of the historical Voivodeship is .
The regions granted to Romania in 1920 covered 23 counties including nearly (102,787–103,093 km2 in Hungarian sources and 102,200 km2 in contemporary Romanian documents). Nowadays, due to the several administrative reorganisations, the territory covers 16 counties (Romanian: "judeţ"), with an area of , in central and northwest Romania.
The 16 counties are: Alba, Arad, Bihor, Bistriţa-Năsăud, Brașov, Caraș-Severin, Cluj, Covasna, Harghita, Hunedoara, Maramureș, Mureș, Sălaj, Satu Mare, Sibiu, and Timiș.
Transylvania contains both largely urban counties, such as Brașov and Hunedoara counties, as well as largely rural ones, such as Bistriţa-Năsăud and Sălaj counties.
Since 1998, Romania has been divided into eight development regions, acting as divisions that coordinate and implement socio-economic development at regional level. Six counties (Alba, Brașov, Covasna, Harghita, Mureș and Sibiu) form the Centru development region, other six counties (Bihor, Bistrița-Năsăud, Cluj, Maramureș, Satu Mare, Sălaj) form the Nord-Vest development region, while four (Arad, Caraș-Severin, Hunedoara, Timiș) form the Vest development region.
The most populous cities as of 2011 census (metropolitan areas, as of 2014):
Cluj-Napoca, commonly known as Cluj, is the second most populous city in Romania, after the national capital Bucharest, and the seat of Cluj County. From 1790 to 1848 and from 1861 to 1867, it was the official capital of the Grand Principality of Transylvania. Brașov is an important tourist destination, being the largest city in a mountain resorts area, and a
central location, suitable for exploring Romania, with the distances to several tourist destinations (including the Black Sea resorts, the monasteries in northern Moldavia, and the wooden churches of Maramureș) being similar.
Sibiu is one of the most important cultural centres of Romania and was designated the European Capital of Culture for the year 2007, along with the city of Luxembourg, and it was formerly the centre of the Transylvanian Saxon culture and between 1692 and 1791 and 1849–65 was the capital of the Principality of Transylvania.
Alba Iulia is a city located on the Mureş River in Alba County, and since the High Middle Ages, the city has been the seat of Transylvania's Roman Catholic diocese. Between 1541 and 1690 it was the capital of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom and the latter Principality of Transylvania. Alba Iulia also has historical importance because at the end of World War I, representatives of the Romanian population of Transylvania gathered in Alba Iulia on 1 December 1918 to proclaim the union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania. In Transylvania, there are many medieval smaller towns such as Sighișoara, Mediaș, Sebeș, and Bistrița.
Official censuses with information on Transylvania's population have been conducted since the 18th century. On May 1, 1784 the Emperor Joseph II called for the first official census of the Habsburg Empire, including Transylvania. The data was published in 1787, and this census showed only the overall population (1,440,986 inhabitants). , a 19th-century Hungarian statistician, estimated in 1842 that in the population of Transylvania for the years 1830–1840 the majority were 62.3% Romanians and 23.3% Hungarians.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, the Hungarian population of Transylvania increased from 24.9% in 1869 to 31.6%, as indicated in the 1910 Hungarian census (the majority of the Jewish population reported Hungarian as their primary language, so they were also counted as ethnically Hungarian in the 1910 census). At the same time, the percentage of the Romanian population decreased from 59.0% to 53.8% and the percentage of the German population decreased from 11.9% to 10.7%, for a total population of 5,262,495. Magyarization policies greatly contributed to this shift.
The percentage of the Romanian majority has significantly increased since the declaration of the union of Transylvania with Romania after World War I in 1918. The proportion of Hungarians in Transylvania was in steep decline as more of the region's inhabitants moved into urban areas, where the pressure to assimilate and Romanianize was greater. The expropriation of the estates of Magyar magnates, the distribution of the lands to the Romanian peasants, and the policy of cultural Romanianization that followed the Treaty of Trianon were major causes of friction between Hungary and Romania. Other factors include the emigration of non-Romanian peoples, assimilation and internal migration within Romania (estimates show that between 1945 and 1977, some 630,000 people moved from the Old Kingdom to Transylvania, and 280,000 from Transylvania to the Old Kingdom, most notably to Bucharest).
According to the results of the 2011 Population Census, the total population of Transylvania was 6,789,250 inhabitants and the ethnic groups were: Romanians – 70.62%, Hungarians – 17.92%, Roma – 3.99%, Ukrainians – 0.63%, Germans – 0.49%, other – 0.77%. Some 378,298 inhabitants (5.58%) have not declared their ethnicity. The presented data are from http://www.recensamantromania.ro/rezultate-2, Table no. 7. The ethnic Hungarian population of Transylvania form a majority in the counties of Covasna (73.6%) and Harghita (84.8%). The Hungarians are also numerous in the following counties: Mureș (37.8%), Satu Mare (34.5%), Bihor (25.2%), and Sălaj (23.2%).
Transylvania is rich in mineral resources, notably lignite, iron, lead, manganese, gold, copper, natural gas, salt, and sulfur.
There are large iron and steel, chemical, and textile industries. Stock raising, agriculture, wine production and fruit growing are important occupations. Agriculture is widespread in the Transylvanian Plateau, including growing cereals, vegetables, viticulture and breeding cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry. Timber is another valuable resource.
IT, electronics and automotive industries are important in urban and university centers like Cluj-Napoca (Robert Bosch GmbH, Emerson Electric), Timișoara (Alcatel-Lucent, Flextronics and Continental AG), Brașov, Sibiu, Oradea and Arad. The cities of Cluj Napoca and Târgu Mureș are connected with a strong medical tradition, and according to the same classifications top performance hospitals exist there.
Native brands include: Roman of Brașov (trucks and buses), Azomureș of Târgu Mureș (fertilizers), Terapia of Cluj-Napoca (pharmaceuticals), Banca Transilvania of Cluj-Napoca (finance), Romgaz and Transgaz of Mediaș (natural gas), Jidvei of Alba county (alcoholic beverages), Timișoreana of Timișoara (alcoholic beverages) and others.
The Jiu Valley, located in the south of Hunedoara County, has been a major mining area throughout the second half of the 19th century and the 20th century, but many mines were closed down in the years following the collapse of the communist regime, forcing the region to diversify its economy.
During the Second World War, Transylvania (the Southern/Romanian half, as the region was divided during the war) was crucial to the Romanian defense industry. Transylvanian factories built until 1945 over 1,000 warplanes and over 1,000 artillery pieces of all types, among others.
The culture of Transylvania is complex, due to its varied history and multiculturalism. Its culture has been historically linked to both Central Europe and Southeastern Europe; and it has significant Hungarian (see Hungarians in Romania) and German (see Germans of Romania) influences.
With regard to architecture, the Transylvanian Gothic style is preserved to this day in monuments such as the Black Church in Braşov (14th and 15th centuries) and a number of other cathedrals, as well as the Bran Castle in Braşov County (14th century), the Hunyad Castle in Hunedoara (15th century).
Notable writers such as Emil Cioran, Lucian Blaga, George Coșbuc, Octavian Goga and Liviu Rebreanu were born in Transylvania. The latter wrote the novel "Ion", which introduces the reader to a depiction of the life of the peasants and intellectuals of Transylvania at the turn of the 20th century.
Transylvania has a very rich and unique religious history from the other regions of Europe. Since the Protestant Reformation, different Christian denominations have been coexisting in this religious melting pot, including Romanian Orthodox, Romanian Greek Catholic, other Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Unitarian branches. Other faiths also are present, including Jews and Muslims. Under the Habsburgs, Transylvania served as a place for "religious undesirables". People who arrived in Transylvania included those that did not conform to the Catholic Church and were sent here forcibly, as well as many religious refugees. Transylvania has a long history of religious tolerance. This has been ensured by its religious pluralism. Christianity is the largest religion in Transylvania. Transylvania has also been (and still is) a center for Christian denominations other than Eastern Orthodoxy, the form of Christianity that most Romanians follow. As such, there are significant numbers of inhabitants of Transylvania that follow Roman Catholicism, Greek Catholicism and Protestantism.
There are also small denominations like adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses and more.
Others
"Data refers to extended Transylvania (with Banat, Crișana and Maramureș)."
The first heraldic representations of Transylvania date from the 16th century. One of the predominant early symbols of Transylvania was the coat of arms of Sibiu city. In 1596 Levinus Hulsius created a coat of arms for the imperial province of Transylvania, consisting of a shield party per fess, with a rising eagle in the upper field and seven hills with towers on top in the lower field. He published it in his work "Chronologia", issued in Nuremberg the same year. The seal from 1597 of Sigismund Báthory, prince of Transylvania, reproduced the new coat of arms with some slight changes: in the upper field the eagle was flanked by a sun and a moon and in the lower field the hills were replaced by simple towers.
The seal of Michael the Brave from 1600 depicts the territory of the former Dacian kingdom: Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania:
The Diet of 1659 codified the representation of the privileged nations in Transylvania's coat of arms. It depicted a black turul on a blue background, representing the Hungarian nobility, a Sun and the Moon representing the Székelys, and seven red towers on a yellow background representing the seven fortified cities of the Transylvanian Saxons. The red dividing band was originally not part of the coat of arms.
Following the publication of Emily Gerard's "The Land Beyond the Forest" (1888), Bram Stoker wrote his gothic horror novel "Dracula" in 1897, using Transylvania as a setting. With its success, Transylvania became associated in the English-speaking world with vampires. Since then it has been represented in fiction and literature as a land of mystery and magic. For example, in Paulo Coelho's novel "The Witch of Portobello", the main character, Sherine Khalil, is described as a Transylvanian orphan with a Romani mother, in an effort to add to the character's exotic mystique. The so-called Transylvanian trilogy of historical novels by Miklós Bánffy, "The Writing on the Wall", is an extended treatment of the 19th- and early 20th-century social and political history of the country. Among the first actors to portray Dracula in film was Bela Lugosi, who was born in Lugos (now Lugoj), in present-day Romania. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30853 |
Theodore Judah
Theodore Dehone Judah (March 4, 1825 – November 2, 1863) was an American railroad and civil engineer who was a central figure in the original promotion, establishment, and design of the First Transcontinental Railroad. He found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). As chief engineer, he performed much of the land survey work to determine the best route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada mountains, which was completed six years after his death.
Theodore Judah was born in 1826 (perhaps 1825) in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Mary (Reece) and The Rev. Henry Raymond Judah, an Episcopal clergyman. After his family moved to Troy, New York, Judah attended Rensselaer Institute for a term and developed at a young age a passion for engineering and railroads.
At age 21 Judah married Anne Pierce on May 10, 1849. Theirs was the first wedding in the then new St James Episcopal Church of Greenfield, Massachusetts.
After studying briefly at Rensselaer, Judah went to work on a number of railroads in the Northeast, including locating and building the Niagara River Gorge Railroad. He was elected member of the American Society of Civil Engineers on May 1853; at that time there were fewer than 800 civil engineers in the United States. Judah was hired in 1854 at age 28 as the Chief Engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad in California. He and his wife Anne sailed to Nicaragua, crossed over to the Pacific, and caught a steamer to San Francisco. Under his charge, it became the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River.
Throughout the mid and late 1850s, Judah was known as "Crazy Judah" for his idea to build a railroad through and over the Sierra Nevada, linking the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic, a project which many people at the time considered impossible. On January 1857 in Washington DC, Judah published "A practical plan for building The Pacific Railroad", in which he outlined the general plan and argued for the need to do a detailed survey of a specific selected route for the railroad, not a general reconnaissance of several possible routes that had been done earlier.
Nominated in the 1859 California Pacific Railroad Convention in San Francisco, Judah was sent to Washington DC to lobby in general for the Pacific Railroad. Congress was distracted by the trouble of pre-Civil War America and showed little interest. He returned noting that he had to find a specific practical route and some private financial backing to do a detailed engineering survey.
In 1860, he set out to make general reconnaissance, using a barometer to measure elevation, of several possible routes through the Sierra. That Fall, with the help of Daniel W. Strong, a storekeeper in Dutch Flat, California, Judah found a practical trans-Sierra railroad route. In November 1860, Judah published "Central Pacific Railroad to California", in which he declared "the discovery of a practicable route from the city of Sacramento upon the divide between Bear River and the North Fork of the American, via Illinoistown (Colfax), Dutch Flat, and Summit Valley (Donner Pass) to the Truckee River". He advocated the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route as the most practical one with maximum grades of one hundred feet per mile and 150 miles shorter than that recommended in governmental reports. Whereas most of the Sierra was double-ridged, meaning two summits separated by a valley, Donner Pass was not and thus more suitable for a railroad. From Dutch Flat, the Pacific road would climb steadily up to the Pass before winding down steadily following the Truckee River out of the mountains into the Great Basin of Nevada.
Failing to raise funds for the Central Pacific project in San Francisco, Judah succeeded in signing up four Sacramento merchants, later known as the "Big Four": Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. On June 28, 1861, the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was incorporated with Judah as the chief engineer. At this point in time, Judah had the CPRR backing to survey the route over the Sierra Nevada along which the railroad was to be built during the late 1860s as well as barometric reconnaissance of two other routes, which turned out to be inferior. In a report dated October 1, 1861, Judah discussed the results of the survey, the merits of the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route, and the estimated costs from Sacramento to points as far as Salt Lake City. On October 9, 1861, the CPRR directors authorized Judah to go back to Washington DC, this time as the agent of CPRR, to procure "appropriations of land and U.S. Bonds from the Government to aid in the construction of this road". The next day, Judah published a strip map (a.k.a. the Theodore Judah map), 30 inches tall by 66 feet long, of the proposed alignment of the Central Pacific Railroad. On October 11, 1861, Judah boarded a steamer in San Francisco headed for Panama.
At Washington DC, Judah began an active campaign for a Pacific Railroad bill. He was made the clerk of the House subcommittee on the bill and also obtained an appointment as secretary of the Senate subcommittee. On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law, which authorized the issuance of land grants and U.S. bonds to CPRR and the newly chartered Union Pacific Railroad for the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Judah then went to New York to order supplies and sailed back to California on July 21, 1862, having accomplished his mission in less than a year.
Judah died of yellow fever on November 2, 1863. He contracted the disease in Panama on a voyage with his wife to New York City, apparently becoming infected during their land passage across the Isthmus of Panama. He was traveling to New York to seek alternative financing to buy out the Big Four investors. Anne took his body back to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where he was buried in the Pierce family plot in the Federal Street Cemetery. He died before his dream of a transcontinental railroad could be completed.
Within days of Judah's death, the CPRR's first locomotive, "Gov. Stanford", made a trial run over the new railroad's first 500 feet of track in Sacramento, CA.
""In purely engineering retrospect, Judah’s achievements would seem nothing short of providential, especially in comparison to modern route surveying efforts. With a minimal survey crew utilizing crude instruments and only draft animals for transportation, Judah was able to lay out a remarkably accurate alignment across the most difficult natural obstacles undertaken up until that time (1861)."" J. David Rogers and Charles R. Spinks, ASCE Golden Spike 150th Anniversary History Symposium, Sacramento, CA, May 6, 2019 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30854 |
Towpath
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport was common where sailing was impractical due to tunnels and bridges, unfavourable winds, or the narrowness of the channel.
After the Industrial Revolution, towing became obsolete when engines were fitted on boats and when railway transportation superseded the slow towing method. Since then, many of these towpaths have been converted to multi-use trails. They are still named towpaths — although they are now only occasionally used for the purpose of towing boats.
Early inland waterway transport used the rivers, and while barges could use sails to assist their passage when winds were favourable or the river was wide enough to allow tacking, in many cases this was not possible, and gangs of men were used to bow-haul the boats. As river banks were often privately owned, such teams worked their way along the river banks as best they could, but this was far from satisfactory. On British rivers such as the River Severn, the situation was improved by the creation of towing path companies in the late 1700s. The companies built towing paths along the banks of the river, and four such companies improved a section of in this way between Bewdley and Coalbrookdale. They were not universally popular, however, as tolls were charged for their use, to recoup the capital cost, and this was resented on rivers where barge traffic had previously been free.
With the advent of artificial canals, most of them were constructed with towpaths suitable for horses. Many rivers were improved by artificial cuts, and this often gave an opportunity to construct a towing path at the same time. Even so, the River Don Navigation was improved from Tinsley to Rotherham in 1751, but the horse towing path was not completed on this section until 1822. On the River Avon between Stratford-upon-Avon and Tewkesbury, a towpath was never provided, and bow-hauling continued until the 1860s, when steam tugs were introduced.
While towing paths were most convenient when they stayed on one side of a canal, there were occasions where it had to change sides, often because of opposition from landowners. Thus the towpath on the Chesterfield Canal changes to the south bank while it passes through the Osberton Estate, as the Foljambes, who lived in Osberton Hall, did not want boatmen passing too close to their residence. On canals, one solution to the problem of getting the horse to the other side was the roving bridge or turnover bridge, where the horse ascended the ramp on one side, crossed the bridge, descended a circular ramp on the other side of the river but the same side of the bridge, and then passed through the bridge hole to continue on its way. This had the benefit that the rope did not have to be detached while the transfer took place. Where the towpath reached a lock, which was spanned by a footbridge at its tail, the southern section of the Stratford-on-Avon Canal used split bridges so that the horse line did not have to be detached. The rope passed through a small gap at the centre of the bridge between its two halves.
One problem with the horse towing path where it passed under a bridge was abrasion of the rope on the bridge arch. This resulted in deep grooves being cut in the fabric of the bridge, and in many cases, the structure was protected by cast iron plates, attached to the faces of the arch. These too soon developed deep grooves, but could be more easily replaced than the stonework of the bridge. While bridges could be constructed over relatively narrow canals, they were more costly on wide navigable rivers, and in many cases horse ferries were provided, to enable the horse to reach the next stretch of towpath. In more recent times, this has provided difficulties for walkers, where an attractive river-side walk cannot be followed because the towpath changes sides and the ferry is no more.
Not all haulage was by horses, and an experiment was carried out on the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal in 1888. Following suggestions by Francis W. Webb, the Mechanical Engineer for the London and North Western Railway at Crewe Works, rails were laid along a stretch of the towpath near Worleston, and a small steam locomotive borrowed from Crewe Works was used to tow boats. The locomotive ran on gauge tracks, and was similar to "Pet", which is preserved in the National Railway Museum at York. It pulled trains of two and four boats at , and experiments were also tried with eight boats. The canal's engineer, G. R. Webb, produced a report on the expected costs of laying rails along the towpaths, but nothing more was heard of the project, and the advent of steam and diesel powered boats offered a much simpler solution. The 'mules' which assist ships through the locks of the Panama Canal are a modern example of the concept.
Towpaths are popular with cyclists and walkers, and some are suitable for equestrians. In snowy winters they are popular in the US with cross-country skiers and snowmobile users.
Although historically not designed or used as towpaths, acequia ditch banks also are popular recreational trails.
In Britain, most canals were built, owned and operated by private companies, and the towpaths were deemed to be private, for the benefit of legitimate users of the canal. The nationalisation of the canal system in 1948 did not result in the towpaths becoming public rights of way. Subsequent legislation, such as the Transport Act 1968, which defined the government's obligations to the maintenance of the inland waterways for which it was now responsible, did not include any commitment to maintain towpaths for use by anyone, however, some ten years later British Waterways started to relax the rule that a permit was required to give access to a towpath, and began to encourage leisure usage by walkers, anglers and in some areas, cyclists. The steady development of the leisure use of the canals and the decline of commercial traffic has resulted in a general acceptance that towpaths are open to everyone, and not just boat users.
The concept of free access to towpaths is now enshrined in the legislation which transferred responsibility for the English and Welsh canals from British Waterways to the Canal & River Trust in 2012. Cycling permits are no longer required by the Canal & River Trust. However, not all canal towpaths are suitable for use by cyclists, and conflicts can arise between the differing user groups. Parts of some towpaths have been incorporated into the National Cycle Network, and in most cases this has resulted in the surface being improved. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30855 |
Texas Rangers (baseball)
The Texas Rangers are an American professional baseball team based in Arlington, Texas, located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. In 2020, they will move to the new Globe Life Field after having played at Globe Life Park in Arlington from 1994 to 2019. The team's name is borrowed from the famous law enforcement agency of the same name.
The franchise was established in 1961 as the Washington Senators, an expansion team awarded to Washington, D.C., after the city's first AL ballclub, the second Washington Senators, moved to Minnesota and became the Twins (the original Washington Senators played primarily in the National League during the 1890s). After the season, the new Senators moved to Arlington, and debuted as the Rangers the following spring.
The Rangers have made eight appearances in the MLB postseason, seven following division championships in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2010, 2011, 2015, and 2016 and as a wild card team in 2012. In 2010, the Rangers advanced past the Division Series for the first time, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays. The team then brought home their first American League pennant after beating the New York Yankees in six games. In the 2010 World Series, the franchise's first, the Rangers fell to the San Francisco Giants in five games. They repeated as American League champions the following year, then lost the 2011 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.
From 1961 to 2019, the Rangers' overall win–loss record is 4,500–4,912 (.478).
When the Washington Senators announced their move to Minnesota in 1960 to become the Twins, Major League Baseball decided to expand a year earlier than planned to stave off the twin threats of competition from the proposed Continental League and loss of its exemption from the Sherman Antitrust Act. As part of the expansion, the American League added two new teams for the 1961 season–the Los Angeles Angels and a new Washington Senators team. However, the new Senators were (and still are) considered an expansion team since the Twins retained the old Senators' records and history. The Senators and Angels began to fill their rosters with American League players in an expansion draft. The team played the season at old Griffith Stadium before moving to the new District of Columbia Stadium under a 10-year lease.
For most of their existence, the new Senators were the definition of futility, losing an average of 90 games a season. The team's struggles led to a twist on a joke about the old Senators: "Washington: first in war, first in peace and "still" last in the American League." Their only winning season was in when Hall of Famer Ted Williams managed the club to an 86–76 record, placing fourth in the AL East. Frank Howard, an outfielder/first baseman from 1965 to 1972 known for his towering home runs, was the team's most accomplished player, winning two home run titles. The concurrent rise of the Baltimore Orioles to regular championship contenders (winning their first World Series in ) did not help the Senators' cause either.
Ownership changed hands several times during the franchise's stay in Washington and was often plagued by poor decision-making and planning. Following their brief success in 1969, owner Bob Short was forced to make many questionable trades to lower the debt he had incurred to pay for the team. By the end of the campaign, Short had issued an ultimatum: unless someone was willing to buy the Senators for $12 million (by comparison, the New York Yankees were sold in 1973 for $8.8 million), he would not renew the stadium lease and would move the team elsewhere.
Short was especially receptive to an offer brought up by Arlington, Texas, mayor Tom Vandergriff, who had been trying to obtain a major league sports team to play in the Metroplex for over a decade. Years earlier, Charles O. Finley, the owner of the Kansas City Athletics, sought to relocate his baseball team to Dallas, but the idea was rebuffed and ultimately declined by the other AL team owners. Arlington's hole card was Turnpike Stadium, a 10,000-seat park which had been built in to house the Double-A Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs of the Texas League. However, it had been built to MLB specifications, and only minor excavations would be necessary to expand the park to accommodate major league crowds.
Vandergriff's offer of a multimillion-dollar down payment prompted Short to make the move to Arlington. On September 21, 1971, by a vote of 10–2, American League owners granted approval to move the franchise to Arlington for the season. Senators fans were livid. Enmity came to a head at the club's last game in Washington. Thousands of fans simply walked in without paying after the security guards left early, swelling the paid attendance of 14,460 to around 25,000, while fans unfurled a banner reading "SHORT STINKS". With the Senators leading 7–5 and two outs in the top of the ninth inning, several hundred youths stormed the field, raiding it for souvenirs. One man grabbed first base and ran off with it. With no security in sight and only three bases, umpire crew chief Jim Honochick forfeited the game to the New York Yankees. The nation's capital went without Major League Baseball for 33 years until the relocation of the National League's Montreal Expos who became the Washington Nationals.
Prior to the 1972 season, improvements were made to Turnpike Stadium, which reopened as Arlington Stadium, in preparation for the inaugural season of the Texas Rangers. The team played its first game on April 15, 1972, a 1–0 loss at the hands of the California Angels, their 1961 expansion cousins. The next day, the Rangers defeated the Angels, 5–1, for the club's first victory.
In 1974, the Rangers experienced their first winning season after finishing last in both 1972 and 1973. Under the ownership of Brad Corbett, they finished second in the American League West with an 84–76 record, behind the eventual World Series champion Oakland Athletics. The 1974 Rangers are still the only MLB team to finish above .500 after two consecutive 100-loss seasons. Mike Hargrove was awarded American League Rookie of the Year, Billy Martin was named AL Manager of the Year, Jeff Burroughs won AL MVP, and Ferguson Jenkins was named the Comeback Player of the Year after winning 25 games, a club record to this day. The team posted winning records again from 1977 to 1979 but fell short of reaching the playoffs. The Rangers came very close to clinching a playoff spot in 1981, but wound up losing the first half of the AL West by one-and-a-half games to Oakland at the time of the players' strike. Texas went on to finish under .500 each season through 1985.
The Rangers faced an attendance problem for a few years in Texas, due in part to both the team's inconsistent performance and the oppressive heat and humidity that can encompass the area in the summer. Until the Florida Marlins arrived in 1993, Arlington Stadium was often the hottest stadium in the majors, with temperatures frequently topping throughout the summer. So, the Rangers began playing most of their weekend games between May and September at night, a tradition that continues to this day.
Manager Bobby Valentine became steward over an influx of talent in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A winning season in 1986 was a shock to pundits and fans alike as the Rangers remained in the race for the American League pennant for the entire season. With a team consisting of stellar young rookies such as Rubén Sierra, Pete Incaviglia, Mitch Williams, Bobby Witt, and Edwin Correa, the Rangers finished the season in second place with an 87–75 record, just five games behind the division-champion Angels. The season marked a dramatic 25-win improvement over the 1985 season, which resulted in yet another last-place finish in the West. The signing of 41-year-old star pitcher Nolan Ryan prior to the 1989 season allowed Ryan to reach his 5,000th strikeout, 300th win, and 6th and 7th no-hitters with the Rangers. Despite powerful lineups including the likes of Juan González, Rubén Sierra, Julio Franco, and Rafael Palmeiro and a pitching staff that also included Charlie Hough, Bobby Witt, Kevin Brown, and Kenny Rogers, Valentine's Rangers never finished above second place and he was relieved of his duties during the 1992 season.
In April 1989, Rangers owner and oil tycoon Eddie Chiles, sold the team to an investment group headed by George W. Bush for $89 million. While his own equity in the team was a small one ($500,000), Bush was named Managing General Partner of the new ownership group. He increased his investment to $600,000 the following year. Bush left his position with the Rangers when he was elected Governor of Texas in 1994, and he sold his stake in the team in 1998. Bush went on to be elected President of the United States in 2000.
During Bush's tenure, the Rangers and the City of Arlington decided to replace the aging Arlington Stadium with a new publicly funded stadium, at a cost of $193 million, financed by Arlington residents, through a sales tax increase. Ground was broken on October 30, 1991, on what would become The Ballpark in Arlington (now named Globe Life Park in Arlington).
In 1993, Kevin Kennedy took over managerial duties, presiding over the team for two seasons, keeping the 1993 Rangers in the hunt for a playoff berth into mid-September; Nolan Ryan also retired after that season. Kennedy was let go in 1994, although the team led the AL West prior to the players' strike which prompted commissioner Bud Selig to cancel the remainder of the season and the playoffs. On July 28, Kenny Rogers pitched the 12th perfect game in major league history in Arlington against the California Angels.
Johnny Oates was hired as the Rangers' manager in 1995. Oates and company helped to bring home the 1996 AL Western Division Championship, the first division championship in franchise history. The first playoff series, 24 years after the franchise came to Texas, saw the Rangers lose to the New York Yankees, 3 games to 1. Oates was named AL Manager of the Year and Juan González was named AL MVP. The team featured a powerful lineup of hitters including González, Iván Rodríguez, and Rusty Greer, but continued to struggle with pitching despite having Rick Helling and Aaron Sele on their roster. Oates led the team to consecutive AL West championships in 1998 and 1999. Neither of Oates' last two playoff teams could win a single game, losing all six in back-to-back sweeps at the hands of the Yankees, a team that won three World Series in the 1990s after defeating Rangers teams in the first round. The 1999 team was to be the last playoff-bound team until 2010. En route to a second-straight last-place finish, Oates resigned his position 28 games into the 2001 season.
In 1998, venture capital billionaire Tom Hicks bought the team for $250 million.
Prior to the 2001 season, star free agent shortstop Alex Rodriguez was signed by the Rangers in the most lucrative deal in baseball history: a 10-year, $252 million contract. The move was controversial and is frequently maligned by fans and writers who thought that owner Tom Hicks was placing too much emphasis on one player instead of utilizing team resources to acquire several players, especially for a team that lacked pitching talent. Club officials maintained that Rodriguez would be the cornerstone of future postseason success. Although Rodriguez's individual performance was outstanding, the Rangers continued to struggle, and manager Jerry Narron was fired following the 2002 season and was replaced by seasoned manager Buck Showalter. The 2003 season signified the Rangers' fourth-straight last-place finish, and after a postseason fallout between Rodriguez and club management, the reigning AL MVP and newly appointed Rangers captain was traded to the New York Yankees for second baseman Alfonso Soriano and infield prospect Joaquin Arias.
The Rangers battled with the Anaheim Angels and Oakland Athletics for first place in the AL West for much of the 2004 season. Mark Teixeira, Alfonso Soriano, Michael Young, and Hank Blalock became some of the best-hitting infielders in the league, with Young, Blalock, and Soriano being selected for the 2004 All-Star Game. Soriano was named the All-Star MVP after going 2 for 3 with a three-run home run. Despite a late-season push, the Rangers ended up losing six of their final ten games and finished in third place behind the Angels and A's, a mere three games out of first place.
In 2005, the Rangers again struggled to find consistency amid controversy and injuries. John Hart stepped down as general manager following the 2005 season. Jon Daniels was promoted from assistant general manager to replace him. Daniels, at 28 years and one month, became the youngest general manager in major league history.
Daniels and the Rangers front office were very active in acquiring new players before and during the 2006 season. New acquisitions included Brad Wilkerson, Adam Eaton, Kevin Millwood, Carlos Lee, and Nelson Cruz. Despite bolstering their roster, the Rangers' 2006 season ended with a disappointing 80–82 record and a third-place finish in the AL West. Buck Showalter was dismissed as manager after the season. The team hired Oakland third base coach Ron Washington as their next manager. A change at manager was the first of several moves to strengthen the team in yet another busy offseason. The team lost Gary Matthews, Jr., Mark DeRosa, Carlos Lee, and Adam Eaton, but gained Kenny Lofton, Sammy Sosa, Frank Catalanotto, and pitchers Éric Gagné and Brandon McCarthy.
The Rangers struggled offensively early in the 2007 season, despite playing in a notoriously hitter-friendly park. A number of roster moves before the 2007 trade deadline were the beginnings of a rebuilding project headed by Jon Daniels with a focus on the acquisition and development of young players. In the coming years, more club resources would be dedicated to improving the quality of the farm system and scouting departments, most notably in Latin America and the Far East. Daniels' objective was to field a legitimately competitive team by the 2010 season.
The Rangers began the 2008 season exceptionally well, headlined by newcomer Josh Hamilton who looked to be a threat to win the Triple Crown, before fading off as the season wore on. During the All-Star festivities at Yankee Stadium, Hamilton crushed a first round home run record in the 2008 Home Run Derby with 28. Hamilton hit another four in the second round and three during the final round, for a total of 35 home runs, but lost to the Twins' Justin Morneau. Four Rangers played in the All Star Game: Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Milton Bradley, and Michael Young, who would repeat his 2006 All-Star Game feat by driving in the winning run via a sac fly.
The Rangers finished the season with yet another sub-.500 record (79–83), yet ended the season second in the AL West, the club's best finish since 1999. The 2009 season saw the Rangers soar into playoff contention for the first time since 2004. Despite injuries to Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler, the Rangers held first place in their division for long stretches of the summer before fading after September 1, losing the division to the Los Angeles Angels. The Rangers finished the season at 87–75, their first winning season since 2004 and good enough for second place in the AL West. Michael Young responded to his move to third base by posting one of his best offensive seasons ever while committing just nine errors and earning a sixth-straight All-Star appearance. Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz were also named 2009 AL All-Stars.
Following financial problems, including defaulting on a $525 million loan, Tom Hicks and Hicks Sports Group reached an agreement to sell the Texas Rangers to group headed by Pittsburgh sports lawyer Chuck Greenberg and Rangers team president Nolan Ryan for approximately $570 million on January 22, 2010. Hicks also sold much of the land surrounding Rangers Ballpark to Greenberg and Ryan's group in a separate deal.
However, one of HSG's principal lenders, Monarch Alternative Capital, opposed the sale on grounds that the proceeds would not fully repay the defaulted HSG notes. On April 21, Major League Baseball issued a statement declaring the Rangers' sale to be under the control of the Commissioner to expedite the process. As the stalemate between HSG and its creditors continued, the Texas Rangers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 24. As of that date, the Rangers and HSG had an estimated debt of $575 million. Much of the unsecured debt was owed in back salary. Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez topped the list of unsecured creditors with an estimated $24.9 million owed by the Rangers. The sale would repay all the team's creditors, including Rodriguez and other players owed back salary. Following a court-ordered public auction to be held on August 4 with the winning bid submitted by Greenberg/Ryan, the bankruptcy court closed the case. The sale to Greenberg/Ryan was approved by all 30 MLB owners at the owners meeting in Minneapolis on August 12. The new ownership group was called Rangers Baseball Express, LLC and had Chuck Greenberg serving as managing general partner and Nolan Ryan as club president. Oil magnates Ray Davis and Bob R. Simpson paid the bulk of the $539 million sale price, and became co-chairmen, with the largest stakes in the ownership group. However, they remained mostly in the background as senior consultants, leaving the team mostly in Greenberg and Ryan's hands.
With the influx of talent and success in 2009, the Rangers entered the 2010 season expecting to compete for the division and achieve the front office's 2007 goals. During the off-season, Nolan Ryan spoke about the Rangers' chances in the upcoming season saying, "My expectations today are that we're going to be extremely competitive and if we don't win our division, I'll be disappointed."
After stumbling out of the gates with a sub-.500 start in April 2010, the Rangers took the division lead with a franchise-best month of June, going 21–6. The Rangers never relinquished first place after an 11-game winning streak. The team made several mid-season moves to acquire players such as Cliff Lee, Bengie Molina, Jorge Cantú, and Jeff Francoeur. After the All-Star Game, in which six Rangers were present, came the debut of the claw and antler hand gestures, which gained much popularity, especially after the release of various apparel and souvenir options. Foam claws and helmets with deer antlers became quite commonplace in the ballpark as the Rangers played further into the fall. The Rangers won the AL West on September 25, advancing to the postseason for the first time since 1999 with a 90–72 record. The Rangers entered the playoffs against the Tampa Bay Rays in the first round, which ultimately resulted in a 3–2 series victory and marked the first postseason series victory in the 50-year history of the Rangers/Washington Senators franchise. Facing the Rangers in the American League Championship Series were the defending World Champion New York Yankees, the team the Rangers failed against three separate times in the 1990s. In a six-game ALCS, Texas came out victorious, winning the first pennant in franchise history in front of an ecstatic home crowd. Josh Hamilton was awarded ALCS MVP. The Texas Rangers faced the San Francisco Giants in the 2010 World Series, but their offense struggled against the Giants' young pitching and eventually lost the Series, 4–1.
In March 2011, Chick Greenberg resigned as Chief Executive and Managing General Partner and sold his interest in the Rangers after a falling out with his partners. Following his resignation, Nolan Ryan was named CEO in addition to his continuing role as team president. Ryan was subsequently approved as the team's controlling owner by a unanimous vote of the 30 owners of Major League Baseball on May 12.
The Rangers successfully defended their AL West Division title in 2011, making the club's second-straight division title and postseason appearance. The Rangers set records for best win–loss record (96–66, .592) and home attendance (2,946,949). On October 15, they went back to the 2011 World Series after beating the Detroit Tigers 15–5 in game six of the ALCS. The series featured Nelson Cruz hitting six home runs, the most home runs by one player in a playoff series in MLB history. In game two, Cruz also became the first player in postseason history to win a game with a walk-off grand slam as the Rangers defeated the Tigers 7–3 in 11 innings. However, they proceeded to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, after twice being one strike away from the championship in game six.
The Rangers dominated the American League standings for much of the 2012 season, but floundered in September, culminating in a sweep by the Oakland Athletics in the final series. They did, however, qualify for the first American League wild-card playoff game. In the new Wild Card Game, the Rangers' woes continued, as they lost 5–1 to the Orioles. The Rangers figured in the 2013 wild card as well. They finished the season in second place in the American League West with a 91–72 record, tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for a wild card spot. A 163rd play-in tie-breaker game was held to determine the second participant in the 2013 American League Wild Card Game against the Cleveland Indians. The Rangers lost to the Rays, 5–2, in the tie-breaker and were eliminated from playoff contention after reaching the postseason in three consecutive seasons. Nolan Ryan stepped down as Rangers CEO effective October 31, 2013. Since then, Daniels has served as operating head of the franchise, with Davis and Simpson continuing to serve mostly as senior consultants.
Injuries took a major toll on the Rangers in 2014 and 2015. The lone bright spot was Adrián Beltré, who despite spending some time injured, was the most consistent offensive player on the team. With the acquisition of Cole Hamels in 2015, the Rangers overtook the Houston Astros to clinch the American League West title on the final day of the season with a record of 88–74. The Rangers went on to lose to the Toronto Blue Jays in five games in the Division Series after squandering a 2–0 series lead. Texas again clinched the AL West in 2016, but lost to Toronto, 3–0, in the ALDS.
The Rangers finished the 2017 campaign 23 games out of first place with a 78–84 record. In 2018, the Rangers partnered with the KBO League's LG Twins, in business and baseball operations. On September 21, 2018, holding on to a 64–88 record, the Rangers fired Jeff Banister who had led the team since 2015. He was replaced by bench coach Don Wakamatsu for the remainder of the season. The Rangers ended the season at 67–95. Chris Woodward was later selected to be the team's manager beginning with the 2019 season. He led the team to a 78–84 record in his first season. The 2019 season also marked the Rangers' final season of play at Globe Life Park. They plan to move into the new Globe Life Field in 2020.
In addition to the flagship stations listed above, Rangers games can be heard on affiliates throughout much of Texas, and also in parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. Eric Nadel is the primary play-by-play announcer. He has called games for the club since 1979 beginning on television broadcasts, then moving exclusively to radio beginning in 1985. He became the primary announcer after the late Mark Holtz moved to television. Currently, Nadel provides play-by-play in the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th innings, and color commentary for the other innings. On December 11, 2013, he was awarded the 2014 Ford C. Frick Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum for excellence in broadcasting. Matt Hicks now shares the broadcast booth with Nadel. He joined the broadcast in 2012 after Steve Busby moved from radio to television to replace Dave Barnett. Hicks provides play-by-play in the 3rd, 4th, and 7th innings, and color commentary for the other innings. Jared Sandler hosts the pre-game and post-game shows, and also fills in whenever Nadel or Hicks have a day off. For the Spanish radio affiliates, Eleno Ornelas is the play-by-play announcer, and former Rangers pitcher José Guzmán is the color analyst.
Texas Rangers games currently air on regional television network Fox Sports Southwest. During the 2016 season, they had an average 3.96 rating and 105,000 viewers on primetime broadcasts. Due to the Rangers having to play many of their Sunday home games at night, the team has been featured frequently on ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" during the summer months. Rangers games can also be seen on MLB on Fox and TBS.
Since 2017, Dave Raymond is the primary television play-by-play announcer and former MLB pitcher C. J. Nitkowski is the primary color commentator. Nitkowski also fills in for Raymond on play-by-play for select games. Raymond replaced Steve Busby, who since 1982 on both TV and radio has had various stints in various positions on Rangers broadcasts from play-by-play to color commentary to pre-game and post-game analysis. In June 2012, Busby moved back to television play-by-play after Dave Barnett left his position as game announcer following an episode in which he experienced speech difficulties. Beginning in 2016, Raymond substituted for Busby on select games. Previously the primary color commentator, Tom Grieve still broadcasts many games. A former Rangers player and general manager, Grieve has been in the TV booth since 1995, following the end of his tenure as GM. Another former Ranger, Mark McLemore, has substituted for Grieve in the past and often joins the booth for an inning during home games. He and former Ranger Iván Rodríguez are among the pre-game and post-game analysts used on Fox Sports Southwest. FSSW pre-game and post-game shows are hosted by a rotation among Dana Larson, John Rhadigan, Ric Renner, Erin Hartigan, and David Murphy. In-game reporters include Rhadigan, Hartigan, Lesley McCaslin, and Rangers employee Emily Jones (formerly of FSSW).
Globe Life Field, under construction in Arlington, Texas, will serve as the home of the Texas Rangers beginning in 2020. It was scheduled to open on March 23, 2020. Globe Life and Accident Insurance Company, a subsidiary of McKinney-based Torchmark Corporation, owns the naming rights for the facility through 2048. The new ballpark is being constructed across the street just south of Globe Life Park.
Rangers Captain is the mascot for the Texas Rangers. Introduced in 2002, he is a palomino-style horse, dressed in the team's uniform. He wears the uniform number 72 in honor of 1972, the year the Rangers relocated to Arlington. He has multiple uniforms to match each of the variants the team wears. Captain's outfits sometimes match a theme the team is promoting; on April 24, 2010, he was dressed up like Elvis Presley as part of an Elvis themed night.
Chuck Hinton and Frank Howard, who played for the franchise in Washington (although Howard played for the Rangers in 1972), are listed on the Washington Hall of Stars display at Nationals Park in Washington. So are Gil Hodges and Mickey Vernon, who managed the "New Senators". Vernon also played for the "Old Senators", who became the Minnesota Twins.
The Texas Rangers Hall of Fame was created in 2003 to honor the careers of former Texas Rangers players, managers, executives, and broadcasters. There are currently 20 members, with 2 additional members to be inducted on August 17, 2019. The Hall is located in Globe Life Park in Arlington, behind right field. The Hall's two levels cover and included a 235-seat theater and various plaques, photos, and memorabilia. It can accommodate up to 600 people.
All of the Rangers' retired numbers are directly incorporated into the posted dimensions of Globe Life Field. The left-field foul line distance is 329 feet (Beltré), the deepest point of the ballpark is 410 feet (Young), straightaway center field is 407 feet (Rodríguez), the right-field foul line is 326 feet (Oates), and the backstop distance, measured from the rear point of home plate via a line running through second base, is 42 feet (Robinson). A sign just inside the left-field foul line is marked as 334 feet to honor Ryan. The power alleys, at 372 feet in left and 374 feet in right, respectively pay homage to the Rangers' first season in Arlington (1972) and first .500 season (1974).
These are partial records of players with the best performance in distinct statistical categories during a single season.
The Texas Rangers farm system consists of eight minor league affiliates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30857 |
Tex-Mex
Tex-Mex cuisine (from "Texan" and "Mexican") is an American regional cuisine that derives from the culinary creations of the Tejano people of Texas. It has spread from border states such as Texas and others in the Southwestern United States to the rest of the country as well as Canada. Tex-Mex is most popular in Texas and neighboring areas, especially nearby states in both the US and Mexico. It is a subtype of Southwestern cuisine found in the American Southwest.
Some ingredients are common in Mexican cuisine, but other ingredients not typically used in Mexico are often added. Tex-Mex cuisine is characterized by its heavy use of shredded cheese, meat (particularly beef, pork and chicken), beans, peppers and spices, in addition to flour tortillas. Sometimes various Tex-Mex dishes are made without the use of a tortilla, an extremely common example of this is the "fajita bowl", which is a fajita served without a soft tortilla.
Generally cheese plays a much bigger role in Tex-Mex food than in mainstream Mexican cuisine, particularly in the popularity of Chile con queso (often referred to as simply "queso") which is often eaten with chips (alongside or in place of guacamole and salsa), or may be served over enchiladas, tamales or burritos.
Moreover, Tex-Mex has imported flavors from other spicy cuisines, such as the use of cumin, introduced by Spanish immigrants to Texas from the Canary Islands and used in Berber cuisine, but used in only a few central Mexican recipes.
During the mission era, Spanish and Mexican cuisines were combined in Texas as in other parts of the northern frontier of New Spain. However, the cuisine that would come to be called Tex-Mex originated with Tejanos (Texans of Mexican descent) as a mix of native Mexican and Spanish foods when Texas was part of New Spain and later Mexico.
From the South Texas region between San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso, this cuisine has had little variation, and from earliest times has always been influenced by the cooking in the neighboring northern states of Mexico. The ranching culture of South Texas and Northern Mexico straddles both sides of the border, where beef, grilled food, and tortillas have been common and popular foods for more than a century. A taste for "cabrito" (kid goat), "barbacoa de cabeza" (barbecued beef heads), "carne seca" (dried beef), and other products of cattle culture is also common on both sides of the Rio Grande.
In the 20th century, as goods from the United States became cheap and readily available, Tex-Mex took on such Americanized elements as cheddar, jack, and pimento cheeses.
In much of Texas, the cooking styles on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border were the same until a period after the U.S. Civil War. With the railroads, American ingredients and cooking appliances became common on the U.S. side.
A 1968 "Los Angeles Times" feature wrote "[i]f the dish is a combination of Old World cooking, hush-my-mouth Southern cuisine and Tex-Mex, it's from the Texas Hill Country."
In France, Paris's first Tex-Mex restaurant opened in March 1983. According to restaurateur Claude Benayoun, business had been slow, but after the 1986 release of the film "Betty Blue", which featured characters drinking tequila shots and eating chili con carne, "everything went crazy." According to Benayoun, ""Betty Blue" was like our "Easy Rider"; it was unbelievably popular in France. And after the movie came out, everybody in Paris wanted a shot of tequila and a bowl of chili."
Tex-Mex has also spread to Thailand, Argentina, Oman, Japan, the Netherlands, and Mexico.
The word "TexMex" (unhyphenated) was first used to abbreviate the Texas Mexican Railway, chartered in southern Texas in 1875. In the 1920s, the hyphenated form was used in American newspapers to describe Texans of Mexican ancestry.
The "Oxford English Dictionary" supplies the first-known uses in print of "Tex-Mex" in reference to food, from a 1963 article in "The New York Times Magazine", and a 1966 item in the "Great Bend" (Kansas) "Tribune". Diana Kennedy, an influential food authority, explained the distinctions between Mexican cuisine and Americanized Mexican food in her 1972 book "The Cuisines of Mexico". Robb Walsh of the "Houston Press" said the book "was a breakthrough cookbook, one that could have been written only by a non-Mexican. It unified Mexican cooking by transcending the nation's class divisions and treating the food of the poor with the same respect as the food of the upper classes." The term "Tex-Mex" also saw increasing usage in the "Los Angeles Times" from the 1970s onward while the Tex-Mex label became a part of U.S. vernacular during the late 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Adán Medrano, a chef who grew up in San Antonio, prefers to call the food "Texas Mexican," which he says was the indigenous cooking of South Texas long before the Rio Grande marked the border between Texas and Mexico. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30859 |
Trick-or-treating
Trick-or-treating is a Halloween ritual custom for children and adults in some countries. Children in costumes travel from house to house, asking for treats with the phrase "Trick or treat". The "treat" is usually some form of candy, although in some cultures money is given instead. The "trick" refers to a threat, usually idle, to perform mischief on the homeowner(s) or their property if no treat is given. Trick-or-treating usually occurs on the evening of October 31. Some homeowners signal that they are willing to hand out treats by putting up Halloween decorations outside their doors; others simply leave treats available on their porches for the children to take freely. Houses may also leave their porch light on as a universal indicator that they have candy.
In Britain and Ireland, the tradition of going house to house collecting food at Halloween goes back at least as far as the 16th century, as does the tradition of people wearing costumes at Halloween. There are many accounts from 19th-century Britain and Ireland of people going house to house in costume at Halloween, reciting verses in exchange for food, and sometimes warning of misfortune if they were not welcomed. In North America, trick-or-treating has been a Halloween tradition since the 1920s. The earliest known occurrence there of the Scottish Halloween custom of "guising" – children going from house to house for food or money while disguised in costume – is from 1911, when children were recorded as having done this in Ontario, Canada. While going house to house in costume has long been popular among the Scots and Irish, it is only recently that saying "Trick or treat" has become common in Scotland and Ireland. The activity is prevalent in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, Puerto Rico, and northwestern and central Mexico. In the last, this practice is called "calaverita" (Spanish diminutive for "calavera", "skull" in English), and instead of "Trick or treat", the children ask, ""¿Me da mi calaverita?"" ("Can you give me my little skull?"), where a "calaverita" is a small skull made of sugar or chocolate.
Traditions similar to the modern custom of trick-or-treating extend all the way back to classical antiquity, although it is extremely unlikely that any of them are directly related to the modern custom. The ancient Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis records in his book "The Deipnosophists" that, in ancient times, the Greek island of Rhodes had a custom in which children would go from door-to-door dressed as swallows, singing a song, which demanded the owners of the house to give them food and threatened to cause mischief if the owners of the house refused. This tradition was claimed to have been started by the Rhodian lawgiver Cleobulus.
Since the Middle Ages, a tradition of mumming on a certain holiday has existed in parts of Britain and Ireland. It involved going door-to-door in costume, performing short scenes or parts of plays in exchange for food or drink. The custom of trick-or-treating on Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time and needed to be appeased.
It may otherwise have originated in a Celtic festival, held on 31 October–1 November, to mark the beginning of winter. It was "Samhain" in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, and "Calan Gaeaf" in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. The festival is believed to have pre-Christian roots. In the 9th century, the Catholic Church made 1 November All Saints' Day. Among Celtic-speaking peoples, it was seen as a liminal time, when the spirits or fairies (the "Aos Sí"), and the souls of the dead, came into our world and were appeased with offerings of food and drink. Similar beliefs and customs were found in other parts of Europe. It is suggested that trick-or-treating evolved from a tradition whereby people impersonated the spirits, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. S. V. Peddle suggests they "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune". Impersonating these spirits or souls was also believed to protect oneself from them.
At least as far back as the 15th century, among Christians, there had been a custom of sharing soul-cakes at Allhallowtide (October 31 through November 2). People would visit houses and take soul-cakes, either as representatives of the dead, or in return for praying for their souls. Later, people went "from parish to parish at Halloween, begging soul-cakes by singing under the windows some such verse as this: 'Soul, souls, for a soul-cake; Pray you good mistress, a soul-cake!'" They typically asked for "mercy on all Christian souls for a soul-cake". It was known as 'Souling' and was recorded in parts of Britain, Flanders, southern Germany, and Austria. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas".
The wearing of costumes, or "guising", at Hallowmas, had been recorded in Scotland in the 16th century and was later recorded in other parts of Britain and Ireland. There are many references to mumming, guising or souling at Halloween in Britain and Ireland during the late 18th century and the 19th century. In parts of southern Ireland, a man dressed as a "Láir Bhán" (white mare) led youths house to house reciting verses—some of which had pagan overtones—in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla', but if they refused to do so, it would bring misfortune. In Scotland, youths went house to house in white with masked, painted or blackened faces, reciting rhymes and often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed. In parts of Wales, peasant men went house to house dressed as fearsome beings called "gwrachod", or presenting themselves as the "cenhadon y meirw" (representatives of the dead). In western England, mostly in the counties bordering Wales, souling was common. According to one 19th century English writer "parties of children, dressed up in fantastic costume […] went round to the farm houses and cottages, singing a song, and begging for cakes (spoken of as "soal-cakes"), apples, money, or anything that the goodwives would give them".
Guising at Halloween in Scotland is recorded in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money. The earliest known occurrence of the practice of guising at Halloween in North America is from 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada reported on children going "guising" around the neighborhood.
American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book length history of the holiday in the US; "The Book of Hallowe'en" (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America"; "The taste in Hallowe'en festivities now is to study old traditions, and hold a Scotch party, using Burn's poem "Hallowe'en" as a guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom that was once honored at Hallowe'en is out of fashion now." Kelley lived in Lynn, Massachusetts, a town with 4,500 Irish immigrants, 1,900 English immigrants, and 700 Scottish immigrants in 1920. In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Hallowe'en customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".
While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.
The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, from Blackie, Alberta:Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.
The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the start of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating. The editor of a collection of over 3,000 vintage Halloween postcards writes, "There are cards which mention the custom [of trick-or-treating] or show children in costumes at the doors, but as far as we can tell they were printed later than the 1920s and more than likely even the 1930s. Tricksters of various sorts are shown on the early postcards, but not the means of appeasing them".
Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first U.S. appearance of the term in 1932, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.
Behavior similar to trick-or-treating was more commonly associated with Thanksgiving from 1870 (shortly after that holiday's formalization) until the 1930s. In New York City, a Thanksgiving ritual known as Ragamuffin Day involved children dressing up as beggars and asking for treats, which later evolved into dressing up in more diverse costumes. Increasing hostility toward the practice in the 1930s eventually led to the begging aspects being dropped, and by the 1950s, the tradition as a whole had ceased.
Almost all pre-1940 uses of the term "trick-or-treat" are from the United States and Canada. Trick-or-treating spread throughout the United States, stalled only by World War II sugar rationing that began in April, 1942 and lasted until June, 1947.
Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October, 1947 issues of the children's magazines "Jack and Jill" and "Children's Activities", and by Halloween episodes of the network radio programs "The Baby Snooks Show" in 1946 and "The Jack Benny Show" and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" in 1948. Trick-or-treating was depicted in the "Peanuts" comic strip in 1951. The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon "Trick or Treat", and Ozzie and Harriet were besieged by trick-or-treaters on an episode of their television show. In 1953 UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating.
Although some popular histories of Halloween have characterized trick-or-treating as an adult invention to re-channel Halloween activities away from Mischief Night vandalism, there are very few records supporting this. Des Moines, Iowa is the only area known to have a record of trick-or-treating being used to deter crime. Elsewhere, adults, as reported in newspapers from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, typically saw it as a form of extortion, with reactions ranging from bemused indulgence to anger. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30861 |
Test cricket
Test cricket is the form of the sport of cricket with the longest match duration, and is considered the game's highest standard. Test matches are played between national representative teams that have been granted Test status, as determined and conferred by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The term "Test" stems from the fact that the long, gruelling matches are mentally and physically testing. Two teams of 11 players each play a four-innings match, which may last up to five days (or longer in some historical cases). It is generally considered the most complete examination of a team's endurance and ability.
The first officially recognised Test match took place between 15 and 19 March 1877 and was played between at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). In October 2012, the ICC recast the playing conditions for Test matches, permitting day/night Test matches. The first day/night game took place between Australia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, on 27 November – 1 December 2015.
Sides designated as "England" began to play in the late 18th century, but these teams were not truly representative. Early international cricket was disrupted by the French Revolution and the American Civil War. The earliest international cricket match was between USA and Canada, on 24 and 25 September 1844. This has never been officially considered a "Test match". Tours of national English sides abroad took place, particularly to the US, Australia and New Zealand. The Australian Aborigines team became the first organised overseas cricketers to tour England in 1868.
Two rival English tours of Australia were proposed in the early months of 1877, with James Lillywhite campaigning for a professional tour and Fred Grace for an amateur one. Grace's tour fell through and it was Lillywhite's team that toured New Zealand and Australia in 1876–77. Two matches against a combined Australian XI were later classified as the first official Test matches. The first match was won by Australia, by 45 runs and the second by England. After reciprocal tours established a pattern of international cricket, The Ashes was established as a competition during the Australian tour of England in 1882. A surprise victory for Australia inspired a mock obituary of English cricket to be published in the "Sporting Times" the following day: the phrase "The body shall be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia" prompted the subsequent creation of the Ashes urn. The series of 1884–85 was the first to be held over five matches: Shaw, writing in 1901, considered the side to be "the best ever to have left England".
South Africa became the third team to play Test cricket in 1888–89, when they hosted a tour by an under-strength England side.
Test matches are the highest level of cricket, played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council. , twelve national teams have Test status, the most recently promoted being Afghanistan and Ireland on 22 June 2017.
Test status is conferred upon a country or group of countries by the ICC. There are currently twelve men's teams that have been granted this status. International teams that do not have Test status can play first-class cricket in the ICC Intercontinental Cup, under conditions which are similar to Tests.
The teams with Test status (with the date of each team's Test debut) are:
Most of these teams represent independent sovereign nations. The exceptions are the England cricket team, which represents the constituent countries of England and Wales; the West Indies, a combined team from fifteen Caribbean nations and territories; and Ireland, representing both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Zimbabwe's Test status was voluntarily suspended in 2006 because of poor performances. It returned to Test competition in August 2011.
The ICC has made several proposals to reform the system of granting Test status. Unimplemented proposals include having two tiers with promotion and relegation, or a play off between the winners of the ICC Intercontinental Cup and the team with the lowest Test ranking. These proposals have not been successful.
For statistical purposes, Tests are considered to be a subset of first-class cricket. Performances in first-class matches count towards only the first-class statistical record, but performances in Test matches count towards both the Test statistics and the first-class statistics.
Statisticians have developed criteria to determine which matches count as Tests, if they were played before the formal definition of Test status. The first list of matches considered to be "Tests" was drawn up by Clarence Moody, an Australian, in the mid-1890s. Representative matches played by simultaneous England touring sides of 1891–92 (in Australia and South Africa) and 1929–30 (in the West Indies and New Zealand) are deemed to have "Test status".
In 1970, a series of five "Test matches" was played in England between England and a Rest of the World XI. These matches, originally scheduled between England and South Africa, were amended after South Africa was suspended from international cricket because of their government's policy of apartheid. Although initially given Test status (and included as Test matches in some record books, including "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack"), this was later withdrawn and a principle was established that official Test matches can only be between nations (although the geographically and demographically small countries of the West Indies have since 1928 been permitted to field a coalition side). Despite this, in 2005, the ICC ruled that the six-day Super Series match that took place in October 2005, between Australia and a World XI, was an official Test match. Some cricket writers and statisticians, including Bill Frindall, ignored the ICC's ruling and excluded the 2005 match from their records. The series of "Test matches" played in Australia between Australia and a World XI in 1971–72 do not have Test status. The commercial "Supertests" organised by Kerry Packer as part of his World Series Cricket enterprise and played between "WSC Australia", "WSC World XI" and "WSC West Indies" from 1977 to 1979 have never been regarded as official Test matches.
A standard day of Test cricket consists of three sessions of two hours each, the breaks between sessions being 40 minutes for lunch and 20 minutes for tea. However, the times of sessions and intervals may be altered in certain circumstances: if bad weather or a change of innings occurs close to a scheduled break, the break may be taken immediately; if there has been a loss of playing time, for example because of bad weather, the session times may be adjusted to make up the lost time; if the batting side is nine wickets down at the scheduled tea break, then the interval may be delayed until either 30 minutes has elapsed or the team is "all out"; the final session may be extended by up to 30 minutes if 90 or more overs have not been bowled in that day's play (subject to any reduction for adverse weather); the final session may be extended by 30 minutes (except on the 5th day) if the umpires believe the result can be decided within that time.
Today, Test matches are scheduled to be played across five consecutive days. However, in the early days of Test cricket, matches were played for three or four days. Four-day Test matches were last played in 1973, between New Zealand and Pakistan. Until the 1980s, it was usual to include a 'rest day,' often a Sunday. There have also been 'Timeless Tests', which have no predetermined maximum time. In 2005, Australia played a match scheduled for six days against a World XI, which the ICC sanctioned as an official Test match, though the match reached a conclusion on the fourth day. In October 2017, the ICC approved a request for a four-day Test match, between South Africa and Zimbabwe, which started on 26 December 2017 and ended on the second day, 27 December. The ICC trialed the four-day Test format until the 2019 Cricket World Cup. In December 2019, Cricket Australia were considering playing four-day Tests, subject to consensus with other Test nations. Later the same month, the ICC considered the possibility of making four-day Test matches mandatory for the ICC World Test Championship from 2023.
There have been attempts by the ICC, the sport's governing body, to introduce day-night Test matches. In 2012, The International Cricket Council passed playing conditions that allowed for the staging of day-night Test matches. The first day-night Test took place during New Zealand's tour to Australia in November 2015.
Test cricket is played in "innings" (the word denotes both the singular and the plural). In each innings, one team bats and the other bowls (or fields). Ordinarily four innings are played in a Test match, and each team bats twice and bowls twice. Before the start of play on the first day, the two team captains and the match referee toss a coin; the captain who wins the toss decides whether his team will bat or bowl first.
In the following scenarios, the team that bats first is referred to as "Team A" and their opponents as "Team B".
Usually the teams will alternate at the completion of each innings. Thus, Team A will bat (and Team B will bowl) until its innings ends, and then Team B will bat and Team A will bowl. When Team B's innings ends, Team A begin their second innings, and this is followed by Team B's second innings. The winning team is the one that scores more runs in their two innings.
A team's innings ends in one of the following ways:
If, at the completion of Team B's first innings, Team A leads by at least 200 runs, the captain of Team A may (but is not required to) order Team B to have "their" second innings next. This is called enforcing the follow on. In this case, the usual order of the third and fourth innings is reversed: Team A will bat in the fourth innings. It is rare for a team forced to follow on to win the match. In Test cricket it has only happened three times, although over 285 follow-ons have been enforced: Australia was the losing team on each occasion, twice to England, in 1894 and in 1981, and once to India in 2001.
If the whole of the first day's play of a Test match has been lost because of bad weather or other reasons like bad light, then Team A may enforce the follow on if Team B's first innings total is 150 or more fewer than Team A's. During the 2nd Test between England and New Zealand at Headingley in 2013, England batted first after the first day was lost because of rain. New Zealand, batting second, scored 180 runs fewer than England, meaning England could have enforced the follow on, though chose not to. This is similar to four-day first-class cricket, where the follow on can be enforced if the difference is 150 runs or fewer. If the Test is 2 days or fewer then the "follow-on" value is 100 runs.
After 80 overs, the captain of the bowling side may take a new ball, although this is not required. The captain will usually take the new ball: being harder and smoother than an old ball, a new ball generally favours faster bowlers who can make it bounce more variably. The roughened, softer surface of an old ball can be more conducive to spin bowlers, or those using reverse swing. The captain may delay the decision to take the new ball if he wishes to continue with his spinners (because the pitch favours spin). After a new ball has been taken, an innings should last a further 80 overs, then the captain will have the option to take another new ball.
A Test match may end in one of six results:
Test cricket is almost always played as a series of matches between two countries, with all matches in the series taking place in the same country (the host). Often there is a perpetual trophy that is awarded to the winner, the most famous of which is the Ashes contested between England and Australia. There have been two exceptions to the bilateral nature of Test cricket: the 1912 Triangular Tournament, a three-way competition between England, Australia and South Africa (hosted by England), and the Asian Test Championship, an event held in 1998–99 and 2001–02.
The number of matches in Test series has varied from one to seven. Up until the early 1990s, Test series between international teams were organised between the two national cricket organisations with umpires provided by the home team. With the entry of more countries into Test cricket, and a wish by the ICC to maintain public interest in Tests in the face of the popularity of one-day cricket, a rotation system was introduced that sees all ten Test teams playing each other over a six-year cycle, and an official ranking system (with a trophy held by the highest-ranked team). In this system, umpires are provided by the ICC. An elite panel of eleven umpires was maintained since 2002, and the panel is supplemented by an additional International Panel that includes three umpires named by each Test-playing country. The elite umpires officiate almost all Test matches, though usually not Tests involving their home country.
Several pairs of Test teams have established perpetual trophies which are competed for whenever teams play each other in Test series.
The twelve Test-playing nations are currently ranked as follows:
There has been no World Cup for Test cricket conducted thus far. However, a league competition for Test cricket began in 2019–21. The schedule for this Championship is a set of typical bilateral series in various countries, where one team is the host and other team is the visitor. The length of each series varies between 2 matches and 5 matches. Ireland, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan are not competing in this competition, but instead play a program of Test matches against competing teams, and each other, during the period of the Championship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30863 |
Thucydides
Thucydides (; "" ; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His "History of the Peloponnesian War" recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
He also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, the emotions of fear and self-interest. His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide. The Melian dialogue is regarded as a seminal work of international relations theory, while his version of Pericles' Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historians, and students of the classics.
More generally, Thucydides developed an understanding of human nature to explain behaviour in such crises as plagues, massacres, and civil war.
In spite of his stature as a historian, modern historians know relatively little about Thucydides's life. The most reliable information comes from his own "History of the Peloponnesian War", in which he mentions his nationality, paternity, and birthplace. Thucydides says that he fought in the war, contracted the plague, and was exiled by the democracy. He may have also been involved in quelling the Samian Revolt.
Thucydides identifies himself as an Athenian, telling us that his father's name was Olorus and that he was from the Athenian deme of Halimous. He survived the Plague of Athens, which killed Pericles and many other Athenians. He also records that he owned gold mines at Scapte Hyle (literally "Dug Woodland"), a coastal area in Thrace, opposite the island of Thasos.
Because of his influence in the Thracian region, Thucydides wrote, he was sent as a strategos (general) to Thasos in 424 BC. During the winter of 424–423 BC, the Spartan general Brasidas attacked Amphipolis, a half-day's sail west from Thasos on the Thracian coast, sparking the Battle of Amphipolis. Eucles, the Athenian commander at Amphipolis, sent to Thucydides for help. Brasidas, aware of the presence of Thucydides on Thasos and his influence with the people of Amphipolis, and afraid of help arriving by sea, acted quickly to offer moderate terms to the Amphipolitans for their surrender, which they accepted. Thus, when Thucydides arrived, Amphipolis was already under Spartan control.
Amphipolis was of considerable strategic importance, and news of its fall caused great consternation in Athens. It was blamed on Thucydides, although he claimed that it was not his fault and that he had simply been unable to reach it in time. Because of his failure to save Amphipolis, he was exiled:
I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my attention to them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat particularly.
Using his status as an exile from Athens to travel freely among the Peloponnesian allies, he was able to view the war from the perspective of both sides. Thucydides claimed that he began writing his history as soon as the war broke out, because he thought it would be one of the greatest wars waged among the Greeks in terms of scale:Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.This is all that Thucydides wrote about his own life, but a few other facts are available from reliable contemporary sources. Herodotus wrote that the name Olorus, Thucydides's father's name, was connected with Thrace and Thracian royalty. Thucydides was probably connected through family to the Athenian statesman and general Miltiades and his son Cimon, leaders of the old aristocracy supplanted by the Radical Democrats. Cimon's maternal grandfather's name also was Olorus, making the connection quite likely. Another Thucydides lived before the historian and was also linked with Thrace, making a family connection between them very likely as well.
Combining all the fragmentary evidence available, it seems that his family had owned a large estate in Thrace, one that even contained gold mines, and which allowed the family considerable and lasting affluence. The security and continued prosperity of the wealthy estate must have necessitated formal ties with local kings or chieftains, which explains the adoption of the distinctly Thracian royal name "Óloros" into the family. Once exiled, Thucydides took permanent residence in the estate and, given his ample income from the gold mines, he was able to dedicate himself to full-time history writing and research, including many fact-finding trips. In essence, he was a well-connected gentleman of considerable resources who, after involuntarily retiring from the political and military spheres, decided to fund his own historical investigations.
The remaining evidence for Thucydides' life comes from later and rather less reliable ancient sources; Marcellinus wrote Thucydides' biography about a thousand years after his death. According to Pausanias, someone named Oenobius had a law passed allowing Thucydides to return to Athens, presumably shortly after the city's surrender and the end of the war in 404 BC. Pausanias goes on to say that Thucydides was murdered on his way back to Athens, placing his tomb near the Melite gate. Many doubt this account, seeing evidence to suggest he lived as late as 397 BC, or perhaps slightly later. Plutarch preserves a tradition that he was murdered in "Skaptē Hulē" and that his remains were returned to Athens, where a monument to him was erected in Cimon's family plot. There are problems with this, since this was outside Thucydides' deme and the tradition goes back to Polemon, who asserted he had discovered just such a memorial. Didymus mentions another tomb in Thrace.
Thucydides' narrative breaks off in the middle of the year 411 BC, and this abrupt end has traditionally been explained as due to his death while writing the book, although other explanations have been put forward.
Inferences about Thucydides' character can be drawn (with due caution) only from his book. His sardonic sense of humor is evident throughout, as when, during his description of the Athenian plague, he remarks that old Athenians seemed to remember a rhyme which said that with the Dorian War would come a "great death". Some claimed that the rhyme originally mentioned a [death by] "famine" or "starvation" (, '), and was only remembered later as [death by] "pestilence" (, ') due to the current plague. Thucydides then remarks that should another Dorian War come, this time attended with a great famine (λιμός), the rhyme will be remembered as "famine", and any mention of "plague" (λοιμός) forgotten.
Thucydides admired Pericles, approving of his power over the people and showing a marked distaste for the demagogues who followed him. He did not approve of the democratic commoners nor of the radical democracy that Pericles ushered in, but considered democracy acceptable when guided by a good leader. Thucydides' presentation of events is generally even-handed; for example, he does not minimize the negative effect of his own failure at Amphipolis. Occasionally, however, strong passions break through, as in his scathing appraisals of the democratic leaders Cleon and Hyperbolus. Sometimes, Cleon has been connected with Thucydides' exile.
It has been argued that Thucydides was moved by the suffering inherent in war and concerned about the excesses to which human nature is prone in such circumstances, as in his analysis of the atrocities committed during the civil conflict on Corcyra, which includes the phrase "war is a violent teacher" ().
Thucydides believed that the Peloponnesian War represented an event of unmatched importance. As such, he began to write the "History" at the onset of the war in 431. His intention was to write an account which would serve as "a possession for all time". The "History" breaks off near the end of the twenty-first year of the war and does not elaborate on the final conflicts of the war. This facet of the work suggests that Thucydides died whilst writing his history and more so, that his death was unexpected.
After his death, Thucydides's "History" was subdivided into eight books: its modern title is the "History of the Peloponnesian War". His great contribution to history and historiography is contained in this one dense history of the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta, each alongside their respective allies. This subdivision was most likely made by librarians and archivists, themselves being historians and scholars, most likely working in the Library of Alexandria.
The "History of the Peloponnesian War" continued to be modified well beyond the end of the war in 404, as exemplified by a reference at to the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC), seven years after the last events in the main text of Thucydides' history.
Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor Herodotus, known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on eyewitness testimony and writes about events in which he probably took part. He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about the events that he recorded. Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a hubris invites the wrath of the deities, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs.
Thucydides exerted wide historiographical influence on subsequent Hellenistic and Roman historians, although the exact description of his style in relation to many successive historians remains unclear. Readers in antiquity often placed the continuation of the stylistic legacy of the "History" in the writings of Thucydides' putative intellectual successor Xenophon. Such readings often described Xenophon's treatises as attempts to "finish" Thucydides's "History". Many of these interpretations, however, have garnered significant scepticism among modern scholars, such as Dillery, who spurn the view of interpreting Xenophon "qua" Thucydides, arguing that the latter's "modern" history (defined as constructed based on literary and historical themes) is antithetical to the former's account in the "Hellenica", which diverges from the Hellenic historiographical tradition in its absence of a preface or introduction to the text and the associated lack of an "overarching concept" unifying the history.
A noteworthy difference between Thucydides's method of writing history and that of modern historians is Thucydides's inclusion of lengthy formal speeches that, as he states, were literary reconstructions rather than quotations of what was said—or, perhaps, what he believed "ought" to have been said. Arguably, had he not done this, the gist of what was said would not otherwise be known at all—whereas today there is a plethora of documentation—written records, archives, and recording technology for historians to consult. Therefore, Thucydides's method served to "rescue" his mostly oral sources from oblivion. We do not know how these historical figures spoke. Thucydides's recreation uses a heroic stylistic register. A celebrated example is Pericles' funeral oration, which heaps honour on the dead and includes a defence of democracy:
The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men; they are honoured not only by columns and inscriptions in their own land, but in foreign nations on memorials graven not on stone but in the hearts and minds of men. ()
Stylistically, the placement of this passage also serves to heighten the contrast with the description of the plague in Athens immediately following it, which graphically emphasizes the horror of human mortality, thereby conveying a powerful sense of verisimilitude:
Though many lay unburied, birds and beasts would not touch them, or died after tasting them [...]. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons who had died there, just as they were; for, as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became equally contemptuous of the property of and the dues to the deities. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off. ()
Thucydides omits discussion of the arts, literature, or the social milieu in which the events in his book take place and in which he grew up. He saw himself as recording an event, not a period, and went to considerable lengths to exclude what he deemed frivolous or extraneous.
Paul Shorey calls Thucydides "a cynic devoid of moral sensibility". In addition, he notes that Thucydides conceived of human nature as strictly determined by one's physical and social environments, alongside basic desires. Further research shows Shorey's views are extremist; Thucydides was moral, he simply rejected morality tethered to deities/religion.
Thucydides' work indicates an influence from the teachings of the Sophists that contributes substantially to the thinking and character of his "History". Possible evidence includes his skeptical ideas concerning justice and morality. There are also elements within the "History"—such as his views on nature revolving around the factual, empirical, and the non-anthropomorphic—which suggest that he was at least aware of the views of philosophers such as Anaxagoras and Democritus. There is also evidence of his knowledge concerning some of the corpus of Hippocratic medical writings.
Thucydides was especially interested in the relationship between human intelligence and judgment, Fortune and Necessity, and the idea that history is too irrational and incalculable to predict.
Scholars traditionally view Thucydides as recognizing and teaching the lesson that democracies need leadership, but that leadership can be dangerous to democracy. Leo Strauss (in "The City and Man") locates the problem in the nature of Athenian democracy itself, about which, he argued, Thucydides had a deeply ambivalent view: on one hand, Thucydides's own "wisdom was made possible" by the Periclean democracy, which had the effect of liberating individual daring, enterprise, and questioning spirit; but this same liberation, by permitting the growth of limitless political ambition, led to imperialism and, eventually, civic strife.
For Canadian historian Charles Norris Cochrane (1889–1945), Thucydides's fastidious devotion to observable phenomena, focus on cause and effect, and strict exclusion of other factors anticipates twentieth-century scientific positivism. Cochrane, the son of a physician, speculated that Thucydides generally (and especially in describing the plague in Athens) was influenced by the methods and thinking of early medical writers such as Hippocrates of Kos.
After World War II, classical scholar Jacqueline de Romilly pointed out that the problem of Athenian imperialism was one of Thucydides's central preoccupations and situated his history in the context of Greek thinking about international politics. Since the appearance of her study, other scholars further examined Thucydides's treatment of "realpolitik".
More recently, scholars have questioned the perception of Thucydides as simply "the father of realpolitik". Instead they have brought to the fore the literary qualities of the "History", which they see as belonging to the narrative tradition of Homer and Hesiod and as concerned with the concepts of justice and suffering found in Plato and Aristotle and problematized in Aeschylus and Sophocles. Richard Ned Lebow terms Thucydides "the last of the tragedians", stating that "Thucydides drew heavily on epic poetry and tragedy to construct his history, which not surprisingly is also constructed as a narrative." In this view, the blind and immoderate behaviour of the Athenians (and indeed of all the other actors)—although perhaps intrinsic to human nature—ultimately leads to their downfall. Thus his "History" could serve as a warning to future leaders to be more prudent, by putting them on notice that someone would be scrutinizing their actions with a historian's objectivity rather than a chronicler's flattery.
The historian J. B. Bury writes that the work of Thucydides "marks the longest and most decisive step that has ever been taken by a single man towards making history what it is today".
Historian H. D. Kitto feels that Thucydides wrote about the Peloponnesian War, not because it was the most significant war in antiquity, but because it caused the most suffering. Indeed, several passages of Thucydides's book are written "with an intensity of feeling hardly exceeded by Sappho herself".
In his book "The Open Society and Its Enemies", Karl Popper writes that Thucydides was the "greatest historian, perhaps, who ever lived". Thucydides's work, however, Popper goes on to say, represents "an interpretation, a point of view; and in this we need not agree with him". In the war between Athenian democracy and the "arrested oligarchic tribalism of Sparta", we must never forget Thucydides's "involuntary bias", and that "his heart was not with Athens, his native city":
Although he apparently did not belong to the extreme wing of the Athenian oligarchic clubs who conspired throughout the war with the enemy, he was certainly a member of the oligarchic party, and a friend neither of the Athenian people, the demos, who had exiled him, nor of its imperialist policy.
Thucydides and his immediate predecessor, Herodotus, both exerted a significant influence on Western historiography. Thucydides does not mention his counterpart by name, but his famous introductory statement is thought to refer to him:To hear this history rehearsed, for that there be inserted in it no fables, shall be perhaps not delightful. But he that desires to look into the truth of things done, and which (according to the condition of humanity) may be done again, or at least their like, shall find enough herein to make him think it profitable. And it is compiled rather for an everlasting possession than to be rehearsed for a prize. ()
Herodotus records in his "Histories" not only the events of the Persian Wars, but also geographical and ethnographical information, as well as the fables related to him during his extensive travels. Typically, he passes no definitive judgment on what he has heard. In the case of conflicting or unlikely accounts, he presents both sides, says what he believes and then invites readers to decide for themselves. Of course, modern historians would generally leave out their personal beliefs, which is a form of passing judgment upon the events and people about which the historian is reporting. The work of Herodotus is reported to have been recited at festivals, where prizes were awarded, as for example, during the games at Olympia.
Herodotus views history as a source of moral lessons, with conflicts and wars as misfortunes flowing from initial acts of injustice perpetuated through cycles of revenge. In contrast, Thucydides claims to confine himself to factual reports of contemporary political and military events, based on unambiguous, first-hand, eye-witness accounts, although, unlike Herodotus, he does not reveal his sources. Thucydides views life exclusively as "political" life, and history in terms of "political" history. Conventional moral considerations play no role in his analysis of political events while geographic and ethnographic aspects are omitted or, at best, of secondary importance. Subsequent Greek historians—such as Ctesias, Diodorus, Strabo, Polybius and Plutarch—held up Thucydides's writings as a model of truthful history. Lucian refers to Thucydides as having given Greek historians their "law", requiring them to say "what had been done" (). Greek historians of the fourth century BC accepted that history was political and that contemporary history was the proper domain of a historian. Cicero calls Herodotus the "father of history"; yet the Greek writer Plutarch, in his "Moralia" ("Ethics") denigrated Herodotus, notably calling him a "philobarbaros", a "barbarian lover", to the detriment of the Greeks. Unlike Thucydides, however, these authors all continued to view history as a source of moral lessons, thereby infusing their works with personal biases generally missing from Thucydides' clear-eyed, non-judgmental writings focused on reporting events in a non-biased manner.
Due to the loss of the ability to read Greek, Thucydides and Herodotus were largely forgotten during the Middle Ages in Western Europe, although their influence continued in the Byzantine world. In Europe, Herodotus become known and highly respected only in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century as an ethnographer, in part due to the discovery of America, where customs and animals were encountered that were even more surprising than what he had related. During the Reformation, moreover, information about Middle Eastern countries in the "Histories" provided a basis for establishing Biblical chronology as advocated by Isaac Newton.
The first European translation of Thucydides (into Latin) was made by the humanist Lorenzo Valla between 1448 and 1452, and the first Greek edition was published by Aldo Manuzio in 1502. During the Renaissance, however, Thucydides attracted less interest among Western European historians as a political philosopher than his successor, Polybius, although Poggio Bracciolini claimed to have been influenced by him. There is not much evidence of Thucydides's influence in Niccolò Machiavelli's "The Prince" (1513), which held that the chief aim of a new prince must be to "maintain his state" [i.e., his power] and that in so doing he is often compelled to act against faith, humanity, and religion. Later historians, such as J. B. Bury, however, have noted parallels between them:
If, instead of a history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that ... he could have forestalled Machiavelli ... [since] the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state. To maintain a state, said the Florentine thinker, "a statesman is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion". ... But ... the true Machiavelli, not the Machiavelli of fable ... entertained an ideal: Italy for the Italians, Italy freed from the stranger: and in the service of this ideal he desired to see his speculative science of politics applied. Thucydides has no political aim in view: he was purely a historian. But it was part of the method of both alike to eliminate conventional sentiment and morality.
In the seventeenth century, the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, whose "Leviathan" advocated absolute monarchy, admired Thucydides and in 1628 was the first to translate his writings into English directly from Greek. Thucydides, Hobbes, and Machiavelli are together considered the founding fathers of political realism, according to which, state policy must primarily or solely focus on the need to maintain military and economic power rather than on ideals or ethics.
Nineteenth-century positivist historians stressed what they saw as Thucydides's seriousness, his scientific objectivity and his advanced handling of evidence. A virtual cult following developed among such German philosophers as Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Schlegel, and Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that, "[in Thucydides], the portrayer of Man, that culture of the most impartial knowledge of the world finds its last glorious flower." The late-eighteenth-century Swiss historian Johannes von Müller described Thucydides as "the favourite author of the greatest and noblest men, and one of the best teachers of the wisdom of human life". For Eduard Meyer, Thomas Babington Macaulay and Leopold von Ranke, who initiated modern source-based history writing, Thucydides was again the model historian.
Generals and statesmen loved him: the world he drew was theirs, an exclusive power-brokers' club. It is no accident that even today Thucydides turns up as a guiding spirit in military academies, neocon think tanks and the writings of men like Henry Kissinger; whereas Herodotus has been the choice of imaginative novelists (Michael Ondaatje's novel "The English Patient" and the film based on it boosted the sale of the "Histories" to a wholly unforeseen degree) and—as food for a starved soul—of an equally imaginative foreign correspondent from Iron Curtain Poland, Ryszard Kapuscinski.
These historians also admired Herodotus, however, as social and ethnographic history increasingly came to be recognized as complementary to political history. In the twentieth century, this trend gave rise to the works of Johan Huizinga, Marc Bloch, and Fernand Braudel, who pioneered the study of long-term cultural and economic developments and the patterns of everyday life. The Annales School, which exemplifies this direction, has been viewed as extending the tradition of Herodotus.
At the same time, Thucydides's influence was increasingly important in the area of international relations during the Cold War, through the work of Hans Morgenthau, Leo Strauss, and Edward Carr.
The tension between the Thucydidean and Herodotean traditions extends beyond historical research. According to Irving Kristol, self-described founder of American neoconservatism, Thucydides wrote "the favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs"; and Thucydides is a required text at the Naval War College, an American institution located in Rhode Island. On the other hand, Daniel Mendelsohn, in a review of a recent edition of Herodotus, suggests that, at least in his graduate school days during the Cold War, professing admiration of Thucydides served as a form of self-presentation:
To be an admirer of Thucydides' "History", with its deep cynicism about political, rhetorical and ideological hypocrisy, with its all too recognizable protagonists—a liberal yet imperialistic democracy and an authoritarian oligarchy, engaged in a war of attrition fought by proxy at the remote fringes of empire—was to advertise yourself as a hardheaded connoisseur of global Realpolitik.
Another author, Thomas Geoghegan, whose speciality is labour rights, comes down on the side of Herodotus when it comes to drawing lessons relevant to Americans, who, he notes, tend to be rather isolationist in their habits (if not in their political theorizing): "We should also spend more funds to get our young people out of the library where they're reading Thucydides and get them to start living like Herodotus—going out and seeing the world."
Another contemporary historian believes that, while it is true that critical history "began with Thucydides, one may also argue that Herodotus' looking at the past as a reason why the present is the way it is, and to search for causality for events beyond the realms of Tyche and the Gods, was a much larger step." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30864 |
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa after the end of apartheid. Witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.
The TRC, the first of the 1003 held internationally to stage public hearings, was seen by many as a crucial component of the transition to full and free democracy in South Africa. Despite some flaws, it is generally (although not universally) thought to have been successful.
The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation was established in 2000 as the successor organisation of the TRC.
The TRC was set up in terms of the "Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act", No. 34 of 1995, and was based in Cape Town. The hearings started in 1996. The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as offering reparation and rehabilitation to the victims. A register of reconciliation was also established so that ordinary South Africans who wished to express regret for past failures could also express their remorse.
The TRC had a number of high-profile members, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu (chairman), Alex Boraine (deputy chairman), Sisi Khampepe, Wynand Malan, and Emma Mashinini.
The work of the TRC was accomplished through three committees:
Public hearings of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the Amnesty Committee were held at many venues around South Africa, including Cape Town (at the University of the Western Cape), Johannesburg (at the Central Methodist Mission), and Randburg (at the Rhema Bible Church).
The commission was empowered to grant amnesty to those who committed abuses during the apartheid era, as long as the crimes were politically motivated, proportionate, and there was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty. To avoid victor's justice, no side was exempt from appearing before the commission. The commission heard reports of human rights violations and considered amnesty applications from all sides, from the apartheid state to the liberation forces, including the African National Congress.
The Commission found more than 19,050 people had been victims of gross human rights violations. An additional 2,975 victims were identified through the applications for amnesty. In reporting these numbers, the Commission voiced its regret that there was very little overlap of victims between those seeking restitution and those seeking amnesty.
A total of 5,392 amnesty applications were refused, granting only 849 out of the 7,111 (which includes the number of additional categories, such as "withdrawn").
The TRC's emphasis on reconciliation was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by the Nuremberg Trials and other de-Nazification measures. The reconciliatory approach was seen as a successful way of dealing with human-rights violations after political change, either from internal or external factors. Consequently, other countries have instituted similar commissions, though not always with the same scope or the allowance for charging those currently in power.
There are varying opinions as to whether the restorative justice method (as employed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) is more or less effective than the retributive justice method (which was used during the Nuremberg Trials). In one survey study, the effectiveness of the TRC Commission was measured on a variety of levels:
In the study by Orlando Lentini, the opinions of three ethnic groups were measured in this study: the British Africans, the Afrikaners, and the Xhosa. According to the researchers, all of the participants perceived the TRC to be effective in bringing out the truth, but to varying degrees, depending on the group in question.
The differences in opinions about the effectiveness can be attributed to how each group viewed the proceedings. Some viewed them as not entirely accurate, as many people would lie in order to keep themselves out of trouble while receiving amnesty for their crimes. (The Commission would grant amnesty to some with consideration given to the weight of the crimes committed.) Some said that the proceedings only helped to remind them of the horrors that had taken place in the past when they had been working to forget such things. Thus, the TRC's effectiveness in terms of achieving those very things within its title is still debatable.
The hearings were initially set to be heard "in camera", but the intervention of 23 non-governmental organisations eventually succeeded in gaining media access to the hearings. On 15 April 1996, the South African National Broadcaster televised the first two hours of the first human rights violation committee hearing live. With funding from the Norwegian government, radio continued to broadcast live throughout. Additional high-profile hearings, such as Winnie Mandela's testimony, were also televised live.
The rest of the hearings were presented on television each Sunday, from April 1996 to June 1998, in hour-long episodes of the "Truth Commission Special Report". The programme was presented by progressive Afrikaner journalist Max du Preez, former editor of the "Vrye Weekblad". The producers of the programme included Anneliese Burgess, Jann Turner, Benedict Motau, Gael Reagon, Rene Schiebe and Bronwyn Nicholson, a production assistant.
Various films have been made about the commission:
Several plays have been produced about the TRC:
A 1998 study by South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation & the Khulumani Support Group, which surveyed several hundred victims of human rights abuse during the Apartheid era, found that most felt that the TRC had failed to achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities. Most believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse. As a result of the TRC's shortcomings and the unaddressed injuries of many victims, victims' groups, together with NGOs and lawyers, took various TRC-related matters to South African and US courts in the early 2000s.
Another dilemma facing the TRC was how to do justice to the testimonials of those witnesses for whom translation was necessary. It was believed that, with the great discrepancy between the emotions of the witnesses and those translating them, much of the impact was lost in interlingual rendition. A briefly tried solution was to have the translators mimic the witnesses' emotions, but this proved disastrous and was quickly scrapped.
While former president F. W. de Klerk appeared before the commission and reiterated his apology for the suffering caused by apartheid, many black South Africans were angered at amnesty being granted for human rights abuses committed by the apartheid government. The BBC described such criticisms as stemming from a "basic misunderstanding" about the TRC's mandate, which was to uncover the truth about past abuse, using amnesty as a mechanism, rather than to punish past crimes. Critics of the TRC dispute this, saying that their position is not a misunderstanding but a rejection of the TRC's mandate.
Among the highest-profile of these objections were the criticisms levelled by the family of prominent anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who was killed by the security police, and whose story was featured in the film "Cry Freedom". Biko's family described the TRC as a "vehicle for political expediency", which "robbed" them of their right to justice. The family opposed amnesty for his killers on these grounds and brought a legal action in South Africa's highest court, arguing that the TRC was unconstitutional.
On the other side of the spectrum, former apartheid State President P.W. Botha defied a subpoena to appear before the commission, calling it a "circus". His defiance resulted in a fine and suspended sentence, but these were overturned on appeal. Playwright Jane Taylor, responsible for the acclaimed "Ubu and the Truth Commission", found fault with the Commission's lopsided influence:
The TRC is unquestionably a monumental process, the consequences of which will take years to unravel. For all its pervasive weight, however, it infiltrates our culture asymmetrically, unevenly across multiple sectors. Its place in small rural communities, for example, when it establishes itself in a local church hall, and absorbs substantial numbers of the population, is very different from its situation in large urban centres, where its presence is marginalised by other social and economic activities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30865 |
Tatting
Tatting is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops. Tatting can be used to make lace edging as well as doilies, collars, accessories such as earrings and necklaces, and other decorative pieces. The lace is formed by a pattern of rings and chains formed from a series of cow hitch or half-hitch knots, called double stitches, over a core thread. Gaps can be left between the stitches to form picots, which are used for practical construction as well as decorative effect.
In German, tatting is usually known by the Italian-derived word "Occhi" or as "Schiffchenarbeit", which means "work of the little boat", referring to the boat-shaped shuttle; in Italian, tatting is called "chiacchierino", which means "chatty".
Tatting with a shuttle is the earliest method of creating tatted lace. A tatting "shuttle" facilitates tatting by holding a length of wound thread and guiding it through loops to make the requisite knots. Historically, it was a metal or ivory pointed-oval shape less than long, but shuttles come in a variety of shapes and materials. Shuttles often have a point or hook on one end to aid in the construction of the lace. Antique shuttles and unique shuttles have become sought after by collectors — even those who do not tat.
To make the lace, the tatter wraps the thread around one hand and manipulates the shuttle with the other hand. No tools other than the thread, the hands and the shuttle are used, though a crochet hook may be necessary if the shuttle does not have a point or hook.
Traditional shuttle tatting may be simulated using a tatting needle or doll needle instead of a shuttle. There are two basic techniques for needle tatting. With the more widely disseminated technique, a double thread passes through the stitches. The result is similar to shuttle tatting but is slightly thicker and looser. The second technique more closely approximates shuttle tatting because a single thread passes through the stitches.
The earliest evidence for needle tatting dates from April 1917, in an article by M.E. Rozella, published in "The Modern Priscilla." A tatting needle is a long, blunt needle that does not change thickness at the eye of the needle. The needle used must match the thickness of the thread chosen for the project. Rather than winding the shuttle, the needle is threaded with a length of thread. To work with a second color, a second needle is used. Although needle tatting looks similar to shuttle tatting, it differs in structure and is slightly thicker and looser because both the needle and the thread must pass through the stitches. However, it may be seen that the Victorian tatting pin would function as a tatting needle. As well, Florence Hartley refers in "The Ladies' Hand Book of Fancy and Ornamental Work" (1859) to the use of the tatting needle, so it must have originated prior to the mid-1800s.
In the late 20th century, tatting needles became commercially available in a variety of sizes, from fingering yarn down to size 80 tatting thread. Few patterns are written specifically for needle tatting; some shuttle tatting patterns may be used without modification. There are currently two manufacturers of tatting needles.
Cro-tatting combines needle tatting with crochet. The cro-tatting tool is a tatting needle with a crochet hook at the end. One can also cro-tat with a bullion crochet hook or a very straight crochet hook. In the 19th century, "crochet tatting" patterns were published which simply called for a crochet hook. One of the earliest patterns is for a crocheted afghan with tatted rings forming a raised design. Patterns are available in English and are equally divided between yarn and thread. In its most basic form, the rings are tatted with a length of plain thread between them, as in single-shuttle tatting. In modern patterns, beginning in the early 20th century, the rings are tatted and the arches or chains are crocheted. Many people consider cro-tatting more difficult than crochet or needle tatting. Some tatting instructors recommend using a tatting needle and a crochet hook to work cro-tatting patterns. Stitches of cro-tatting (and needle tatting before a ring is closed) unravel easily, unlike tatting made with a shuttle.
A form of tatting called Takashima Tatting, invented by Toshiko Takashima, exists in Japan. Takashima Tatting uses a custom needle with a hook on one end. It is not that widespread however (in Japan the primary form of tatting is shuttle tatting, and needle tatting is virtually unknown.).
Older designs, especially through the early 1900s, tend to use fine white or ivory thread (50 to 100 widths to the inch) and intricate designs. Often they were constructed of small pieces 10 cm or less in diameter, which were then tied to each other to form a larger piece — a shawl, veil or umbrella, for example. This thread was either made of silk or a silk blend, to allow for improper stitches to be easily removed. The mercerization process strengthened cotton threads and spread their use in tatting. Newer designs from the 1920s and onward often use thicker thread in one or more colors, as well as newer joining methods, to reduce the number of thread ends to be hidden. The best thread for tatting is a "hard" thread that does not untwist readily. Cordonnet thread is a common tatting thread; Perl cotton is an example of a beautiful cord that is nonetheless a bit loose for tatting purposes. Some tatting designs incorporate ribbons and beads.
Older patterns use a longhand notation to describe the stitches needed, while newer patterns tend to make extensive use of abbreviations such as "ds" to mean "double stitch," and an almost mathematical-looking notation. The following examples describe the same small piece of tatting (the first ring in the "Hen and Chicks" pattern)
Some tatters prefer a visual pattern where the design is drawn schematically with annotations indicating the number of double stitches and order of construction. This can either be used on its own or alongside a written pattern.
Tatting may have developed from netting and decorative ropework as sailors and fishermen would put together motifs for girlfriends and wives at home. Decorative ropework employed on ships includes techniques (esp. coxcombing) that show striking similarity with tatting. A good description of this can be found in "Knots, Splices and Fancywork".
Some believe tatting originated over 200 years ago, often citing shuttles seen in 18th-century paintings of women such as Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Princess Marie Adélaïde of France, and Anne, Countess of Albemarle. A close inspection of those paintings, however, shows that the shuttles in question are too large to be tatting shuttles, and that they are actually knotting shuttles. There is no documentation of or examples of tatted lace that dates prior to 1800. All available evidence shows that tatting originated in the early 19th century.
As most fashion magazines and home economics magazines from the first half of the 20th century attest, tatting had a substantial following. When fashion included feminine touches such as lace collars and cuffs, and inexpensive yet nice baby shower gifts were needed, this creative art flourished. As the fashion moved to a more modern look and technology made lace an easy and inexpensive commodity to purchase, hand-made lace began to decline.
Tatting has been used in occupational therapy to keep convalescent patients' hands and minds active during recovery, as documented, for example, in Betty MacDonald's "The Plague & I". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30867 |
Tesla turbine
The Tesla turbine is a bladeless centripetal flow turbine patented by Nikola Tesla in 1913. It is referred to as a "bladeless turbine". The Tesla turbine is also known as the "boundary-layer turbine", "cohesion-type turbine", and "Prandtl-layer turbine" (after Ludwig Prandtl) because it uses the "boundary-layer effect" and not a fluid impinging upon the blades as in a conventional turbine. Bioengineering researchers have referred to it as a multiple-disk centrifugal pump. One of Tesla's desires for implementation of this turbine was for geothermal power, which was described in "Our Future Motive Power".
The guiding idea for developing Tesla turbine is the fact that in order to attain the highest efficiency, the changes in the velocity and direction of movement of fluid should be as gradual as possible. Therefore, the propelling fluid of Tesla turbine moves in natural paths or stream lines of least resistance.
A Tesla turbine consists of a set of smooth disks, with nozzles applying a moving fluid to the edge of the disk. The fluid drags on the disk by means of viscosity and the adhesion of the surface layer of the fluid. As the fluid slows and adds energy to the disks, it spirals into the center exhaust. Since the rotor has no projections, it is very sturdy.
Tesla wrote: "This turbine is an efficient self-starting prime mover which may be operated as a steam or mixed fluid turbine at will, without changes in construction and is on this account very convenient. Minor departures from the turbine, as may be dictated by the circumstances in each case, will obviously suggest themselves but if it is carried out on these general lines it will be found highly profitable to the owners of the steam plant while permitting the use of their old installation. However, the best economic results in the development of power from steam by the Tesla turbine will be obtained in plants especially adapted for the purpose."
The device can function as a pump if a similar set of disks and a housing with an involute shape (versus circular for the turbine) are used. In this configuration a motor is attached to the shaft. The fluid enters near the center, is given energy by the disks, then exits at the periphery. The Tesla turbine does not use friction in the conventional sense; precisely, it avoids it and uses adhesion (the Coandă effect) and viscosity instead. It uses the boundary-layer effect on the disc blades.
Smooth rotor disks were originally proposed, but these gave poor starting torque. Tesla subsequently discovered that smooth rotor disks with small washers bridging the disks in ~12–24 places around the perimeter of a 10″ disk and a second ring of 6–12 washers at a sub-diameter made for a significant improvement in starting torque without compromising efficiency.
Tesla's patents state that the device was intended for the use of fluids as motive agents, as distinguished from the application of the same for the propulsion or compression of fluids (though the device can be used for those purposes as well). As of 2016, the Tesla turbine has not seen widespread commercial use since its invention. The Tesla pump, however, has been commercially available since 1982 and is used to pump fluids that are abrasive, viscous, shear sensitive, contain solids, or are otherwise difficult to handle with other pumps. Tesla himself did not procure a large contract for production. The main drawback in his time, as mentioned, was the poor knowledge of materials characteristics and behaviors at high temperatures. The best metallurgy of the day could not prevent the turbine disks from moving and warping unacceptably during operation.
Today, many amateur experiments in the field have been conducted using Tesla turbines which use compressed air, or steam as its power source (the steam being generated with heat from fuel combustion, from a vehicle's turbocharger or from solar radiation). The issue of the warping of the discs has been partially solved using new materials such as carbon fiber.
One proposed current application for the device is a waste pump, in factories and mills where normal vane-type turbine pumps typically get blocked.
Applications of the Tesla turbine as a multiple-disk centrifugal blood pump have yielded promising results due to the low peak shear force.Biomedical engineering research on such applications has been continued into the 21st century.
In 2010, was issued to Howard Fuller for a wind turbine based on the Tesla design.
In Tesla's time, the efficiency of conventional turbines was low because turbines used a direct drive system that severely limited the potential speed of a turbine to whatever it was driving. At the time of introduction, modern ship turbines were massive and included dozens, or even hundreds of stages of turbines, yet produced extremely low efficiency due to their low speed. For example, the turbine on the Titanic weighed over 400 tons, ran at just 165rpm, and used steam at a pressure of only 6 PSI. This limited it to harvesting waste steam from the main power plants, a pair of reciprocating steam engines. The Tesla turbine also had the ability to run on higher temperature gasses than bladed turbines of the time contributed to its greater efficiency. Eventually axial turbines were given gearing to allow them to operate at higher speeds, but efficiency of axial turbines remained very low in comparison to the Tesla Turbine.
As time went on, competing Axial turbines became dramatically more efficient and powerful, a second stage of reduction gears was introduced in most cutting edge U.S. naval ships of the 1930s. The improvement in steam technology gave the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers a clear advantage in speed over both Allied and enemy aircraft carriers, and so the proven axial steam turbines became the preferred form of propulsion until the 1973 oil embargo took place. The oil crisis drove the majority of new civilian vessels to turn to diesel engines. Axial steam turbines still had not exceeded 50% efficiency by that time, and so civilian ships chose to utilize diesel engines due to their superior efficiency. By this time, the comparably efficient Tesla turbine was over 60 years old.
Tesla's design attempted to sidestep the key drawbacks of the bladed axial turbines, and even the lowest estimates for efficiency still dramatically outperformed the efficiency of axial steam turbines of the day. However, in testing against more modern engines, the Tesla Turbine had expansion efficiencies far below contemporary steam turbines and far below contemporary reciprocating steam engines. It does suffer from other problems such as shear losses and flow restrictions, but this is partially offset by the relatively massive reduction in weight and volume. Some of Tesla turbine's advantages lie in relatively low flow rate applications or when small applications are called for. The disks need to be as thin as possible at the edges in order not to introduce turbulence as the fluid leaves the disks. This translates to needing to increase the number of disks as the flow rate increases. Maximum efficiency comes in this system when the inter-disk spacing approximates the thickness of the boundary layer, and since boundary layer thickness is dependent on viscosity and pressure, the claim that a single design can be used efficiently for a variety of fuels and fluids is incorrect. A Tesla turbine differs from a conventional turbine only in the mechanism used for transferring energy to the shaft. Various analyses demonstrate the flow rate between the disks must be kept relatively low to maintain efficiency. Reportedly, the efficiency of the Tesla turbine drops with increased load. Under light load, the spiral taken by the fluid moving from the intake to the exhaust is a tight spiral, undergoing many rotations. Under load, the number of rotations drops and the spiral becomes progressively shorter. This will increase the shear losses and also reduce the efficiency because the gas is in contact with the discs for less distance.
Efficiency is a function of power output. A moderate load makes for high efficiency. Too heavy a load increases the slip in the turbine and lowers the efficiency; with too light a load, little power is delivered to the output, which also decreases efficiency (to zero at idle). This behavior is not exclusive to Tesla turbines.
The turbine efficiency of the gas Tesla turbine is estimated to be above 60, reaching a maximum of 95 percent . Keep in mind that turbine efficiency is different from the cycle efficiency of the engine using the turbine. Axial turbines which operate today in steam plants or jet engines have efficiencies of over 90%. This is different from the cycle efficiencies of the plant or engine which are between approximately 25% and 42%, and are limited by any irreversibilities to be below the Carnot cycle efficiency. Tesla claimed that a steam version of his device would achieve around 95 percent efficiency. Actual tests of a Tesla steam turbine at the Westinghouse works showed a steam rate of 38 pounds per horsepower-hour, corresponding to a turbine efficiency in the range of 90%, while contemporary steam turbines could often achieve turbine efficiencies of well over 50%. The thermodynamic efficiency is a measure of how well it performs compared to an isentropic case. It is the ratio of the ideal to the actual work input/output. Turbine efficiency is defined as the ratio of the ideal change in enthalpy to the real enthalpy for the same change in pressure.
In the 1950s, Warren Rice attempted to re-create Tesla's experiments, but he "did not" perform these early tests on a pump built strictly in line with the Tesla's patented design (it, among other things, was not a Tesla multiple staged turbine nor did it possess Tesla's nozzle). Rice's experimental single stage system's working fluid was air. Rice's test turbines, as published in early reports, produced an overall measured efficiency of 36–41% for a "single stage". Higher efficiency would be expected if designed as originally proposed by Tesla.
In his final work with the Tesla turbine and published just prior to his retirement, Rice conducted a bulk-parameter analysis of model laminar flow in "multiple disk" turbines. A very high claim for rotor efficiency (as opposed to overall device efficiency) for this design was published in 1991 titled "Tesla Turbomachinery". This paper states:
Modern "multiple stage" bladed turbines typically reach 60–70% efficiency, while large steam turbines often show turbine efficiency of over 90% in practice. Volute rotor matched Tesla-type machines of reasonable size with common fluids (steam, gas, and water) would also be expected to show efficiencies in the vicinity of 60–70% and possibly higher.
Let now investigate the Tesla Turbine (TT), and shortly technically every Blade Steam Turbine (BST) first, in respect to the Newton's 3 Law of Motion (N3LM).
In standard BST the steam has to press on the blades in order for the rotor to extract energy from the steam speed, due to the difference between the relative speed of the steam and the blades. In BST the blades must be carefully orientated, in the optimal regime of the regime's work, in such a way as to minimize the angle of the steam attack to their surface area. Or in their words, they are trying to minimize the angle with which the steam is hitting their surface area, as to create smooth seam flow, without any so called “eddies” or turbulence. Exactly these eddies are created according to the N3LM, or in reaction to the steam impacting the surface of the blades. One these eddies are loss to the useful energy that can be extracted from the system and second, as they are in opposite direction, they decrease the energy of the incoming steam stream.
In TT, considering that there are no blades to be impacted what is the mechanism of this energy of reaction to materialize. The recreational force to the steam head pressure actually builds, relatively quickly, as a steam pressure “belt” along the periphery of the turbine. That belt is most dense, pressurized, in the periphery as it pressure, when the rotor is not under load, will be a notch less, then the steam pressure. In a normal operational mode, that peripheral pressure, as Tesla noted, plays a role of BEMF (Back Electro Motive Force), limiting the flow of the incoming stream, and in this way the TT can be said to be self regulating. When the rotor is not under load the relative speeds between the "steam compressed spirals" (SCS, the steam spirally rotating between the disks) and the disks is minimal.
When a load is applied on the TT shaft the slows down, i.e. the relative speed of the discs to the (movement) fluid increases as the fluid, at least initially, preserves its own momentum. For example, we can take a radius where at 9000 RPM the peripheral disk speeds are , when there is no load on the rotor, the disks move at approximately the same speed with the fluid, but when the rotor is loaded, the relative velocity differential (between the SCS and the metal disks) increases and rotor speed has a relative speed of 45 m/s to the SCS. This is a dynamic environment and these speeds reach these values over time delta and not instantly. Here we have to note that fluids start to behave like solid bodies at high relative velocities, and in TT case, we also have to take in consideration the additional pressure. According to the old literature on steam boilers it is said, that steam at high speed, resulting from high pressure source, cuts steel as a "knife cuts butter". According to the logic, this pressure and relative velocity towards the faces of the discs, the steam should start behaving like a solid body (SCS) dragging on disk metal surfaces. The created “friction” can only lead to the generation of an additional heat directly on the disk and in SCS, and will be most pronounced in the peripheral layer, where the relative velocity between the metal discs and SCS discs is the highest. This increase in the temperature, will be translated to increase in the SCS temperature, and that will lead to SCS steam expansion and pressure increase perpendicular to the metal discs as well as radially on the axis of rotation (SCS trying to expand, in order to absorb additional heat energy), and so this dynamics appears to be a positive feedback for transmitting a stronger “dragging” on the metal disks and consequently increasing the torque at the axis of rotation.
This dynamics appears to be a derivative of what Tesla commented, and although it is not mentioned by him, it is a logical next step to explain the thermodynamics in the system.
"Tesla"
"Other" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30869 |
Transport in Afghanistan
Transport in Afghanistan is limited and in the developing stage. Much of the nation's road network was built during the 1960s but left to ruin during the 1980s and 90s wars. New national highways, roads, and bridges have been rebuilt in the last decade to help increase travel as well as trade with neighboring countries. In 2008, there were about 731,607 vehicles registered inside the country.
Landlocked Afghanistan has no seaports, but the Amu Darya river, which forms part of the nation's border with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, does have substantial traffic. Rebuilding of airports, roads, and rail services has led to rapid economic growth in recent years. The nation has about 43 airports and a much smaller number of heliports.
Most major roads were built in the 1960s with assistance from the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets built a road and tunnel through the Salang pass in 1964, connecting northern and eastern Afghanistan. A highway connecting the principal cities of Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni, and Kabul with links to highways in neighboring Pakistan formed the primary road system.
The network includes 12,350 kilometers of paved roads and 29,800 kilometers of unpaved roads, for an approximate total road system of 42,150 kilometers as of 2006. Traffic in Afghanistan is right hand, with about 731,607 registered vehicles in the country (2008 estimate). The Afghan government passed a law banning the import of cars older than 10 years.
Long distant road journeys are made by company-owned Mercedes-Benz coach buses or various types of vans, trucks and private cars. Although a nationwide bus service is available between major cities, flying is safer, especially for foreigners. There are occasional highway robberies by bandits or militant groups. The roads are also dangerous due to accidents and lack of security forces.
The highway system is currently going through a reconstruction phase. Most of the regional roads are also being repaired or improved. For the last 30 years, the poor state of the Afghan transportation and communication networks has further fragmented and hampered the struggling economy.
The following is a partial list of national roads:
A road bridge linking Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which cost $37 million, was inaugurated in 2007. The bridge, nearly 700 metres long and 11 metres across, straddles the Panj river which forms a natural border between the two countries, between the ports of Nizhny Panj on the Tajik side and Sher Khan Bandar in Afghanistan. The Delaram-Zaranj highway was constructed with Indian assistance and was inaugurated in January 2009.
Due to the lack of public urban transport systems, taxis are highly popular in cities like Kabul.
There is a 75-kilometer-long rail line between Uzbekistan and the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, all of which is built to broad gauge. The line begins from Termez and crosses the Amu Darya river on the Soviet-built Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge, finally reaching a site next to the Mazar-i-Sharif Airport. The Afghan government expects to have the rail line extended to Kabul and then to the eastern border town of Torkham, connecting with Pakistan Railways. The work is carried out by China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC). For strategic reasons, past Afghan governments preferred to discourage the construction of railways, which could aid foreign interference in Afghanistan by Britain or Russia. The river is the border between the two countries, and the stretch of track which lies within Afghanistan (from the Peace Bridge to the terminus near Herat airport is 75 km in length.
A 10-kilometer-long broad gauge line extends from Serhetabat in Turkmenistan to the town of Torghundi in Afghanistan, which is about 115 km to the north of Herat. An upgrade of this Soviet-built line, to renovate and connect the line from Torghundi to Herat, began in 2017.
A second rail connection between the two countries is that which extends from Aqina dry port in Faryab province of Afghanistan, via Imamnazar (or Ymamnazar), to Atamyrat (a.k.a Kerki), where it connects with the Turkmen rail network. At present, no more than 13.5 km of track exists within Afghanistan (from Aqina to the Imamnazar border), the rest being in Turkmenistan, but extensions into Afghanistan are afoot. An initial extension of to Andkhoy is under construction. The line is expected to be extended by 300 kilometers to other northern provinces of Afghanistan.
The nearest railway line in Iran is a standard gauge line which terminates at Mashhad. The most convenient point on that line to draw a connection to Afghanistan is near the town of Khaf, not far from Mashhad. A line from thereabouts is being extended 191 kilometers east to Herat, of which 77 km is located inside Iran and the remaining 114 km in Afghanistan.
Two broad gauge Pakistan Railways lines terminate near the border at Chaman in Balochistan near the Khojak Pass; and at Torkham, the border town near the Khyber Pass. Various proposals exist to extend these lines on to Kandahar and Kabul respectively. In 2010, Pakistan and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of understanding for going ahead with the laying of rail tracks between the two countries. Work on the proposed project was set to start in late 2010.
There are no rail links to China or Tajikistan, though a connection to the latter was proposed in 2008.
Air transport in Afghanistan is provided by Ariana Afghan Airlines, Afghan Jet International, East Horizon Airlines, Kam Air, Pamir Airways, and Safi Airways. Airlines from a number of nations also provide air services to fly in and out of the country. These include Air India, Emirates, Gulf Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Turkish Airlines and others.
The nation has at least four international airports, including the Hamid Karzai International Airport (Kabul International Airport) followed by Herat International Airport, Kandahar International Airport, and Mazar-e Sharif International Airport. There are a total of about 43 airports. Twenty-five of them have paved runways. Four of them have runways over 3,000 meters; three have runways between about 2,500 and 3,000 meters; eight have runways between 1500 and 2500 meters; and two have runways under 1000 meters.
Bagram Air Base is used by NATO-led forces. It has heavy military traffic, especially helicopters. It can also handle larger airliners such as Boeing 747s, C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III military cargo planes. KBR and some other companies fly into and out of Bagram on a regular basis.
In addition to the airport, there are at least nine heliports in Afghanistan.
The chief inland waterway of land-locked Afghanistan is the Amu Darya River which forms part of Afghanistan's northern border. The river handles barge traffic up to about 500 metric tons. The main river ports are located at Kheyrabad and Shir Khan Bandar.
There are petroleum pipelines from Bagram into Uzbekistan and Shindand into Turkmenistan. These pipelines have been in disrepair and disuse for years. There are 180 kilometers of natural gas pipelines. The $10 billion Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline for delivering natural gas across Afghanistan into Pakistan is moving forward. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30870 |
The Cramps
The Cramps were an American punk rock band formed in 1976 and active until 2009. The band split after the death of lead singer Lux Interior. Their line-up rotated frequently during their existence, with the husband-and-wife duo of Interior and lead guitarist and occasional bass guitarist Poison Ivy comprising the only ever-present members. The addition of guitarist Bryan Gregory and drummer Pam Balam resulted in the first complete lineup in April 1976.
They were part of the early CBGB punk rock movement that had emerged in New York. The Cramps were one of the first punk bands, and also widely recognized as one of the prime innovators of psychobilly.
Their music is mostly in rockabilly form, played at varying tempos, with a minimal drumkit. An integral part of the early Cramps sound was dual guitars, without a bassist. The focus of their songs' lyrical content and their image was camp humor, sexual double-entendre, and retro horror/sci-fi b-movie iconography.
Their sound was heavily influenced by early rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll like Link Wray and Hasil Adkins, 1960s surf music acts such as the Ventures and Dick Dale, 1960s garage rock artists like the Standells, the Trashmen, the Green Fuz and the Sonics, as well as the post-glam/early punk scene from which they emerged, as well as citing Ricky Nelson as being an influence during numerous interviews. They also were influenced to a degree by the Ramones and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, who were an influence for their style of theatrical horror-blues.
Despite being a Blues band by concept according to Ivy, the Cramps have influenced countless subsequent bands in the garage, punk and revival rockabilly styles, and helped create the psychobilly genre. "Psychobilly" was a term coined by the Cramps, although Lux Interior maintained that the term did not describe their own style.
Lux Interior (born Erick Lee Purkhiser) and Poison Ivy (born Kristy Marlana Wallace) met in Sacramento, California in 1972. In light of their common artistic interests and shared devotion to record collecting, they decided to form the Cramps. Lux took his stage name from a car ad, and Ivy claimed to have received hers in a dream (she was first Poison Ivy Rorschach, taking her last name from that of the inventor of the Rorschach test). In 1973, they moved to Akron, Ohio, and then to New York in 1975, soon entering into CBGB's early punk scene with other emerging acts like Suicide, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, and Mink DeVille. The lineup in 1976 was Poison Ivy Rorschach, Lux Interior, Bryan Gregory (guitar), and his sister Pam "Balam" Gregory (drums).
In a short period of time, the Cramps changed drummers twice; Miriam Linna (later of Nervus Rex, the Zantees, and the A-Bones and co-owner of Norton Records) replaced Pam Balam, and Nick Knox (formerly with the Electric Eels) replaced Linna in September 1977. In the late 1970s, the Cramps briefly shared a rehearsal space with the Fleshtones, and performed regularly in New York at clubs such as CBGB and Max's Kansas City, releasing two independent singles produced by Alex Chilton at Ardent Studios in Memphis in 1977 before being signed by Miles Copeland III to the young I.R.S. Records label. Their first tour of Great Britain was as supporting act to the Police on that band's first UK tour promoting "Outlandos d'Amour".
In June 1978, they gave a landmark free concert for patients at the California State Mental Hospital in Napa, recorded on a Sony Portapak video camera by the San Francisco collective Target Video and later released as "Live at Napa State Mental Hospital." Once back to the east coast, they played the revamped 1940s swing club "The Meadowbrook" in New Jersey, which had a huge stage and dance floor. The Cramps were the featured act, with opening set by Nozon and the Smiths. Next they recorded two singles in New York City, which were later re-released on their 1979 "Gravest Hits" EP, before Chilton brought them back that year to Memphis to record their first full-length album, "Songs the Lord Taught Us", at Phillips Recording, operated by former Sun Records label owner Sam Phillips.
The Cramps relocated to Los Angeles in 1980 and hired guitarist Kid Congo Powers of the Gun Club. While recording their second LP, "Psychedelic Jungle", the band and Miles Copeland began to dispute royalties and creative rights. The ensuing court case prevented them from releasing anything until 1983, when they recorded "Smell of Female" live at New York's Peppermint Lounge; Kid Congo Powers subsequently departed. Mike Metoff of the Pagans (cousin of Nick Knox) was the final second guitarist – albeit only live – of the Cramps' pre-bass era. He accompanied them on an extensive European tour in 1984 (that had been cancelled twice because they could not find a suitable guitarist) which included four sold out nights at the Hammersmith Palais. They also recorded performances of "Thee Most Exalted Potentate of Love" and "You Got Good Taste" which were broadcast on 'The Midsummer Night's Tube 1984.' "Smell of Female" peaked at No. 74 in the UK Albums Chart.
The band appears in the 1982 film "Urgh! A Music War".
In 1985 the Cramps recorded a one-off track for the horror movie "The Return of the Living Dead" called "Surfin' Dead", on which Ivy played bass as well as guitar. With the release of 1986's "A Date With Elvis", the Cramps permanently added a bass guitar to the mix, but had trouble finding a suitable player, so Ivy temporarily filled in as the band's bassist. Fur (Jennifer Dixon) joined them on the world tour to promote the album. Their popularity in the UK was at its peak as evidenced by the six nights at Hammersmith in London, three at the Odeon (as well as many other sell out dates throughout the UK) and then three at the Palais when they returned from the continent. Each night of the tour opened with the band coming on one at a time each: Knox, Fur, Ivy and then Lux before launching into their take on Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel". The album featured what was to become a predominating theme of their work from here on: a move away from the B-movie horror focus to an increased emphasis on sexual double entendre. The album met with differing fates on either side of the Atlantic: in Europe, it sold over 250,000 copies, while in the U.S. the band had difficulty finding a record company prepared to release it until 1990. It also included their first UK Singles Chart hit: "Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?"
It was not until 1986 that the Cramps found a suitable permanent bass player: Candy del Mar (of Satan's Cheerleaders), who made her recorded debut on the raw live album "RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandxxx", which was followed by the studio album "Stay Sick" in 1990. It spent one week at No. 62 in the UK Albums Chart in February 1990.
Knox left the band in 1991. The Cramps hit the Top 40 in the UK for the first and only time with "Bikini Girls with Machine Guns"; Ivy posed as such both on the cover of the single and in the promotional video for the song. The Cramps went on to record more albums and singles through the 1990s and 2000s, for various labels. When the band signed to The Medicine Label, a Warner Brothers imprint, in 1994 – the label made the announcement via a limited edition (500 copies) 12" live album of the Cramps' first two Max's Kansas City shows, given away to all ticket holders as they exited a secret CBGB show in early January of that year.
In 1994, the Cramps made their national US television debut on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" performing "Ultra Twist".
In 1995 the Cramps appeared on the TV-series "Beverly Hills, 90210" in the Halloween episode "Gypsies, Cramps and Fleas." They played two songs in show: "Mean Machine" and "Strange Love." Lux Interior started the song by saying "Hey boys and ghouls, are you ready to raise the dead?".
In honor of the excess of the Cramps, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has on display a shattered bass drum head that Lux's head went through during a live show.
On January 10, 2001, Bryan Gregory died at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center of complications following a heart attack. He was 49.
In 2002, the Cramps released their final album, "Fiends of Dope Island", on their own label, Vengeance Records.
They played their final shows in Europe in the summer of 2006 and their very last live show was 4 November 2006 at the Marquee Theater in Tempe, Arizona.
On February 4, 2009, Lux Interior died at the Glendale Memorial Hospital after suffering an aortic dissection which, contrary to initial reports about a pre-existing condition, was "sudden, shocking and unexpected". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30872 |
The Stems
The Stems are an alternative rock band formed in Perth, Western Australia in late 1983. They were founded by Dom Mariani in late 1983. The Stems are heavily influenced by 1960s garage rock and 1970s power pop. The band initially broke up in August 1987 and reformed in 2003 releasing a new album in 2007. Although the group disbanded in October 2009, as of 2013 The Stems are an ongoing live concern.
The Stems formed in late 1983 when vocalist/guitarist Dom Mariani, formerly in The Go-Starts, was introduced to Richard Lane. Lane had seen Mariani in the final few gigs of The Go-Starts and had asked him for guitar lessons which developed into jams, and then writing songs. Finally, the decision was made to form The Stems. A friend, Gary Chambers, was recruited to join on drums, and bass guitarist John Shuttleworth was poached from the Pink Armadillos. In March 1984, the band had their debut gig at the Old Civic Theater in Perth, which was in support of The Saints and The Triffids. Their sound was influenced by 1960s garage acts ranging from the Electric Prunes, The Standells, and The Chocolate Watch Band to The Easybeats. A local Saturday night residency at the Wizbah venue saw throwback covers with a growing list of original songs which developed a cult following for the band. Shuttleworth decided to leave, so a final gig for the band was arranged which drew a large crowd. The success of this gig and freshly written songs caused the band to recruit a new bass player, school friend Julian Matthews.
The Stems played at local venues such as The Wizbah, The Old Melbourne and The Shenton Park Hotel on a regular basis, the group built up a substantial following in Perth, at a time otherwise dominated by cover bands.
Late in 1984, they recorded three songs at Shelter Studios in Perth: "She's A Monster", "Make You Mine" and a version of "Tears Me in Two." The original plan was for this to be a self-released single with one track as the A-side and the other two as B-sides. A friend of the band who wanted to help manage them told them he would take the tapes to the east coast and shop them around to the independent labels there. There was quite a bit of interest expressed by a number of labels, but The Stems chose Citadel Records because of the high quality of their releases at the time. In mid-1985, the band went to Sydney to meet up with their new label and promote their first single, "Make You Mine"/"She's A Monster." The Stems first Sydney show was a sold out show with the Painters and Dockers at the Trade Union Club. The tour was perfectly timed with the Sydney inner city scene rediscovering 1960s music and fashion. The group met with an enthusiastic response, which culminated in a full house at the legendary Trade Union Club for their final show. The single reached the top of the independent charts, and also sold 500 copies in England. The single was the second highest selling independent single for Australia in 1985, behind Hoodoo Gurus' "Like Wow - Wipeout!." During this period, they recorded the single "Tears Me in Two" and the "Love Will Grow - Rosebud Volume 1" EP, both produced by Rob Younger of the Radio Birdman. The EP reached No. 72 in the national charts, and the band played triumphant shows on their return to Perth.
The Stems, with new drummer David Shaw on board, spent most of 1986 touring to promote their EP. This included national tours supporting Flamin' Groovies and the Hoodoo Gurus. They also sought a label deal. Mushroom Records signed the band, and The Stems booked into Platinum Studios with producer Alan Thorne at the end of 1986. The recording process didn’t go smoothly, and stretched from the planned one month to three, with a new producer brought in to complete the record. "At First Sight, Violets Are Blue" was released in 1987, their first recording for The White Label. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Australian alternative charts and 34 on the mainstream charts. It also received national and international critical acclaim and would be one of the best selling Australian albums of that year, despite the lack of commercial airplay in the corporate FM dominated '80s. Leaning toward a stronger pop sensibility, the album highlighted the talents of Dom Mariani and Richard Lane as skilled tunesmiths of the guitar pop genre. The album was nominated in the top 100 Australian albums of all time by "Rolling Stone" magazine and the title track "At First Sight" remains a bona fide Australian classic. 1987 also saw the band embark on another national tour and make appearances on national television, including playing the final episode of "Countdown". In the same year, the lead single "At First Sight" also made the "Young Einstein" soundtrack. The band seemed to have the world at their feet, an album which went on to become the third top Australian album of 1987. Following the success of the album, there was an increase in interest in the band from overseas, particularly in Europe.
Unfortunately, by October 1987, on the eve of a six-week European tour, the band disbanded. Dom's explanation was:
"I was not very happy with the way things were going towards the end of The Stems. We got quite big, and there are the usual problems that happen with that. People tend to drift apart, there are internal conflicts, egos going wild, and bad management was probably the major factor that contributed to The Stems breakup."
Matthews offered a similar explanation:
"In the end it was total burnout. By the time the band broke up, all of us had had enough. Any of us could have quit at any time. There was also this pull to do other stuff away from the band."
The Stems had performed at their last live show on 31 August 1987, but the breakup wasn't officially announced until November 1987. The Stems had released a total of five singles, one EP, and one full-length album, and they had set an impressive record with each release reaching No. 1 on the Australian alternative charts. The Stems, having completed several national tours were perhaps one of the first bands to gain national success while remaining in Perth. Despite never having toured internationally, they are held in high esteem in Europe and the United States amongst fans of classic '60s and garage-inspired rock ‘n’ roll.
The Stems epitomised 1980s indie rock, giving it a wider currency. They are one of only a handful of bands among them the Hoodoo Gurus (half of the original line-up of the Hoodoo Gurus also came from Perth) and The Sunnyboys) that cracked the mainstream charts with an indie approach in the 1980s.
Main singer songwriter Dom Mariani would eventually go on to achieve greater international recognition and become a linchpin of the international power pop scene with his bands The Someloves (with Daryl Mather (Lime Spiders)), DM3 and Dom Mariani and the Majestic Kelp. Matthews first worked with drummer Dave Shaw in The Shivers and later with Mariani's DM3 during their Rippled Soul period, 1997-1999.
In March 2003, The Stems reunited for a national tour of the local and international music scene. Following the re-release of their album "At First Sight, Violets Are Blue" and the release of the "" in 2003, The Stems found themselves playing to packed houses across the country, touring Europe, playing the prestigious "Little Stevens Underground Garage Festival" in August 2005, and then at the "Come Together Festival" at Sydney's Luna Park with the cream of Australia's newest bands in September 2005.
2006 saw the release of another anthology titled "Terminal Cool" in the United States by the prestigious garage rock and punk label Get Hip Records. The new anthology includes three previously unreleased tracks including the title track, "Think Cool" from their early live sets. Two of the band's tracks were included in the recent Rhino Nuggets Box set "Children of Nuggets" which compiles and documents the Paisley Underground and garage rock of the 1980s.
In 2007 The Stems undertook a national tour alongside Hoodoo Gurus and Radio Birdman and released their second album, "Heads Up" on Shock Records. The album contained ten original garage rock tracks. It was recorded in Perth early in 2007 at the analogue and vintage recording compound Kingdom Studios and later mixed at Ultrasuede in Cincinnati by producer John Curley (White Stripes, Afghan Wigs, Greenhornes and Ronnie Spector). The Stems then toured nationally to promote the new album and played their first shows outside Australia, including European dates and a U.S. visit that included the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
In July 2009 The Stems announced that they would be disbanding later that year, with an eight-date national farewell tour in October.
In April 2013 The Stems performed at Dig It Up! festival shows in Sydney and Melbourne. The lineup was Mariani, Matthews, Shaw and new guitarist Ashley Naylor in place of Lane. The same lineup played gigs on the east coast in March 2014, including supports for the reunited Sunnyboys in Brisbane and Sydney. On 31 May 2014, The Stems are one of the headlining acts at Perth's annual 'State Of The Art' festival taking place at the Perth Cultural Centre. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30873 |
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity of some type is recognized as the supreme ruling authority, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries that manage the day-to-day affairs of the government.
The word "theocracy" originates from the Greek θεοκρατία meaning "the rule of God". This in turn derives from θεός ("theos"), meaning "god", and κρατέω ("krateo"), meaning "to rule". Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was "rule by god(s)" or human incarnation(s) of god(s).
The term was initially coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century A.D. to describe the characteristic government of the Jews. Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. However, according to Josephus, the government of the Jews was unique. Josephus offered the term "theocracy" to describe this polity, ordained by Moses, in which God is sovereign and his word is law.
Josephus' definition was widely accepted until the Enlightenment era, when the term took on negative connotations and was hardly salvaged by Hegel's abstruse commentary. The first recorded English use was in 1622, with the meaning "sacerdotal government under divine inspiration" (as in Biblical Israel before the rise of kings); the meaning "priestly or religious body wielding political and civil power" is recorded from 1825.
In some religions, the ruler, usually a king, was regarded as the chosen favorite of God (or gods) and could not be questioned, sometimes even being the descendant of or a god in their own right. Today, there is also a form of government where clerics have the power and the supreme leader could not be questioned in action. From the perspective of the theocratic government, "God himself is recognized as the head" of the state, hence the term "theocracy", from the Koine Greek "rule of God", a term used by Josephus for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
Taken literally, "theocracy" means rule by God or gods and refers primarily to an internal "rule of the heart", especially in its biblical application. The common, generic use of the term, as defined above in terms of rule by a church or analogous religious leadership, would be more accurately described as an "ecclesiocracy".
In a pure theocracy, the civil leader is believed to have a personal connection with the civilization's religion or belief. For example, Moses led the Israelites, and Muhammad led the early Muslims. There is a fine line between the tendency of appointing religious characters to run the state and having a religious-based government. According to the Holy Books, Prophet Joseph was offered an essential governmental role just because he was trustworthy, wise and knowledgeable (Quran 12: 54–55). As a result of the Prophet Joseph's knowledge and also due to his ethical and genuine efforts during a critical economic situation, the whole nation was rescued from a seven-year drought (Quran 12: 47–48).
When religions have a "holy book", it is used as a direct message from God. Law proclaimed by the ruler is also considered a divine revelation, and hence the law of God. As to the Prophet Muhammad ruling, "The first thirteen of the Prophet's twenty-three year career went on totally apolitical and non-violent. This attitude partly changed only after he had to flee from Mecca to Medina.This "hijra", or migration, would be a turning point in the Prophet's mission and would mark the very beginning of the Muslim calendar. Yet the Prophet did not establish a theocracy in Medina. Instead of a polity defined solely by Islam, he founded a territorial polity based on religious pluralism. This is evident in a document called the ’Charter of Medina’, which the Prophet signed with the leaders of the other community in the city."
According to the Quran, Prophets were not after power or material resources. For example, in surah 26 verses (109, 127, 145, 164, 180), the Koran repeatedly quotes from Prophets, Noah, Hud, Salih, Lut, and Shu'aib that: "I do not ask from you any payment for it; my payment is only from the Lord of the worlds." Also, in theocracy many aspects of the holy book are overshadowed by material powers. Due to being considered divine, the regime entitles itself to interpret verses to its own benefit and uses them out of context for its political aims. An ecclesiocracy, on the other hand, is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation. For example, the prince-bishops of the European Middle Ages, where the bishop was also the temporal ruler. Such a state may use the administrative hierarchy of the religion for its own administration, or it may have two "arms" – administrators and clergy – but with the state administrative hierarchy subordinate to the religious hierarchy. The papacy in the Papal States occupied a middle ground between theocracy and ecclesiocracy, since the pope did not claim he was a prophet who received revelation from God and translated it into civil law.
Religiously endorsed monarchies fall between these two poles, according to the relative strengths of the religious and political organs.
Theocracy is distinguished from other, secular forms of government that have a state religion, or are influenced by theological or moral concepts, and monarchies held "By the Grace of God". In the most common usage of the term, some civil rulers are leaders of the dominant religion (e.g., the Byzantine emperor as patron and defender of the official Church); the government proclaims it rules on behalf of God or a higher power, as specified by the local religion, and with divine approval of government institutions and laws. These characteristics apply also to a caesaropapist regime. The Byzantine Empire however was not theocratic since the patriarch answered to the emperor, not vice versa; similarly in Tudor England the crown forced the church to break away from Rome so the royal (and, especially later, parliamentary) power could assume full control of the now Anglican hierarchy and confiscate most church property and income.
Secular governments can also co-exist with a state religion or delegate some aspects of civil law to religious communities. For example, in Israel marriage is governed by officially recognized religious bodies who each provide marriage services for their respected adherents, yet no form of civil marriage (free of religion, for atheists, for example) exists nor marriage by non-recognized minority religions.
Following the Capture of Rome on 20 September 1870, the Papal States including Rome with the Vatican were annexed by the Kingdom of Italy. In 1929, through the Lateran Treaty signed with the Italian Government, the new state of Vatican City (population 842) – with no connection with the former Papal States – was formally created and recognized as an independent state. The head of state of the Vatican is the pope, elected by the College of Cardinals, an assembly of Senatorial-princes of the Church. They are usually clerics, appointed as Ordinaries, but in the past have also included men who were not bishops nor clerics. A pope is elected for life, and either dies or may resign. The cardinals are appointed by the popes, who thereby choose the electors of their successors.
Voting is limited to cardinals under 80 years of age. A Secretary for Relations with States, directly responsible for international relations, is appointed by the pope. The Vatican legal system is rooted in canon law but ultimately is decided by the pope; the Bishop of Rome as the Supreme Pontiff "has the fullness of legislative, executive and judicial powers." Although the laws of Vatican City come from the secular laws of Italy, under article 3 of the Law of the Sources of the Law, provision is made for the supplementary application of the "laws promulgated by the Kingdom of Italy". The government of the Vatican can also be considered an ecclesiocracy (ruled by the Church).
Mount Athos is a mountain peninsula in Greece which is an Eastern Orthodox autonomous region consisting of 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. There has been almost 1,800-years of continuous Christian presence on Mount Athos and it has a long history of monastic traditions, which dates back to at least 800 A.D. The origins of self-rule are originally from an edict by the Byzantine Emperor Ioannis Tzimisces in 972, which was later reaffirmed by the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1095. After Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, Greece claimed Mount Athos but after a diplomatic dispute with Russia the region was formally recognised as Greek after World War 1.
Mount Athos is specifically exempt from the free movement of people and goods required by Greece's membership of the European Union and entrance is only allowed with express permission from the monks. The number of daily visitors to Mount Athos is restricted, with all visitors required to obtain an entrance permit. Only men are permitted to visit and Orthodox Christians take precedence in permit issuing. Residents of Mount Athos must be men aged 18 and over who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church and also either monks or workers.
Athos is governed jointly by a 'Holy Community' consisting of representatives from the 20 monasteries and a Civil Governor, appointed by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Holy Community also has a four-member executive committee called the 'Holy Administration' which is led by a Protos.
Iran has been described as a "theocratic republic" (by the CIA World Factbook), and its constitution has been described as a "hybrid" of "theocratic and democratic elements" by Francis Fukuyama. Like other Islamic states, it maintains religious laws and has religious courts to interpret all aspects of law. According to Iran's constitution, "all civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria."
In addition, Iran has a religious ruler and many religious officials in powerful government posts. The head of state, or "Supreme Leader", is a "faqih" (scholar of Islamic law) and possesses more power than Iran's president. The Leader appoints the heads of many powerful posts: the commanders of the armed forces, the director of the national radio and television network, the heads of the powerful major religious foundations, the chief justice, the attorney general (indirectly through the chief justice), special tribunals, and members of national security councils dealing with defence and foreign affairs. He also co-appoints the 12 jurists of the Guardian Council.
The Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts which is made up of mujtahids, who are Islamic scholars competent in interpreting "Sharia".
The Guardian Council, has the power to veto bills from majlis (parliament) and to approve or disapprove candidates who wish to run for high office (president, majlis, the Assembly of Experts). The council supervises elections, and can greenlight or ban investigations into the election process. Six of the Guardians (half the council) are faqih empowered to approve or veto all bills from the majlis (parliament) according to whether the faqih believe them to be in accordance with Islamic law and customs ("Sharia"). The other six members are lawyers appointed by the head of the judiciary (who is also a cleric and also appointed by the Leader).
An Islamic republic is the name given to several states that are officially ruled by Islamic laws, including the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan first adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty. Afghanistan adopted it in 2004 after the fall of the Taliban government. Despite having similar names, the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws.
The term "Islamic republic" has come to mean several different things, at times contradictory. To some Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East and Africa who advocate it, an Islamic republic is a state under a particular Islamic form of government. They see it as a compromise between a purely Islamic caliphate and secular nationalism and republicanism. In their conception of the Islamic republic, the penal code of the state is required to be compatible with some or all laws of Sharia, and the state may not be a monarchy, as many Middle Eastern states are presently.
The Central Tibetan Administration, colloquially known as the Tibetan government in exile, is a Tibetan exile organisation with a state-like internal structure. According to its charter, the position of head of state of the Central Tibetan Administration belongs "ex officio" to the current Dalai Lama, a religious hierarch. In this respect, it continues the traditions of the former government of Tibet, which was ruled by the Dalai Lamas and their ministers, with a specific role reserved for a class of monk officials.
On 14 March 2011, at the 14th Dalai Lama's suggestion, the parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration began considering a proposal to remove the Dalai Lama's role as head of state in favor of an elected leader.
The first directly elected Kalön Tripa was Samdhong Rinpoche, who was elected on 20 August 2001.
Before 2011, the Kalön Tripa position was subordinate to the 14th Dalai Lama who presided over the government in exile from its founding. In August of that year, Lobsang Sangay polled 55 percent votes out of 49,189, defeating his nearest rival Tethong Tenzin Namgyal by 8,646 votes, becoming the second popularly elected Kalon Tripa. The Dalai Lama announced that his political authority would be transferred to Sangay.
On 20 September 2012, the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile unanimously voted to change the title of Kalön Tripa to "Sikyong" in Article 19 of the Charter of the Tibetans in exile and relevant articles. The Dalai Lama had previously referred to the Kalon Tripa as Sikyong, and this usage was cited as the primary justification for the name change. According to "Tibetan Review", "Sikyong" translates to "political leader", as distinct from "spiritual leader". Foreign affairs Kalon Dicki Chhoyang stated that the term "Sikyong" has had a precedent dating back to the 7th Dalai Lama, and that the name change "ensures historical continuity and legitimacy of the traditional leadership from the fifth Dalai Lama". The online Dharma Dictionary translates sikyong ("srid skyong") as "secular ruler; regime, regent". The title "sikyong" had previously been used by regents who ruled Tibet during the Dalai Lama's minority.
Having a state religion is not sufficient enough to be a theocracy in the narrow sense of the term. Many countries have a state religion without the government directly deriving its powers from a divine authority or a religious authority directly exercising governmental powers. Since the narrow sense of the term has few instances in the modern world, the more common usage of it is the wider sense of an enforced state religion.
The pharaoh was believed to be the offspring of the sungod Ra.
The emperor is venerated as the offspring of the Shinto sungoddess Amaterasu.
Early Israel was a Kritarchy, ruled by Judges before instituting a monarchy. The Judges were believed to be representatives of YHVH Yahweh (also rendered as Jehovah).
The imperial cults in Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire, as well as numerous other monarchies, deified the ruling monarch. The state religion was often dedicated to the worship of the ruler as a deity, or the incarnation thereof.
In ancient and medieval Christianity, Caesaropapism is the doctrine where a head of state is at the same time the head of the church.
Unified religious rule in Buddhist Tibet began in 1642, when the Fifth Dalai Lama allied with the military power of the Mongol Gushri Khan to consolidate the political power and center control around his office as head of the Gelug school.
This form of government is known as the dual system of government. Prior to 1642, particular monasteries and monks had held considerable power throughout Tibet, but had not achieved anything approaching complete control, though power continued to be held in a diffuse, feudal system after the ascension of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Power in Tibet was held by a number of traditional elites, including members of the nobility, the heads of the major Buddhist sects (including their various tulkus), and various large and influential monastic communities.
Political power was sometimes used by monastic leaders to suppress rival religious schools through the confiscation of property and direct violence. Social mobility was somewhat possible through the attainment of a monastic education, or recognition as a reincarnated teacher, but such institutions were dominated by the traditional elites and governed by political intrigue. Non-Buddhists in Tibet were members of an outcast underclass.
The Bogd Khaanate period of Mongolia (1911–19) is also cited as a former Buddhist theocracy.
Similar to the Roman Emperor, the Chinese sovereign was historically held to be the Son of Heaven. However, from the first historical Emperor on, this was largely ceremonial and tradition quickly established it as a posthumous dignity, like the Roman institution. The situation before Qin Shi Huang Di is less clear.
The Shang dynasty essentially functioned as a theocracy, declaring the ruling family the sons of heaven and calling the chief sky god Shangdi after a word for their deceased ancestors. After their overthrow by the Zhou, the royal clan of Shang were not eliminated but instead moved to a ceremonial capital where they were charged to continue the performance of their rituals.
The titles combined by Shi Huangdi to form his new title of emperor were originally applied to god-like beings who ordered the heavens and earth and to culture heroes credited with the invention of agriculture, clothing, music, astrology, etc. Even after the fall of Qin, an emperor's words were considered sacred edicts () and his written proclamations "directives from above" ().
As a result, some Sinologists translate the title "huangdi" (usually rendered "emperor") as thearch. The term properly refers to the head of a thearchy (a kingdom of gods), but the more accurate "theocrat" carries associations of a strong priesthood that would be generally inaccurate in describing imperial China. Others reserve the use of "thearch" to describe the legendary figures of Chinese prehistory while continuing to use "emperor" to describe historical rulers.
The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace in 1860s Qing China was a heterodox Christian theocracy led by a person who said that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, Hong Xiuquan. This theocratic state fought one of the most destructive wars in history, the Taiping Rebellion, against the Qing dynasty for fifteen years before being crushed following the fall of the rebel capital Nanjing.
The Sunni branch of Islam stipulates that, as a head of state, a Caliph should be elected by Muslims or their representatives. Followers of Shia Islam, however, believe a Caliph should be an Imam chosen by God from the Ahl al-Bayt (the "Family of the House", Muhammad's direct descendants).
The Byzantine Empire ( 324–1453) operated under caesaropapism, meaning that the emperor was both the head of civil society and the ultimate authority over the ecclesiastical authorities, or patriarchates. The emperor was considered to be God's omnipotent representative on earth and he ruled as an absolute autocrat.
Jennifer Fretland VanVoorst argues, “the Byzantine Empire became a theocracy in the sense that Christian values and ideals were the foundation of the empire's political ideals and heavily entwined with its political goals". Steven Runciman says in his book on "The Byzantine Theocracy" (2004):
Between 1533 and 1535 the Protestant leaders Jan Mattys and John of Leiden erected a short-living theocratic kingdom in the city of Münster. They created an anabaptist regime with chiliastic and milleniaristic expectations. Money was abolished and any violations of the Ten Commandments were punished by death. Despite the pietistic ideology, polygamy was allowed and von Leiden had 17 wives. In 1535, Münster was recaptured by Franz von Waldeck, ending the existence of the kingdom.
Historians debate the extent to which Geneva, Switzerland, in the days of John Calvin (1509–64) was a theocracy. On the one hand, Calvin's theology clearly called for separation between church and state. Other historians have stressed the enormous political power wielded on a daily basis by the clerics.
In nearby Zurich, Switzerland, Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) built a political system that many scholars have called a theocracy, while others have denied it.
The question of theocracy has been debated extensively by historians regarding the Mormon communities in Illinois, and especially in Utah.
Joseph Smith, mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, ran as an independent for president in 1844. He proposed the redemption of slaves by selling public lands; reducing the size and salary of Congress; the closure of prisons; the annexation of Texas, Oregon, and parts of Canada; the securing of international rights on high seas; free trade; and the re-establishment of a national bank. His top aide Brigham Young campaigned for Smith saying, "He it is that God of Heaven designs to save this nation from destruction and preserve the Constitution." The campaign ended when Smith was killed by a mob while in the Carthage, Illinois, jail on June 27, 1844.
After severe persecution, the Mormons left the United States and resettled in a remote part of Utah, which was then part of Mexico. However the United States took control in 1848 and would not accept polygamy. The Mormon State of Deseret was short-lived. Its original borders stretched from western Colorado to the southern California coast. When the Mormons arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847, the Great Basin was still a part of Mexico and had no secular government. As a result, Brigham Young administered the region both spiritually and temporally through the highly organized and centralized Melchizedek Priesthood. This original organization was based upon a concept called theodemocracy, a governmental system combining Biblical theocracy with mid-19th-century American political ideals.
In 1849, the Saints organized a secular government in Utah, although many ecclesiastical leaders maintained their positions of secular power. The Mormons also petitioned Congress to have Deseret admitted into the Union as a state. However, under the Compromise of 1850, Utah Territory was created and Brigham Young was appointed governor. In this situation, Young still stood as head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) as well as of Utah's secular government.
After the abortive Utah War of 1857–1858, the replacement of Young by an outside Federal Territorial Governor, intense federal prosecution of LDS Church leaders, the eventual resolution of controversies regarding plural marriage, and accession by Utah to statehood, the apparent temporal aspects of LDS theodemocracy receded markedly.
During the Achaemenid Empire, Zoroastrianism was the state religion and included formalized worship. The Persian kings were known to be pious Zoroastrians and they ruled with a Zoroastrian form of law called "asha". However, Cyrus the Great, who founded the empire, avoided imposing the Zoroastrian faith on the inhabitants of conquered territory. Cyrus's kindness towards Jews has been cited as sparking Zoroastrian influence on Judaism.
Under the Seleucids, Zoroastrianism became autonomous. During the Sassanid period, the Zoroastrian calendar was reformed, image-use in worship was banned, Fire Temples were increasingly built, and intolerance towards other faiths prevailed.
The short reign (1494–1498) of Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican priest, over the city of Florence had features of a theocracy. During his rule, "un-Christian" books, statues, poetry, and other items were burned (in the Bonfire of the Vanities), sodomy was made a capital offense, and other Christian practices became law. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30875 |
Tékumel
Tékumel is a fantasy world created by M. A. R. Barker over the course of several decades from around 1940. In this imaginary world, huge, tradition-bound empires with medieval levels of technology vie for control using magic, large standing armies, and ancient technological devices. In time, Barker created the role-playing game "Empire of the Petal Throne", set in the Tékumel fictional universe, and first published in 1975 by TSR, Inc. Later, Barker wrote a series of five novels set in Tékumel, beginning with "The Man of Gold", first published by DAW Books in 1984.
Barker, like the better-known J. R. R. Tolkien, considered not just the creation of a fantasy world but also an in-depth development of the societies and languages of the world. In other words, the setting also provided a context for Barker's constructed languages which were developed in parallel from the mid-to-late 1940s, long before the mass-market publication of his works in roleplaying game and book form.
The most significant language created by Barker for his setting is Tsolyáni, which resembles Urdu, Pushtu and Mayan. Tsolyáni has had grammatical guides, dictionaries, pronunciation recordings, and even a complete language course developed for it. In order for his imaginary languages to have this type of depth, Barker developed entire cultures, histories, dress fashions, architectural styles, weapons, armor, tactical styles, legal codes, demographics and more, inspired by Indian, Middle Eastern, Egyptian and Meso-American mythology in contrast to the majority of such fantasy settings, which draw primarily on European mythologies.
The world of Tékumel, a fictional planet around star Nu Ophiuchi (a.k.a. Sinistra), was first settled by humans exploring the galaxy about 60,000 years in the future, along with several other alien species. Their extensive terraforming of the inhospitable environment, including changing the planet's orbit and rotation rate to create a 365-day year, disrupted local ecologies and banished most of the local flora and fauna (including some intelligent species) to small reservations in the corners of their own world, resulting in a golden age of technology and prosperity for Mankind and its allies. Tékumel became a resort world, where the wealthy from a thousand other stars could while away their time next to its warm seas.
Suddenly, in the 1120th century (according to Shawn Bond) and for reasons unknown, Tékumel and its star system (Tékumel's two moons, Gayél and Káshi, its sun, Tuléng, and four other planets, Ülétl, Riruchél, Shíchel, and Zirúna) were cast out of our reality into a "pocket dimension" (known as a "béthorm" in Tsolyáni), in which there were no other star systems. One hypothesis is that this isolation happened through hostile action on the part of an unknown party or group. Another is that the cosmic cataclysm was due to over-use of a faster than light drive which warped the fabric of space. No one knows, but the inhabitants of Tékumel, both human, native, and representatives of the other star-faring races, were now isolated and alone. The novels contain vague clues as to what might have happened.
Severed from vital interplanetary trade routes (Tékumel is a world very poor in heavy metals) and in the midst of a massive gravitic upheaval due to the lines of gravitational force between the stars being suddenly cut, civilization was thrown into chaos. The intelligent native species, the Hlǘss and the Ssú, broke free from their reservations and wars as destructive as the massive geographic changes ravaged the planet. Several other significant changes took place due to the crisis: mankind discovered it could now tap into ultraplanar energies that were seen as magical forces, the stars were gone from the sky, dimensional nexi were uncovered and pacts with "demons" (inhabitants of dimensions near in n-dimensional space to Tékumel's pocket dimension) were made and a complex pantheon of "gods" (powerful extra-dimensional or multi-dimensional alien beings) discovered. Science began to stagnate until ultimately knowledge became grounded in traditions handed down from generations long ago, the belief that the universe was ultimately understandable slowly faded, and a Time of Darkness descended over the planet.
Much of Barker's writing concerns a time approximately 50,000 years after Tékumel has entered its pocket dimension. Five vast tradition-oriented civilizations occupy a large portion of the northern continent. These five human empires (Livyánu, Mu′ugalavyá, Salarvyá, Tsolyánu, Yán Kór), along with various non-human allies (Ahoggyá, Chíma, Hegléth, Hláka, Hlutrgú, Ninín, Páchi Léi, Pé Chói, Shén, Tinalíya) who are descended from other star faring races, vie to control resources, including other planar "magical powers" and ancient technology, as they vie for survival and supremacy among themselves as well as hostile and other non-human races (Hlǘss, Ssú, Hokún, Mihálli, Nyaggá, Urunén, Vléshga).
Much of the gaming materials and other writings focus particularly on these Five Empires (Tsolyánu in particular) which control much of the world's northern continent (only about an eighth of the planet's surface has published maps).
"Tsolyáni" is one of several languages spoken on the world of Tékumel, and was the first conlang published as part of a role-playing game. Barker put great effort into the languages of Tékumel. Although Tsolyáni is the only Tekumeláni language that has had a full grammar book, dictionary, pronunciation tapes (on CD) and a primer, publicly released, it is not the only language for this world that Barker developed.
Also available are grammar guides for the Yán Koryáni and Livyáni languages which are spoken in two other of the "Five Empires" of the known parts of Tékumel, as well as grammar books for Engsvanyáli and Sunúz. These two languages are now extinct, dead languages. Engsvanyáli is of use as it is the root language for Tsolyáni and many of the other currently spoken languages of the known parts of Tékumel. Sunúz is of interest because, although it is obscure, it is quite useful for sorcerous purposes. For instance, Sunúz contains terms to describe movement in a six-dimensional multi-planar space, something of use to beings who visit the other planar realms where "demons" live.
Barker also published extensively on scripts for other languages of Tékumel.
Barker designed "War of Wizards", a combat-oriented board game, based on his world of Tékumel, published by TSR in 1975.
Barker was a Professor of Urdu and South Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota during the period when David Arneson, Gary Gygax and a handful of others were developing the first role-playing games in the Twin Cities and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Barker tapped into this tradition and the setting he had developed from his childhood fantasies (much as H. G. Wells had done for his "Floor Games" leading into the better-known follow-up, "Little Wars") to further explore and develop Tékumel. His "Thursday Night Groups" were amongst the first roleplaying sessions anywhere and provided what was, at the time, an unusually detailed week-by-week development of the setting. In 1975, Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., the publishers of "Dungeons & Dragons", published Barker's roleplaying game and setting as a standalone game under the title of "The Empire of the Petal Throne" (a synonym for the Tsolyáni Empire), rather than as a "supplement" to the original D&D rules.
Tékumel has spawned five professionally published roleplaying games over the course of the years:
There have been a wide variety of materials of all sorts published over the years to further detail this world. As well as the language materials, these include "Deeds of the Ever-Glorious —a History of the Tsolyani Legions", "The Tékumel Bestiary", and "The Book of Ebon Bindings," a guide to the demonic beings that are known to the Tsolyáni, and a six volume series of booklets that details the armies of each of the Five Empires as well as surrounding states and the vast lands of the reptilian Shén. There have also been various wargames rules as well as small scale metal miniatures to represent the various races and legions. Miniatures for the world were formerly produced in 28mm scale under license by Eureka miniatures of Australia, but are now being made by a smaller, fan-driven company in Canada called The Tekumel Project.
Other materials involving the setting include "The Tomb Complex of Nereshánbo", "A Jakállan Intrigue", "The Tsolyáni Language", "Qadardalikoi", "The Armies of Tékumel", and "EPT Miniatures".
As interest in the game is driven to a large extent by a highly devoted, small number of enthusiasts, there have also been several non-commercially published rules as well as systems to adapt the Tékumel setting to other pre-existing, commercially available role playing rules including "RuneQuest", "GURPS" and third edition "Dungeons & Dragons". Many of these are available on the internet.
In 1984, DAW Books published Barker's Tékumel novel "The Man of Gold". This was followed by "Flamesong" in 1985. In 2003, Zottola Publishing published three additional novels: "Prince of Skulls", "Lords of Tsámra", and "A Death of Kings". In 2004, Zottola Publishing produced the two-volume set "Mitlanyál", which deals with the Tsolyáni pantheon and provides much background regarding the Tsolyáni culture.
The chronological order of the novels (as opposed to their order of publication) is as follows:
1) "The Man of Gold"
2) "Flamesong"
3) "Lords of Tsámra"
4) "Prince of Skulls"
5) "A Death of Kings"
The "Journal of Tékumel Affairs" (later known as "The Tékumel Journal") was a magazine published by Tékumel Games that began publication in 1977, devoted to the "Empire of the Petal Throne" and "Swords & Glory" role-playing systems.
Frederick Paul Kiesche III reviewed "The Journal of Tékumel Affairs" in "Space Gamer" No. 71. Kiesche commented that "In sum, a useful item, especially if the company can overcome production and transition problems and start putting out an item of higher production quality. Well worth looking at." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30877 |
Chicken or the egg
The chicken or the egg causality dilemma is commonly stated as the question, "which came first: the chicken or the egg?" The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. "Chicken-and-egg" is a metaphoric adjective describing situations where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the "cause" and which should be considered the "effect", to express a scenario of infinite regress, or to express the difficulty of sequencing actions where each seems to depend on others being done first. Plutarch posed the question as a philosophical matter in his essay "The Symposiacs", written in the 1st century CE.
The question represents an ancient folk paradox addressing the problem of origins and first cause. Aristotle, writing in the fourth century BCE, concluded that this was an infinite sequence, with no true origin. Plutarch, writing four centuries later, specifically highlighted this question as bearing on a "great and weighty problem (whether the world had a beginning)." In the fifth century CE, Macrobius wrote that while the question seemed trivial, it "should be regarded as one of importance."
By the end of the 16th century, the well-known question seemed to have been regarded as settled in the Christian world, based on the origin story of the Bible. In describing the creation of animals, it allows for a first chicken that did not come from an egg. However, later enlightenment philosophers began to question this solution.
Although the question is typically used metaphorically, evolutionary biology provides literal answers, made possible by the Darwinian principle that species evolve over time, and thus that chickens had ancestors that were not chickens, similar to a view expressed by the Greek philosopher Anaximander when addressing the paradox.
If the question refers to eggs in general, the egg came first. The first amniote egg—that is, a hard-shelled egg that could be laid on land, rather than remaining in water like the eggs of fish or amphibians—appeared around 312 million years ago. In contrast, chickens are domesticated descendants of red junglefowl and probably arose little more than eight thousand years ago, at most.
If the question refers to "chicken" eggs specifically, the answer is still the egg, but the explanation is more complicated. The process by which the chicken arose through the interbreeding and domestication of multiple species of wild jungle fowl is poorly understood, and the point at which this evolving organism became a chicken is a somewhat arbitrary distinction. Whatever criteria one chooses, an animal nearly identical to the modern chicken (i.e., a proto-chicken) laid a fertilized egg that had DNA identical to the modern chicken (due to mutations in the mother's ovum, the father's sperm, or the fertilised zygote). Put more simply by Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Which came first: the chicken or the egg? The egg—laid by a bird that was not a chicken."
It has been suggested that the actions of a protein found in modern chicken eggs may make the answer different. In the uterus, chickens produce ovocleidin-17 (OC-17), which causes the formation of the thickened calcium carbonate shell around their eggs. Because OC-17 is expressed by the hen and not the egg, the bird in which the protein first arose, though having hatched from a non-reinforced egg, would then have laid the first egg having such a reinforced shell: the chicken would have preceded this first 'modern' chicken egg. However, the presence of OC-17 or a homolog in other species, such as turkeys, and finches suggests that such eggshell-reinforcing proteins are common to all birds, and thus long predate the first chickens. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30878 |
Tuscarora people
The Tuscarora (in Tuscarora "Skarù:ręˀ", "hemp gatherers" or "Shirt-Wearing People") are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government of the Iroquoian-language family, with members today in North Carolina, New York, and Ontario. They coalesced as a people around the Great Lakes, likely about the same time as the rise of the Five Nations of the historic Iroquois Confederacy, also Iroquoian-speaking and based then in present-day New York.
Well before the arrival of Europeans in North America, the Tuscarora had migrated south and settled in the region now known as Eastern Carolina. The most numerous indigenous people in the area, they lived along the Roanoke, Neuse, Tar ("Torhunta" or "Narhontes"), and Pamlico rivers. They first encountered European explorers and settlers in the colonies of North Carolina and Virginia.
After the 18th-century wars of 1711–1713 (known as the Tuscarora War) against English colonists and their Indian allies, most of the surviving Tuscarora left North Carolina and migrated north to Pennsylvania and New York, over a period of 90 years. They aligned with the Iroquois in New York, because of their ancestral linguistic and cultural connections. Sponsored by the Oneida, they were accepted in 1722 as the Sixth Nation of the Iroquois. After the American Revolution, in which they and the Oneida allied with the colonists, the Tuscarora shared reservation land with the Oneida before gaining their own. The Tuscarora Nation of New York is federally recognized.
Those Tuscarora who allied with the British in the American Revolution resettled with other Iroquois tribes in present-day Ontario, where they are part of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. Only the tribes in New York and Ontario have been recognized officially by the respective national governments. After the migration was completed in the early 18th century, the Tuscarora in New York no longer considered those remaining in North Carolina as members of the tribal nation. Since the late 20th century, some North Carolina persons claiming Tuscarora ancestry had formed bands in which they identify as Tuscarora. As of 2010, several bands in Robeson County have united on an interim basis as the Tuscarora Nation One Fire Council.
See also Tuscarora War
The historic nation encountered by Europeans in North Carolina had three tribes:
These affiliations continued to be active as independent groups after the tribe migrated to New York and, later, Ontario. F.W. Hodge, an early 19th-century historian, wrote that the Tuscarora in North Carolina traditionally were said to occupy the "country lying between the sea shores and the mountains, which divide the Atlantic states," in which they had 24 large towns and could muster about 6,000 warriors, probably meaning persons.
In late 17th and early 18th-century North Carolina, European colonists reported two primary branches of the Tuscarora: a northern group led by Chief Tom Blunt, and a southern group led by Chief Hancock. Varying accounts c. 1708 – 1710 estimated the number of Tuscarora warriors as from 1200 to 2000. Historians estimate their total population may have been three to four times that number.
Chief Blunt occupied the area around what is present-day Bertie County, North Carolina, on the Roanoke River. Chief Hancock lived closer to present-day New Bern, occupying the area south of the Pamlico River. Chief Blunt became close friends with the colonial English Blount family of the Bertie region and lived peacefully.
By contrast, Chief Hancock had to deal with more numerous colonists encroaching on his community. They raided his villages and kidnapped people to sell into slavery. The colonists transported some Tuscarora to Pennsylvania to sell into slavery. Both groups of Tuscarora suffered substantial population losses after exposure to Eurasian infectious diseases endemic to Europeans. Both also suffered territorial encroachment. By 1711 Chief Hancock believed he had to attack the settlers to fight back. Chief Tom Blunt did not join him in the war.
The southern Tuscarora collaborated with the "Pamlico", the "Cothechney", the "Coree", the "Mattamuskeet" and the "Matchepungoe" nations to attack the settlers in a wide range of locations within a short time period. Their principal targets were against the planters on the Roanoke, Neuse and Trent rivers, as well as the city of Bath. They attacked on September 22, 1711, beginning the Tuscarora War. The allied Indian tribes killed hundreds of settlers, including several key political figures among the colonists.
Governor Edward Hyde called out the North Carolina militia and secured the assistance of South Carolina, which provided 600 militia and 360 allied Native Americans commanded by Col. John Barnwell. In 1712, this force attacked the southern Tuscarora and other nations in Craven County at Fort Narhontes, on the banks of the Neuse River. The Tuscarora were "defeated with great slaughter; more than three hundred were killed, and one hundred made prisoners."
The governor offered Chief Blunt leadership of the entire Tuscarora Nation if he would assist in defeating Chief Hancock. Blunt succeeded in capturing Hancock, who was tried and executed by North Carolina officials. In 1713 the Southern Tuscarora were defeated at their Fort Neoheroka (formerly spelled "Neherooka"), with 900 killed or captured in the battle.
After the defeat in the battle of 1713, about 1500 Tuscarora fled north to New York to join the Iroquois Confederacy, while as many as 1500 additional Tuscarora sought refuge in the colony of Virginia. Although some accepted tributary status in Virginia, the majority of the surviving Tuscarora are believed to have returned to North Carolina. In 1715, seventy warriors of the southern Tuscarora went to South Carolina to assist colonists against the Yamasee. Those 70 warriors later asked permission to have their wives and children join them, and settled near Port Royal, South Carolina.
Under the leadership of Tom Blunt, the Tuscarora who remained in North Carolina signed a treaty with the colony in June 1718. It granted them a tract of land on the Roanoke River in what is now Bertie County. This was the area occupied by Chief Blunt and his people. The colonies of Virginia and North Carolina both recognized Tom Blunt, who had taken the last name Blount, as "King Tom Blount" of the Tuscarora. Both colonies agreed to consider as friendly only those Tuscarora who accepted Blount's leadership. The remaining Southern Tuscarora were forced to remove from their villages on the Pamlico River and relocate to the villages of "Ooneroy" and "Resootskeh" in Bertie County. In 1722, the Bertie County Reservation, which would officially become known as "Indian Woods," was chartered by the colony.
As colonial settlement surrounded Indian Woods, the Tuscarora suffered discrimination and other acts: they were overcharged or denied use of ferries, restricted in hunting, and cheated in trade; their timber was illegally logged, and their lands were continuously encroached upon by herders and squatters. Over the next several decades, the colonial government continually reduced the Tuscarora tract, forcing cessions of land to the encroaching settlers. They sold off portions of the land in deals often designed to take advantage of the Tuscarora.
Many Tuscarora were not satisfied with the leadership of Tom Blount, and decided to leave the reservation. In 1722 300 fighting men; along with their wives, children, and the elderly, resided at Indian Woods. By 1731 there were 200 warriors, in 1755 there were 100, with a total population at Indian Woods of 301. When in 1752 Moravian missionaries visited the reservation, they had noted "many had gone north to live on the Susquehanna" and that "others are scattered as the wind scatters smoke." This refers to the Tuscarora migrating to central-western New York to live with the Oneida and other Iroquois nations.
In 1763 and 1766 additional Tuscarora migrated north to settle with other Iroquoian peoples in northern and western Pennsylvania (where the Susquehannock and Erie people both had territory) and New York. By 1767 only 104 persons were residing on the reservation in Bertie County. In 1804 the last band to leave North Carolina went to New York. By then, only "10 to 20 Old families" remained at Indian Woods.
In 1802 the last Indian Woods Tuscarora negotiated a treaty with the United States, by which land would be held for them that they could lease. As the government never ratified the treaty, the North Carolina Tuscarora viewed the treaty as null and void. In 1831 the Indian Woods Tuscarora sold the remaining rights to their lands. By this point their had been reduced to .
Although without a reservation, some Tuscarora descendants remained in the southern regions of the state. They intermarried with other residents. In 1971 the Tuscarora in Robeson County sought to get an accounting of their lands and rents due them under the unratified treaty of 1803. At least three bands have organized in Robeson County. In 2010 they united as one group.
The Iroquois Five Nations of New York had penetrated as far as the Tuscarora homeland in North Carolina by 1701, and nominally controlled the entire frontier territory lying in between. Following their discovery of a linguistically related tribe living beyond Virginia, they were more than happy to accommodate their distant cousins within the Iroquois Constitution as the "Sixth Nation", and to resettle them in safer grounds to the north. (The Iroquois had driven tribes of rival Indians out of Western New York to South Carolina during the Beaver Wars several decades earlier, not far from where the Tuscarora resided.)
Beginning about 1713 after the war, contingents of Tuscarora began leaving North Carolina for the north. They established a main village at present-day Martinsburg, West Virginia, on what is still known as Tuscarora Creek. Another group stopped in 1719–1721 in present-day Maryland along the Monocacy River, on the way to join the Oneida nation in western New York. After white settlers began to pour into what is now the Martinsburg area from around 1730, the Tuscarora continued northward to join those in western New York. Other Tuscarora bands sojourned in the Juniata River valley of Pennsylvania, before reaching New York.
The present area from Martinsburg, West Virginia west to Berkeley Springs has roads, creeks, and land still named after the Tuscarora people, including a development in Hedgesville called "The Woods" where the street names contain reference to the Tuscarora people, and which contains a burial mound adopted by the West Virginia Division of Culture as an Archaeological Site in 1998. There is record circa 1763 that some Tuscarora had not migrated to the Iroquois, and remained in the Panhandle instead, stayed and fought under Shawnee Chief Cornstalk.
During the American Revolutionary War, part of the Tuscarora and Oneida nations in New York allied with the rebel colonists. Most of the warriors of the other four Iroquois nations supported Great Britain, and many participated in battles throughout New York. They were the main forces that attacked frontier settlements of the central Mohawk and Cherry valleys. Late in the war, the pro-British Tuscarora followed Chief Joseph Brant of the Mohawk, other British-allied tribes, and Loyalists north to Ontario, then called Upper Canada by the British. They took partin establishing the reserve of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in what became Ontario, Canada.
In 1803 a final contingent of southern Tuscarora migrated to New York to join the reservation of their tribe in Niagara County. After that, the Tuscarora in New York no longer considered southern remnants as part of their nation. Some descendants of the southern remnants have continued to identify as Tuscarora and have organized some bands. Through the generations they had intermarried with neighbors but identify culturally as Tuscarora.
During the War of 1812 in the British attack on Lewiston, New York on December 19, 1813, a band of Tuscarora living in a village on an escarpment just above the town fought to save Americans fleeing the invasion force. The British were accompanied by allied Mohawk and some American Tories disguised as Mohawk. The American militia fled, leaving only the Tuscarora—outnumbered 30 to one—to fight a delaying action that allowed some townspeople to escape. The Tuscarora sent a party of braves to blow horns along the escarpment and suggest a larger force, while another party attacked downhill with war whoops, to give an exaggerated impression of their numbers. The British force burned Lewiston, as well as the Tuscarora village, then undefended.
The Tuscarora have continued to struggle to protect their land in New York. In the mid-20th century, New York City commissioner Robert Moses generated controversy by negotiating with the Tuscarora Sachem council and purchasing 550 acres of the Tuscarora reservation for the reservoir of the new hydroelectric project along the Niagara River, downriver from Niagara Falls. (At the time of first power generation in February 1962, it was the largest project in the world.) The plant continues to generate cheap electricity for households located from the Niagara area to as far away as New York City.
"Skarure", the Tuscarora language, is a member of the northern branch of the Iroquoian languages. Linguists and historians have both tried to determine when the Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin and Nottoway tribes separated from the Tuscarora. Before initial contact (1650), the English, based on reports from Algonquian natives, thought the three tribes were one people, as the Algonquian speakers referred to them by the exonym "Mangoag." Following encounter by the English with the Tuscarora and other tribes, the colonists noted they used the same interpreters to translate with each of the peoples, which meant their languages were closely related.
Although the Nottoway language went extinct in the early 1900s, linguists have been able to determine that it was distinct, although closely related to Tuscarora. In addition, the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Tribe has been working hard to revitalize the Nottoway Language in recent times. In historic times, the three tribes always identified as distinct and independent peoples.
Several bands, groups, and organizations with members claiming Tuscarora descent reside in North Carolina. Since the late 20th century, they have organized and reformed in various configurations. None has state or federal recognition.
They have included the following:
Tuscarora tribal officials in New York dispute claims that anyone in North Carolina has continuity as a tribe with the Tuscarora. The Tuscarora Nation of New York, says that the great majority of the tribe moved north to New York. New York leaders consider any individuals remaining in North Carolina as no longer having tribal status, although they have Tuscarora genetic ancestry.
Both the New York Tuscarora and the North Carolina Tuscarora bands claim the historical name of the tribe. As the New York tribe is federally recognized and is the longest organized as a tribal government, it is considered the legal successor to the historic tribe. Members of North Carolina bands claim descent and continuity with the ancient "Skarure." Some North Carolina Tuscarora feel that the Tuscarora that left North Carolina abandoned the home lands, and that both groups should be allowed to have a relationship with the federal government.
In the 1930s, the Department of Interior conducted physical examinations of 209 individuals residing in Robeson County and determined that 22 possessed at least 1/2 or more degree of Indian blood, and that 18 more were borderline or near-borderline cases. Scholars and scientists no longer consider such physical exams to be a valid method of determining biological ancestry. Each federally recognized tribe has the authority to determine membership criteria and establish its own rules. These are generally based on documented descent from a historical list of agreed-upon members or descent from known living members.
In the 1960s, the surviving eight of these 22 people, with many of their descendants and approximately 2,000 other individuals in their communities organized an official Tuscarora political infrastructure in Robeson County. On November 12, 1979 the "Tuscarora Tribe of Indians Maxton" were accepted into the National Congress of American Indians.
Various factions of the Robeson County-based Tuscarora, who have split since their initial organization in the 1960s, have worked for state and federal recognition. A petition by the Hatteras Tuscarora, submitted to the federal government in 1978, was placed on hold.
In 1989, the Solicitor of the Department of Interior ruled that the Lumbee Act of 1956, which acknowledged the Lumbee as Native American, at the same time barred all Indians within Robeson and adjoining counties from consideration as a federally recognized tribe within the "Branch of Acknowledgement and Research" petitioning process. Leaders of the Lumbee had agreed to this provision at the time the legislation was passed. This provision was applied to the Lumbee petition of 1986 seeking federal recognition as a tribe. Gerald M. Sider states that rather than challenging this ruling, "The Lumbee subsequently removed their petition from active consideration by the BIA in a way that also prevented the Tuscarora petitions from being considered."
In 2006 the Skaroreh Katenuaka Nation, "AKA: Tuscarora Nation of Indians of North Carolina", filed a federal lawsuit for recognition. Skaroreh Katenuaka Nation, the Hatteras Tuscarora, and the Tuscarora Nation of the Carolinas are all based in Robeson County. Members are closely related to one another.
In May 2010 leaders and individuals from the various Tuscarora factions in the Robeson County area came together to form the Tuscarora Nation One Fire Council (TNOFC). The TNOFC is an interim, un-incorporated government; they have based it on provisions outlined in wampum 96 of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois League) Great Law of Peace. The TNOFC assembles weekly. Its members are working toward developing and implementing solutions to problems that have created division among them in the past. The TNOFC maintains separate membership enrollment from, and their members are not part of, the state-recognized Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the largest state-recognized tribe in North Carolina and are also located in Robeson County.
In July 2018, following a year long state and federal investigation, more than 26 people of the Tuscarora Nation including its leader, were arrested for operating three casinos, an unlicensed police force and marijuana growing operations in Maxton and Red Springs, North Carolina. Local sheriff's office and police were joined by state SBI, state and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and National Guard troops in seizing vehicles, currency, marijuana, firearms and over 200 illegal gaming machines. Those arrested face drug, gambling and money laundering charges though claim sovereign citizen status and, according to a North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement official "openly expressed beliefs that neither the laws of North Carolina nor the United States applied to them"
Some Tuscarora descendants live in Oklahoma. They are primarily descendants of Tuscarora groups absorbed in the early decades of the nineteenth century in Ohio by relocated Iroquois Seneca and Cayuga bands from New York. They became known as Mingo while in the Midwest, coalescing as a group in Ohio. The Mingo were later forced in Indian Removals to Indian Territory in present-day Kansas, and lastly, in Oklahoma. In 1937 descendants reorganized and were federally recognized as the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma. The nation occupies territory in the northeast corner of the former Indian Territory.
www.bigorrin.com/tuscarora/kids.htm | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30881 |
Turbocharger
A turbocharger, colloquially known as a turbo, is a turbine-driven, forced induction device that increases an internal combustion engine's efficiency and power output by forcing extra compressed air into the combustion chamber.
This improvement over a naturally aspirated engine's power output is due to the fact that the compressor can force more air—and proportionately more fuel—into the combustion chamber than atmospheric pressure (and for that matter, ram air intakes) alone.
Turbochargers were originally known as turbosuperchargers when all forced induction devices were classified as superchargers. Today, the term "supercharger" is typically applied only to mechanically driven forced induction devices. The key difference between a turbocharger and a conventional supercharger is that a supercharger is mechanically driven by the engine, often through a belt connected to the crankshaft, whereas a turbocharger is powered by a turbine driven by the engine's exhaust gas. Compared with a mechanically driven supercharger, turbochargers tend to be more efficient, but less responsive. Twincharger refers to an engine with both a supercharger and a turbocharger.
Manufacturers commonly use turbochargers in truck, car, train, aircraft, and construction-equipment engines. They are most often used with Otto cycle and Diesel cycle internal combustion engines.
Forced induction dates back to the late 19th century, when Gottlieb Daimler patented the technique of using a gear-driven pump to force air into an internal combustion engine in 1885.
The 1905 patent by Alfred Büchi, a Swiss engineer working at Gebrüder Sulzer (now simply called Sulzer) is often considered the birth of the turbocharger. This patent was for a compound radial engine with an exhaust-driven axial flow turbine and compressor mounted on a common shaft. The first prototype was finished in 1915 with the aim of overcoming the power loss experienced by aircraft engines due to the decreased density of air at high altitudes. However, the prototype was not reliable and did not reach production. Another early patent for turbochargers was applied for in 1916 by French steam turbine inventor Auguste Rateau, for their intended use on the Renault engines used by French fighter planes. Separately, 1917 testing by the American National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and Sanford Alexander Moss showed that a turbocharger could enable an engine to avoid any power loss (compared with the power produced at sea level) at an altitude of up to above sea level. The testing was conducted at Pikes Peak in the United States using the V12 Liberty aircraft engine.
The first commercial application of a turbocharger was in 1925, when Alfred Büchi successfully installed turbochargers on ten-cylinder diesel engines, increasing the power output from . This engine was used by the German Ministry of Transport for two large passenger ships called the "Preussen" and "Hansestadt Danzig". The design was licensed to several manufacturers and turbochargers began to be used in marine, railcar and large stationary applications.
Turbochargers were used on several aircraft engines during World War II, beginning with the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in 1938, which used turbochargers produced by General Electric. Other early turbocharged airplanes included the B-24 Liberator, P-38 Lightning, P-47 Thunderbolt and the experimental Focke-Wulf Fw 190 prototypes.
Automobile and truck manufacturers began research into turbocharged engines during the 1950s, however the problems of "turbo lag" and the bulky size of the turbocharger were not able to be solved at the time. The first turbocharged cars were the short-lived Chevrolet Corvair Monza and the Oldsmobile Jetfire, introduced in 1962. Following the 1973 oil crisis and the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments, turbocharging became more common in automobiles, as a method to reduce fuel consumption and exhaust emissions.
In contrast to turbochargers, superchargers are mechanically driven by the engine. Belts, chains, shafts, and gears are common methods of powering a supercharger, placing a mechanical load on the engine. For example, on the single-stage single-speed supercharged Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the supercharger uses about . Yet the benefits outweigh the costs; for the to drive the supercharger the engine generates an additional , a net gain of . This is where the principal disadvantage of a supercharger becomes apparent; the engine must withstand the net power output of the engine plus the power to drive the supercharger.
Another disadvantage of some superchargers is lower adiabatic efficiency when compared with turbochargers (especially Roots-type superchargers). Adiabatic efficiency is a measure of a compressor's ability to compress air without adding excess heat to that air. Even under ideal conditions, the compression process always results in elevated output temperature; however, more efficient compressors produce less excess heat. Roots superchargers impart significantly more heat to the air than turbochargers. Thus, for a given volume and pressure of air, the turbocharged air is cooler, and as a result denser, containing more oxygen molecules, and therefore more potential power than the supercharged air. In practical application the disparity between the two can be dramatic, with turbochargers often producing 15% to 30% more power based solely on the differences in adiabatic efficiency (however, due to heat transfer from the hot exhaust, considerable heating does occur).
By comparison, a turbocharger does not place a direct mechanical load on the engine, although turbochargers place exhaust back pressure on engines, increasing pumping losses. This is more efficient because while the increased back pressure taxes the piston exhaust stroke, much of the energy driving the turbine is provided by the still-expanding exhaust gas that would otherwise be wasted as heat through the tailpipe. In contrast to supercharging, the primary disadvantage of turbocharging is what is referred to as "lag" or "spool time". This is the time between the demand for an increase in power (the throttle being opened) and the turbocharger(s) providing increased intake pressure, and hence increased power.
Throttle lag occurs because turbochargers rely on the buildup of exhaust gas pressure to drive the turbine. In variable output systems such as automobile engines, exhaust gas pressure at idle, low engine speeds, or low throttle is usually insufficient to drive the turbine. Only when the engine reaches sufficient speed does the turbine section start to "spool up," or spin fast enough to produce intake pressure above atmospheric pressure.
A combination of an exhaust-driven turbocharger and an engine-driven supercharger can mitigate the weaknesses of both. This technique is called twincharging.
In the case of Electro-Motive Diesel's two-stroke engines, the mechanically assisted turbocharger is not specifically a twincharger, as the engine uses the mechanical assistance to charge air only at lower engine speeds and startup. Once above notch # 5, the engine uses true turbocharging. This differs from a turbocharger that uses the compressor section of the turbo-compressor only during starting and, as a two-stroke engines cannot naturally aspirate, and, according to SAE definitions, a two-stroke engine with a mechanically assisted compressor during idle and low throttle is considered naturally aspirated.
In naturally aspirated piston engines, intake gases are drawn or "pushed" into the engine by atmospheric pressure filling the volumetric void caused by the downward stroke of the piston (which creates a low-pressure area), similar to drawing liquid using a syringe. The amount of air actually inspired, compared with the theoretical amount if the engine could maintain atmospheric pressure, is called volumetric efficiency. The objective of a turbocharger is to improve an engine's volumetric efficiency by increasing density of the intake gas (usually air) allowing more power per engine cycle.
The turbocharger's compressor draws in ambient air and compresses it before it enters into the intake manifold at increased pressure. This results in a greater mass of air entering the cylinders on each intake stroke. The power needed to spin the centrifugal compressor is derived from the kinetic energy of the engine's exhaust gases.
In automotive applications, 'boost' refers to the amount by which intake manifold pressure exceeds atmospheric pressure at sea level. This is representative of the extra air pressure that is achieved over what would be achieved without the forced induction. The level of boost may be shown on a pressure gauge, usually in bar, psi or possibly kPa.
The control of turbocharger boost has changed dramatically over the 100-plus years of their use. Modern turbochargers can use wastegates, blow-off valves and variable geometry, as discussed in later sections.
In petrol engine turbocharger applications, boost pressure is limited to keep the entire engine system, including the turbocharger, inside its thermal and mechanical design operating range. Over-boosting an engine frequently causes damage to the engine in a variety of ways including pre-ignition, overheating, and over-stressing the engine's internal hardware. For example, to avoid engine knocking (also known as detonation) and the related physical damage to the engine, the intake manifold pressure must not get too high, thus the pressure at the intake manifold of the engine must be controlled by some means. Opening the wastegate allows the excess energy destined for the turbine to bypass it and pass directly to the exhaust pipe, thus reducing boost pressure. The wastegate can be either controlled manually (frequently seen in aircraft) or by an actuator (in automotive applications, it is often controlled by the engine control unit).
A turbocharger may also be used to increase fuel efficiency without increasing power. This is achieved by diverting exhaust waste energy, from the combustion process, and feeding it back into the turbo's "hot" intake side that spins the turbine. As the hot turbine side is being driven by the exhaust energy, the cold intake turbine (the other side of the turbo) compresses fresh intake air and drives it into the engine's intake. By using this otherwise wasted energy to increase the mass of air, it becomes easier to ensure that all fuel is burned before being vented at the start of the exhaust stage. The increased temperature from the higher pressure gives a higher Carnot efficiency.
A reduced density of intake air is caused by the loss of atmospheric density seen with elevated altitudes. Thus, a natural use of the turbocharger is with aircraft engines. As an aircraft climbs to higher altitudes, the pressure of the surrounding air quickly falls off. At , the air is at half the pressure of sea level, which means that the engine produces less than half-power at this altitude. In aircraft engines, turbocharging is commonly used to maintain manifold pressure as altitude increases (i.e. to compensate for lower-density air at higher altitudes). Since atmospheric pressure reduces as the aircraft climbs, power drops as a function of altitude in normally aspirated engines. Systems that use a turbocharger to maintain an engine's sea-level power output are called turbo-normalized systems. Generally, a turbo-normalized system attempts to maintain a manifold pressure of .
Turbocharger lag (turbo lag) is the time required to change power output in response to a throttle change, noticed as a hesitation or slowed "throttle response" when accelerating as compared to a naturally aspirated engine. This is due to the time needed for the exhaust system and turbocharger to generate the required boost which can also be referred to as spooling. Inertia, friction, and compressor load are the primary contributors to turbocharger lag. Superchargers do not suffer this problem, because the turbine is eliminated due to the compressor being directly powered by the engine.
Turbocharger applications can be categorized into those that require changes in output power (such as automotive) and those that do not (such as marine, aircraft, commercial automotive, industrial, engine-generators, and locomotives). While important to varying degrees, turbocharger lag is most problematic in applications that require rapid changes in power output. Engine designs reduce lag in a number of ways:
Sometimes turbo lag is mistaken for engine speeds that are below boost threshold. If engine speed is below a turbocharger's boost threshold rpm then the time needed for the vehicle to build speed and rpm could be considerable, maybe even tens of seconds for a heavy vehicle starting at low vehicle speed in a high gear. This wait for vehicle speed increase is not turbo lag, it is improper gear selection for boost demand. Once the vehicle reaches sufficient speed to provide the required rpm to reach boost threshold, there will be a far shorter delay while the turbo itself builds rotational energy and transitions to positive boost, only this last part of the delay in achieving positive boost is the turbo lag.
The "boost threshold" of a turbocharger system is the lower bound of the region within which the compressor operates. Below a certain rate of flow, a compressor produces insignificant boost. This limits boost at a particular RPM, regardless of exhaust gas pressure. Newer turbocharger and engine developments have steadily reduced boost thresholds.
Electrical boosting ("E-boosting") is a new technology under development. It uses an electric motor to bring the turbocharger up to operating speed quicker than possible using available exhaust gases. An alternative to e-boosting is to completely separate the turbine and compressor into a turbine-generator and electric-compressor as in the hybrid turbocharger. This makes compressor speed independent of turbine speed.
Turbochargers start producing boost only when a certain amount of kinetic energy is present in the exhaust gasses. Without adequate exhaust gas flow to spin the turbine blades, the turbocharger cannot produce the necessary force needed to compress the air going into the engine. The boost threshold is determined by the engine displacement, engine rpm, throttle opening, and the size of the turbocharger. The operating speed (rpm) at which there is enough exhaust gas momentum to compress the air going into the engine is called the "boost threshold rpm". Reducing the "boost threshold rpm" can improve throttle response.
The turbocharger has three main components:
Many turbocharger installations use additional technologies, such as wastegates, intercooling and blow-off valves.
Energy provided for the turbine work is converted from the enthalpy and kinetic energy of the gas. The turbine housings direct the gas flow through the turbine as it spins at up to 250,000 rpm. The size and shape can dictate some performance characteristics of the overall turbocharger. Often the same basic turbocharger assembly is available from the manufacturer with multiple housing choices for the turbine, and sometimes the compressor cover as well. This lets the balance between performance, response, and efficiency be tailored to the application.
The turbine and impeller wheel sizes also dictate the amount of air or exhaust that can flow through the system, and the relative efficiency at which they operate. In general, the larger the turbine wheel and compressor wheel the larger the flow capacity. Measurements and shapes can vary, as well as curvature and number of blades on the wheels.
A turbocharger's performance is closely tied to its size. Large turbochargers take more heat and pressure to spin the turbine, creating lag at low speed. Small turbochargers spin quickly, but may not have the same performance at high acceleration. To efficiently combine the benefits of large and small wheels, advanced schemes are used such as twin-turbochargers, twin-scroll turbochargers, or variable-geometry turbochargers.
Twin-turbo or bi-turbo designs have two separate turbochargers operating in either a sequence or in parallel. In a parallel configuration, both turbochargers are fed one-half of the engine's exhaust. In a sequential setup one turbocharger runs at low speeds and the second turns on at a predetermined engine speed or load. Sequential turbochargers further reduce turbo lag, but require an intricate set of pipes to properly feed both turbochargers.
Two-stage variable twin-turbos employ a small turbocharger at low speeds and a large one at higher speeds. They are connected in a series so that boost pressure from one turbocharger is multiplied by another, hence the name "2-stage." The distribution of exhaust gas is continuously variable, so the transition from using the small turbocharger to the large one can be done incrementally. Twin turbochargers are primarily used in Diesel engines. For example, in Opel bi-turbo Diesel, only the smaller turbocharger works at low speed, providing high torque at 1,500–1,700 rpm. Both turbochargers operate together in mid range, with the smaller one pre-compressing the air, which the larger one further compresses. A bypass valve regulates the exhaust flow to each turbocharger. At higher speed (2,500 to 3,000 RPM) only the larger turbocharger runs.
Smaller turbochargers have less turbo lag than larger ones, so often two small turbochargers are used instead of one large one. This configuration is popular in engines over 2.5-litres and in V-shape or boxer engines.
Twin-scroll or divided turbochargers have two exhaust gas inlets and two nozzles, a smaller sharper angled one for quick response and a larger less angled one for peak performance.
With high-performance camshaft timing, exhaust valves in different cylinders can be open at the same time, overlapping at the end of the power stroke in one cylinder and the end of exhaust stroke in another. In twin-scroll designs, the exhaust manifold physically separates the channels for cylinders that can interfere with each other, so that the pulsating exhaust gasses flow through separate spirals (scrolls). With common firing order 1–3–4–2, two scrolls of unequal length pair cylinders 1 and 4, and 3 and 2. This lets the engine efficiently use exhaust scavenging techniques, which decreases exhaust gas temperatures and emissions, improves turbine efficiency, and reduces turbo lag evident at low engine speeds.
Variable-geometry or variable-nozzle turbochargers use moveable vanes to adjust the air-flow to the turbine, imitating a turbocharger of the optimal size throughout the power curve. The vanes are placed just in front of the turbine like a set of slightly overlapping walls. Their angle is adjusted by an actuator to block or increase air flow to the turbine. This variability maintains a comparable exhaust velocity and back pressure throughout the engine's rev range. The result is that the turbocharger improves fuel efficiency without a noticeable level of turbocharger lag.
The compressor increases the mass of intake air entering the combustion chamber. The compressor is made up of an impeller, a diffuser and a volute housing.
The operating range of a compressor is described by the "compressor map".
Ported shroud
The flow range of a turbocharger compressor can be increased by allowing air to bleed from a ring of holes or a circular groove around the compressor at a point slightly downstream of the compressor inlet (but far nearer to the inlet than to the outlet).
The ported shroud is a performance enhancement that allows the compressor to operate at significantly lower flows. It achieves this by forcing a simulation of impeller stall to occur continuously. Allowing some air to escape at this location inhibits the onset of surge and widens the operating range. While peak efficiencies may decrease, high efficiency may be achieved over a greater range of engine speeds. Increases in compressor efficiency result in slightly cooler (more dense) intake air, which improves power. This is a passive structure that is constantly open (in contrast to compressor exhaust blow off valves, which are mechanically or electronically controlled). The ability of the compressor to provide high boost at low rpm may also be increased marginally (because near choke conditions the compressor draws air inward through the bleed path). Ported shrouds are used by many turbocharger manufacturers.
The centre hub rotating assembly (CHRA) houses the shaft that connects the compressor impeller and turbine. It also must contain a bearing system to suspend the shaft, allowing it to rotate at very high speed with minimal friction. For instance, in automotive applications the CHRA typically uses a thrust bearing or ball bearing lubricated by a constant supply of pressurized engine oil. The CHRA may also be considered "water-cooled" by having an entry and exit point for engine coolant. Water-cooled models use engine coolant to keep lubricating oil cooler, avoiding possible oil coking (destructive distillation of engine oil) from the extreme heat in the turbine. The development of air-foil bearings removed this risk.
Ball bearings designed to support high speeds and temperatures are sometimes used instead of fluid bearings to support the turbine shaft. This helps the turbocharger accelerate more quickly and reduces turbo lag. Some variable nozzle turbochargers use a rotary electric actuator, which uses a direct stepper motor to open and close the vanes, rather than pneumatic controllers that operate based on air pressure.
When the pressure of the engine's intake air is increased, its temperature also increases. This occurrence can be explained through Gay-Lussac's law, stating that the pressure of a given amount of gas held at constant volume is directly proportional to the Kelvin temperature. With more pressure being added to the engine through the turbocharger, overall temperatures of the engine will also rise. In addition, heat soak from the hot exhaust gases spinning the turbine will also heat the intake air. The warmer the intake air, the less dense, and the less oxygen available for the combustion event, which reduces volumetric efficiency. Not only does excessive intake-air temperature reduce efficiency, it also leads to engine knock, or detonation, which is destructive to engines.
To compensate for the increase in temperature, turbocharger units often make use of an intercooler between successive stages of boost to cool down the intake air. A "charge air cooler" is an air cooler between the boost stage(s) and the appliance that consumes the boosted air.
There are two areas on which intercoolers are commonly mounted. It can be either mounted on top, parallel to the engine, or mounted near the lower front of the vehicle. Top-mount intercoolers setups will result in a decrease in turbo lag, due in part by the location of the intercooler being much closer to the turbocharger outlet and throttle body. This closer proximity reduces the time it takes for air to travel through the system, producing power sooner, compared to that of a front-mount intercooler which has more distance for the air to travel to reach the outlet and throttle.
Front-mount intercoolers can have the potential to give better cooling compared to that of a top-mount. The area in which a top-mounted intercooler is located, is near one of the hottest areas of a car, right above the engine. This is why most manufacturers include large hood scoops to help feed air to the intercooler while the car is moving, but while idle, the hood scoop provides little to no benefit. Even while moving, when the atmospheric temperatures begin to rise, top-mount intercoolers tend to underperform compared to front-mount intercoolers. With more distance to travel, the air circulated through a front-mount intercooler may have more time to cool.
Methanol/water injection has been around since the 1920s but was not utilized until World War II. Adding the mixture to intake of the turbocharged engines decreased operating temperatures and increased horse power. Turbocharged engines today run high boost and high engine temperatures to match. When injecting the mixture into the intake stream, the air is cooled as the liquids evaporate. Inside the combustion chamber it slows the flame, acting similar to higher octane fuel. Methanol/water mixture allows for higher compression because of the less detonation-prone and, thus, safer combustion inside the engine.
In addition to the use of intercoolers, it is common practice to add extra fuel to the intake air (known as "running an engine rich") for the sole purpose of cooling. The amount of extra fuel varies, but typically reduces the air-fuel ratio to between 11 and 13, instead of the stoichiometric 14.7 (in petrol engines). The extra fuel is not burned (as there is insufficient oxygen to complete the chemical reaction), instead it undergoes a phase change from atomized (liquid) to gas. This phase change absorbs heat, and the added mass of the extra fuel reduces the average thermal energy of the charge and exhaust gas. Even when a catalytic converter is used, the practice of running an engine rich increases exhaust emissions.
A wastegate regulates the exhaust gas flow that enters the exhaust-side driving turbine and therefore the air intake into the manifold and the degree of boosting. It can be controlled by a boost pressure assisted, generally vacuum hose attachment point diaphragm (for vacuum and positive pressure to return commonly oil contaminated waste to the emissions system) to force the spring-loaded diaphragm to stay closed until the overboost point is sensed by the ecu or a solenoid operated by the engine's electronic control unit or a boost controller.
Turbocharged engines operating at wide open throttle and high rpm require a large volume of air to flow between the turbocharger and the inlet of the engine. When the throttle is closed, compressed air flows to the throttle valve without an exit (i.e., the air has nowhere to go).
In this situation, the surge can raise the pressure of the air to a level that can cause damage. This is because if the pressure rises high enough, a compressor stall occurs—stored pressurized air decompresses backward across the impeller and out the inlet. The reverse flow back across the turbocharger makes the turbine shaft reduce in speed more quickly than it would naturally, possibly damaging the turbocharger.
To prevent this from happening, a valve is fitted between the turbocharger and inlet, which vents off the excess air pressure. These are known as an anti-surge, diverter, bypass, turbo-relief valve, blow-off valve (BOV), or dump valve. It is a pressure relief valve, and is normally operated by the vacuum from the intake manifold.
The primary use of this valve is to maintain the spinning of the turbocharger at a high speed. The air is usually recycled back into the turbocharger inlet (diverter or bypass valves), but can also be vented to the atmosphere (blow off valve). Recycling back into the turbocharger inlet is required on an engine that uses a mass-airflow fuel injection system, because dumping the excessive air overboard downstream of the mass airflow sensor causes an excessively rich fuel mixture—because the mass-airflow sensor has already accounted for the extra air that is no longer being used. Valves that recycle the air also shorten the time needed to re-spool the turbocharger after sudden engine deceleration, since load on the turbocharger when the valve is active is much lower than if the air charge vents to atmosphere.
A free floating turbocharger is the simplest type of turbocharger. This configuration has no wastegate and cannot control its own boost levels. They are typically designed to attain maximum boost at full throttle. Free floating turbochargers produce more horsepower because they have less backpressure, but are not driveable in performance applications without an external wastegate.
The first turbocharged passenger car was the Oldsmobile Jetfire option on the 1962–1963 F85/Cutlass, which used a turbocharger mounted to a all aluminum V8. Also in 1962, Chevrolet introduced a special run of turbocharged Corvairs, initially called the Monza Spyder (1962–1964) and later renamed the Corsa (1965–1966), which mounted a turbocharger to its air cooled flat six cylinder engine. This model popularized the turbocharger in North America—and set the stage for later turbocharged models from Porsche on the 1975-up 911/930, Saab on the 1978–1984 Saab 99 Turbo, and the very popular 1978–1987 Buick Regal/T Type/Grand National. Today, turbocharging is common on both diesel and petrol-powered cars. Turbocharging can increase power output for a given capacity or increase fuel efficiency by allowing a smaller displacement engine. The 'Engine of the year 2011' is an engine used in a Fiat 500 equipped with an MHI turbocharger. This engine lost 10% weight, saving up to 30% in fuel consumption while delivering the same peak horsepower (105) as a 1.4-litre engine.
The first production turbocharger diesel passenger car was the Garrett-turbocharged Mercedes 300SD introduced in 1978. Today, most automotive diesels are turbocharged, since the use of turbocharging improved efficiency, driveability and performance of diesel engines, greatly increasing their popularity. The Audi R10 with a diesel engine even won the 24 hours race of Le Mans in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
The first example of a turbocharged bike is the 1978 Kawasaki Z1R TC. Several Japanese companies produced turbocharged high-performance motorcycles in the early 1980s, such as the CX500 Turbo from Honda- a transversely mounted, liquid cooled V-Twin also available in naturally aspirated form. Since then, few turbocharged motorcycles have been produced. This is partially due to an abundance of larger displacement, naturally aspirated engines being available that offer the torque and power benefits of a smaller displacement engine with turbocharger, but do return more linear power characteristics.
The Dutch manufacturer EVA motorcycles builds a small series of turbocharged diesel motorcycle with an 800cc smart CDI engine.
The first turbocharged diesel truck was produced by "Schweizer Maschinenfabrik Saurer" (Swiss Machine Works Saurer) in 1938.
A natural use of the turbocharger—and its earliest known use for any internal combustion engine, starting with experimental installations in the 1920s—is with aircraft engines. As an aircraft climbs to higher altitudes the pressure of the surrounding air quickly falls off. At 5,486 m (18,000 ft), the air is at half the pressure of sea level and the airframe experiences only half the aerodynamic drag. However, since the charge in the cylinders is pushed in by this air pressure, the engine normally produces only half-power at full throttle at this altitude. Pilots would like to take advantage of the low drag at high altitudes to go faster, but a naturally aspirated engine does not produce enough power at the same altitude to do so.
The table below is used to demonstrate the wide range of conditions experienced. As seen in the table below, there is significant scope for forced induction to compensate for lower density environments.
A turbocharger remedies this problem by compressing the air back to sea-level pressures (turbo-normalizing), or even much higher (turbo-charging), in order to produce rated power at high altitude. Since the size of the turbocharger is chosen to produce a given amount of pressure at high altitude, the turbocharger is oversized for low altitude. The speed of the turbocharger is controlled by a wastegate. Early systems used a fixed wastegate, resulting in a turbocharger that functioned much like a supercharger. Later systems utilized an adjustable wastegate, controlled either manually by the pilot or by an automatic hydraulic or electric system. When the aircraft is at low altitude the wastegate is usually fully open, venting all the exhaust gases overboard. As the aircraft climbs and the air density drops, the wastegate must continuously close in small increments to maintain full power. The altitude at which the wastegate fully closes and the engine still produces full power is the "critical altitude." When the aircraft climbs above the critical altitude, engine power output decreases as altitude increases, just as it would in a naturally aspirated engine.
With older supercharged aircraft without Automatic Boost Control, the pilot must continually adjust the throttle to maintain the required manifold pressure during ascent or descent. The pilot must also take care to avoid over-boosting the engine and causing damage. In contrast, modern turbocharger systems use an automatic wastegate, which controls the manifold pressure within parameters preset by the manufacturer. For these systems, as long as the control system is working properly and the pilot's control commands are smooth and deliberate, a turbocharger cannot over-boost the engine and damage it.
Yet the majority of World War II engines used superchargers, because they maintained three significant manufacturing advantages over turbochargers, which were larger, involved extra piping, and required exotic high-temperature materials in the turbine and pre-turbine section of the exhaust system. The size of the piping alone is a serious issue; American fighters Vought F4U and Republic P-47 used the same engine, but the huge barrel-like fuselage of the latter was, in part, needed to hold the piping to and from the turbocharger in the rear of the plane. Turbocharged piston engines are also subject to many of the same operating restrictions as gas turbine engines. Pilots must make smooth, slow throttle adjustments to avoid overshooting their target manifold pressure. The fuel/air mixture must often be adjusted far on the rich side of stoichiometric combustion needs to avoid pre-ignition or detonation in the engine when running at high power settings. In systems using a manually operated wastegate, the pilot must be careful not to exceed the turbocharger's maximum rpm. The additional systems and piping increase an aircraft engine's size, weight, complexity and cost. A turbocharged aircraft engine costs more to maintain than a comparable normally aspirated engine. The great majority of World War II American heavy bombers used by the USAAF, particularly the Wright R-1820 "Cyclone-9" powered B-17 Flying Fortress, and Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp powered Consolidated B-24 Liberator four-engine bombers both used similar models of General Electric-designed turbochargers in service, as did the twin Allison V-1710-engined Lockheed P-38 Lightning American fighter during the war years.
All of the above WWII aircraft engines had mechanically driven centrifugal superchargers as designed from the start, and the turbosuperchargers (with intercoolers) were added, effectively as twincharger systems, to achieve desired altitude performance.
Turbocharged aircraft often occupy a performance range between that of normally aspirated piston-powered aircraft and turbine-powered aircraft. Despite the negative points, turbocharged aircraft fly higher for greater efficiency. High cruise flight also allows more time to evaluate issues before a forced landing must be made.
As the turbocharged aircraft climbs, however, the pilot (or automated system) can close the wastegate, forcing more exhaust gas through the turbocharger turbine, thereby maintaining manifold pressure during the climb, at least until the critical pressure altitude is reached (when the wastegate is fully closed), after which manifold pressure falls. With such systems, modern high-performance piston engine aircraft can cruise at altitudes up to 25,000 feet (above which, RVSM certification would be required), where low air density results in lower drag and higher true airspeeds. This allows flying "above the weather". In manually controlled wastegate systems, the pilot must take care not to overboost the engine, which causes detonation, leading to engine damage.
Turbocharging, which is common on diesel engines in automobiles, trucks, tractors, and boats is also common in heavy machinery such as locomotives, ships, and auxiliary power generation.
Turbochargers are also employed in certain two-stroke cycle diesel engines, which would normally require a Roots blower for aspiration. In this specific application, mainly Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) 567, 645, and 710 Series engines, the turbocharger is initially driven by the engine's crankshaft through a gear train and an overrunning clutch, thereby providing aspiration for combustion. After combustion has been achieved, and after the exhaust gases have reached sufficient heat energy, the overrunning clutch is automatically disengaged, and the turbo-compressor is thereafter driven exclusively by the exhaust gases. In the EMD application, the turbocharger acts as a compressor for normal aspiration during starting and low power output settings and is used for true turbocharging during medium and high power output settings. This is particularly beneficial at high altitudes, as are often encountered on western U.S. railroads. It is possible for the turbocharger to revert to compressor mode momentarily during commands for large increases in engine power.
Honeywell Turbo Technologies, Borg Warner and Mitsubishi Turbocharger are the largest manufacturers in Europe and the United States. Several factors are expected to contribute to more widespread consumer adoption of turbochargers, especially in the US:
In 2017, 27% of vehicles sold in the US were turbocharged. In Europe 67% of all vehicles were turbocharged in 2014, and were expected to grow to 69% by 2019. Historically, more than 90% of turbochargers were diesel, however, adoption in petrol engines is increasing.
The U.S. Coalition for Advanced Diesel Cars is pushing for a technology neutral policy for government subsidies of environmentally friendly automotive technology. If successful, government subsidies would be based on the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards rather than supporting specific technologies like electric cars. Political shifts could drastically change adoption projections. Turbocharger sales in the United States increased when the federal government boosted corporate average fuel economy targets to 35.5 mpg by 2016.
Turbocharger failures and resultant high exhaust temperatures are among the causes of car fires. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30886 |
Thomas Hare (political scientist)
Sir Thomas Hare (28 March 1806 in England – 6 May 1891) was a British proponent of electoral reform.
He was born on 28 March 1806, was the only son of A Hare of Leigh, Dorset.
On 14 November 1828 he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar on 22 November 1833. He practised in the chancery courts and from 1841 reported in Vice-chancellor Wigram's court.
He studied law, and was called to the Bar in November 1833 and published several works on judges' decisions. In 1853 he became Inspector of Charities and was later Assistant Commissioner on the Royal City Charities Commission, about which he published several books. Elected a Conservative Party Member of Parliament, he resigned from political office in 1846. He became a Peelite, and broke with the Conservatives, but did not wish to join the Liberal Party, preferring to maintain his independence.
He married, first, in Dorsetshire on 7 August 1837, Mary, daughter of Thomas Samson of Kingston Russell. She died on 21 October 1855, and was buried in the churchyard of Brompton church. They had eight children. The eldest daughter, Marian, wife of the Rev. W. R. Andrews of Eastbourne, has written under the pseudonym of 'Christopher Hare;' the second daughter, Alice, married Professor Westlake. Hare married, secondly, on 4 April 1872, Eleanor Bowes Benson (1833–1890), second sister of Edward White Benson, archbishop of Canterbury, by whom he had issue Mary Eleanor (1874–1883).
Hare was said to have been 'conspicuous for great industry – to have wide interests in life and clearness of intellectual vision'. He was a member of the London-based Political Economy Club and the British Dictionary of National Biography says of him:
His original electoral system ideas included making The United Kingdom one huge electorate (Hare, in 1854, set the divisor as 654 the number of seats in the UK Parliament) (later he changed this to seven or eight hundred electorates) and that each voter would sign and check his vote. By 1873, however, he had adapted his ideas to take account of the secret vote. Under Hare's method, simply dividing the vote by the number of seats constituted the quota and then the surplus was expected to be distributed 'at random'.
Hare's famous original work "Machinery of Representation" appeared in 1857 (in two editions) and many editions of his equally famous "Treatise on the Election of Representatives: Parliamentary and Municipal" appeared between 1859 and 1873. In the preface to the fourth edition, he stated his belief that proportional representation would 'end the evils of corruption, violent discontent and restricted power of selection or voter choice'. A great deal of writing on that theory developed and several societies were formed worldwide for its adoption although Hare pointed out that his scheme was not meant to bear the title 'representation for minorities'. Moreover, he noted in the preface to his third edition a point that was to become a feature of Tasmanian politics:
Finally, with the help of contemporaries such as John Stuart Mill and Catherine Helen Spence, Hare popularised the idea of proportional representation worldwide. The permanent recognition of his name in the Tasmanian system is perhaps appropriate despite little being left of his original proposals. His death in May 1891 occurred several years before the first use of proportional representation in Tasmania in 1897.
The former London headquarters of the Electoral Reform Society was named in his honour.
Hare lends his name to the following:
The Single Transferable Vote method has been widely used for multiple-winner elections. While continuing to be the main method of elections in the Republic of Ireland and for some elections in Australia, it has been widely used in numerous corporations and organizations, and has been employed in local elections in a few jurisdictions of the United States. 2007 saw the reintroduction of STV in public elections on the British mainland in elections to Scottish local authorities. STV had been used for elections to Parliament for some University Seats from 1918 to 1945 and in 1918 for Scottish boards.
Mill described Hare's system as "the greatest improvement of which the system of representative government is susceptible; an improvement which…exactly meets and cures the grand, and what before seemed inherent, defect of the representative system".
Hare, not a mathematician, never subjected his STV system to a rigorous mathematical analysis.
Hare also obtained minor fame in an entirely different field: law reporting.
At a time when there were no official reports of judicial decisions, Hare published reports of key decisions of the courts to enable them to be used as precedents. Two key judicial decisions, which are still frequently cited today, are reported only in Hare's Reports in Chancery:
The Hare law reports were published from 1841 to 1853.
F.D. Parsons, Thomas Hare and Political Representation in Victorian Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Hare–Clark electoral system | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30889 |
Time zone
A time zone is a region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries of countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude because it is convenient for areas in close commercial or other communication to keep the same time.
Most of the time zones on land are offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by a whole number of hours ( to ), but a few zones are offset by 30 or 45 minutes (e.g. Newfoundland Standard Time is , Nepal Standard Time is , Indian Standard Time is and Myanmar Standard Time is ).
Some higher latitude and temperate zone countries use daylight saving time for part of the year, typically by adjusting local clock time by an hour. Many land time zones are skewed toward the west of the corresponding nautical time zones. This also creates a permanent daylight saving time effect.
When well-regulated mechanical clocks became widespread in the early 19th century, each city began to use local mean solar time. Apparent and mean solar time can differ by up to around 15 minutes (as described by the equation of time) because of the elliptical shape of the Earth's orbit around the Sun (eccentricity) and the tilt of the Earth's axis (obliquity). Mean solar time has days of equal length, and the accumulated difference between the two sums to zero after a year.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was established in 1675, when the Royal Observatory was built, as an aid to mariners to determine longitude at sea, providing a standard reference time while each city in England kept a different local time.
Local solar time became increasingly inconvenient as rail transport and telecommunications improved, because clocks differed between places by amounts corresponding to the differences in their geographical longitudes, which varied by four minutes of time for every degree of longitude. For example, Bristol, England is about 2.5 degrees west of Greenwich (East London), so when it is solar noon in Bristol, it is about 10 minutes past solar noon in London. The use of time zones accumulates these differences into longer units, usually hours, so that nearby places can share a common standard for timekeeping.
The first adoption of a standard time was in November 1840, in Great Britain by railway companies using GMT kept by portable chronometers. The first of these companies to adopt standard time was the Great Western Railway (GWR) in November 1840. This quickly became known as Railway Time. About , time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Even though 98% of Great Britain's public clocks were using GMT by 1855, it was not made Britain's legal time until . Some British clocks from this period have two minute hands—one for the local time, one for GMT.
Improvements in worldwide communication further increased the need for interacting parties to communicate mutually comprehensible time references to one another. The problem of differing local times could be solved across larger areas by synchronizing clocks worldwide, but in many places that adopted time would then differ markedly from the solar time to which people were accustomed.
On November 2, 1868, the then British colony of New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed throughout the colony, and was the first country to do so. It was based on the longitude East of Greenwich, that is 11 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT. This standard was known as New Zealand Mean Time.
Timekeeping on the American railroads in the mid-19th century was somewhat confused. Each railroad used its own standard time, usually based on the local time of its headquarters or most important terminus, and the railroad's train schedules were published using its own time. Some junctions served by several railroads had a clock for each railroad, each showing a different time.
Charles F. Dowd proposed a system of one-hour standard time zones for American railroads about 1863, although he published nothing on the matter at that time and did not consult railroad officials until 1869. In 1870 he proposed four ideal time zones (having north–south borders), the first centered on Washington, D.C., but by 1872 the first was centered on the meridian 75° W of Greenwich, with geographic borders (for example, sections of the Appalachian Mountains). Dowd's system was never accepted by American railroads. Instead, U.S. and Canadian railroads implemented a version proposed by William F. Allen, the editor of the "Traveler's Official Railway Guide". The borders of its time zones ran through railroad stations, often in major cities. For example, the border between its Eastern and Central time zones ran through Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Charleston. It was inaugurated on Sunday, , also called "The Day of Two Noons", when each railroad station clock was reset as standard-time noon was reached within each time zone.
The zones were named Intercolonial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Within a year 85% of all cities with populations over 10,000, about 200 cities, were using standard time. A notable exception was Detroit (which is about halfway between the meridians of eastern time and central time) which kept local time until 1900, then tried Central Standard Time, local mean time, and Eastern Standard Time before a May 1915 ordinance settled on EST and was ratified by popular vote in August 1916. The confusion of times came to an end when Standard zone time was formally adopted by the U.S. Congress in the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918.
The first known person to conceive of a worldwide system of time zones was the Italian mathematician Quirico Filopanti. He introduced the idea in his book "Miranda!" published in 1858. He proposed 24 hourly time zones, which he called "longitudinal days", the first centred on the meridian of Rome. He also proposed a universal time to be used in astronomy and telegraphy. But his book attracted no attention until long after his death.
Scottish-born Canadian Sir Sandford Fleming proposed a worldwide system of time zones in 1879. He advocated his system at several international conferences, and is credited with "the initial effort that led to the adoption of the present time meridians". In 1876, his first proposal was for a global 24-hour clock, conceptually located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian. In 1879 he specified that his universal day would begin at the anti-meridian of Greenwich (180th meridian), while conceding that hourly time zones might have some limited local use. He also proposed his system at the International Meridian Conference in October 1884, but it did not adopt his time zones because they were not within its purview. The conference did adopt a universal day of 24 hours beginning at Greenwich midnight, but specified that it "shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable".
By about 1900, almost all inhabited places on Earth had adopted one or other standard time zone; but only some of these used an hourly offset from GMT. Many applied the time at a local astronomical observatory to an entire country, without any reference to GMT. It took many decades before all time zones were based on some "standard offset" from GMT/UTC. By 1929, most major countries had adopted hourly time zones. Nepal was the last country to adopt a standard offset, shifting slightly to UTC+5:45 in 1956.
Today, all nations use standard time zones for secular purposes, but they do not all apply the concept as originally conceived. Newfoundland, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Marquesas, as well as parts of Australia use half-hour deviations from standard time, and some nations, such as Nepal, and some provinces, such as the Chatham Islands of New Zealand, use quarter-hour deviations. Some countries, such as China and India, use a single time zone even though the extent of their territory far exceeds 15° of longitude, which causes problems as some places in China, like Xinjiang (westernmost province of China), uses local time and when planning to meet with the Chinese living in Beijing, a very eastern city, they will have trouble understanding each other as they are two hours apart. Russia is traditionally divided into 11 time zones, but in 2010 the number was reduced to nine. Then-President Dmitry Medvedev said at the time that he would like to see even fewer in place. Still, in 2014, the two removed time zones were reinstated, making the number of time zones 11 again.
ISO 8601 is an international standard that defines methods of representing dates and times in textual form, including specifications for representing time zones.
If a time is in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a "Z" is added directly after the time without a separating space. "Z" is the zone designator for the zero UTC offset. "09:30 UTC" is therefore represented as "09:30Z" or "0930Z". Likewise, "14:45:15 UTC" is written as "14:45:15Z" or "144515Z".
UTC time is also known as "Zulu" time, since "Zulu" is a phonetic alphabet code word for the letter "Z".
Offsets from UTC are written in the format ±[hh]:[mm], ±[hh] [mm], or ±[hh] (either hours ahead or behind UTC). For example, if the time being described is one hour ahead of UTC (such as the time in Berlin during the winter), the zone designator would be "", "+0100", or simply "+01". This numeric representation of time zones is appended to local times in the same way that alphabetic time zone abbreviations (or "Z", as above) are appended. The offset from UTC changes with daylight saving time, e.g. a time offset in Chicago, which is in the North American Central Time Zone, is "" for the winter (Central Standard Time) and "" for the summer (Central Daylight Time).
Time zones are often represented by alphabetic abbreviations such as "EST", "WST", and "CST", but these are not part of the international time and date standard ISO 8601 and their use as sole designator for a time zone is discouraged. Such designations can be ambiguous; for example (from List of time zone abbreviations), "CST" can mean China Standard Time (UTC+8), Cuba Standard Time (UTC−5) and (North American) Central Standard Time (UTC−6). It is also a widely used variant of ACST (Australian Central Standard Time, UTC+9:30).
XX = ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, XX- = parts of the country, N = North, S = South, UTC = Universal Coordinated Time, DST = Daylight Saving Time
These examples give the local time at various locations around the world when daylight saving time is not in effect:
Where the adjustment for time zones results in a time at the other side of midnight from UTC, then the date at the location is one day later or earlier.
Some examples when UTC is 23:00 on Monday when or where daylight saving time is not in effect:
Some examples when UTC is 02:00 on Tuesday when or where daylight saving time is not in effect:
The time-zone adjustment for a specific location may vary because of daylight saving time. For example, New Zealand, which is usually UTC+12, observes a one-hour daylight saving time adjustment during the Southern Hemisphere summer, resulting in a local time of UTC+13.
Conversion between time zones obeys the relationship
in which each side of the equation is equivalent to UTC. (The more familiar term "UTC offset" is used here rather than the term "zone designator" used by the standard.)
The conversion equation can be rearranged to
For example, the New York Stock Exchange opens at 09:30 (EST, UTC offset=−05:00). In Los Angeles (PST, UTC offset= −08:00) and Delhi (IST, UTC offset= +05:30), the New York Stock Exchange opens at
These calculations become more complicated near a daylight saving boundary (because the UTC offset for zone X is a function of the UTC time).
The table "Time of day by zone" gives an overview on the time relations between different zones.
Since the 1920s a nautical standard time system has been in operation for ships on the high seas. Nautical time zones are an ideal form of the terrestrial time zone system. Under the system, a time change of one hour is required for each change of longitude by 15°. The 15° gore that is offset from GMT or UT1 (not UTC) by twelve hours is bisected by the nautical date line into two 7.5° gores that differ from GMT by ±12 hours. A nautical date line is implied but not explicitly drawn on time zone maps. It follows the 180th meridian except where it is interrupted by territorial waters adjacent to land, forming gaps: it is a pole-to-pole dashed line.
A ship within the territorial waters of any nation would use that nation's standard time, but would revert to nautical standard time upon leaving its territorial waters. The captain is permitted to change the ship's clocks at a time of the captain's choice following the ship's entry into another time zone. The captain often chooses midnight. Ships going in shuttle traffic over a time zone border often keep the same time zone all the time, to avoid confusion about work, meal, and shop opening hours. Still the time table for port calls must follow the land time zone.
Ideal time zones, such as nautical time zones, are based on the mean solar time of a particular meridian located in the middle of that zone with boundaries located 7.5 degrees east and west of the meridian. In practice, zone boundaries are often drawn much farther to the west with often irregular boundaries, and some locations base their time on meridians located far to the east.
For example, even though the Prime Meridian (0°) passes through Spain and France, they use the mean solar time of 15 degrees east (Central European Time) rather than 0 degrees (Greenwich Mean Time). France previously used GMT, but was switched to CET (Central European Time) during the German occupation of the country during World War II and did not switch back after the war. Similarly, prior to World War II, the Netherlands observed "Amsterdam Time", which was twenty minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. They were obliged to follow German time during the war, and kept it thereafter. In the mid 1970s the Netherlands, as with other European states, began observing daylight saving (summer) time.
In the Northern hemisphere, there is a tendency to draw time zone boundaries far to the west of their meridians. A reason is that it can allow the more efficient use of sunlight. Another reason for this is that similar working day schedules around the world have led to people rising on average at 07:00 clock time and going to bed at 23:00 clock time. This means that the middle of the period that people are awake (""awake time noon"") occurs at 15:00 (= [7 + 23]/2) clock time, whereas – if using as clock time the time of the nautical time zone to which the location concerned geographically belongs – solar noon occurs at 12:00 (+/- 30 min) clock time. To make solar noon coincide more with "awake time noon" (i.e. make the sun reach its highest point closer to 15:00 clock time rather than 12:00 clock time), the time of one or even two nautical time zones to the east is chosen. Many of these locations also use DST, adding yet another nautical time zone to the east. As a result, in summer, solar noon in the Spanish town of Muxía occurs at 14:37 clock time, indeed very close to "awake time noon" (15:00). This westernmost area of continental Spain never experiences sunset before 18:00 clock time, even in midwinter, despite its lying more than 40 degrees north of the equator. Near the summer solstice, Muxía has sunset times (after 22:00) similar to those of Stockholm, which is in the same time zone and 16 degrees farther north. Stockholm has much earlier sunrises, though.
A more extreme example is Nome, Alaska, which is at 165°24′W longitude—just west of center of the idealized Samoa Time Zone (165°W). Nevertheless, Nome observes Alaska Time (135°W) with DST so it is slightly more than two hours ahead of the sun in winter and over three in summer.
Kotzebue, Alaska, also near the same meridian but north of the Arctic Circle, has an annual event on August 9 to celebrate "two" sunsets in the same 24-hour day, one shortly after midnight at the start of the day, and the other shortly before midnight at the end of the day.
Also, China extends as far west as 73°E, but all parts of it use (120°E), so solar "noon" can occur as late as 15:00 in western portions of China such as Xinjiang and Tibet. The Afghanistan-China border marks the greatest terrestrial time zone difference on Earth, with a 3.5 hour difference between Afghanistan's UTC+4:30 and China's UTC+08:00.
Many countries, and sometimes just certain regions of countries, adopt daylight saving time (also known as "Summer Time") during part of the year. This typically involves advancing clocks by an hour near the start of spring and adjusting back in autumn ("spring forward", "fall back"). Modern DST was first proposed in 1907 and was in widespread use in 1916 as a wartime measure aimed at conserving coal. Despite controversy, many countries have used it off and on since then; details vary by location and change occasionally. Most countries around the equator do not observe daylight saving time, since the seasonal difference in sunlight is minimal.
Many computer operating systems include the necessary support for working with all (or almost all) possible local times based on the various time zones. Internally, operating systems typically use UTC as their basic time-keeping standard, while providing services for converting local times to and from UTC, and also the ability to automatically change local time conversions at the start and end of daylight saving time in the various time zones. (See the article on daylight saving time for more details on this aspect).
Web servers presenting web pages primarily for an audience in a single time zone or a limited range of time zones typically show times as a local time, perhaps with UTC time in brackets. More internationally oriented websites may show times in UTC only or using an arbitrary time zone. For example, the international English-language version of CNN includes GMT and Hong Kong Time, whereas the US version shows Eastern Time. US Eastern Time and Pacific Time are also used fairly commonly on many US-based English-language websites with global readership. The format is typically based in the W3C Note "datetime".
Email systems and other messaging systems (IRC chat, etc.) time-stamp messages using UTC, or else include the sender's time zone as part of the message, allowing the receiving program to display the message's date and time of sending in the recipient's local time.
Database records that include a time stamp typically use UTC, especially when the database is part of a system that spans multiple time zones. The use of local time for time-stamping records is not recommended for time zones that implement daylight saving time because once a year there is a one-hour period when local times are ambiguous.
Calendar systems nowadays usually tie their time stamps to UTC, and show them differently on computers that are in different time zones. That works when having telephone or internet meetings. It works less well when travelling, because the calendar events are assumed to take place in the time zone the computer or smartphone was on when creating the event. The event can be shown at the wrong time. For example, if a New Yorker plans to meet someone in Los Angeles at 9 AM, and makes a calendar entry at 9 AM (which the computer assumes is New York time), the calendar entry will be at 6 AM if taking the computer's time zone. There is also an option in newer versions of Microsoft Outlook to enter the time zone in which an event will happen, but often not in other calendar systems. Calendaring software must also deal with daylight saving time (DST). If, for political reasons, the begin and end dates of daylight saving time are changed, calendar entries should stay the same in local time, even though they may shift in UTC time. In Microsoft Outlook, time stamps are therefore stored and communicated without DST offsets. Hence, an appointment in London at noon in the summer will be represented as 12:00 (UTC+00:00) even though the event will actually take place at 13:00 UTC. In Google Calendar, calendar events are stored in UTC (although shown in local time) and might be changed by a time-zone changes, although normal daylight saving start and end are compensated for (similar to much other calendar software).
Most Unix-like systems, including Linux and Mac OS X, keep system time in time_t format, representing the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Thursday, January 1, 1970. By default the external representation is as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), though individual processes can specify time zones using the "TZ" environment variable. This allows users in multiple time zones to use the same computer, with their respective local times displayed correctly to each user. Time zone information most commonly comes from the IANA time zone database. In fact, many systems, including anything using the GNU C Library, can make use of this database.
Windows-based computer systems prior to Windows 2000 used local time, but Windows 2000 and later can use UTC as the basic system time. The system registry contains time zone information that includes the offset from UTC and rules that indicate the start and end dates for daylight saving in each zone. Interaction with the user normally uses local time, and application software is able to calculate the time in various zones. Terminal Servers allow remote computers to redirect their time zone settings to the Terminal Server so that users see the correct time for their time zone in their desktop/application sessions. Terminal Services uses the server base time on the Terminal Server and the client time zone information to calculate the time in the session.
While most application software will use the underlying operating system for time zone information, the Java Platform, from version 1.3.1, has maintained its own time zone database. This database is updated whenever time zone rules change. Oracle provides an updater tool for this purpose.
As an alternative to the time zone information bundled with the Java Platform, programmers may choose to use the Joda-Time library. This library includes its own time zone data based on the IANA time zone database.
As of Java 8 there is a new date and time API that can help with converting time zones.
Java 8 Date Time
Traditionally, there was very little in the way of time zone support for JavaScript. Essentially the programmer had to extract the UTC offset by instantiating a time object, getting a GMT time from it, and differencing the two. This does not provide a solution for more complex daylight saving variations, such as divergent DST directions between northern and southern hemispheres.
ECMA-402, the standard on Internationalization API for JavaScript, provides ways of formatting Time Zones. However, due to size constraint, some implementations or distributions do not include it.
The DateTime object in Perl supports all time zones in the Olson DB and includes the ability to get, set and convert between time zones.
The DateTime objects and related functions have been compiled into the PHP core since 5.2. This includes the ability to get and set the default script time zone, and DateTime is aware of its own time zone internally. PHP.net provides extensive documentation on this. As noted there, the most current time zone database can be implemented via the PECL timezonedb.
The standard module datetime included with Python stores and operates on the time zone information class tzinfo. The third party pytz module provides access to the full IANA time zone database. Negated time zone offset in seconds is stored time.timezone and time.altzone attributes.
Each Smalltalk dialect comes with its own built-in classes for dates, times and timestamps, only a few of which implement the DateAndTime and Duration classes as specified by the ANSI Smalltalk Standard. VisualWorks provides a TimeZone class that supports up to two annually recurring offset transitions, which are assumed to apply to all years (same behavior as Windows time zones). Squeak provides a Timezone class that does not support any offset transitions. Dolphin Smalltalk does not support time zones at all.
For full support of the tz database (zoneinfo) in a Smalltalk application (including support for any number of annually recurring offset transitions, and support for different intra-year offset transition rules in different years) the third-party, open-source, ANSI-Smalltalk-compliant Chronos Date/Time Library is available for use with any of the following Smalltalk dialects: VisualWorks, Squeak, Gemstone, or Dolphin.
Orbiting spacecraft typically experience many sunrises and sunsets in a 24-hour period, or in the case of Apollo program astronauts travelling to the moon, none. Thus it is not possible to calibrate time zones with respect to the sun, and still respect a 24-hour sleep/wake cycle. A common practice for space exploration is to use the Earth-based time zone of the launch site or mission control. This keeps the sleeping cycles of the crew and controllers in sync. The International Space Station normally uses Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Timekeeping on Mars can be more complex, since the planet has a solar day of approximately 24 hours and 39 minutes, known as a sol. Earth controllers for some Mars missions have synchronized their sleep/wake cycles with the Martian day, because solar-powered rover activity on the surface was tied to periods of light and dark. The difference in day length caused the sleep/wake cycles to slowly drift with respect to the day/night cycles on Earth, repeating approximately once every 36 days. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30890 |
Truro
Truro (; ) is a cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England, UK. It is Cornwall's county town and only city, as well as being its centre for administration, leisure and retail. Its population was recorded as 18,766 in the 2011 census. People from Truro are known as Truronians. Truro grew as a centre of trade from its port and then as a stannary town for the tin-mining industry. It became entitled to be called a city in 1876, with the founding of the Diocese of Truro, and thereby became mainland Britain's southernmost city. Places of interest include the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro Cathedral (completed in 1910), the Hall for Cornwall, and Cornwall's Courts of Justice.
The origin of Truro's name is debated. It has been said to derive from the Cornish "tri-veru" meaning "three rivers", but authorities such as the "Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names" reject this theory. There are doubts about the "tru" part meaning "three". An expert on Cornish place-names, Oliver Padel, in "A Popular Dictionary of Cornish Place-names", called the "three rivers" meaning "possible". Alternatively the name may derive from "tre-uro" or similar, i. e. the settlement on the river "Uro".
The earliest records and archaeological finds of a permanent settlement in the Truro area date from Norman times. A castle was built there in the 12th century by Richard de Luci, Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry II, who for his services to the court was granted land in Cornwall, including the area surrounding the confluence of the two rivers. The town grew in the shadow of the castle and was awarded borough status to further economic activity. The castle has long since disappeared.
Richard de Lucy fought in Cornwall under Count Alan of Brittany after leaving Falaise late in 1138. The small adulterine castle at Truro, Cornwall (originally the parish of Kenwyn), later known as "Castellum de Guelon" was probably built by him in 1139–1140. He styled himself "Richard de Lucy, de Trivereu". The castle later passed to Reginald FitzRoy (also known as Reginald de Dunstanville), an illegitimate son of Henry I, when he was invested by King Stephen as the first Earl of Cornwall. Reginald married Mabel FitzRichard, daughter of William FitzRichard, a substantial landholder in Cornwall. The -diameter castle was in ruins by 1270 and the motte was levelled in 1840. Today Truro Crown Court stands on the site. In a charter of about 1170, Reginald FitzRoy confirmed to the burgesses of Truro the privileges granted by Richard de Lucy. Richard held ten knights' fees in Cornwall prior to 1135 and at his death the county still accounted for a third of his considerable total holding.
By the start of the 14th century Truro was an important port, due to its inland location away from invaders, prosperity from the fishing industry, and a new role as one of Cornwall's stannary towns for assaying and stamping tin and copper from Cornish mines. The Black Death brought a trade recession and an exodus of the population that left the town in a very neglected state. Trade gradually returned and the town regained prosperity in the Tudor period. Local government was awarded in 1589 by a new charter granted by Elizabeth I, giving Truro an elected mayor and control over the port of Falmouth.
During the Civil War in the 17th century, Truro raised a sizeable force to fight for the king and a royalist mint was set up. Defeat by the Parliamentary troops came in 1646 and the mint was moved to Exeter. Later in the century, Falmouth was awarded its own charter, giving it rights to its harbour and starting a long rivalry between the two towns. The dispute was settled in 1709 with control of the River Fal divided between them. The arms of the city of Truro are "Gules the base wavy of six Argent and Azure, thereon an ancient ship of three masts under sail, on each topmast a banner of St George, on the waves in base two fishes of the second."
Truro prospered in the 18th–19th centuries. Industry flourished through improved mining methods and higher prices for tin, and the town attracted wealthy mine owners. Elegant Georgian and Victorian townhouses were built, such as those seen today in Lemon Street, named after the mining magnate and local MP Sir William Lemon. Truro became the centre for society in the county, even dubbed "the London of Cornwall".
Throughout those prosperous times Truro remained a social centre, and many notable people came from there. Among the noteworthy were Richard Lander, an explorer who was the first European to reach the mouth of the River Niger in Africa and was awarded the first gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and Henry Martyn, who read mathematics at Cambridge, was ordained and became a missionary, translating the New Testament into Urdu and Persian. Others include Humphry Davy, educated in Truro and the inventor of the miner's safety lamp, and Samuel Foote, an actor and playwright from Boscawen Street.
Truro's importance increased later in the 19th century, with an iron-smelting works, potteries, and tanneries. From the 1860s, the Great Western Railway provided a direct link to London Paddington. The Bishopric of Truro Act 1876 gave the town a bishop and later a cathedral. The next year it was granted city status. The New Bridge Street drill hall was completed in the late 19th century.
Mining declined in the early 20th century, but Truro remained prosperous as a developing administrative and commercial centre of Cornwall. Today it remains the county retail centre, but like other places, faces concerns over replacement of speciality shops by national chain stores, erosion of identity, and doubts about how to accommodate growth expected in the 21st century.
Truro lies in the centre of western Cornwall, about from the south coast, at the confluence of the rivers Kenwyn and Allen, which combine as the Truro River – one of a series of creeks, rivers and drowned valleys leading into the River Fal and then to the large natural harbour of Carrick Roads. The valleys form a steep-sided bowl surrounding the city on the north, east and west, open to the Truro River in the south. The bowl shape, along with high precipitation that swells the rivers and a spring tide in the River Fal, were major factors in the 1988 floods that seriously damaged the city centre. Since then, flood defences have been constructed, including an emergency dam at New Mill on the River Kenwyn and a tidal barrier on the Truro River.
The city is surrounded by several protected natural areas such as the historic parklands at Pencalenick, and larger areas of ornamental landscape, such as Trelissick Garden and Tregothnan further down the Truro River. An area south-east of the city, around and including Calenick Creek, has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Other protected areas include an Area of Great Landscape Value comprising agricultural land and wooded valleys to the north east, and Daubuz Moors, a local nature reserve alongside the River Allen close to the city centre.
Truro has mainly grown and developed around the historic city centre in a nuclear fashion along the slopes of the bowl valley, except for fast linear development along the A390 to the west, towards Threemilestone. As Truro has grown, it has encompassed other settlements as suburbs or districts, including Kenwyn and Moresk to the north, Trelander to the east, Newham to the south, and Highertown, Treliske and Gloweth to the west.
The Truro area has an oceanic climate similar to the rest of Cornwall's. This means even fewer extremes in temperature than in the remainder of England, marked by high rainfall, cool summers and mild winters with infrequent frosts.
Truro urban area, which includes parts of surrounding parishes, had a 2001 census population of 20,920. By 2011 the population, including Threemilestone, was 23,040. Its status as the county's prime destination for retail and leisure and administration is unusual in that it is only its fourth most populous settlement. Furthermore, population growth at 10.5 per cent between 1971 and 1998 was slow compared with other Cornish towns and Cornwall as a whole.
Major employers include the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Cornwall Council, and Truro College. There are about 22,000 jobs available in Truro, compared to only 9,500 economically active people living in the city. Commutes into Truro are a major factor in its traffic congestion. Average earnings are higher than in the rest of Cornwall.
Housing prices in Truro in the 2000s were 8 or more per cent higher than in the rest of Cornwall. Truro was named in 2006 as the top small city in the United Kingdom for rising house prices, at 262 per cent since 1996. There is heavy demand for new housing and a call for inner-city properties to be converted into flats or houses to encourage city-centre living and reduce dependence on cars.
Truro's dominant feature is the Gothic-revival Truro Cathedral, designed by architect John Loughborough Pearson, rising above the city at its highest spire. It took from 1880 to 1910 to build, on the site of the old St Mary's Church, consecrated over 600 years earlier. Enthusiasts of Georgian architecture are well catered for in the city, with terraces and townhouses along Walsingham Place and Lemon Street often said to be "the finest examples of Georgian architecture west of the city of Bath".
The main attraction for regional residents is a wide variety of shops. Truro has various chain stores, speciality shops and markets that reflect its history as a market town. The indoor Pannier Market is open all year with many stalls and small businesses. The city is also popular for catering and for night life, with many bars, clubs and restaurants. Truro houses the Hall for Cornwall, a performing arts and entertainment venue.
The Royal Cornwall Museum is the oldest and premier museum in Cornwall detailing Cornish history and culture. Its collections cover fields such as archaeology, art and geology. Among the exhibits is the so-called Arthur's inscribed stone. Its parks and open spaces include Victoria Gardens, Boscawen Park and Daubuz Moors.
Lemon Quay is the year-round centre of most festivities in Truro.
In April, Truro prepares to partake in the Britain in Bloom competition, with floral displays and hanging baskets dotted around the city throughout the summer. A "continental market" comes to Truro in the holiday-making season, featuring food and craft stalls from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and elsewhere.
Cornwall Pride, a Pride event that celebrates diversity and the LGBT community, takes place on the last Saturday of August. The Truro City Carnival, held every September over a weekend, includes various arts and music performances, children's activities, a fireworks display, food and drinks fairs, a circus, and a parade. A half-marathon organised by Truro Running Club also occurs in September, running from the city centre into the country towards Kea, returning to finish at Lemon Quay.
Truro marks Christmas with a Winter Festival that includes a "City of Lights" paper lantern parade. Local schools, colleges, and community and youth groups join in. Students at the local college in Truro create large lanterns, complementing the work of the core artists team. There are Christmas lights throughout the city centre, with a switch-on event, speciality products and craft fairs, late-night shopping evenings, various cathedral events and a firework display on New Year's Eve. Christmas trees are placed on the Piazza and outside the cathedral at High Cross.
Truro temporarily became home to the Cornish Pirates rugby union club for the 2005–2006 season, but the team moved again for the 2006–2007 season to share the ground of Camborne RFC. In April 2018, the construction of a Stadium for Cornwall was under discussion with Cornwall Council, which had pledged £3 million in funding for the £14.3 million project. It is planned for a site in Threemilestone. The town has an amateur rugby union side, Truro RFC, founded in 1885. It belongs to Tribute Western Counties West and plays home games at St Clements Hill. It has hosted the CRFU Cornwall Cup several times.
Truro City F.C., a football team in the National League South, is the only Cornish club ever to reach this tier of the football pyramid. The club achieved national recognition by winning the FA Vase in 2007, beating A.F.C. Totton 3–1 in only the second ever final at the new Wembley Stadium, and becoming the first Cornish side ever to win that award. Its home ground is Treyew Road. Cornwall County Cricket Club plays some of its home fixtures at Boscawen Park, which is also the home ground of Truro Cricket Club. Truro Fencing Club is one of Britain's flagships, having won numerous national championships, and had three fencers selected for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics. Other sports amenities include a leisure centre, golf course and tennis courts.
Truro is the centre of Cornwall's local media. The countywide weeklies, the "Cornish Guardian" and "The West Briton", are based in the city, the latter serving the Truro area with its Truro and Mid-Cornwall edition. The city also houses the broadcasting studios of BBC Radio Cornwall, and those of the West district of ITV Westcountry, whose main studio is now in Bristol after a merger with ITV West. This closed the studio in Plymouth and the Westcountry Live programme was replaced by The West Country Tonight.
A mummers play text attributed until recently to Mylor, Cornwall (much quoted in early studies of folk plays, such as "The Mummers Play" by R. J. E. Tiddy – published posthumously in 1923 – and "The English Folk-Play" (1933) by E. K. Chambers), has now been shown, by genealogical and other research, to have originated in Truro around 1780.
The widespread tradition of Nine Lessons and Carols originated in Truro in 1880, when its bishop at the time, Edward White Benson, formalised the evening singing of carols before Christmas Day.
Truro City Council, a city/parish council, is based upstairs at the Municipal Buildings in Boscawen Street. It runs parks, gardens and planting, mayoral and civic events, support of its overseas twinning, and tourist information. It also considers planning issues and is involved in creating the Truro and Kenwyn Neighbourhood Plan in association with Cornwall Council. The city divides into four wards: Boscawen, Moresk, Tregolls and Trehaverne, with 24 councillors elected for four-year terms.
Cornwall Council (a unitary authority) has its base at Lys Kernow (formerly County Hall) west of the city centre. It administers planning, infrastructure, development and environmental issues.
The elected City Council forms Truro's lowest level of government, as one of 213 parish bodies in the county. The governance layer above is the unitary Cornwall Council, directly under central government. It covers Truro's public library, parks and gardens, tourist information centre, allotments and cemeteries. It is affiliated to Truro Chamber of Commerce and other civic bodies.
Truro's borough court was first granted in 1153; it became a free borough in 1589, then a city in 1877, receiving letters patent after the Anglican diocese was located there in 1876. However, it forms the eighth smallest in the UK in terms of population, city council area and urban area.
Truro is twinned with
Several towns outside Britain have taken Truro as their name:
Truro is from the A30 trunk road, to which it is linked by the A39 from Falmouth and Penryn. Also passing through is the A390 between Redruth to the west and Liskeard to the east, where it joins the A38 for Plymouth, Exeter and the M5 motorway. Truro as the most southerly city in the United Kingdom is just under west-south-west of Charing Cross, London.
The city and its surroundings have extensive bus services, mostly operated by First Kernow. Most terminate at Truro bus station near Lemon Quay.A permanent Park and Ride scheme, known as Park for Truro, which began operation in August 2008. Buses based at Langarth Park in Threemilestone carry commuters into the city via Truro College, the Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske, County Hall, Truro railway station, the Royal Cornwall Museum and Victoria Square, and through to a second car park on the east side of Truro. Truro also has Longer-distance bus services run by National Express.
Truro railway station, about from the city centre, is on the Cornish Main Line with direct connections to London Paddington and to the Midlands, North and Scotland. North-east of the station is a stone viaduct with views over the city, cathedral, and Truro River in the distance. The viaduct – the longest on the line – replaced Isambard Kingdom Brunel's wooden Carvedras Viaduct in 1904. Connecting to the main line at Truro station is the Maritime Line to Falmouth in the south.
Truro's first railway station was at Highertown. It was opened in 1852 by the West Cornwall Railway for trains to Redruth and Penzance, and was known as Truro Road Station. It was extended to the Truro River at Newham in 1855, but closed, so that Newham served as the terminus. When the Cornwall Railway connected the line to Plymouth, their trains ran to the present station above the city centre. The West Cornwall Railway (WCR) diverted most of its passenger trains to the new station, leaving Newham mainly as a goods station until it closed in 1971. The WCR became part of the Great Western Railway. The route from Highertown to Newham is now a cycle path, which takes a countryside loop through the south side of the city. The steam locomotive, the "City of Truro", was built in 1903 and still runs on UK mainline and preserved railways.
Newquay, Cornwall's main airport, is north of Truro. It was thought in 2017 to be the "fastest growing airport" in the UK. It has regular flights to London Heathrow and other airports, and to the Isles of Scilly and Düsseldorf, Germany.
There is also a boat link to Falmouth along the Truro and Fal four times daily, tide permitting. The fleet run by Enterprise Boats as part of the Fal River Links calls on the way at Malpas, Trelissick, Tolverne and St Mawes.
The old parish church of Truro was St Mary's, incorporated into the cathedral in the later 19th century. Parts of the town were in the parishes of Kenwyn and St Clement (Moresk) until the mid 19th century, when other parishes were created. St George's church in Truro, designed by the Reverend William Haslam, vicar of Baldhu, was built of Cornish granite in 1855; it is lofty and imposing. The parish of St George's Truro formed from part of Kenwyn in 1846. In 1865 two more parishes were created: St John's from part of Kenwyn and St Paul's from part of St Clement. St George's contains a large wall painting behind the high altar which was the work of Stephany Cooper in the 1920s. Her father Canon Cooper had been a missionary in Zanzibar and elsewhere. The theme of the mural painting is "Three Heavens": the first heaven has views of Zanzibar and its cathedral (a happy period in the life of the artist); the second heaven has views of the city of Truro including the cathedral, the railway viaduct and St George's church (another happy period in the life of the artist); the third heaven is above the others which are separated from it by the River of Life (Christ is represented bridging the river and 17 saints including St Piran and St Kenwyn are depicted in this part).
Charles William Hempel was organist of St. Mary's Church for forty years from 1804, supplementing his income by teaching music. In 1805 he composed and printed "Psalms from the New Version for the use of the Congregation of St. Mary's", and in 1812 "Sacred Melodies" for the same congregation. These melodies became very popular.
The oldest church in Truro is at Kenwyn, on the northern side of the city. It is from the 14th to 15th centuries.
St John's Church (dedicated to St John the Evangelist) was built in 1828 (architect P. Sambell) in the Classical style on a rectangular plan and with a gallery. Alterations were carried out in the 1890s.
St Paul's Church was built in 1848. The chancel was replaced in 1882–1884, the new chancel being the work of J. D. Sedding. The tower is "broad and strong" (Pevsner) and the exterior of the aisles are ornamented in Sedding's version of the Perpendicular style. In the parish of St Paul is the former Convent of the Epiphany (Anglican) at Alverton House, Tregolls Road, an early 19th-century house. The house was extended for the convent of the Community of the Epiphany and the chapel was built in 1910 by Edmund H. Sedding. The sisterhood was founded by the Bishop of Truro, George Howard Wilkinson, in 1883 and closed in 2001 when two surviving nuns moved into care homes. The sisters had been involved in pastoral and educational work and care of the cathedral and St Paul's Church. St Paul's Church, built with a tower on a river bed with poor foundations, has fallen into disrepair and is no longer in use. Services are now held at the churches of St Clement, St George, and St John. St Paul and St Clement form a united benefice, as do St George and St John.
Only one Methodist chapel remains in use, in Union Place (Truro Methodist Church), which has a broad granite front (1830, but since enlarged). There is a Quaker Meeting House in granite (c. 1830) and numerous other churches, some meeting in their own modern buildings, e. g. St Piran's Roman Catholic church and All Saints, Highertown, and some in schools or halls. St Piran's, dedicated to Our Lady of the Portal and St Piran, was built on the site of a medieval chapel by Margaret Steuart Pollard in 1973, for which she received the Benemerenti Medal from the Pope. The Baptist church building occupies the site of the former Lake's pottery, one of the oldest in Cornwall.
Educational institutions in Truro include:
The former Truro Girls Grammar School was converted into a Sainsbury's supermarket.
Truro has many proposed development schemes and plans, the majority of which are intended to counter the main problems it faces, notably traffic congestion and lack of housing.
Major proposals include the construction of a distributor road to carry traffic away from the busy Threemilestone-Treliske-Highertown corridor, reconnecting at either Green Lane or Morlaix Avenue. This will also serve the new housing planned for that area.
Changes are proposed for the city centre, such as pedestrianisation of the main shopping streets and beautification of a list of uncharacteristic storefronts built in the 1960s. New retail developments on the current Carrick District Council site and Garras Wharf waterfront site will provide more space for shops, open spaces and public amenities. Along with the redevelopment of the waterfront, a tidal barrier is planned to dam water into the Truro River, which is currently blighted by mud banks that appear at low tide.
Controversial plans include the construction of a new stadium for Truro City F.C. and the Cornish Pirates, and relocation of the city's golf course to make way for more housing. A smaller project is the addition of two large sculptures in the Piazza. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30892 |
Tom Burnett
Thomas Edward Burnett Jr. (May 29, 1963 – September 11, 2001) was an American who was the vice-president and chief operating officer of Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company based in Pleasanton, California. He resided in San Ramon, California. On September 11, 2001, Burnett was a passenger on board United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked as part of the September 11 attacks. He, along with other passengers, formed the plan to retake the plane from the hijackers, and led the effort that resulted in the crash of the plane into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thwarting the hijackers’ plan to crash the plane into a building in Washington, D.C., most likely either the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House.
Thomas Burnett was born on May 29, 1963, the son of Thomas Burnett Sr. and Beverly Burnett. Burnett and his sisters grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota. He attended Ridgeview Elementary School, then Olson Middle School. At Thomas Jefferson Senior High School, where he wore jersey No. 11 and then No. 10, he led the Jaguars to the state finals as their starting quarterback in 1980. He graduated in 1981.
Burnett studied economics at Saint John's University in Minnesota, where he was a quarterback on the football team. After two years, an injury shortened his football career and he transferred to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He was named president of the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity, then later graduated with a B.S. degree in Finance. He went on to earn a Master of Business Administration at Pepperdine University.
In 1996 Burnett joined Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company, as vice president of sales and marketing. In November 1999, he was promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer.
In 1985, Burnett became the biological father to a daughter who was given up for adoption. Her name is Mariah Mills. In July 1989, Burnett met his future wife, Deena, in Atlanta, where she had just completed flight attendant training for Delta Air Lines. They married in April 1992. They had three daughters, Halley Elizabeth, Anna Claire, and Madison Margaret, and lived in San Ramon, California, where she was a stay-at-home mother after she first became pregnant in 1995. Thomas Burnett had attended church daily in the year prior to the September 11 attacks, attempting to address a sense of foreboding which he had expressed to his wife. Burnett had busts of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill in his office.
On September 11, 2001, Burnett boarded United Airlines Flight 93, returning home to San Ramon, after a business trip. Burnett sat next to passenger Mark Bingham. Burnett called his wife, Deena, after hijackers took control of the plane. He made several phone calls to her beginning at 09:30:32 from rows 24 and 25, though he was assigned a seat in row four. Burnett explained that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb. He also said that a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers. During his second call to her, she relayed to him that of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane. ... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission." He began pumping her for information about the attacks, interrupting her from time to time to tell the others nearby what she was saying. Then he hung up. Upon learning of the situation, Deena, a former flight attendant, recalled her training and urged Burnett to sit quietly and not draw attention to himself. However, Burnett instead informed her that he and three other passengers, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, were forming a plan to take the plane back from the hijackers, and leading other passengers in this effort. He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something." Burnett and several other passengers stormed the cockpit, foiling the hijackers' plan to crash the plane into the White House or Capitol Building. The cockpit voice recorder captured Burnett yelling, "Roll it!", possibly referring to using the food cart. Burnett also yelled "We’re going in!". To prevent the passengers from regaining control of the plane, the hijackers crashed it in a Pennsylvania field, killing all 44 people on board.
Burnett is buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minnesota. Funeral and burial services were held on May 24, 2002.
On September 14, 2001, the Jefferson High School football team wore on their helmets the number 10, in honor of Burnett, who wore that number when he played at Jefferson High.
In March 2002, Bradley Street, a small street in Pleasanton, California, that runs outside the headquarters of Thoratec Corp. where Burnett worked, was renamed Tom Burnett Lane.
On September 11, 2002, the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, dedicated the Tom Burnett 9/11 Memorial near the Nordstrom Court, with Burnett's loved ones in attendance.
In 2002, Burnett, along with Beamer, Bingham and Glick, were posthumously awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
A post office in his hometown of Bloomington, Minnesota, was renamed the Thomas E. Burnett Jr. Post Office.
Every May, Oak Grove Middle School students volunteer for a Thomas Burnett Day of Service. At Jefferson High School, Burnett's former teammates created a memorial to honor him situated between two football practice fields. The school's hallways display photos of Burnett and his jersey, which was retired on September 5, 2002, at Bloomington Arena during the game between Bloomington Jefferson and their rival, Bloomington Kennedy. A memorial scholarship was started in his honor, and a collection of his favorite books was placed in the school's media center. A white oak tree was planted in front of Saint Edward's Catholic Church in Bloomington, where Burnett was confirmed, and where his funeral was held. A large fieldstone in front of the tree is inscribed with the passage from the Book of John 15:13: "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends".
In 2004, Burnett's biological daughter Mariah Mills turned 19 and became legally entitled to access information about her birth parents. She learned that Burnett was her father, and she eventually formed a relationship with Deena Burnett and with her half-sisters. Deena gave Mills an unfinished letter that Burnett had written for her in 1987.
Burnett was portrayed by Greg Benson in the documentary "The Flight That Fought Back", Jeffrey Nordling in the TV film "Flight 93", and by Christian Clemenson in the film "United 93".
In 2008, Thoratec Europe Limited (Thoratec Corporation's European distribution arm based in Great Britain) gave its new UK headquarters in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the name Burnett House.
In mid-2002, Deena Burnett and her daughters moved from San Ramon back to Little Rock, Arkansas, near where she grew up and where her family still lives. In 2006, Deena married Rodney Bailey, a divorced Little Rock insurance agent with a teenage son, that she met in early 2004. She co-authored a book with Anthony Giombetti entitled "Fighting Back: Living Life Beyond Ourselves". The book is published by Advantage Inspirational and was released in July 2006. "Fighting Back" recounts the difficulties in getting the FBI to release cockpit voice recorder tapes from United 93 to the public, and includes Deena's thoughts on the nature of heroism.
In February 2003, the California State Assembly renamed the Fostoria Way overcrossing over Interstate 680 in San Ramon the Thomas E. Burnett Jr. Memorial Bridge in his honor.
At the National 9/11 Memorial, Burnett is memorialized at the South Pool, on Panel S-68, along with other passengers from Flight 93.
On September 1, 2011, his widow Deena Burnett was interviewed on the death of Osama bin Laden where she said that his death had given her closure. She learned of the news while in bed and told her daughters next morning.
On September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the attacks, the Bloomington Crime Prevention Association sponsored the first annual Tom Burnett Jr. Hometown Heroes Celebration at the Hilton Mall of America. The event featured a keynote address was given by Senator Amy Klobuchar, and the presentation of the Tom Burnett Jr. Remember Award would be given to citizens who demonstrate leadership, selflessness, and a commitment to others. James Caauwe, President of the Association, explained the event thus: "We wanted to remember Tom Burnett Jr. and the sacrifices he made, but not only the sacrifices that he made on 9/11 but who he was as a person. We looked at those qualities that he had of leadership and of community service and recognized people that are doing that today."
The anniversary was also marked with the dedication of Hero's Garden, a memorial that stands in Burnett's honor at Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management, where Burnett received his MBA. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30895 |
Tommy Franks
Tommy Ray Franks (born June 17, 1945) is a retired general in the United States Army. His last army post was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, overseeing United States military operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. Franks succeeded General Anthony Zinni to this position on July 6, 2000 and served until his retirement on July 7, 2003.
Franks was the United States general leading the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in 2001. He also oversaw the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Franks was born Tommy Ray Bentley in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and was adopted by Ray and Lorene "Pete" Parker Franks. Franks attended Midland High School and graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Midland, Texas one year ahead of First Lady Laura Bush. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a brother of Delta Upsilon International Fraternity. He dropped out of college after two years due to subpar grades and lack of motivation. Franks decided to give himself a "jolt" and joined the United States Army.
Later, through the military, Franks was able to enroll at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1971. He also holds a Master of Science in Public Administration from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College and the Army War College.
Franks enlisted in the United States Army in 1965 and attended Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and received his Advanced Individual Training as a cryptologic analyst at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Standing out among his peers in outstanding marksmanship and leadership qualities, Private First Class Franks was selected to attend the Artillery and Missile Officer Candidate School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1967. After an initial tour as a battery Assistant Executive Officer at Fort Sill, he was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division, Republic of Vietnam, where he served as forward observer, aerial observer, and Assistant S-3 with 2nd Battalion, 4th Field Artillery. He also served as Fire Direction Officer and Fire Support Officer with 5th Battalion (mechanized), 60th Infantry during this tour.
In 1968, Franks returned to Fort Sill, where he commanded a cannon battery in the Artillery Training Center. In 1969, he was selected to participate in the Army's "Boot Strap Degree Completion Program", and subsequently attended the University of Texas at Arlington, where he finished his bachelor's degree in 1971. Following attendance at the Artillery Officer Advanced Course, he was assigned to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in West Germany in 1973, where he commanded the 1st Squadron Howitzer Battery and served as Squadron S-3. He also commanded the 84th Armored Engineer Company, and served as Regimental Assistant S-3 during this tour.
Franks, after graduating from the Armed Forces Staff College, was posted to The Pentagon in 1976, where he served as an Army Inspector General in the Investigations Division. In 1977 he was assigned to the Office of the Chief of Staff, Army where he served on the Congressional Activities Team, and subsequently as an Executive Assistant.
In 1981, Franks returned to West Germany where he commanded the 2nd Battalion, 78th Field Artillery for three years. He returned to the United States in 1984 to attend the Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he also completed graduate studies at the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. He was next assigned to Fort Hood, Texas, as III Corps Deputy Assistant G3, a position he held until 1987 when he assumed command of 1st Cavalry Division Artillery. He also served as Chief of Staff, 1st Cavalry Division during this tour.
Franks' initial general officer assignment was Assistant Division Commander (Maneuver), 1st Cavalry Division during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. During 1991–1992, he was assigned as Assistant Commandant of the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill. In 1992, he was assigned to Fort Monroe, Virginia as the first Director, Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force, Office of Chief of Staff of the Army, a position held until 1994 when he was reassigned to South Korea as the CJG3 of Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea.
From 1995–1997, Franks commanded the 2nd Infantry Division, Korea. He assumed command of Third United States Army/Army Forces Central Command in Atlanta, Georgia in May 1997, a post he held until June 2000 when he was selected for promotion to general and assignment as Commander in Chief, United States Central Command. Franks was the United States general leading the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban in government in response to the September 11 attacks. He also led the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Critics of Franks' tenure as commander of United States forces in Afghanistan cite his failure to deploy 800 United States Army Rangers to the Battle of Tora Bora as a key factor in allowing Osama bin Laden to escape into Pakistan. Peter Bergen, a prominent journalist and expert on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, described Franks' decision as "one of the greatest military blunders in recent US history," which allowed al-Qaeda to recover and begin to mount an insurgency. Franks defended his decision with the support of other prominent US military leaders, citing a lack of conclusive evidence that bin-Laden was at Tora Bora, but Bergen and other critics, including the Delta Force commander at Tora Bora, Dalton Fury, claimed that the evidence that bin-Laden was present at the battle was very robust; Fury claimed that his team came within 2,000 meters of bin Laden's suspected position, but withdrew because of uncertainty over the number of al-Qaeda fighters guarding bin Laden and a lack of support from allied Afghan troops.
Franks' retirement was announced on May 22, 2003. Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly offered him the position of Chief of Staff of the United States Army, but he declined. On July 7, 2003 Franks' retirement took effect.
Franks' awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal; Army Distinguished Service Medal (two awards); Legion of Merit (four awards); Bronze Star Medal with Valor device and four oak leaf clusters; Purple Heart (two oak leaf clusters); Air Medal with Valor Device; Army Commendation Medal with Valor Device; and a number of U.S. and foreign service awards. He wears the Army Staff Identification Badge and the Aircraft Crewmember's Badge. He is a Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2004, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Authors suggest that Franks was worn down by repeated pressure from U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to reduce the number of U.S. troops in war plans and cancel the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division, a scheduled follow-on unit that was slated for deployment in April 2003. (New York Times: Dash to Baghdad Left Top US Generals Divided March 13, 2006) More generally, they argue Franks' command was somewhat understandably focused on the immediate task in front of it – defeating Saddam Hussein and taking Baghdad – and few were willing to divert resources away from that effort and toward the long-term post-war needs.
The writers also question his decision during the war to keep sealift ships carrying the equipment for the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at sea instead of bringing the equipment ashore in Kuwait sooner so the division could have entered Iraq earlier than it did to add to the force levels in post-war Iraq. Franks argues that by keeping the ships at sea the Iraqis were deceived into believing a U.S. attack was yet to come from the north through Turkey, though Colin Powell and others have questioned his view (Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward, 2004).
Franks wanted to retire after the major combat phase of the war, tired from having planned for and prosecuted two major wars and led a war on terrorism since September 2001. As a result, Gordon and Trainor argue he was slow to act during the crucial months following the fall of Baghdad. They suggest there was a leadership void at U.S. Central Command because his two deputies, Michael Delong and John Abizaid, were at odds with each other until Abizaid succeeded Franks in the middle of the summer of 2003. Delong retired with a bitter taste in his mouth and wrote his own book regarding the leadership failures in the headquarters. They also note that there was a command transition in Iraq as V Corps and General Ricardo Sanchez took command of U.S. forces in Iraq without being fully resourced and trained for the mission in advance. (COBRA II Gordon and Trainor 2006)
In "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq", veteran defense and Pentagon reporter Thomas E. Ricks echoes criticism from officers who had served under Franks who put forth that, while tactically sound, he lacked the strategic mindset and overall intellect necessary for the task. Some close to him argued he was more thoughtful than he seemed, was aware that Secretary Rumsfeld and his staff were unable to discuss the Iraq War in military terms and had an obligation to put forth stronger objections to the civilian control of military planning. While demanding and goal oriented he was also criticized for being unwilling to countenance alternate viewpoints and for detaching himself from day-to-day affairs when the ground war ceased and he prepared for retirement.
According to "Time" magazine, on November 21, 2003, Franks said that in the event of another terrorist attack, American constitutional liberties might be discarded by popular demand in favor of a military state. Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the US in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Franks said that "the worst thing that could happen" is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties. If that happens, Franks said, "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy." Franks then offered "in a practical sense" what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
"It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution."
"[No] one in this country probably was more surprised than I when weapons of mass destruction were not used against our troops as they moved toward Baghdad," said Franks on December 2, 2005.
Since 2003, Franks has operated Franks & Associates LLC, a private consulting firm, active in the disaster recovery industry. In June 2006, General Franks formed a partnership with Innovative Decon Solutions.
Following his retirement, Franks published his memoirs in "American Soldier" (HarperCollins), which debuted as Number #1 on the "New York Times" Best Seller list in August 2004, displacing President Bill Clinton's memoir from the top spot. One reviewer praised General Franks recollections of his Vietnam service but opined that the book, like the plan for and execution of the Iraq war itself, he said, "begins better than it ends." The reviewer expressed the wish that Franks had "relied less on the official record and more on his own experience and memories" in recalling the later war, as he had in recalling the earlier one.
Speaking at the Republican Convention in New York on August 31, 2004, Franks endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election. President Bush awarded Franks the country's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom on December 14, 2004. In the same month, Franks became a spokesman for Teen Arrive Alive, which is a company that uses GPS in cellular phones to tell parents how fast their teenage children are driving.
In December 2005, Franks was appointed to the Bank of America board of directors, a position he held until resigning on June 11, 2009 for unspecified reasons but as part of an "exodus" of ten directors from April to August, 2009. The bank had received $45 billion of U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding and sustained dramatic losses starting in 2008.
Franks also sits on OSI Restaurant Partners's board of directors. On March 26, 2008, he was elected to the board of directors of Chuck E. Cheese's.
Franks sits on the Board of Directors of the National Park Foundation. He is an advisor to the Central Command Memorial Foundation and the Military Child Education Coalition, and is a spokesman for the Southeastern Guide Dogs Organization.
Additionally he sits in the Board of Trustees for William Penn University, a university founded and supported by the Society of Friends (Quakers).
A museum dedicated to him lies in Hobart, Oklahoma.
Franks currently resides in Roosevelt, Oklahoma.
In January 2008, "ABC News" and the "Army Times" reported on Franks' involvement with the charitable Coalition to Salute America's Heroes, which he charged $100,000 to use his name to raise money for wounded soldiers. Following Congressional investigators and watchdog groups' criticism because only 25% of the money found its way to wounded veterans, compared to the industry standard of 85%, Franks ended his support for the group in late 2005. Roger Chapin, president of the charity, and his wife had apparently been living a lavish lifestyle on the charity's money. Bob Schieffer, host of CBS's "Face the Nation", criticized Franks, saying, "What kind of "person" would insist, or even "allow" himself, to be paid to raise money for those who were wounded while serving under him? Franks says he severed his connection to the fundraiser when he realized most of the money he helped raise went to the fundraiser, not the troops." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30896 |
Treaty of Verdun
The Treaty of Verdun, signed in August 843, was the first of the treaties that divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms among the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, who was the son of Charlemagne. The treaty, signed in Verdun-sur-Meuse, ended the three-year Carolingian Civil War.
Following Charlemagne's death, Louis was made ruler of the Carolingian empire. During his reign, he divided the empire so that each of his sons could rule over their own kingdom under the greater rule of their father. Lothair I was given the title of emperor but because of several re-divisions by his father and the resulting revolts, he became much less powerful. When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son, Lothair I, claimed overlordship over the entirety of his father's kingdom in an attempt to reclaim the power he had at the beginning of his reign as emperor. He also supported his nephew, Pepin II's claim to Aquitaine, a large province in the west of the Frankish realm. Lothair's brother, Louis the German, and his half-brother Charles the Bald refused to acknowledge Lothair's suzerainty and declared war against him. After a bloody civil war, they defeated Lothair at the Battle of Fontenay in 841 and sealed their alliance in 842 with the Oaths of Strasbourg which declared Lothair unfit for the imperial throne, after which he became willing to negotiate a settlement.
Each of the three brothers was already established in one kingdom: Lothair in the Kingdom of Italy; Louis the German in Kingdom of Bavaria; and Charles the Bald in the Kingdom of Aquitaine.
After Lothair's death in 855, Upper Burgundy and Lower Burgundy (Arles and Provence) passed to his third son, Charles of Provence, and the remaining territory north of the Alps to his second son, Lothair II, after whom the hitherto nameless territory was called Lotharingia. It would then become modern Lorraine. Lothair's eldest son, Louis II, inherited Italy and his father's claim to the Imperial throne.
The division reflected an adherence to the old Frankish custom of partible or divisible inheritance amongst a ruler's sons, rather than primogeniture (i.e., inheritance by the eldest son) which would soon be adopted by both Frankish kingdoms.
Since the Middle Frankish Kingdom combined lengthy and vulnerable land borders with poor internal communications as it was severed by the Alps, it was not a viable entity and soon fragmented. This made it difficult for a single ruler to reassemble Charlemagne's empire. Only Charles the Fat achieved this briefly.
In 855, the northern section became fragile Lotharingia, which became disputed by the more powerful states that evolved out of West Francia (i.e., France) and East Francia (i.e., Germany). Generations of kings of France and Germany were unable to establish a firm rule over Lothair's kingdom. While the north of Lotharingia was then composed of independent countries, the southern third of Lotharingia, Alsace-Lorraine, was traded back and forth between France and Germany from the 18th to the 20th century. In 1766, it passed to France after the death of Stanisław Leszczyński, who had acquired the region from the German Habsburgs by the Treaty of Vienna (1738) ending the War of Polish Succession (1733-1738). In 1871, Alsace-Lorraine became German, after the victory of Prussia and its German allies over the French in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). In 1919, it became French again by the Treaty of Versailles (1919), following the French victory over the Germans in World War I (1914-1918). In 1940, Germany reannexed Alsace-Lorraine following Germany's successful invasion of France. Finally, in 1945, after World War II (1939-1945), Alsace-Lorraine was solidified as French territory, which it remains to this day, more than a thousand years after the Treaty of Verdun. The collapse of the Middle Frankish Kingdom also compounded the disunity of the Italian Peninsula, which persisted into the 19th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30898 |
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes. At the same time trance music was developing in Europe, the genre was also gathering a following in the Indian state of Goa.
Trance music is characterized by a tempo lying between 110–150 bpm (BPM), repeating melodic phrases and a musical form that distinctly builds tension and elements throughout a track often culminating in 1 to 2 "peaks" or "drops". Although trance is a genre of its own, it liberally incorporates influences from other musical styles such as techno, house, pop, chill-out, classical music, tech house, ambient and film music.
A trance is a state of hypnotism and heightened consciousness. This is portrayed in trance music by the mixing of layers with distinctly foreshadowed build-up and release. A common characteristic of trance music is a mid-song climax followed by a soft breakdown disposing of beats and percussion entirely, leaving the melody or atmospherics to stand alone for an extended period before gradually building up again. Trance tracks are often lengthy to allow for such progression and commonly have sufficiently sparse opening and closing sections to facilitate mixing by DJs.
Trance is mostly instrumental, although vocals can be mixed in: typically they are performed by mezzo-soprano to soprano female soloists, often without a traditional verse/chorus structure. Structured vocal form in trance music forms the basis of the vocal trance subgenre, which has been described as "grand, soaring, and operatic" and "ethereal female leads floating amongst the synths". However, male singers, such as Jonathan Mendelsohn, are also featured.
The "Trance" name may refer to an induced emotional feeling, high, euphoria, chills, or uplifting rush that listeners claim to experience, or it may indicate an actual trance-like state the earliest forms of this music attempted to emulate in the 1990s before the genre's focus changed. A writer for Billboard magazine writes, “Trance music is perhaps best described as a mixture of 70s disco and 60s psychedelia”.
Another possible antecedent is Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima's electronic soundtracks for the "Streets of Rage" series of video games from 1991 to 1994. It was promoted by the well-known UK club-night "Megatripolis" (London, at Heaven on Thursdays) whose scene catapulted it to international fame.
Examples of early trance releases include but are not limited to KLF's 1988 release "What Time Is Love?" (Pure Trance 1), German duo Dance 2 Trance's 1990 track "We Came in Peace", and German duo Jam & Spoon's 1992 12" Single remix of the 1990 song "The Age Of Love".
The writer Bom Coen traces the roots of trance to Paul van Dyk's 1993 remix of Humate's "Love Stimulation". However, Van Dyk's trance origins can be traced further back to his work with Visions of Shiva, being the first tracks he released In subsequent years, one genre, vocal trance, arose as the combination of progressive elements and pop music, and the development of another subgenre, epic trance, finds some of its origins in classical music, with film music also being influential.
Trance was arguably at its commercial peak in the second part of 1990s and early 2000s.
Classic trance employs a 4/4 time signature, a tempo of 125 to 150 BPM, and 32 beat phrases and is somewhat faster than house music. A kick drum is usually placed on every downbeat and a regular open hi-hat is often placed on the upbeat. Extra percussive elements are usually added, and major transitions, builds or climaxes are often foreshadowed by lengthy "snare rolls"—a quick succession of snare drum hits that build in velocity, frequency, and volume towards the end of a measure or phrase.
Rapid arpeggios and minor keys are common features of Trance, the latter being almost universal. Trance tracks often use one central "hook", or melody, which runs through almost the entire song, repeating at intervals anywhere between 2 beats and 32 bars, in addition to harmonies and motifs in different timbres from the central melody. Instruments are added or removed every 4, 8, 16, or 32 bars.
In the section before the breakdown, the lead motif is often introduced in a sliced up and simplified form, to give the audience a "taste" of what they will hear after the breakdown. Then later, the final climax is usually "a culmination of the first part of the track mixed with the main melodic reprise".
As is the case with many dance music tracks, trance tracks are usually built with sparser intros ("mix-ins") and outros ("mix-outs") in order to enable DJs to blend them together immediately.
More recent forms of trance music incorporate other styles and elements of electronic music such as electro and progressive house into its production. It emphasizes harsher basslines and drum beats which decrease the importance of offbeats and focus primarily on a four on the floor stylistic house drum pattern. The BPM of more recent styles tends to be on par with house music at 120 to 135 beats per minute. However, unlike house music, recent forms of trance stay true to their melodic breakdowns and longer transitions.
Trance music is broken into a number of subgenres including acid trance, classic trance, hard trance, progressive trance, and uplifting trance. Uplifting trance is also known as "anthem trance", "epic trance", "commercial trance", "stadium trance", or "euphoric trance", and has been strongly influenced by classical music in the 1990s and 2000s by leading artists such as Ferry Corsten, Armin Van Buuren, Tiësto, Push, Rank 1 and at present with the development of the subgenre "orchestral uplifting trance" or "uplifting trance with symphonic orchestra" by such artists as Sound Apparel, Andy Blueman, Ciro Visone, Soundlift, Arctic Moon, and Sergey Nevone & Simon O'Shine, among others. Closely related to Uplifting Trance is Euro-trance, which has become a general term for a wide variety of highly commercialized European dance music. Several subgenres are crossovers with other major genres of electronic music. For instance, Tech trance is a mixture of trance and techno, and Vocal trance "combines [trance's] progressive elements with pop music". The dream trance genre originated in the mid-1990s, with its popularity then led by Robert Miles, who then created Children in 1996.
AllMusic states on progressive trance: "the progressive wing of the trance crowd led directly to a more commercial, chart-oriented sound, since trance had never enjoyed much chart action in the first place. Emphasizing the smoother sound of Eurodance or house (and occasionally more reminiscent of Jean-Michel Jarre than Basement Jaxx), Progressive Trance became the sound of the world's dance floors by the end of the millennium. Critics ridiculed its focus on predictable breakdowns and relative lack of skill to beat-mix, but progressive trance was caned by the hottest DJ."
The following is an incomplete list of dance music festivals that showcase trance music.
"Notes:" Sunburn was not the first festival/event to specialize in India in trance music. Much earlier pioneers of Goa parties held events as early as the late 80's and through all of the 1990s
Electronic Music festivals in the Netherlands are mainly organized by four companies ALDA Events, ID&T, UDC and Q-dance:
Electronic music festivals in the United States feature various electronic music genres such as trance, house, techno, electro, dubstep, and drum and bass: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30900 |
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. (, ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist. A MacArthur Fellow, he is noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For "Gravity's Rainbow", Pynchon won the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: "V." (1963), "The Crying of Lot 49" (1966), and "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973). His 2009 novel "Inherent Vice" was adapted into a feature film of the same name by director Paul Thomas Anderson in 2014. Pynchon is notoriously reclusive; few photographs of him have been published, and rumors about his location and identity have circulated since the 1960s. Pynchon's most recent novel, "Bleeding Edge", was published on September 17, 2013.
Thomas Pynchon was born on May 8, 1937, in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York, one of three children of engineer and politician Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Sr. (1907–1995) and Katherine Frances Bennett (1909–1996), a nurse. His earliest American ancestor, William Pynchon, emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, then became the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1636, and thereafter a long line of Pynchon descendants found wealth and repute on American soil. Aspects of Pynchon's ancestry and family background have partially inspired his fiction writing, particularly in the Slothrop family histories related in the short story "The Secret Integration" (1964) and "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973). During his childhood, Pynchon alternatively attended Episcopal services with his father and Roman Catholic services with his mother. A "voracious reader and precocious writer," Pynchon is believed to have skipped two grades before high school.
Pynchon attended Oyster Bay High School in Oyster Bay, where he was awarded "student of the year" and contributed short fictional pieces to his school newspaper. These juvenilia incorporated some of the literary motifs and recurring subject matter he would use throughout his career: oddball names, sophomoric humor, illicit drug use, and paranoia.
Pynchon graduated from high school in 1953 at the age of 16. That fall, he went to Cornell University to study engineering physics. At the end of his sophomore year, he enlisted to serve in the U.S. Navy. He attended boot camp at Bainbridge, Maryland, then went received training to be an electrician at a base in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1956, he was aboard the destroyer USS "Hank" in the Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis. According to recollections from his Navy friends, Pynchon said at the time that he did not intend to complete his college education.
In 1957, he returned to Cornell to pursue a degree in English. His first published story, "The Small Rain", appeared in the "Cornell Writer" in March 1959, and narrates an actual experience of a friend who had served in the Army; subsequently, however, episodes and characters throughout Pynchon's fiction draw freely upon his own experiences in the Navy.
While at Cornell, Pynchon started his friendships with Richard Fariña, Kirkpatrick Sale and David Shetzline; Pynchon would go on to dedicate "Gravity's Rainbow" to Fariña, as well as serve as his best man and as his pallbearer. Together the two briefly led what Pynchon has called a "micro-cult" around Oakley Hall's 1958 novel "Warlock". Pynchon later reminisced about his college days in the introduction he wrote in 1983 for Fariña's novel "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me", first published in 1966. He reportedly attended lectures given by Vladimir Nabokov, who then taught literature at Cornell. Although Nabokov later said that he had no memory of Pynchon, Nabokov's wife Véra, who graded her husband's class papers, commented that she remembered his distinctive handwriting as a mixture of printed and cursive letters, "half printing, half script." In 1958, Pynchon and Sale wrote part or all of a science-fiction musical, "Minstrel Island", which portrayed a dystopian future in which IBM rules the world. Pynchon received his B.A. with distinction as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in June 1959.
After leaving Cornell, Pynchon began to work on his first novel: "V". From February 1960 to September 1962, he was employed as a technical writer at Boeing in Seattle, where he compiled safety articles for the "Bomarc Service News", a support newsletter for the BOMARC surface-to-air missile deployed by the U.S. Air Force. Pynchon's experiences at Boeing inspired his depictions of the "Yoyodyne" corporation in "V." and "The Crying of Lot 49", and both his background in physics and the technical journalism he undertook at Boeing provided much raw material for "Gravity's Rainbow". When published in 1963, "V." won a William Faulkner Foundation Award for the best first novel of the year. (It was a finalist for the National Book Award.)
After resigning from Boeing, Pynchon spent some time in New York and Mexico before moving to California, where he was reportedly based for much of the 1960s and early 1970s, most notably in an apartment in Manhattan Beach, as he was composing the highly regarded "Gravity's Rainbow". Pynchon during this time flirted with the lifestyle and some of the habits of the Beat and hippie countercultures.
A negative aspect that Pynchon retrospectively found in the hippie cultural and literary movement, both in the form of the Beats of the 1950s and the resurgence form of the 1960s, was that it "placed too much emphasis on youth, including the eternal variety."
In 1964, his application to study mathematics as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley was turned down. In 1966, Pynchon wrote a first-hand report on the aftermath and legacy of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles. Titled "A Journey Into the Mind of Watts", the article was published in "The New York Times Magazine".
From the mid-1960s Pynchon has also regularly provided blurbs and introductions for a wide range of novels and non-fiction works. One of the first of these pieces was a brief review of Oakley Hall's "Warlock" which appeared, along with comments by seven other writers on "neglected books", as part of a feature titled "A Gift of Books" in the December 1965 issue of "Holiday".
In 1968, Pynchon was one of 447 signatories to the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest". Full-page advertisements in the "New York Post" and "The New York Review of Books" listed the names of those who had pledged not to pay "the proposed 10% income tax surcharge or any war-designated tax increase", and stated their belief "that American involvement in Vietnam is morally wrong".
In an April 1964 letter to his agent, Candida Donadio, Pynchon wrote that he was facing a creative crisis, with four novels in progress, announcing: "If they come out on paper anything like they are inside my head then it will be the literary event of the millennium."
In the mid-1960s, Pynchon lived at 217 33rd St. in Manhattan Beach, California, in a small downstairs apartment.
In December 1965, Pynchon politely turned down an invitation from Stanley Edgar Hyman to teach literature at Bennington College, writing that he had resolved, two or three years earlier, to write three novels at once. Pynchon described the decision as "a moment of temporary insanity", but noted that he was "too stubborn to let any of them go, let alone all of them."
Pynchon's second novel, "The Crying of Lot 49", was published a few months later in 1966. Whether it was one of the three or four novels Pynchon had in progress is not known, but in a 1965 letter to Donadio, Pynchon had written that he was in the middle of writing a "potboiler". When the book grew to 155 pages, he called it, "a short story, but with gland trouble", and hoped that Donadio could "unload it on some poor sucker."
"The Crying of Lot 49" won the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award shortly after publication. Although more concise and linear in its structure than Pynchon's other novels, its labyrinthine plot features an ancient, underground mail service known as "The Tristero" or "Trystero", a parody of a Jacobean revenge drama called "The Courier's Tragedy", and a corporate conspiracy involving the bones of World War II American GIs being used as charcoal cigarette filters. It proposes a series of seemingly incredible interconnections between these events and other similarly bizarre revelations that confront the novel's protagonist, Oedipa Maas. Like "V.," the novel contains a wealth of references to science and technology and to obscure historical events, with both books dwelling on the detritus of American society and culture. "The Crying of Lot 49" also continues Pynchon's strategy of composing parodic song lyrics and punning names, and referencing aspects of popular culture within his prose narratives. In particular, it incorporates a very direct allusion to the protagonist of Nabokov's "Lolita" within the lyric of a love lament sung by a member of "The Paranoids", an American teenage band who deliberately sing their songs with British accents (p. 17).
Pynchon's most celebrated novel is his third, "Gravity's Rainbow", published in 1973. An intricate and allusive fiction that combines and elaborates on many of the themes of his earlier work, including preterition, paranoia, racism, colonialism, conspiracy, synchronicity, and entropy, the novel has spawned a wealth of commentary and critical material, including reader's guides, books and scholarly articles, online concordances and discussions, and art works. Its artistic value is often compared to that of James Joyce's "Ulysses". Some scholars have hailed it as the greatest American post-WW2 novel, and it has similarly been described as "literally an anthology of postmodernist themes and devices".
The major portion of "Gravity's Rainbow" takes place in London and Europe in the final months of World War II and the weeks immediately following VE Day, and is narrated for the most part from within the historical moment in which it is set. In this way, Pynchon's text enacts a type of dramatic irony whereby neither the characters nor the various narrative voices are aware of specific historical circumstances, such as the Holocaust and, except as hints, premonitions and mythography, the complicity between Western corporate interests and the Nazi war machine, which figure prominently in readers' apprehensions of the novel's historical context. For example, at war's end the narrator observes: "There are rumors of a War Crimes Tribunal under way in Nürnberg. No one Slothrop has listened to is clear who's trying whom for what ... " (p. 681) Such an approach generates dynamic tension and moments of acute self-consciousness, as both reader and author seem drawn ever deeper into the "plot", in various senses of that term:
The novel invokes anti-authority sentiments, often through violations of narrative conventions and integrity. For example, as the aforementioned protagonist, Tyrone Slothrop, considers the fact that his own family "made its money killing trees", he apostrophizes his apology and plea for advice to the coppice within which he has momentarily taken refuge. In an overt incitement to eco-activism, Pynchon's narrative agency then has it that "a medium-sized pine nearby nods its top and suggests, 'Next time you come across a logging operation out here, find one of their tractors that isn't being guarded, and take its oil filter with you. That's what you can do.'" (p. 553)
Encyclopedic in scope and often self-conscious in style, the novel displays erudition in its treatment of an array of material drawn from the fields of psychology, chemistry, mathematics, history, religion, music, literature and film. Pynchon wrote the first draft of "Gravity's Rainbow" in "neat, tiny script on engineer's quadrille paper". Pynchon worked on the novel throughout the 1960s and early 1970s while he was living in California and Mexico City.
"Gravity's Rainbow" shared the 1974 National Book Award with "A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories" by Isaac Bashevis Singer (split award). That same year, the Pulitzer Prize fiction panel unanimously recommended "Gravity's Rainbow" for the award, but the Pulitzer board vetoed the jury's recommendation, describing the novel as "unreadable", "turgid", "overwritten", and in parts "obscene". (No Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was awarded and finalists were not announced before 1980.) In 1975, Pynchon declined the William Dean Howells Medal.
A collection of Pynchon's early short stories, "Slow Learner", was published in 1984, with a lengthy autobiographical introduction. In October of the same year, an article titled "Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?" was published in the "New York Times Book Review". In April 1988, Pynchon contributed an extensive review of Gabriel García Márquez's novel "Love in the Time of Cholera" to "The New York Times", under the title "The Heart's Eternal Vow". Another article, titled "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee", was published in June 1993 in the "New York Times Book Review", as one in a series of articles in which various writers reflected on each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Pynchon's subject was "Sloth".
Pynchon's fourth novel, "Vineland", was published in 1990, but disappointed some fans and critics. It did, however, receive a positive review from the novelist Salman Rushdie. The novel is set in California in the 1980s and 1960s and describes the relationship between an FBI COINTELPRO agent and a female radical filmmaker. Its strong socio-political undercurrents detail the constant battle between authoritarianism and communalism, and the nexus between resistance and complicity, but with a typically Pynchonian sense of humor.
In 1988, he received a MacArthur Fellowship and, since the early 1990s at least, he has been frequently cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. American literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Cormac McCarthy.
Pynchon's fifth novel, "Mason & Dixon", was published in 1997, though it had been a work in progress since at least January 1975.
The meticulously researched novel is a sprawling postmodernist saga recounting the lives and careers of the English astronomer Charles Mason and his partner, the surveyor Jeremiah Dixon, the surveyors of the Mason-Dixon line, during the birth of the American Republic. Some commentators acknowledged it as a welcome return to form. The American critic Harold Bloom hailed the novel as Pynchon's "masterpiece to date".
The novel is a frame narrative told from the focal point of one Rev. Wicks Cherrycoke – a clergyman of dubious orthodoxy – who, on a cold December evening in 1786, attempts to entertain and divert his extended family (partly for amusement, and partly to keep his coveted status as a guest in the house). Claiming to have accompanied Mason and Dixon throughout their journeys, Cherrycoke tells a tale intermingling Mason and Dixon's biographies with history, fantasy, legend, speculation, and outright fabrication.
A variety of rumors pertaining to the subject matter of "Against the Day" circulated for a number of years. Most specific of these were comments made by the former German minister of culture Michael Naumann, who stated that he assisted Pynchon in his research about "a Russian mathematician [who] studied for David Hilbert in Göttingen", and that the new novel would trace the life and loves of Sofia Kovalevskaya.
In July 2006, a new untitled novel by Pynchon was announced along with a synopsis written by Pynchon himself, which appeared on Amazon.com, it stated that the novel's action takes place between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the time immediately following World War I. "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead", Pynchon wrote in his book description, "it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." He promised cameos by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi and Groucho Marx, as well as "stupid songs" and "strange sexual practices". Subsequently, the title of the new book was reported to be "Against the Day" and a Penguin spokesperson confirmed that the synopsis was Pynchon's.
"Against the Day" was released on November 21, 2006, and is 1,085 pages long in the first edition hardcover. The book was given almost no promotion by Penguin and professional book reviewers were given little time in advance to review the book. An edited version of Pynchon's synopsis was used as the jacket-flap copy and Kovalevskaya does appear, although as only one of over a hundred characters.
Composed in part of a series of interwoven pastiches of popular fiction genres from the era in which it is set, the novel inspired mixed reactions from critics and reviewers. One reviewer remarked, "It is brilliant, but it is exhaustingly brilliant." Other reviewers described "Against the Day" as "lengthy and rambling" and "a baggy monster of a book", while negative appraisals condemned the novel for its "silliness" or characterized its action as "fairly pointless" and remained unimpressed by its "grab bag of themes".
"Inherent Vice" was published in August 2009.
A synopsis and brief extract from the novel, along with the novel's title, "Inherent Vice", and dust jacket image, were printed in Penguin Press' Summer 2009 catalogue. The book was advertised by the publisher as "part-noir, part-psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon—private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a cannabis haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog."
A promotional video for the novel was released by Penguin Books on August 4, 2009, with the character voiceover narrated by the author himself.
A 2014 film adaptation of the same name was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
On January 4, 2013, "Washington Post" editor Ron Charles announced via Twitter that Pynchon was set to publish a new novel, titled "The Bleeding Edge", according to his publisher Penguin Press.
On February 25, 2013, Penguin stated the new novel, "Bleeding Edge", would take place in Manhattan's Silicon Alley during "the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11." The novel was published on September 17, 2013 to positive reviews.
Poet L. E. Sissman wrote from "The New Yorker": "He is almost a mathematician of prose, who calculates the least and the greatest stress each word and line, each pun and ambiguity, can bear, and applies his knowledge accordingly and virtually without lapses, though he takes many scary, bracing linguistic risks. Thus his remarkably supple diction can first treat of a painful and delicate love scene and then roar, without pause, into the sounds and echoes of a drugged and drunken orgy." Pynchon's style is commonly classified as postmodernist.
Along with its emphasis on sociopolitical themes such as racism and imperialism, its awareness and appropriation of many elements of traditional high culture and literary form, Pynchon's work explores philosophical, theological, and sociological ideas exhaustively, though in quirky and approachable ways. His writings demonstrate a strong affinity with the practitioners and artifacts of low culture, including comic books and cartoons, pulp fiction, popular films, television programs, cookery, urban myths, paranoia and conspiracy theories, and folk art. This blurring of the conventional boundary between "high" and "low" culture has been seen as one of the defining characteristics of his writing.
In particular, Pynchon has revealed himself in his fiction and non-fiction as an aficionado of popular music. Song lyrics and mock musical numbers appear in each of his novels, and, in his autobiographical introduction to the "Slow Learner" collection of early stories, he reveals a fondness for both jazz and rock and roll. The character McClintic Sphere in "V." is a fictional composite of jazz musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. In "The Crying of Lot 49", the lead singer of The Paranoids sports "a Beatle haircut" and sings with an English accent. In the closing pages of "Gravity's Rainbow", there is an apocryphal report that Tyrone Slothrop, the novel's protagonist, played kazoo and harmonica as a guest musician on a record released by The Fool in the 1960s (having magically recovered the latter instrument, his "harp", in a German stream in 1945, after losing it down the toilet in 1939 at the Roseland Ballroom in Roxbury, Boston, to the strains of the jazz standard "Cherokee", upon which tune Charlie Parker was simultaneously inventing bebop in New York, as Pynchon describes). In "Vineland", both Zoyd Wheeler and Isaiah Two Four are also musicians: Zoyd played keyboards in a '60s surf band called The Corvairs, while Isaiah played in a punk band called Billy Barf and the Vomitones. In "Mason & Dixon", one of the characters plays on the "Clavier" the varsity drinking song that will later become "The Star-Spangled Banner"; while in another episode a character remarks tangentially "Sometimes, it's hard to be a woman".
In his introduction to "Slow Learner", Pynchon acknowledges a debt to the anarchic bandleader Spike Jones, and in 1994, he penned a 3000-word set of liner notes for the album "Spiked!", a collection of Jones's recordings released on the short-lived BMG Catalyst label. Pynchon also wrote the liner notes for "Nobody's Cool", the second album of indie rock band Lotion, in which he states that "rock and roll remains one of the last honorable callings, and a working band is a miracle of everyday life. Which is basically what these guys do". He is also known to be a fan of Roky Erickson.
Investigations and digressions into the realms of human sexuality, psychology, sociology, mathematics, science, and technology recur throughout Pynchon's works. One of his earliest short stories, "Low-lands" (1960), features a meditation on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle as a metaphor for telling stories about one's own experiences. His next published work, "Entropy" (1960), introduced the concept which was to become synonymous with Pynchon's name (though Pynchon later admitted the "shallowness of [his] understanding" of the subject, and noted that choosing an abstract concept first and trying to construct a narrative around it was "a lousy way to go about writing a story"). Another early story, "Under the Rose" (1961), includes among its cast of characters a cyborg set anachronistically in Victorian-era Egypt (a type of writing now called steampunk). This story, significantly reworked by Pynchon, appears as Chapter 3 of "V." "The Secret Integration" (1964), Pynchon's last published short story, is a sensitively handled coming-of-age tale in which a group of young boys face the consequences of the American policy of racial integration. At one point in the story, the boys attempt to understand the new policy by way of the mathematical operation, the only sense of the word with which they are familiar.
"The Crying of Lot 49" also alludes to entropy and communication theory, and contains scenes and descriptions which parody or appropriate calculus, Zeno's paradoxes, and the thought experiment known as Maxwell's demon. At the same time, the novel also investigates homosexuality, celibacy and both medically sanctioned and illicit psychedelic drug use. "Gravity's Rainbow" describes many varieties of sexual fetishism (including sado-masochism, coprophilia and a borderline case of tentacle erotica), and features numerous episodes of drug use, most notably cannabis but also cocaine, naturally occurring hallucinogens, and the mushroom "Amanita muscaria." "Gravity's Rainbow" also derives much from Pynchon's background in mathematics: at one point, the geometry of garter belts is compared with that of cathedral spires, both described as mathematical singularities. "Mason & Dixon" explores the scientific, theological, and socio-cultural foundations of the Age of Reason while also depicting the relationships between actual historical figures and fictional characters in intricate detail and, like "Gravity's Rainbow", is an archetypal example of the genre of historiographic metafiction.
An eclectic catalogue of Pynchonian precursors has been proposed by readers and critics. Pynchon's novels refer overtly to writers as disparate as Henry Adams, Jorge Luis Borges, Giorgio de Chirico, Emily Dickinson, Umberto Eco, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William March, Vladimir Nabokov, Deleuze and Guattari, Patrick O'Brian, Ishmael Reed, Rainer Maria Rilke and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and to a mix of iconic religious and philosophical sources. Critics have made comparisons of Pynchon's writing with works by Rabelais, Cervantes, Laurence Sterne, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Mann, William S. Burroughs, Ralph Ellison, Patrick White and Toni Morrison.
Some commentators have detected similarities with those writers in the Modernist tradition who wrote long novels dealing with large metaphysical or political issues. Examples of such works might include "Ulysses" by James Joyce, "A Passage to India" by E. M. Forster, "The Apes of God" by Wyndham Lewis, "The Man Without Qualities" by Robert Musil and the "U.S.A." trilogy by John Dos Passos. Pynchon explicitly acknowledges his debt to Beat Generation writers, and expresses his admiration for Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" in particular. He also outlines the specific influence on his own early fiction of literary works by T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Saul Bellow, Herbert Gold, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Buchan and Graham Greene, and non-fiction works by Helen Waddell, Norbert Wiener and Isaac Asimov.
Younger contemporary writers who have been touted as heirs to Pynchon include David Foster Wallace, William Vollmann, Richard Powers, Steve Erickson, David Mitchell, Neal Stephenson, Dave Eggers, and Tommaso Pincio whose pseudonym is an Italian rendering of Pynchon's name.
Pynchon's work has been cited as an influence and inspiration by many writers, directors and artists, including
T. Coraghessan Boyle, David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, Ian Rankin, William Gibson, Ben Greenman, Elfriede Jelinek, Rick Moody, Alan Moore, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Richard Powers, Salman Rushdie, Neal Stephenson, Greg Egan, Bruce Sterling, Jan Wildt, Laurie Anderson, Zak Smith, David Cronenberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jonathan Blow, James Murphy, and Adam Rapp.
Thanks to his influence on Gibson and Stephenson in particular, Pynchon became one of the progenitors of cyberpunk fiction; a 1987 essay in "Spin" magazine by Timothy Leary explicitly named "Gravity's Rainbow" as the "Old Testament" of cyberpunk, with Gibson's "Neuromancer" and its sequels as the "New Testament". Though the term "cyberpunk" did not become prevalent until the early 1980s, since Leary's article many readers have retroactively included "Gravity's Rainbow" in the genre, along with other works—"e.g.," Samuel R. Delany's "Dhalgren" and many works of Philip K. Dick—which seem, after the fact, to anticipate cyberpunk styles and themes. The encyclopedic nature of Pynchon's novels also led to some attempts to link his work with the short-lived hypertext fiction movement of the 1990s.
The main-belt asteroid 152319 is named after Pynchon.
Relatively little is known about Pynchon's private life; he has carefully avoided contact with reporters for more than forty years. Only a few photos of him are known to exist, nearly all from his high school and college days, and his whereabouts have often remained undisclosed.
A 1963 review of "V." in the "New York Times Book Review" described Pynchon as "a recluse" living in Mexico, thereby introducing the media label with which journalists have characterized him throughout his career. Nonetheless, Pynchon's personal absence from mass media is one of the notable features of his life, and it has generated many rumors and apocryphal anecdotes.
Pynchon wrote an introduction for his short story collection "Slow Learner". His comments on the stories after reading them again for the first time in many years, and his recollection of the events surrounding their creation, amount to the author's only autobiographical comments to his readers.
After the publication and success of "Gravity's Rainbow", interest mounted in finding out more about the identity of the author. At the 1974 National Book Awards ceremony, the president of Viking Press, Tom Guinzberg, arranged for double-talking comedian "Professor" Irwin Corey to accept the prize on Pynchon's behalf. Many of the assembled guests had no idea who Corey was and had never seen the author, so they assumed it was Pynchon himself on the stage delivering Corey's trademark torrent of rambling, pseudo-scholarly verbiage. Toward the end of Corey's address a streaker ran through the hall, adding further to the confusion.
An article published in the "SoHo Weekly News" claimed that Pynchon was in fact J. D. Salinger. Pynchon's written response to this theory was simple: "Not bad. Keep trying."
Thereafter, the first piece to provide substantial information about Pynchon's personal life was a biographical account written by a former Cornell University friend, Jules Siegel, and published in "Playboy" magazine. In his article, Siegel reveals that Pynchon had a complex about his teeth and underwent extensive and painful reconstructive surgery, was nicknamed "Tom" at Cornell and attended Mass diligently, acted as best man at Siegel's wedding, and that he later also had an affair with Siegel's wife. Siegel recalls Pynchon saying he did attend some of Vladimir Nabokov's lectures at Cornell but that he could hardly make out what Nabokov was saying because of his thick Russian accent. Siegel also records Pynchon's commenting: "Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength", an observation borne out by the crankiness and zealotry that has attached itself to his name and work in subsequent years.
Pynchon does not like to talk with reporters, and refuses the spectacle of celebrity and public appearances. Some readers and critics have suggested that there were and are perhaps aesthetic (and ideological) motivations behind his choice to remain aloof from public life. For example, the protagonist in Janette Turner Hospital's short story "For Mr. Voss or Occupant" (published in 1991), explains to her daughter that she is writing
More recently, book critic Arthur Salm has written that
Pynchon has published a number of articles and reviews in the mainstream American media, including words of support for Salman Rushdie and his then-wife, Marianne Wiggins, after the fatwa was pronounced against Rushdie by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In the following year, Rushdie's enthusiastic review of Pynchon's "Vineland" prompted Pynchon to send him another message hinting that if Rushdie were ever in New York, the two should arrange a meeting. Eventually, the two did meet, and Rushdie said of him that he was "extremely Pynchon-esque" and "the Pynchon he wanted him to be".
In the early 1990s, Pynchon married his literary agent, Melanie Jackson—a great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt and a granddaughter of Robert H. Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg trials prosecutor—and fathered a son, Jackson, in 1991. The disclosure of Pynchon's 1990s location in New York City, after many years in which he was believed to be dividing his time between Mexico and northern California, led some journalists and photographers to try to track him down. Shortly before the publication of "Mason & Dixon" in 1997, a CNN camera crew filmed him in Manhattan. Angered by this invasion of his privacy, he called CNN asking that he not be identified in the footage of the street scenes near his home. When asked by CNN, Pynchon rejected their characterization of him as a recluse, remarking "My belief is that 'recluse' is a code word generated by journalists ... meaning, 'doesn't like to talk to reporters'." CNN also quoted him as saying, "Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed." The next year, a reporter for the "Sunday Times" managed to snap a photo of him as he was walking with his son.
After several references to Pynchon's work and reputation were made on NBC's "The John Larroquette Show", Pynchon (through his agent) reportedly contacted the series' producers to offer suggestions and corrections. When a local Pynchon sighting became a major plot point in a 1994 episode of the series, Pynchon was sent the script for his approval; as well as providing the title of a fictitious work to be used in one episode ("Pandemonium of the Sun"), the novelist apparently vetoed a final scene that called for an extra playing him to be filmed from behind, walking away from the shot. Also during the 1990s, Pynchon befriended members of the band Lotion and contributed liner notes for the band's 1995 album "Nobody's Cool". Although the band initially claimed that he had seen them in concert and become a groupie, in 2009 they revealed to "The New Yorker" that they met him through his accountant, who was drummer Rob Youngberg's mother; she gave him an advance copy of the album and he agreed to write the liner notes, only later seeing them in concert. The novelist then conducted an interview with the band ("Lunch With Lotion") for "Esquire" in June 1996 in the lead-up to the publication of "Mason & Dixon". More recently, Pynchon provided faxed answers to questions submitted by author David Hajdu and permitted excerpts from his personal correspondence to be quoted in Hajdu's 2001 book, "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña".
Pynchon's insistence on maintaining his personal privacy and on having his work speak for itself has resulted in a number of outlandish rumors and hoaxes over the years. Indeed, claims that Pynchon was the Unabomber or a sympathizer with the Waco Branch Davidians after the 1993 siege were upstaged in the mid-1990s by the invention of an elaborate rumor insinuating that Pynchon and one "Wanda Tinasky" were the same person. A spate of letters authored under that name had appeared in the late 1980s in the "Anderson Valley Advertiser" in Anderson Valley, California. The style and content of those letters were said to resemble Pynchon's, and Pynchon's "Vineland", published in 1990, also takes place in northern California, so it was suggested that Pynchon may have been in the area at that time, conducting research. A collection of the Tinasky letters was eventually published as a paperback book in 1996; however, Pynchon himself denied having written the letters, and no direct attribution of the letters to Pynchon was ever made. "Literary detective" Donald Foster subsequently showed that the "Letters" were in fact written by an obscure Beat writer, Tom Hawkins, who had murdered his wife and then committed suicide in 1988. Foster's evidence was conclusive, including finding the typewriter on which the "Tinasky" letters had been written.
In 1998, over 120 letters that Pynchon had written to his longtime agent, Candida Donadio, were donated by the family of a private collector, Carter Burden, to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City. The letters ranged from 1963 to 1982, thus covering some of the author's most creative and prolific years. Although the Morgan Library originally intended to allow scholars to view the letters, at Pynchon's request the Burden family and Morgan Library agreed to seal these letters until after Pynchon's death.
Responding to the image which has been manufactured in the media over the years, Pynchon made two cameo animated appearances on the television series "The Simpsons" in 2004. The first occurs in the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", in which Marge Simpson becomes a novelist. He plays himself, with a paper bag over his head, and provides a blurb for the back cover of Marge's book, speaking in a broad Long Island accent: "Here's your quote: Thomas Pynchon loved this book, almost as much as he loves cameras!" He then starts yelling at passing cars: "Hey, over here, have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we'll throw in a free autograph! But, wait! There's more!" In his second appearance, in "All's Fair in Oven War", Pynchon's dialogue consists entirely of puns on his novel titles ("These wings are 'V'-licious! I'll put this recipe in 'The Gravity's Rainbow Cookbook', right next to 'The Frying of Latke 49'."). The cartoon representation of Pynchon reappears in a third, non-speaking cameo, as a guest at the fictional WordLoaf convention depicted in the 18th season episode "Moe'N'a Lisa". The episode first aired on November 19, 2006, the Sunday before Pynchon's sixth novel, "Against the Day", was released. According to Al Jean on the 15th season DVD episode commentary, Pynchon wanted to do the series because his son was a big fan.
During pre-production of "All's Fair in Oven War", Pynchon faxed one page from the script to producer Matt Selman with several handwritten edits to his lines. Of particular emphasis was Pynchon's outright refusal to utter the line "No wonder Homer is such a fat-ass." Pynchon's objection apparently had nothing to do with the salty language as he explained in a footnote to the edit, "... Homer is my role model and I can't speak ill of him."
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of George Orwell's birth, Pynchon wrote a new foreword to Orwell's celebrated dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The introduction presents a brief biography of Orwell as well as a reflection on some of the critical responses to "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Pynchon also offers his own reflection in the introduction that "what is perhaps [most] important, indeed necessary, to a working prophet, is to be able to see deeper than most of us into the human soul."
In July 2006, Amazon.com created a page showing an upcoming 992-page, untitled, Thomas Pynchon novel. A description of the soon-to-be published novel appeared on Amazon purporting to be written by Pynchon himself. The description was taken down, prompting speculation over its authenticity, but the blurb was soon back up along with the title of Pynchon's new novel "Against the Day".
Shortly before "Against the Day" was published, Pynchon's prose appeared in the program for ""The Daily Show": Ten Fu@#ing Years (The Concert)", a retrospective on Jon Stewart's comedy-news broadcast "The Daily Show".
On December 6, 2006, Pynchon joined a campaign by many other major authors to clear Ian McEwan of plagiarism charges by sending a typewritten letter to his British publisher, which was published in the "Daily Telegraph" newspaper.
Pynchon's 2009 YouTube promotional teaser for the novel "Inherent Vice" is the second time a recording of his voice has been released to mainstream outlets (the first being his appearances on "The Simpsons").
In 2012, Pynchon's novels were released in e-book format, ending a long holdout by the author. Publisher Penguin Press reported that the novels' length and complex page layouts made it a challenge to convert them to a digital format. Though they had produced a promotional video for the June release, Penguin had no expectation Pynchon's public profile would change in any fashion.
In September 2014, Josh Brolin told "The New York Times" that Pynchon had made a cameo in the "Inherent Vice" film. This led to a sizable online hunt for the author's appearance, eventually targeting actor Charley Morgan, whose small role as a doctor led many to believe he was Pynchon. Morgan, son of "M*A*S*H"s Harry Morgan, claimed that Paul Thomas Anderson, whom he described as a friend, had told him that such a cameo did not exist. Despite this, nothing has been directly confirmed by Anderson or Warner Bros. Pictures.
On November 6, 2018, Pynchon was photographed near his apartment in New York's Upper West Side district when he went to vote with his son. The photo was published by the "National Enquirer" and was said to be the first photo of him in twenty years.
Novels
Short story collections | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30903 |
Transformer
A transformer is a passive electrical device that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any one coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core, which induces a varying electromotive force across any other coils wound around the same core.
Electrical energy can be transferred between separate coils without a metallic (conductive) connection between the two circuits. Faraday's law of induction, discovered in 1831, describes the induced voltage effect in any coil due to a changing magnetic flux encircled by the coil.
Transformers are most commonly used for increasing low AC voltages at high current (a step-up transformer) or decreasing high AC voltages at low current (a step-down transformer) in electric power applications, and for coupling the stages of signal processing circuits. Transformers can also be used for isolation, where the voltage in equals the voltage out, with separate coils not electrically bonded to one another.
Since the invention of the first constant-potential transformer in 1885, transformers have become essential for the transmission, distribution, and utilization of alternating current electric power. A wide range of transformer designs is encountered in electronic and electric power applications. Transformers range in size from RF transformers less than a cubic centimeter in volume, to units weighing hundreds of tons used to interconnect the power grid.
Ideal transformer equations
By Faraday's law of induction:
formula_1 . . . (eq. 1)
formula_2 . . . (eq. 2)
Where formula_3 is the instantaneous voltage, formula_4 is the number of turns in a winding, dΦ/dt is the derivative of the magnetic flux Φ through one turn of the winding over time (t), and subscripts P and S denotes primary and secondary.
Combining the ratio of eq. 1 & eq. 2:
Turns ratio formula_5 . . . (eq. 3)
Where for a step-down transformer "a" > 1, for a step-up transformer "a" < 1, and
for an isolation transformer "a" = 1.
By law of conservation of energy, apparent, real and reactive power are each conserved in the input and output:
formula_6 . . . . (eq. 4)
Where formula_7 is conserved power and formula_8 is current.
Combining eq. 3 & eq. 4 with this endnote gives the ideal transformer identity:
formula_9 . (eq. 5)
Where formula_10 is winding self-inductance.
By Ohm's law and ideal transformer identity:
formula_11 . . . (eq. 6)
Where formula_12 is the load impedance of the secondary circuit & formula_13 is the apparent load or driving point impedance of the primary circuit, the superscript formula_14 denoting referred to the primary.
An ideal transformer is a theoretical linear transformer that is lossless and perfectly coupled. Perfect coupling implies infinitely high core magnetic permeability and winding inductances and zero net magnetomotive force (i.e. ipnp - isns = 0).
A varying current in the transformer's primary winding attempts to create a varying magnetic flux in the transformer core, which is also encircled by the secondary winding. This varying flux at the secondary winding induces a varying electromotive force (EMF, voltage) in the secondary winding due to electromagnetic induction and the secondary current so produced creates a flux equal and opposite to that produced by the primary winding, in accordance with Lenz's law.
The windings are wound around a core of infinitely high magnetic permeability so that all of the magnetic flux passes through both the primary and secondary windings. With a voltage source connected to the primary winding and a load connected to the secondary winding, the transformer currents flow in the indicated directions and the core magnetomotive force cancels to zero.
According to Faraday's law, since the same magnetic flux passes through both the primary and secondary windings in an ideal transformer, a voltage is induced in each winding proportional to its number of windings. The transformer winding voltage ratio is directly proportional to the winding turns ratio.
The ideal transformer identity shown in eq. 5 is a reasonable approximation for the typical commercial transformer, with voltage ratio and winding turns ratio both being inversely proportional to the corresponding current ratio.
The load impedance "referred" to the primary circuit is equal to the turns ratio squared times the secondary circuit load impedance.
The ideal transformer model neglects the following basic linear aspects of real transformers:
(a) Core losses, collectively called magnetizing current losses, consisting of
(b) Unlike the ideal model, the windings in a real transformer have non-zero resistances and inductances associated with:
(c) similar to an inductor, parasitic capacitance and self-resonance phenomenon due to the electric field distribution. Three kinds of parasitic capacitance are usually considered and the closed-loop equations are provided
Inclusion of capacitance into the transformer model is complicated, and is rarely attempted; the does not include parasitic capacitance. However, the capacitance effect can be measured by comparing open-circuit inductance, i.e. the inductance of a primary winding when the secondary circuit is open, to a short-circuit inductance when the secondary winding is shorted.
The ideal transformer model assumes that all flux generated by the primary winding links all the turns of every winding, including itself. In practice, some flux traverses paths that take it outside the windings. Such flux is termed "leakage flux", and results in leakage inductance in series with the mutually coupled transformer windings. Leakage flux results in energy being alternately stored in and discharged from the magnetic fields with each cycle of the power supply. It is not directly a power loss, but results in inferior voltage regulation, causing the secondary voltage not to be directly proportional to the primary voltage, particularly under heavy load. Transformers are therefore normally designed to have very low leakage inductance.
In some applications increased leakage is desired, and long magnetic paths, air gaps, or magnetic bypass shunts may deliberately be introduced in a transformer design to limit the short-circuit current it will supply. Leaky transformers may be used to supply loads that exhibit negative resistance, such as electric arcs, mercury- and sodium- vapor lamps and neon signs or for safely handling loads that become periodically short-circuited such as electric arc welders.
Air gaps are also used to keep a transformer from saturating, especially audio-frequency transformers in circuits that have a DC component flowing in the windings. A saturable reactor exploits saturation of the core to control alternating current.
Knowledge of leakage inductance is also useful when transformers are operated in parallel. It can be shown that if the percent impedance and associated winding leakage reactance-to-resistance ("X"/"R") ratio of two transformers were
the same, the transformers would share the load power in proportion to their respective ratings. However, the impedance tolerances of commercial transformers are significant. Also, the impedance and X/R ratio of different capacity transformers tends to vary.
Referring to the diagram, a practical transformer's physical behavior may be represented by an equivalent circuit model, which can incorporate an ideal transformer.
Winding joule losses and leakage reactances are represented by the following series loop impedances of the model:
In normal course of circuit equivalence transformation, "R"S and "X"S are in practice usually referred to the primary side by multiplying these impedances by the turns ratio squared, ("N"P/"N"S) 2 = a2.
Core loss and reactance is represented by the following shunt leg impedances of the model:
"R"C and "X"M are collectively termed the "magnetizing branch" of the model.
Core losses are caused mostly by hysteresis and eddy current effects in the core and are proportional to the square of the core flux for operation at a given frequency. The finite permeability core requires a magnetizing current "I"M to maintain mutual flux in the core. Magnetizing current is in phase with the flux, the relationship between the two being non-linear due to saturation effects. However, all impedances of the equivalent circuit shown are by definition linear and such non-linearity effects are not typically reflected in transformer equivalent circuits. With sinusoidal supply, core flux lags the induced EMF by 90°. With open-circuited secondary winding, magnetizing branch current "I"0 equals transformer no-load current.
The resulting model, though sometimes termed 'exact' equivalent circuit based on linearity assumptions, retains a number of approximations. Analysis may be simplified by assuming that magnetizing branch impedance is relatively high and relocating the branch to the left of the primary impedances. This introduces error but allows combination of primary and referred secondary resistances and reactances by simple summation as two series impedances.
Transformer equivalent circuit impedance and transformer ratio parameters can be derived from the following tests: open-circuit test, short-circuit test, winding resistance test, and transformer ratio test.
If the flux in the core is purely sinusoidal, the relationship for either winding between its rms voltage "E"rms of the winding, and the supply frequency "f", number of turns "N", core cross-sectional area "a" in m2 and peak magnetic flux density "B"peak in Wb/m2 or T (tesla) is given by the universal EMF equation:
A dot convention is often used in transformer circuit diagrams, nameplates or terminal markings to define the relative polarity of transformer windings. Positively increasing instantaneous current entering the primary winding's ‘dot’ end induces positive polarity voltage exiting the secondary winding's ‘dot’ end. Three-phase transformers used in electric power systems will have a nameplate that indicate the phase relationships between their terminals. This may be in the form of a phasor diagram, or using an alpha-numeric code to show the type of internal connection (wye or delta) for each winding.
The EMF of a transformer at a given flux increases with frequency. By operating at higher frequencies, transformers can be physically more compact because a given core is able to transfer more power without reaching saturation and fewer turns are needed to achieve the same impedance. However, properties such as core loss and conductor skin effect also increase with frequency. Aircraft and military equipment employ 400 Hz power supplies which reduce core and winding weight. Conversely, frequencies used for some railway electrification systems were much lower (e.g. 16.7 Hz and 25 Hz) than normal utility frequencies (50–60 Hz) for historical reasons concerned mainly with the limitations of early electric traction motors. Consequently, the transformers used to step-down the high overhead line voltages were much larger and heavier for the same power rating than those required for the higher frequencies.
Operation of a transformer at its designed voltage but at a higher frequency than intended will lead to reduced magnetizing current. At a lower frequency, the magnetizing current will increase. Operation of a large transformer at other than its design frequency may require assessment of voltages, losses, and cooling to establish if safe operation is practical. Transformers may require protective relays to protect the transformer from overvoltage at higher than rated frequency.
One example is in traction transformers used for electric multiple unit and high-speed train service operating across regions with different electrical standards. The converter equipment and traction transformers have to accommodate different input frequencies and voltage (ranging from as high as 50 Hz down to 16.7 Hz and rated up to 25 kV).
At much higher frequencies the transformer core size required drops dramatically: a physically small transformer can handle power levels that would require a massive iron core at mains frequency. The development of switching power semiconductor devices made switch-mode power supplies viable, to generate a high frequency, then change the voltage level with a small transformer.
Large power transformers are vulnerable to insulation failure due to transient voltages with high-frequency components, such as caused in switching or by lightning.
Transformer energy losses are dominated by winding and core losses. Transformers' efficiency tends to improve with increasing transformer capacity. The efficiency of typical distribution transformers is between about 98 and 99 percent.
As transformer losses vary with load, it is often useful to tabulate no-load loss, full-load loss, half-load loss, and so on. Hysteresis and eddy current losses are constant at all load levels and dominate at no load, while winding loss increases as load increases. The no-load loss can be significant, so that even an idle transformer constitutes a drain on the electrical supply. Designing energy efficient transformers for lower loss requires a larger core, good-quality silicon steel, or even amorphous steel for the core and thicker wire, increasing initial cost. The choice of construction represents a trade-off between initial cost and operating cost.
Transformer losses arise from:
Closed-core transformers are constructed in 'core form' or 'shell form'. When windings surround the core, the transformer is core form; when windings are surrounded by the core, the transformer is shell form. Shell form design may be more prevalent than core form design for distribution transformer applications due to the relative ease in stacking the core around winding coils. Core form design tends to, as a general rule, be more economical, and therefore more prevalent, than shell form design for high voltage power transformer applications at the lower end of their voltage and power rating ranges (less than or equal to, nominally, 230 kV or 75 MVA). At higher voltage and power ratings, shell form transformers tend to be more prevalent. Shell form design tends to be preferred for extra-high voltage and higher MVA applications because, though more labor-intensive to manufacture, shell form transformers are characterized as having inherently better kVA-to-weight ratio, better short-circuit strength characteristics and higher immunity to transit damage.
Transformers for use at power or audio frequencies typically have cores made of high permeability silicon steel. The steel has a permeability many times that of free space and the core thus serves to greatly reduce the magnetizing current and confine the flux to a path which closely couples the windings. Early transformer developers soon realized that cores constructed from solid iron resulted in prohibitive eddy current losses, and their designs mitigated this effect with cores consisting of bundles of insulated iron wires. Later designs constructed the core by stacking layers of thin steel laminations, a principle that has remained in use. Each lamination is insulated from its neighbors by a thin non-conducting layer of insulation. The transformer universal EMF equation can be used to calculate the core cross-sectional area for a preferred level of magnetic flux.
The effect of laminations is to confine eddy currents to highly elliptical paths that enclose little flux, and so reduce their magnitude. Thinner laminations reduce losses, but are more laborious and expensive to construct. Thin laminations are generally used on high-frequency transformers, with some of very thin steel laminations able to operate up to 10 kHz.
One common design of laminated core is made from interleaved stacks of E-shaped steel sheets capped with I-shaped pieces, leading to its name of 'E-I transformer'. Such a design tends to exhibit more losses, but is very economical to manufacture. The cut-core or C-core type is made by winding a steel strip around a rectangular form and then bonding the layers together. It is then cut in two, forming two C shapes, and the core assembled by binding the two C halves together with a steel strap. They have the advantage that the flux is always oriented parallel to the metal grains, reducing reluctance.
A steel core's remanence means that it retains a static magnetic field when power is removed. When power is then reapplied, the residual field will cause a high inrush current until the effect of the remaining magnetism is reduced, usually after a few cycles of the applied AC waveform. Overcurrent protection devices such as fuses must be selected to allow this harmless inrush to pass.
On transformers connected to long, overhead power transmission lines, induced currents due to geomagnetic disturbances during solar storms can cause saturation of the core and operation of transformer protection devices.
Distribution transformers can achieve low no-load losses by using cores made with low-loss high-permeability silicon steel or amorphous (non-crystalline) metal alloy. The higher initial cost of the core material is offset over the life of the transformer by its lower losses at light load.
Powdered iron cores are used in circuits such as switch-mode power supplies that operate above mains frequencies and up to a few tens of kilohertz. These materials combine high magnetic permeability with high bulk electrical resistivity. For frequencies extending beyond the VHF band, cores made from non-conductive magnetic ceramic materials called ferrites are common. Some radio-frequency transformers also have movable cores (sometimes called 'slugs') which allow adjustment of the coupling coefficient (and bandwidth) of tuned radio-frequency circuits.
Toroidal transformers are built around a ring-shaped core, which, depending on operating frequency, is made from a long strip of silicon steel or permalloy wound into a coil, powdered iron, or ferrite. A strip construction ensures that the grain boundaries are optimally aligned, improving the transformer's efficiency by reducing the core's reluctance. The closed ring shape eliminates air gaps inherent in the construction of an E-I core. The cross-section of the ring is usually square or rectangular, but more expensive cores with circular cross-sections are also available. The primary and secondary coils are often wound concentrically to cover the entire surface of the core. This minimizes the length of wire needed and provides screening to minimize the core's magnetic field from generating electromagnetic interference.
Toroidal transformers are more efficient than the cheaper laminated E-I types for a similar power level. Other advantages compared to E-I types, include smaller size (about half), lower weight (about half), less mechanical hum (making them superior in audio amplifiers), lower exterior magnetic field (about one tenth), low off-load losses (making them more efficient in standby circuits), single-bolt mounting, and greater choice of shapes. The main disadvantages are higher cost and limited power capacity (see Classification parameters below). Because of the lack of a residual gap in the magnetic path, toroidal transformers also tend to exhibit higher inrush current, compared to laminated E-I types.
Ferrite toroidal cores are used at higher frequencies, typically between a few tens of kilohertz to hundreds of megahertz, to reduce losses, physical size, and weight of inductive components. A drawback of toroidal transformer construction is the higher labor cost of winding. This is because it is necessary to pass the entire length of a coil winding through the core aperture each time a single turn is added to the coil. As a consequence, toroidal transformers rated more than a few kVA are uncommon. Relatively few toroids are offered with power ratings above 10 kVA, and practically none above 25 kVA. Small distribution transformers may achieve some of the benefits of a toroidal core by splitting it and forcing it open, then inserting a bobbin containing primary and secondary windings.
A transformer can be produced by placing the windings near each other, an arrangement termed an "air-core" transformer. An air-core transformer eliminates loss due to hysteresis in the core material. The magnetizing inductance is drastically reduced by the lack of a magnetic core, resulting in large magnetizing currents and losses if used at low frequencies. Air-core transformers are unsuitable for use in power distribution, but are frequently employed in radio-frequency applications. Air cores are also used for resonant transformers such as Tesla coils, where they can achieve reasonably low loss despite the low magnetizing inductance.
The electrical conductor used for the windings depends upon the application, but in all cases the individual turns must be electrically insulated from each other to ensure that the current travels throughout every turn. For small transformers, in which currents are low and the potential difference between adjacent turns is small, the coils are often wound from enamelled magnet wire. Larger power transformers may be wound with copper rectangular strip conductors insulated by oil-impregnated paper and blocks of pressboard.
High-frequency transformers operating in the tens to hundreds of kilohertz often have windings made of braided Litz wire to minimize the skin-effect and proximity effect losses. Large power transformers use multiple-stranded conductors as well, since even at low power frequencies non-uniform distribution of current would otherwise exist in high-current windings. Each strand is individually insulated, and the strands are arranged so that at certain points in the winding, or throughout the whole winding, each portion occupies different relative positions in the complete conductor. The transposition equalizes the current flowing in each strand of the conductor, and reduces eddy current losses in the winding itself. The stranded conductor is also more flexible than a solid conductor of similar size, aiding manufacture.
The windings of signal transformers minimize leakage inductance and stray capacitance to improve high-frequency response. Coils are split into sections, and those sections interleaved between the sections of the other winding.
Power-frequency transformers may have "taps" at intermediate points on the winding, usually on the higher voltage winding side, for voltage adjustment. Taps may be manually reconnected, or a manual or automatic switch may be provided for changing taps. Automatic on-load tap changers are used in electric power transmission or distribution, on equipment such as arc furnace transformers, or for automatic voltage regulators for sensitive loads. Audio-frequency transformers, used for the distribution of audio to public address loudspeakers, have taps to allow adjustment of impedance to each speaker. A center-tapped transformer is often used in the output stage of an audio power amplifier in a push-pull circuit. Modulation transformers in AM transmitters are very similar.
It is a rule of thumb that the life expectancy of electrical insulation is halved for about every 7 °C to 10 °C increase in operating temperature (an instance of the application of the Arrhenius equation).
Small dry-type and liquid-immersed transformers are often self-cooled by natural convection and radiation heat dissipation. As power ratings increase, transformers are often cooled by forced-air cooling, forced-oil cooling, water-cooling, or combinations of these. Large transformers are filled with transformer oil that both cools and insulates the windings. Transformer oil is a highly refined mineral oil that cools the windings and insulation by circulating within the transformer tank. The mineral oil and paper insulation system has been extensively studied and used for more than 100 years. It is estimated that 50% of power transformers will survive 50 years of use, that the average age of failure of power transformers is about 10 to 15 years, and that about 30% of power transformer failures are due to insulation and overloading failures. Prolonged operation at elevated temperature degrades insulating properties of winding insulation and dielectric coolant, which not only shortens transformer life but can ultimately lead to catastrophic transformer failure. With a great body of empirical study as a guide, transformer oil testing including dissolved gas analysis provides valuable maintenance information.
Building regulations in many jurisdictions require indoor liquid-filled transformers to either use dielectric fluids that are less flammable than oil, or be installed in fire-resistant rooms. Air-cooled dry transformers can be more economical where they eliminate the cost of a fire-resistant transformer room.
The tank of liquid filled transformers often has radiators through which the liquid coolant circulates by natural convection or fins. Some large transformers employ electric fans for forced-air cooling, pumps for forced-liquid cooling, or have heat exchangers for water-cooling. An oil-immersed transformer may be equipped with a Buchholz relay, which, depending on severity of gas accumulation due to internal arcing, is used to either alarm or de-energize the transformer. Oil-immersed transformer installations usually include fire protection measures such as walls, oil containment, and fire-suppression sprinkler systems.
Polychlorinated biphenyls have properties that once favored their use as a dielectric coolant, though concerns over their environmental persistence led to a widespread ban on their use.
Today, non-toxic, stable silicone-based oils, or fluorinated hydrocarbons may be used where the expense of a fire-resistant liquid offsets additional building cost for a transformer vault.
Some transformers, instead of being liquid-filled, have their windings enclosed in sealed, pressurized tanks and cooled by nitrogen or sulfur hexafluoride gas.
Experimental power transformers in the 500‐to‐1,000 kVA range have been built with liquid nitrogen or helium cooled superconducting windings, which eliminates winding losses without affecting core losses.
Insulation must be provided between the individual turns of the windings, between the windings, between windings and core, and at the terminals of the winding.
Inter-turn insulation of small transformers may be a layer of insulating varnish on the wire. Layer of paper or polymer films may be inserted between layers of windings, and between primary and secondary windings. A transformer may be coated or dipped in a polymer resin to improve the strength of windings and protect them from moisture or corrosion. The resin may be impregnated into the winding insulation using combinations of vacuum and pressure during the coating process, eliminating all air voids in the winding. In the limit, the entire coil may be placed in a mold, and resin cast around it as a solid block, encapsulating the windings.
Large oil-filled power transformers use windings wrapped with insulating paper, which is impregnated with oil during assembly of the transformer. Oil-filled transformers use highly refined mineral oil to insulate and cool the windings and core.
Construction of oil-filled transformers requires that the insulation covering the windings be thoroughly dried of residual moisture before the oil is introduced. Drying may be done by circulating hot air around the core, by circulating externally heated transformer oil, or by vapor-phase drying (VPD) where an evaporated solvent transfers heat by condensation on the coil and core. For small transformers, resistance heating by injection of current into the windings is used.
Larger transformers are provided with high-voltage insulated bushings made of polymers or porcelain. A large bushing can be a complex structure since it must provide careful control of the electric field gradient without letting the transformer leak oil.
Transformers can be classified in many ways, such as the following:
Various specific electrical application designs require a variety of transformer types. Although they all share the basic characteristic transformer principles, they are customized in construction or electrical properties for certain installation requirements or circuit conditions.
In electric power transmission, transformers allow transmission of electric power at high voltages, which reduces the loss due to heating of the wires. This allows generating plants to be located economically at a distance from electrical consumers. All but a tiny fraction of the world's electrical power has passed through a series of transformers by the time it reaches the consumer.
In many electronic devices, a transformer is used to convert voltage from the distribution wiring to convenient values for the circuit requirements, either directly at the power line frequency or through a switch mode power supply.
Signal and audio transformers are used to couple stages of amplifiers and to match devices such as microphones and record players to the input of amplifiers. Audio transformers allowed telephone circuits to carry on a two-way conversation over a single pair of wires. A balun transformer converts a signal that is referenced to ground to a signal that has balanced voltages to ground, such as between external cables and internal circuits. Isolation transformers prevent leakage of current into the secondary circuit and are used in medical equipment and at construction sites. Resonant transformers are used for coupling between stages of radio receivers, or in high-voltage Tesla coils.
Electromagnetic induction, the principle of the operation of the transformer, was discovered independently by Michael Faraday in 1831, Joseph Henry in 1832, and others. The relationship between EMF and magnetic flux is an equation now known as Faraday's law of induction:
where formula_19 is the magnitude of the EMF in volts and ΦB is the magnetic flux through the circuit in webers.
Faraday performed early experiments on induction between coils of wire, including winding a pair of coils around an iron ring, thus creating the first toroidal closed-core transformer. However he only applied individual pulses of current to his transformer, and never discovered the relation between the turns ratio and EMF in the windings.
The first type of transformer to see wide use was the induction coil, invented by Rev. Nicholas Callan of Maynooth College, Ireland in 1836. He was one of the first researchers to realize the more turns the secondary winding has in relation to the primary winding, the larger the induced secondary EMF will be. Induction coils evolved from scientists' and inventors' efforts to get higher voltages from batteries. Since batteries produce direct current (DC) rather than AC, induction coils relied upon vibrating electrical contacts that regularly interrupted the current in the primary to create the flux changes necessary for induction. Between the 1830s and the 1870s, efforts to build better induction coils, mostly by trial and error, slowly revealed the basic principles of transformers.
By the 1870s, efficient generators producing alternating current (AC) were available, and it was found AC could power an induction coil directly, without an interrupter.
In 1876, Russian engineer Pavel Yablochkov invented a lighting system based on a set of induction coils where the primary windings were connected to a source of AC. The secondary windings could be connected to several 'electric candles' (arc lamps) of his own design. The coils Yablochkov employed functioned essentially as transformers.
In 1878, the Ganz factory, Budapest, Hungary, began producing equipment for electric lighting and, by 1883, had installed over fifty systems in Austria-Hungary. Their AC systems used arc and incandescent lamps, generators, and other equipment.
Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs first exhibited a device with an open iron core called a 'secondary generator' in London in 1882, then sold the idea to the Westinghouse company in the United States. They also exhibited the invention in Turin, Italy in 1884, where it was adopted for an electric lighting system.
Induction coils with open magnetic circuits are inefficient at transferring power to loads. Until about 1880, the paradigm for AC power transmission from a high voltage supply to a low voltage load was a series circuit. Open-core transformers with a ratio near 1:1 were connected with their primaries in series to allow use of a high voltage for transmission while presenting a low voltage to the lamps. The inherent flaw in this method was that turning off a single lamp (or other electric device) affected the voltage supplied to all others on the same circuit. Many adjustable transformer designs were introduced to compensate for this problematic characteristic of the series circuit, including those employing methods of adjusting the core or bypassing the magnetic flux around part of a coil.
Efficient, practical transformer designs did not appear until the 1880s, but within a decade, the transformer would be instrumental in the war of the currents, and in seeing AC distribution systems triumph over their DC counterparts, a position in which they have remained dominant ever since.
In the autumn of 1884, Károly Zipernowsky, Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri (ZBD), three Hungarian engineers associated with the Ganz Works, had determined that open-core devices were impracticable, as they were incapable of reliably regulating voltage. In their joint 1885 patent applications for novel transformers (later called ZBD transformers), they described two designs with closed magnetic circuits where copper windings were either wound around an iron wire ring core or surrounded by an iron wire core. The two designs were the first application of the two basic transformer constructions in common use to this day, termed "core form" or "shell form" . The Ganz factory had also in the autumn of 1884 made delivery of the world's first five high-efficiency AC transformers, the first of these units having been shipped on September 16, 1884. This first unit had been manufactured to the following specifications: 1,400 W, 40 Hz, 120:72 V, 11.6:19.4 A, ratio 1.67:1, one-phase, shell form.
In both designs, the magnetic flux linking the primary and secondary windings traveled almost entirely within the confines of the iron core, with no intentional path through air (see Toroidal cores below). The new transformers were 3.4 times more efficient than the open-core bipolar devices of Gaulard and Gibbs. The ZBD patents included two other major interrelated innovations: one concerning the use of parallel connected, instead of series connected, utilization loads, the other concerning the ability to have high turns ratio transformers such that the supply network voltage could be much higher (initially 1,400 to 2,000 V) than the voltage of utilization loads (100 V initially preferred). When employed in parallel connected electric distribution systems, closed-core transformers finally made it technically and economically feasible to provide electric power for lighting in homes, businesses and public spaces. Bláthy had suggested the use of closed cores, Zipernowsky had suggested the use of parallel shunt connections, and Déri had performed the experiments; In early 1885, the three engineers also eliminated the problem of eddy current losses with the invention of the lamination of electromagnetic cores.
Transformers today are designed on the principles discovered by the three engineers. They also popularized the word 'transformer' to describe a device for altering the EMF of an electric current although the term had already been in use by 1882. In 1886, the ZBD engineers designed, and the Ganz factory supplied electrical equipment for, the world's first power station that used AC generators to power a parallel connected common electrical network, the steam-powered Rome-Cerchi power plant.
Although George Westinghouse had bought Gaulard and Gibbs' patents in 1885, the Edison Electric Light Company held an option on the US rights for the ZBD transformers, requiring Westinghouse to pursue alternative designs on the same principles. He assigned to William Stanley the task of developing a device for commercial use in United States. Stanley's first patented design was for induction coils with single cores of soft iron and adjustable gaps to regulate the EMF present in the secondary winding (see image). This design was first used commercially in the US in 1886 but Westinghouse was intent on improving the Stanley design to make it (unlike the ZBD type) easy and cheap to produce.
Westinghouse, Stanley and associates soon developed an easier to manufacture core, consisting of a stack of thin 'E‑shaped' iron plates, insulated by thin sheets of paper or other insulating material. Prewound copper coils could then be slid into place, and straight iron plates laid in to create a closed magnetic circuit. Westinghouse otained a patent for the new low-cost design in 1887.
In 1889, Russian-born engineer Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky developed the first three-phase transformer at the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft ('General Electricity Company') in Germany.
In 1891, Nikola Tesla invented the Tesla coil, an air-cored, dual-tuned resonant transformer for producing very high voltages at high frequency.
Audio frequency transformers ("repeating coils") were used by early experimenters in the development of the telephone.
General links: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30906 |
Thomas Brackett Reed
Thomas Brackett Reed (October 18, 1839 – December 7, 1902), was an American politician from the state of Maine, and was a member of the Republican Party. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives 12 times, first in 1876, and served as Speaker of the House, from 1889–1891 and again from 1895–1899.
Occasionally ridiculed as "Czar Reed", he had great influence over the agenda and operations of the House, more so than any previous speaker. He increased the Speaker's power by instituting the "Reed Rules," which limited the ability of the minority party to prevent the establishment of a quorum.
Reed helped pass the Lodge Bill, which sought to protect African American voting rights in the Southern United States, but the bill failed to pass in the Senate and never became law. He opposed the Spanish–American War and resigned from Congress in 1899.
Reed was born in Portland, Maine on October 18, 1839 to Matilda Prince (Mitchell) and Thomas B. Reed. Reed attended public schools, including Portland High School, before attending Bowdoin College, from which he graduated in 1860.
Afterward, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1865. He was an acting assistant paymaster for the United States Navy during the Civil War, from April 1864 to November 1865. He practiced in Portland and was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1868 and 1869. He served in the Maine Senate in 1870 but left to serve as the state's Attorney General from 1870 to 1872. Reed became city solicitor of Portland from 1874 to 1877 before being elected as a Republican to the 45th Congress in 1876.
He married Susan P. Merrill, born at Center Harbor, New Hampshire, on Lake Winnipesaukee. Her father, the Rev. Samuel H. Merrill, a well-known Congregational clergyman, was pastor of a church in Center Harbor at the time of her birth. Six years afterwards he returned with his family to his native state, Maine. During the Civil War, Merrill served as chaplain of the First Maine Cavalry, and Susan also had a brother in this famous regiment. Merrill's pastorates, aside from his war experiences, were principally in Maine. Susan Merrill's mother was Hannah Prentis, a native of New Hampshire. Merrill had one brother, Edward P. Merrill, and one sister, who resided in Lowell, Massachusetts. Merrill and Reed were friends in childhood, attending school together in Portland. They married in 1871. Reed was then a member of the Maine Legislature, and the young couple went immediately to Augusta, the state capital. They had one daughter, Katherine.
He was known for his acerbic wit (asked if his party might nominate him for President, he noted, "They could do worse, and they probably will"). His size, standing at over 6 feet in height and weighing over 300 lbs (136 kg), was also a distinguishing factor for him. Reed was a member of the social circle that included intellectuals and politicians Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Adams, John Hay and Mark Twain.
As a House freshman, Reed was appointed to the Potter Commission, which was to investigate voting irregularities in the presidential election of 1876, where his skill at cross examination forced Democrat Samuel J. Tilden to appear in person to defend his reputation. He chaired the Committee on the Judiciary (Forty-seventh Congress) and chaired the Rules Committee (Fifty-first, Fifty-fourth, and Fifty-fifth Congresses).
Reed was first elected Speaker after an intense fight with William McKinley of Ohio. Reed gained the support of young Theodore Roosevelt; his influence as the newly appointed Civil Service Commissioner was the decisive factor. Reed served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1889 to 1891 and then from 1895 to 1899, as well as being Chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.
During his time as Speaker, Reed assiduously and dramatically increased the power of the Speaker over the House; although the power of the Speaker had always waxed (most notably during Henry Clay's tenure) and waned, the position had previously commanded influence rather than outright power. Reed set out to put into practical effect his dictum, "The best system is to have one party govern and the other party watch." That was accomplished by carefully studying the existing procedures of the US House, most dating to the original designs, written by Thomas Jefferson. In particular, Reed sought to circumscribe the ability of the minority party to block business by way of its members refusing to answer a quorum call, which, under the rules, prevented a member from being counted as present even if he were physically in the chamber, thus forcing the House to suspend business. That is popularly called the disappearing quorum.
Reed's solution was enacted on January 29, 1890 in what has popularly been called the "Battle of the Reed Rules". That came about when Democrats attempted to block the inclusion of a newly elected Republican from West Virginia, Charles Brooks Smith. The motion to seat him passed by a tally of 162–1; however, at the time, a quorum consisted of 165 votes, and when voting closed Democrats shouted, "No quorum," triggering a formal House quorum count. Reed began the roll call; when members who were present in the chamber refused to answer, Reed directed the Clerk to count them as present anyway. Startled Democrats protested heatedly, issuing screams, threats, and insults at the Speaker. James B. McCreary, a Democrat from Kentucky, challenged Reed's authority to count him as present; Reed replied, "The Chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman from Kentucky is present. Does he deny it?"
Unable to deny their presence in the chamber, Democrats then tried to flee the chamber or hide under their desks, but Reed ordered the doors locked. (Texas Representative Constantine B. Kilgore was able to flee by kicking his way through a door.)
The conflict over parliamentary procedure lasted three days, with Democrats delaying consideration of the bill by introducing points of order to challenge the maneuver and then appealing Reed's rulings to the floor. Democrats finally dropped their objections on January 31, and Smith was seated on February 3 by a vote of 166–0. Six days later, with Smith seated, Reed won a vote on his new "Reed Rules," eliminating the disappearing quorum and lowering the quorum to 100 members. Though Democrats reinstated the disappearing quorum when they took control of the House the following year, Reed as minority leader proved so adroit at using the tactic against them that Democrats reinstated Reed Rules in 1894.
In 1889 and 1890, Republicans undertook one last stand in favor of federal enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment to protect the voting rights of blacks in the Solid South. Reed took a special interest in the project. Using his new rules vigorously, he won passage of the Lodge Bill in the House in 1890. The bill was later defeated in a filibuster in the Senate when Silver Republicans in the West traded it away for the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.
Reed sought the Republican nomination for President in 1896, but Mark Hanna secured the nomination for Ohio Governor William McKinley.
In 1898, Reed joined McKinley in efforts to head off war with Spain. When McKinley switched to supporting the war, Reed, refusing to change his position, opposed him and then resigned from both the speakership and his seat in Congress in 1899, returning to private law practice.
In early December 1902, Reed was in Washington on legal business with the United States Supreme Court. On December 2, Reed visited his former colleagues in the Ways and Means Committee room. Later that day, he became ill while in another room of the Capitol and was rushed to the nearby Arlington Hotel. In the Arlington, Reed was diagnosed with Bright's disease complicated by appendicitis; he died five days later at 12:10am on December 7 with his wife and daughter at his bedside. A Gridiron Club dinner was occurring at the same time in the same hotel as Reed's death. When news broke of Reed's passing, "the diners rose to drink a silent toast to a man who had so often been among them".
Henry Cabot Lodge eulogized him as "a good hater, who detested shams, humbugs and pretense above all else." Mark Twain wrote of him, "He was transparently honest and honorable, there was no furtiveness about him, and whoever came to know him trusted him and was not disappointed. He was wise, he was shrewd and alert, he was a clear and capable thinker, a logical reasoner, and a strong and convincing speaker."
He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Portland, Maine. His will was executed by his good friend, the financier Augustus G. Paine, Sr.. He left his family an estate of $200,000.
His daughter, Katherine Reed Balentine, started a monthly magazine in San Francisco called "The Yellow Ribbon", which promoted women's suffrage.
There is a Reed House at Bowdoin College.
His home town of Portland, Maine, erected a statue of him at the corner of Western Promenade and Pine Street in a ceremony on August 31, 1910. His last home in Portland has been designated a National Historic Landmark in his honor.
In 1894, he published his handbook on parliamentary procedure, titled "Reed's Rules: A Manual of General Parliamentary Law", which was, at the time, a very popular text on the subject and is still in use in the legislature of the State of Washington.
Biographies of the life of Thomas Brackett Reed have been written by Samuel McCall (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914), William A. Robinson (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1930), and Richard Stanley Offenberg (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1963). Most recently, finance writer James Grant wrote the biography entitled, "Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed: the Man who Broke the Filibuster." One chapter of Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower is substantially devoted to Reed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30908 |
Thunderbird and Whale
"Thunderbird and Whale" is an indigenous myth belonging to the mythological traditions of a number of tribes from the Pacific Northwest.
Whale was a monster, killing other whales and depriving the Quileute tribe of meat and oil. Thunderbird, a benevolent supernatural being, saw from its home high in the mountains that the people were starving.
It soared out over the coastal waters, then plunged into the ocean and seized Whale.
A struggle ensued; the ocean receded and rose again. Many canoes were flung into trees and many people were killed.
Thunderbird eventually succeeded in lifting Whale out of the ocean, carrying it high into the air and then dropping it.
Then another great battle occurred on the land.
In one of many variant versions of the myth, the sound of the whale dropping into the sea is the source of thunder. A young boy of a Vancouver Island people, the Comox, was fascinated by the sound of thunder, and heard it from behind a point of land. He crossed that point, following the sound of thunder, and discovered the spectacle of the Thunderbird seizing and dropping the whale. The Thunderbird saw the boy, and told him that the story was now his, and he had the right to wear the Thunderbird mask and wings at the potlatch.
In another variant, the flapping of the Thunderbird's wings is the source of the thunder
In the 1980s, geologists found evidence that an earthquake, powerful enough to send a tsunami all the way to Japan, hit the American Pacific Northwest in 1700. Some ethnologists believe that "Thunderbird and Whale" is a description of that disaster. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30913 |
Triage
Triage () is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments by the severity of their condition or likelihood of recovery with and without treatment. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately; influencing the order and priority of emergency treatment, emergency transport, or transport destination for the patient.
This article covers the various types of triage systems as it occurs in medical emergencies, including the pre-hospital setting, disasters, and emergency department treatment, along with their limitations and ethical considerations.
The term comes from the French verb "trier", meaning to separate, sort, shift or select.
Modern medical triage was invented by Dominique Jean Larrey, a surgeon during the Napoleonic Wars, who "treat[ed] the wounded according to the observed gravity of their injuries and the urgency for medical care, regardless of their rank or nationality", though the general concept of prioritizing by prognosis is foreshadowed in a 17th-century BCE Egyptian document. Triage was used further during World War I by French doctors treating the battlefield wounded at the aid stations behind the front. Those responsible for the removal of the wounded from a battlefield or their care afterwards would divide the victims into three categories:
For many emergency medical services (EMS) systems, a similar model may sometimes still be applied. In the earliest stages of an incident, such as when one or two paramedics exist to twenty or more patients, practicality demands that the above, more "primitive" model will be used. However, once a full response has occurred and many hands are available, paramedics will usually use the model included in their service policy and standing orders.
As medical technology has advanced, so have modern approaches to triage, which are increasingly based on scientific models. The categorizations of the victims are frequently the result of triage scores based on specific physiological assessment findings. Some models, such as the START model may be algorithm-based. As triage concepts become more sophisticated, triage guidance is also evolving into both software and hardware decision support products for use by caregivers in both hospitals and the field.
Simple triage is usually used in a scene of an accident or "mass-casualty incident" (MCI), in order to sort patients into those who need critical attention and immediate transport to the hospital and those with less serious injuries. This step can be started before transportation becomes available.
Upon completion of the initial assessment by physicians, nurses or paramedical personnel, each patient may be labelled which may identify the patient, display assessment findings, and identify the priority of the patient's need for medical treatment and transport from the emergency scene. At its most primitive, patients may be simply marked with coloured flagging tape or with marker pens. Pre-printed cards for this purpose are known as a triage tags.
A triage tag is a prefabricated label placed on each patient that serves to accomplish several objectives:
Triage tags may take a variety of forms. Some countries use a nationally standardized triage tag, while in other countries commercially available triage tags are used, and these will vary by jurisdictional choice. The most commonly used commercial systems include the METTAG, the SMARTTAG, E/T LIGHT tm and the CRUCIFORM systems. More advanced tagging systems incorporate special markers to indicate whether or not patients have been contaminated by hazardous materials, and also tear off strips for tracking the movement of patients through the process. Some of these tracking systems are beginning to incorporate the use of handheld computers, and in some cases, bar code scanners.
In advanced triage, specially trained doctors, nurses and paramedics may decide that some seriously injured people should not receive advanced care because they are unlikely to survive. It is used to divert scarce resources away from patients with little chance of survival in order to increase the chances for others with higher likelihoods.
The use of advanced triage may become necessary when medical professionals decide that the medical resources available are not sufficient to treat all the people who need help. The treatment being prioritized can include the time spent on medical care, or drugs or other limited resources. This has happened in disasters such as terrorist attacks, mass shootings, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, and rail accidents. In these cases some percentage of patients will die regardless of medical care because of the severity of their injuries. Others would live if given immediate medical care, but would die without it.
In these extreme situations, any medical care given to people who will die anyway can be considered to be care withdrawn from others who might have survived (or perhaps suffered less severe disability from their injuries) had they been treated instead. It becomes the task of the disaster medical authorities to set aside some victims as hopeless, to avoid trying to save one life at the expense of several others.
If immediate treatment is successful, the patient may improve (although this may be temporary) and this improvement may allow the patient to be categorized to a lower priority in the short term. Triage should be a continuous process and categories should be checked regularly to ensure that the priority remains correct given the patient's condition. A trauma score is invariably taken when the victim first comes into hospital and subsequent trauma scores are taken to account for any changes in the victim's physiological parameters. If a record is maintained, the receiving hospital doctor can see a trauma score time series from the start of the incident, which may allow definitive treatment earlier.
Usually, triage refers to prioritizing admission. A similar process can be applied to discharging patients early when the medical system is stressed. This process has been called "reverse triage". When a major wave of patients arrive to a hospital, such as immediately after a natural disaster, many hospital beds will be already occupied by regular non-critical patients. To accommodate a greater number of the new critical patients, the existing patients may be triaged, and those who will not need immediate care can be discharged until the surge has dissipated, for example through the establishment of temporary medical facilities in the region.
Undertriage is underestimating the severity of an illness or injury. An example of this would be categorizing a Priority 1 (Immediate) patient as a Priority 2 (Delayed) or Priority 3 (Minimal). Historically, acceptable undertriage rates have been deemed 5% or less.
Overtriage is the overestimating of the severity of an illness or injury. An example of this would be categorizing a Priority 3 (Minimal) patient as a Priority 2 (Delayed) or Priority 1 (Immediate). Acceptable overtriage rates have been typically up to 50% in an effort to avoid undertriage. Some studies suggest that overtriage is less likely to occur when triaging is performed by hospital medical teams, rather than paramedics or EMTs.
In telephone triage, decision makers over the phone must effectively assess the patient's symptoms and provide directives based on the urgency. This should be done in a timely fashion while meeting standard guidelines in order to prevent symptoms from worsening.
For patients that have a poor prognosis and are expected to die regardless of the medical treatment available, palliative care such as painkillers may be given to ease suffering before they die.
In the field, triage sets priorities for evacuation or relocation to other care facilities.
Alternative care facilities are places that are set up for the care of large numbers of patients, or are places that could be so set up. Examples include schools, sports stadiums, and large camps that can be prepared and used for the care, feeding, and holding of large numbers of victims of a mass casualty or other type of event. Such improvised facilities are generally developed in cooperation with the local hospital, which sees them as a strategy for creating surge capacity. While hospitals remain the preferred destination for all patients, during a mass casualty event such improvised facilities may be required in order to divert low-acuity patients away from hospitals in order to prevent the hospitals becoming overwhelmed.
In advanced triage systems, secondary triage is typically implemented by emergency nurses, skilled paramedics, or battlefield medical personnel within the emergency departments of hospitals during disasters, injured people are sorted into five categories.
Some crippling injuries, even if not life-threatening, may be elevated in priority based on the available capabilities. During peacetime, most amputation injuries may be triaged "Red" because surgical reattachment must take place within minutes, even though in all probability the person will not die without a thumb or hand.
"This section is for examples of specific triage systems and methods. For general triage concepts, see the sections for types of triage, treatment options, and outcomes."
During the early stages of an incident, first responders may be overwhelmed by the scope of patients and injuries. One valuable technique is the Patient Assist Method (PAM). The responders quickly establish a casualty collection point (CCP) and advise, either by yelling, or over a loudspeaker, that "anyone requiring assistance should move to the selected area (CCP)". This does several things at once, it identifies patients that are not so severely injured, that they need immediate help, it physically clears the scene, and provides possible assistants to the responders. As those who can move, do so, the responders then ask, "anyone who still needs assistance, yell out or raise your hands"; this further identifies patients who are responsive, yet maybe unable to move. Now the responders can rapidly assess the remaining patients who are either expectant, or are in need of immediate aid. From that point the first responder is quickly able to identify those in need of immediate attention, while not being distracted or overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation. Using this method assumes the ability to hear. Deaf, partially deaf, or victims of a large blast injury may not be able to hear these instructions.
The following are examples of scoring systems used:
S.T.A.R.T. (Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment) is a simple triage system that can be performed by lightly trained lay and emergency personnel in emergencies. It is not intended to supersede or instruct medical personnel or techniques. It has been taught to California emergency workers for use in earthquakes. It was developed at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, California for use by emergency services. It has been field-proven in mass casualty incidents such as train wrecks and bus accidents, though it was developed by community emergency response teams (CERTs) and firefighters after earthquakes.
Triage separates the injured into four groups:
Triage also sets priorities for evacuation and transport as follows:
The JumpSTART pediatric triage MCI triage tool is a variation of the S.T.A.R.T. model. Both systems are used to sort patients into categories at mass casualty incidents (MCIs). However, JumpSTART was designed specifically for triaging children in disaster settings. Though JumpSTART was developed for use in children from infancy to age 8, where age is not immediately obvious, it is used in any patient who appears to be a child (patients who appear to be young adults are triaged using START).
Within the hospital system, the first stage on arrival at the emergency department is assessment by the hospital triage nurse. This nurse will evaluate the patient's condition, as well as any changes, and will determine their priority for admission to the emergency department and also for treatment. Once emergency assessment and treatment are complete, the patient may need to be referred to the hospital's internal triage system.
For a typical inpatient hospital triage system, a triage nurse or physician will either field requests for admission from the ER physician on patients needing admission or from physicians taking care of patients from other floors who can be transferred because they no longer need that level of care (i.e. intensive care unit patient is stable for the medical floor). This helps patients flow more efficiently in the hospital.
This triage position is often done by a hospitalist. A major factor contributing to the triage decision is available hospital bed space. The triage hospitalist must determine, in conjunction with a hospital's "bed control" and admitting team, what beds are available for optimal utilization of resources in order to provide safe care to all patients. A typical surgical team will have their own system of triage for trauma and general surgery patients. This is also true for neurology and neurosurgical services. The overall goal of triage, in this system, is to both determine if a patient is appropriate for a given level of care and to ensure that hospital resources are utilized effectively.
In an advanced triage process injured people are sorted into categories. Conventionally there are five classifications with corresponding colors and numbers although this may vary by region.
The "Australasian Triage Scale" (abbreviated "ATS" and formally known as the "National Triage Scale") is a triage system that is implemented in both Australia and New Zealand. The scale has been in use since 1994. The scale consists of 5 levels, with 1 being the most critical (resuscitation), and 5 being the least critical (nonurgent).
In the mid-1980s, The Victoria General Hospital, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, introduced paramedic triage in its Emergency Department. Unlike all other centres in North America that employ physician and primarily nurse triage models, this hospital began the practice of employing Primary Care level paramedics to perform triage upon entry to the Emergency Department. In 1997, following the amalgamation of two of the city's largest hospitals, the Emergency Department at the Victoria General closed. The paramedic triage system was moved to the city's only remaining adult emergency department, located at the New Halifax Infirmary. In 2006, a triage protocol on whom to exclude from treatment during a flu pandemic was written by a team of critical-care doctors at the behest of the Ontario government.
For routine emergencies, many locales in Canada now employ the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) for all incoming patients. The system categorizes patients by both injury and physiological findings, and ranks them by severity from 1–5 (1 being highest). The model is used by both paramedics and E/R nurses, and also for pre-arrival notifications in some cases. The model provides a common frame of reference for both nurses and paramedics, although the two groups do not always agree on scoring. It also provides a method, in some communities, for benchmarking the accuracy of pre-triage of calls using AMPDS (What percentage of emergency calls have return priorities of CTAS 1,2,3, etc.) and these findings are reported as part of a municipal performance benchmarking initiative in Ontario. Curiously enough the model is not currently used for mass casualty triage, and is replaced by the START protocol and METTAG triage tags.
Triage at an accident scene is performed by a paramedic or an emergency physician, using the four-level scale of Can wait, Has to wait, Cannot wait, and Lost.
In France, the Prehospital triage in case of a disaster uses a four-level scale:
This triage is performed by a physician called "médecin trieur" (sorting medic). This triage is usually performed at the field hospital (PMA–"poste médical avancé", i.e. forward medical post). The absolute urgencies are usually treated onsite (the PMA has an operating room) or evacuated to a hospital. The relative urgencies are just placed under watch, waiting for an evacuation. The involved are addressed to another structure called the CUMP–"Cellule d'urgence médico-psychologique" (medical-psychological urgency cell); this is a resting zone, with food and possibly temporary lodging, and a psychologist to take care of the brief reactive psychosis and avoid post-traumatic stress disorder.
In the emergency department of a hospital, the triage is performed by a physician called MAO–"médecin d'accueil et d'orientation" (reception and orientation physician), and a nurse called IOA–" infirmière d'organisation et d'accueil" (organisation and reception nurse). Some hospitals and SAMU organisations now use the "Cruciform" card referred to elsewhere.
France has also a Phone Triage system for Medical Emergencies Phone Demands in its Samu Medical Regulation Centers through the 15 medical free national hot line. "Medical Doctor Regulator" decides what is to be the most efficient solution = Emergency Telemedecine or dispatch of an Ambulance, a General Practitioner or a Physician+ Nurse + Ambulance Man, Hospital based MICU (Mobile Intensive Care Unit).
Preliminary assessment of injuries is usually done by the first ambulance crew on scene, with this role being assumed by the first doctor arriving at the scene. As a rule, there will be no cardiopulmonary resuscitation, so patients who do not breathe on their own or develop circulation after their airways are cleared will be tagged "deceased". Also, not every major injury automatically qualifies for a red tag. A patient with a traumatic amputation of the forearm might just be tagged yellow, have the bleeding stopped, and then be sent to a hospital when possible. After the preliminary assessment, a more specific and definite triage will follow, as soon as patients are brought to a field treatment facility. There, they will be disrobed and fully examined by an emergency physician. This will take approximately 90 seconds per patient.
The German triage system also uses four, sometimes five colour codes to denote the urgency of treatment. Typically, every ambulance is equipped with a folder or bag with coloured ribbons or triage tags.
The urgency is denoted as follows:
In Hong Kong, triage in Accident & Emergency Departments is performed by experienced registered nurses, patients are divided into five triage categories: "Critical", "Emergency", "Urgent", "Semi-urgent" and "Non-urgent".
In Japan, the triage system is mainly used by health professionals. The categories of triage, in corresponding color codes, are:
All public hospitals in Singapore use the Patient Acuity Category Scale (PACS) to triage patient in Emergency Departement. PACS is a symptom-based differential diagnosis approach that triages patients according to their presenting complaints and objective assessments such as vital signs and Glasgow Coma Scale, allowing acute patients to be identified quickly for treatment. PACS classifies patients into four main categories: P1, P2, P3, and P4.
In Spain, there are 2 models which are the most common found in hospitals around the country:
Some autonomous communities in Spain, like Navarre and the Valencian Community, have created their own systems for the community hospitals.
In the UK, the commonly used triage system is the Smart Incident Command System, taught on the MIMMS (Major Incident Medical Management (and) Support) training program. The UK Armed Forces use this system on operations. This grades casualties from Priority 1 (needs immediate treatment) to Priority 3 (can wait for delayed treatment). There is an additional Priority 4 (expectant, likely to die even with treatment) but the use of this category requires senior medical authority.
In the UK and Europe, the triage process used is sometimes similar to that of the United States (see below), but the categories are different:
Triage in a multi-scale destruction, disaster, catastrophic, casualty event, such as following a tornado or an explosion in a populated area, first responders follow a similar triage category scale as the US military. The civilian medical industry uses a similar system for triage. Normally medical personnel aren't immediately available on scene. First responders are usually the first to arrive on scene. They could be police, fire rescue, paramedics, or community individuals with disaster training (CERT certified). They are trained to perform first aid, basic life saving and rescue techniques while performing the greatest good, for the greatest number of people. They will rapidly classify victims and sort them into 4 categories, treating quickly as they go. This system is intended to rapidly identify and classify victims for arriving transport or advanced care medical personnel such as doctors and nurses. The local National Guard and other military units responding would be using the military system of triage rather than civilian.
The triage categories are general and the names may vary by region of the nation:
A battlefield situation, however, requires medics and corpsmen to rank casualties for precedence in MEDEVAC or CASEVAC. The casualties are then transported to a higher level of care, either a Forward Surgical Team or Combat Support Hospital and re-triaged by a nurse or doctor. In a combat situation, the triage system is based solely on resources and ability to save the maximum number of lives within the means of the hospital supplies and personnel.
The triage categories (with corresponding color codes), in precedence, are:
Afterwards, casualties are given an evacuation priority based on need:
In a "naval combat situation", the triage officer must weigh the tactical situation with supplies on hand and the realistic capacity of the medical personnel. This process can be ever-changing, dependent upon the situation and must attempt to do the maximum good for the maximum number of casualties.
Field assessments are made by two methods: primary survey (used to detect & treat life-threatening injuries) and secondary survey (used to treat non-life-threatening injuries) with the following categories:
Notions of mass casualty triage as an efficient rationing process of determining priority based upon injury severity are not supported by research, evaluation and testing of current triage practices, which lack scientific and methodological bases. START and START-like (START) triage that use color-coded categories to prioritize provide poor assessments of injury severity and then leave it to providers to subjectively order and allocate resources within flawed categories. Some of these limitations include:
Research indicates there are wide ranges and overlaps of survival probabilities of the Immediate and Delayed categories, and other START limitations. The same physiologic measures can have markedly different survival probabilities for blunt and penetrating injuries. For example, a START Delayed (second priority) can have a survival probability of 63% for blunt trauma and a survival probability of 32% for penetrating trauma with the same physiological measures – both with expected rapid deterioration, while a START Immediate (first priority) can have survival probabilities that extend to above 95% with expected slow deterioration. Age categories exacerbate this. For example, a geriatric patient with a penetrating injury in the Delayed category can have an 8% survival probability, and a pediatric patient in the Immediate category can have a 98% survival probability. Issues with the other START categories have also been noted. In this context, color-coded tagging accuracy metrics are not scientifically meaningful.
Poor assessments, invalid categories, no objective methodology and tools for prioritizing casualties and allocating resources, and a protocol of worst first triage provide some challenges for emergency and disaster preparedness and response. These are clear obstacles for efficient triage and resource rationing, for maximizing savings of lives, for best practices and National Incident Management System (NIMS) compatibilities, and for effective response planning and training.
Inefficient triage also provides challenges in containing health care costs and waste. Field triage is based upon the notion of up to 50% overtriage as being acceptable. There have been no cost-benefit analyses of the costs and mitigation of triage inefficiencies embedded in the healthcare system. Such analyses are often required for healthcare grants funded by taxpayers, and represent normal engineering and management science practice. These inefficiencies relate to the following cost areas:
Because treatment is intentionally delayed or withheld from patients, triage has ethical implications that complicates the decision-making process.
Since ethical implications vary between different settings and the type of triage system employed, there is often no single gold-standard approach to triage. Once triage decisions have been made, it may be difficult to evaluate afterwards whether the decisions were ethically justified and the appropriate course of action. This can be especially stressful for triage responders who lack experience or support from peers.
It is advised for emergency departments to preemptively plan strategies in attempts to mitigate the emotional burden on these triage responders. While doing so, standards of care must be maintained to preserve the safety of both patients and providers.
Despite abstract philosophical disagreements, there is widespread agreement among ethicists that, in practice, during the COVID-19 pandemic triage should prioritize "those who have the best chance of surviving".
Under the utilitarian model, triage decisions are aimed to maximize the most benefits to the most people possible.
During disaster scenarios, this approach is further complicated and may not be entirely possible. Using this approach implies that some individuals may likely suffer or perish in order for the majority to survive. Triage officers must allocate limited resources and weigh an individual's needs with the population as a whole.
There is wide discussion regarding how VIPs and celebrities should be cared for in the emergency department. It is generally argued that giving special considerations or deviating from the standard medical protocol for VIPs or celebrities is unethical due to the cost of others. However, others argue that it may be morally justifiable as long as their treatment does not hinder the needs of others after assessing overall fairness, quality of care, privacy, and other ethical implications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30919 |
Tolstoy family
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi (), is a family of Russian gentry that acceded to the high aristocracy of the Russian Empire. The name Tolstoy (Russian "Толстой") is itself derived from the Russian adjective "толстый" ("thick, stout, fat"). They are the descendants of Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy ("the Fat"), who moved from Chernigov to Moscow and served under Vasily II of Moscow in the 15th century. The "wild Tolstoys", as they were known in the high society of Imperial Russia, have left a lasting legacy in Russian politics, military history, literature, and fine arts.
The Tolstoys were a family of provincial Muscovite gentry who claimed their ancestry to a mythical Lithuanian nobleman named Indris stated by Pyotr Tolstoy as supposedly having arrived from the Holy Roman Empire to Chernigov in 1353 together with his two sons Litvinos (or Litvonis) and Zimonten (or Zigmont) and a druzhina of 3000 men. Indris was then supposedly converted to Eastern Orthodoxy as Leonty and his sons — as Konstantin and Feodor, respectively. Konstantin's grandson, Andrei Kharitonovich, was nicknamed Tolstiy (translated as "fat") by Vasily II of Moscow after he moved from Chernigov to Moscow.
Because of the pagan names and the fact that Chernigov at the time was ruled by Demetrius I Starshy some researches concluded that they were Lithuanians who arrived from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then part of the State of the Teutonic Order. At the same time, no mention of Indris was ever found in the 14-16th century documents, while the Chernigov Chronicles used by Pyotr Tolstoy as a reference were lost. The first documented members of the Tolstoy family also lived in the 17th century. Pyotr Tolstoy is the founder of the titled branch of the family; he was granted the title of count by Peter the Great. The untitled branch of the same stem is descended from Ivan Andreevich Tolstoy. Their common ancestor was Andrey Vasilievich Tolstoy, who married Stepanida Miloslavskaya, a cousin of the tsarina. This marriage had allowed the average gentry family to enter the Moscow court. The Tolstoy family is also found amongst untitled provincial gentry of the same origins.
Two members of the family were active during the Napoleonic wars. Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Tolstoy (1761–1844) served under Suvorov in wars against Poland and Turkey, was made a general-adjutant in 1797, went as an ambassador to Paris in 1807 and tried to persuade Alexander I to prepare for the war against France, without much success though. He served as the governor of St Petersburg and Kronstadt from 1828 until his death.
Alexander Ivanovich Tolstoy (1770–1857), stemming from a collateral branch of the family, inherited the comital title and estates of his childless uncle, the last of the Ostermanns.
He first distinguished himself in the Battle of Czarnowo on the night and following morning of 23–24 December 1806, where under his command the 2nd Division of the Russian Army in Poland held out for fifteen hours against the whole army commanded by Napoleon. One of the most admired generals of the anti-Napoleonic coalition, he was rewarded for his courage in the battles at Pultusk and Eylau. At Guttstadt he was wounded so seriously that they feared for his life. In the great battle of Borodino he brilliantly commanded the key positions until he was shell-shocked and taken away from the battlefield. Ostermann-Tolstoy was once again wounded in the battle of Bautzen (1813) but didn't give up command of his force. His crowning achievement was the victory at Kulm (August 30, 1813), which cost him amputation of the left arm. When the war was over, he quarreled with the Emperor, resigned and spent the rest of his life in Europe.
Count Feodor Petrovich Tolstoy (1783–1873), sympathetically mentioned by Pushkin in "Eugene Onegin", was one of the most fashionable Russian drawers and painters of the 1820s. Although he prepared fine illustrations for Bogdanovich's "Dushenka", his genuine vocation was wax modeling and design of medals. As he gradually went blind he had to give up drawing and started writing ballets and librettos for operas. He was appointed Vice-President of the Academy of Arts in 1828. Many of his works may be seen in the Russian Museum, St Petersburg.
Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy (1782–1846) was a notorious drunkard, gastronome, and duellist. It is said that he killed 11 people in duels. In 1803 he participated in the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth. After he had his body tattooed at the Marquesas and debauched all the crew, captain Krusenstern had to maroon him on the Aleutian Islands near Kamchatka. When he returned to St Petersburg, Count Fedor was nicknamed "Amerikanets" ("the American"). He fought bravely in the Patriotic War of 1812 but scandalized his family again by marrying a Gypsy singer in 1821. Alexander Griboyedov satirized him in "Woe from Wit", and his cousin Leo Tolstoy — who called him an "extraordinary, criminal, and attractive man" — fictionalized him as Dolokhov in "War and Peace".
Many of the Tolstoys devoted their spare time to literary pursuits. For instance, Count Alexei Konstantinovich (1817–75) was a courtier but also one of the most popular Russian poets of his time. He wrote admirable ballads, a historical novel, some licentious verse, and satires published under the penname of Kozma Prutkov. His lasting contribution to the Russian literature was a trilogy of historical dramas, modelled after Pushkin's "Boris Godunov".
Count Lev Nikolaevich (1828–1910), more widely known abroad as Leo Tolstoy, is acclaimed as one of the greatest novelists of all time. After he started his career in the military, he was first drawn to writing books when he served in Chechenya, and already his first story, "Detstvo" ("Childhood"), was something quite unlike anything written before him. It was in his family estate Yasnaya Polyana near Tula that he created two novels, "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", that are widely acclaimed as among the best novels ever written. Later he developed a kind of non-traditional Christian philosophy, described in his work "The Kingdom of God is Within You" which inspired Rainer Maria Rilke and Mohandas Gandhi, then a young lawyer, whose influence extended to Martin Luther King.
Of Lev's thirteen children, most spent their life either promoting his teachings or denouncing them. His youngest daughter and secretary, Alexandra Lvovna (1884–1979), had a particularly troubled life. Although she shared with her father the doctrine of non-violence, she felt it was her duty to take part in the events of World War I.
Count Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1883–1945) belonged to a different branch of the family. His early short stories, published in 1910s, were panned by critics for excessive naturalism and wanton eroticism. After the Revolution he briefly emigrated to Germany, but then changed his political views and returned to the Soviet Union. His science fiction novels "Aelita" (1923), about a journey to Mars, and "The Garin Death Ray" (1927) are still popular with readers. In his later years he published two lengthy novels on historical subjects, "Peter the First" (1929–45) and "The Road to Calvary" (1922-41). As a staunch supporter of Joseph Stalin, he became known as "Red Count" or "Comrade Count" and his work was acknowledged to be classics of the Soviet literature. Most of his reputation declined with that of Socialist Realism, but his children's tale character Buratino retains his strong legacy with the younger audience of Russia and across the former Soviet space, appearing as popular reading, a movie, and a variety of derivative forms.
His granddaughter Tatiana Tolstaya (born in 1951) is one of the foremost Russian short story writers. Another living member of the family is Nikolai Tolstoy-Miloslavsky (born in 1935), a controversial British historian.
Some of the members of the Tolstoy family left Russia in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union, and many of the Leo Tolstoy's relatives and descendants today live in Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Among them are Swedish jazz singer Viktoria Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy's last surviving grandchild, Countess Tatiana Tolstoy-Paus, died in 2007 at Herresta manor in Sweden, which is owned by Leo Tolstoy's descendants in the Paus family. Two of Leo Tolstoy's great-great-grandsons are Pyotr Tolstoy, a Russian TV presenter and State Duma deputy since 2016 and Vladimir Tolstoy, journalist and adviser to the President of Russia on culture.
•Todd C. Evans (b. 1973),Great grandson x3 of Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, (The American) Senior Home Health Care Advocate and Transitional care coordinator
Several places in Russia are named to commemorate Leo Tolstoy, e.g., Tolstoy-Yurt, village in Chechnya. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30925 |
Tom Daschle
Thomas Andrew Daschle (; born December 9, 1947) is a retired American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Daschle obtained a degree at South Dakota State University, and also served in the United States Air Force. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1978 and served four terms. In 1986, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming Minority Leader in 1995 and Majority Leader in 2001, becoming the highest-ranking elected official in South Dakota history.
In 2004, he was defeated for reelection in a remarkable upset. Later, he took a position as a policy advisor with a lobbying firm, became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and co-authored a book advocating universal health care.
Daschle was an early supporter of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, and was nominated by President-elect Obama for the position of Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services after the 2008 election. However, Daschle withdrew his name on February 3, 2009, amid a growing controversy over his failure to properly report and pay income taxes. He is currently working for The Daschle Group, a Public Policy Advisory of Baker Donelson, a large law firm and lobbying group.
Daschle was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, the son of Elizabeth B. (née Meier) and Sebastian C. Daschle, both of German descent. His paternal grandparents were Volga Germans. He grew up in a working-class Roman Catholic family, the eldest of four brothers.
He became the first person in his family to graduate from college when he earned a B.A. from the Department of Political Science at South Dakota State University in 1969. While attending South Dakota State University, Daschle became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega. From 1969 to 1972, Daschle served in the United States Air Force as an intelligence officer with the Strategic Air Command.
In the mid-1970s Daschle was an aide to Senator James Abourezk.
In 1978 Daschle was elected to the United States House of Representatives, winning the race by a margin of 139 votes, following a recount, out of more than 129,000 votes cast. Daschle served four terms in the House of Representatives and quickly became a part of the Democratic leadership.
Although Daschle was not seeking the Vice-Presidency, he received 10 (0.30%) delegate votes for Vice President of the United States at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Several others also received protest votes, but incumbent Vice President Walter Mondale was nevertheless renominated easily.
In 1986, Daschle was elected to the senate in a close victory over incumbent Republican James Abdnor. In his first year, he was appointed to the Finance Committee.
In 1994 he was chosen by his colleagues to succeed the retiring Senator George Mitchell as Democratic minority leader. In the history of the Senate, only Lyndon B. Johnson had served fewer years before being elected to lead his party. In addition to the minority leader's post, Daschle served as a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. South Dakotans reelected Daschle to the Senate by overwhelming margins in 1998.
At various points in his career, he served on the Veterans Affairs, Indian Affairs, Finance, and Ethics Committees.
When the 107th Congress commenced on January 3, 2001, the Senate was evenly divided—that is, there were 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Outgoing Vice President Al Gore acted in his constitutional capacity as ex officio President of the Senate, and used his tie-breaking vote to give the Democrats the majority in that chamber. For the next two weeks, Daschle served as Senate Majority Leader.
Then, upon the commencement of the Bush administration on January 20, 2001, Dick Cheney became president of the senate, thereby returning Democrats to the minority in that body; Daschle reverted to the position of Senate Minority Leader. However, on June 6, 2001, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced in that he was leaving the Senate Republican caucus to become an independent and to caucus with Democrats; this once again returned control of the body to the Democrats and Daschle again became majority leader.
Democratic losses in the November 2002 elections returned the party to the minority in the senate in January 2003, and Daschle once more reverted to being minority leader.
Daschle recounted his senate experiences from 2001 to 2003 in his first book, "Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever" , published in 2003. With Charles Robbins, he has also written the book "The U.S. Senate: Fundamentals of American Government".
In October 2001, while he was the Senate Majority Leader, Daschle's office received a letter containing anthrax, becoming a target of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Some of his staffers were confirmed to have been exposed, as well as several of Senator Russ Feingold's staffers and Capitol police officers. His suite at the Hart Senate Office Building was the focus of an intensive cleanup led by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Daschle has a mixed voting record on abortion-related issues, which led the pro-choice organization NARAL to give him a 50% vote rating.
In 1999 and 2003, Daschle voted in favor of the ban on partial-birth abortion, and supported legislation making it a crime to harm an unborn child when someone attacks a pregnant woman. (Investigators into the 2001 anthrax attacks, which included Senator Daschle's Capitol Hill office, suspect that alleged anthrax mailer Bruce Ivins may have chosen to target Daschle over his views on abortion, although Ivins's lawyer disputed this alleged motive.)
In 2003, Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Carlson reportedly wrote to Daschle, criticizing his stance on abortion as conflicting with Roman Catholic teaching, and stating that Daschle should no longer identify himself as a Catholic.
In the 2004 Senate election, John Thune defeated Daschle by 4,508 votes, 50.5% to 49.4%. It was the first time that a Senate party leader had lost a bid for reelection since 1952 when Barry Goldwater defeated Ernest McFarland in Arizona. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist visited South Dakota to campaign for Thune, breaking an unwritten tradition that a leader of one party would not actively campaign for the defeat of the other.
Throughout the campaign, Thune, along with Frist, President George W. Bush, and Vice President Cheney, frequently accused Daschle of being the "chief obstructionist" of Bush's agenda and charged him with using filibusters to block confirmation of several of Bush's nominees. The Republican candidate also drove home his strong support for the war. In a nationally televised debate on NBC's "Meet the Press", Thune accused Daschle of "emboldening the enemy" in his skepticism of the Iraq War.
When the race began in early 2004, Daschle led by 7% in January and February. By May, his lead was just 2% and summer polls showed a varying number of trends: Daschle or Thune led by no more than 2%, but some polls showed a tie. Throughout September, Daschle led Thune by margins of 2–5% while during the entire month of October into the November 2 election, most polls showed that Thune and Daschle were dead even, usually tied 49–49 among likely voters. Some polls showed either Thune or Daschle leading by extremely slim margins.
Following his reelection defeat, Daschle took a position with the lobbying arm of the K Street law firm Alston & Bird. Because he was prohibited by law from lobbying for one year after leaving the Senate, he instead worked as a "special policy adviser" for the firm.
Alston & Bird's healthcare clients include CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories, and HealthSouth. The firm was paid $5.8 million between January and September 2008 to represent companies and associations before Congress and the executive branch, with 60% of that money coming from the healthcare industry. Daschle was recruited by the former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Daschle's salary from Alston & Bird for the year 2008 was reportedly $2 million.
Daschle was also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. In addition, he served as National Co-Chair of ONE Vote ‘08, along with former senator Bill Frist. He and former senators George Mitchell, Bob Dole, and Howard Baker formed the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), dedicated to finding bipartisan solutions for policy disputes. Daschle is also a co-chair of BPC's Health Project.
In May 2005, South Dakota State University, Daschle's alma mater, conferred upon him an honorary doctorate for public service. In May 2011, Daschle was further honored with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Northern State University in his hometown of Aberdeen.
In late September 2005, Daschle caught the attention of the media by reactivating his political action committee, changing its name from DASHPAC to New Leadership for America PAC and procuring a speaking slot at the Iowa Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. He continued to keep a relatively high-profile among Democratic interest groups. These moves were interpreted by the media as an exploration of a potential 2008 Presidential candidacy. On December 2, 2006, he announced he would not run for president in 2008.
In an appearance on "Meet the Press" on February 12, 2006, former senator Daschle endorsed a controversial warrantless surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA), explaining that he had been briefed on the program while he was the Democratic leader in the Senate.
In addition, Senator Daschle is a member of the board of trustees for the Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. The center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of extreme poverty and disease in the developing world.
Tom Daschle is a Member of the Global Leadership Foundation, an organization which works to support democratic leadership, prevent and resolve conflict through mediation and promote good governance in the form of democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law. It does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today's national leaders. It is a not-for-profit organization composed of former heads of government, senior governmental and international organization officials who work closely with heads of Government on governance-related issues of concern to them.
Daschle also served as vice chair of the board of directors of National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
Daschle is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.
Daschle is the co-chair of the national advisory board at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute was created at the University of Arizona after the tragic shooting of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, that killed 6 people and wounded 13 others.
In 2019, Daschle was named to the advisory board of Northern Swan Holdings Inc., a cannabis investment firm. Said Daschle: "I believe it is imperative to loosen the restrictions on cannabis so we can research its properties and fully understand how patients can benefit from its medicinal use."
On February 21, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Daschle, after ruling out a presidential bid of his own in December 2006, had thrown his support behind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois for the 2008 presidential election, saying that Obama "personifies the future of Democratic leadership in our country."
In January 2005, having suggested that Obama take on some of his staffers, Daschle exited the Senate just as Obama entered. These included Daschle's outgoing chief-of-staff Pete Rouse who helped to create a two-year plan in the Senate that would fast-track Obama for the presidential nomination. Daschle himself told Obama in 2006 that "windows of opportunity for running for the presidency close quickly. And that he should not assume, if he passes up this window, that there will be another."
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Daschle served as a key advisor to Obama and one of the national co-chairs for Obama's campaign. On June 3, 2008, Obama lost to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in Daschle's home state of South Dakota, although that night Obama clinched his party's nomination anyway.
Two days later, sources indicated Daschle "is interested in universal health care and might relish serving as HHS secretary." In the general election campaign, Daschle continued to consult Obama, campaign for him across swing states, and advise his campaign organization until Obama was ultimately elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008.
On November 19, 2008, the press reported that Daschle had accepted Obama's offer to be nominated for Health and Human Services Secretary. His selection was announced at a news conference with Obama on December 11, 2008.
Some organizations objected to Daschle's selection, arguing that his work at Alston & Bird was tantamount to lobbying and therefore his selection violated Obama's promise to keep special interests out of the White House. According to Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, Daschle technically complies with the transition rules against lobbyists but "many power brokers never register as lobbyists, but they are every bit as powerful." Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Obama transition, responded that Daschle's work "does not represent a bar to his service in the transition" since "he was not a lobbyist, and he will recuse himself from any work that presents a conflict of interest." Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, praised Daschle on his nomination to Secretary of Health and Human Services for his "deep commitment to securing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation."
When Daschle was officially nominated for his Cabinet position on January 20, 2009, confirmation by the Senate was required. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a confirmation hearing for Daschle on January 8, 2009. A second Senate committee, the Finance Committee, also traditionally reviews HHS Secretary nominees; the committee discussed his nomination behind closed doors on February 2, 2009.
On January 30, 2009, it was reported that Daschle's friendship and business partnership with businessman Leo Hindery could cause problems for Daschle's Senate confirmation. Daschle has been a paid consultant and advisor to Hindery's InterMedia Partners since 2005, during which time he received from Hindery access to a limousine and chauffeur. Daschle reportedly did not declare this service on his annual tax forms as required by law. A spokeswoman for Daschle said that he "simply and probably naively" considered the use of the car and driver "a generous offer" from Hindery, "a longtime friend." Daschle told the Senate Finance Committee that in June 2008—just as he was letting the press know he would like to be HHS secretary in an Obama administration—that "something made him think that the car service might be taxable" and he began seeking to remedy the situation.
Daschle reportedly also did not pay taxes on an additional $83,333 that he earned as a consultant to InterMedia Partners in 2007; this was discovered by Senator Daschle's accountant in December 2008. According to ABC News, Daschle also took tax deductions for $14,963 in donations that he made between 2005 and 2007 to charitable organizations that did not meet the requirements for being tax deductible.
The former senator paid the three years of owed taxes and interest—an amount totaling $140,167—in January 2009, but still reportedly owed "Medicare taxes equal to 2.9 percent" of the value of the car service he received, amounting to "thousands of dollars in additional unpaid taxes."
On February 3, 2009, Daschle withdrew his nomination, saying that he did not wish to be a "distraction" to the Obama agenda.
Daschle co-wrote the 2008 book "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis" . He and his co-authors point out that "most of the world’s highest-ranking health-care systems employ some kind of 'single-payer' strategy – that is, the government, directly or through insurers, is responsible for paying doctors, hospitals, and other health-care providers." They argue that a single-payer approach is simple, equitable, provides everyone with the same benefits, and saves billions of dollars through economies of scale and simplified administration. They concede that implementing a single-payer system in the United States would be "politically problematic" even though some polls show more satisfaction with the single-payer Medicare system than private insurance.
A key element of the single-payer plan that Daschle and his co-authors propose in the book is a new "Federal Health Board" that would establish the framework and fill in the details. The board would somehow be simultaneously "insulated from political pressure" and "accountable to elected officials and the American people." The board would "promote 'high-value' medical care by recommending coverage of those drugs and procedures backed by solid evidence." This proposal has been criticized by conservatives and libertarians who argue that such a board will lead to rationing of health care, and by progressives who believe the board will, as one writer put it, "get defanged by lobbyists immediately."
One of Daschle's co-authors, Jeanne Lambrew, had been slated before his withdrawal to serve as his deputy in the White House Office of Health Reform.
Daschle also served as a panelist on the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a body that recommended changes to U.S. policy to strengthen national biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33 step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Headed by former senator Joe Lieberman and former governor Tom Ridge, the Study Panel assembled in Washington, D.C., for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, "The National Blueprint for Biodefense", proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the vice president authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.
Daschle claims he was asked by vice president Dick Cheney "not to investigate" the events of 9/11.
He told reporters, "the vice president expressed the concern that a review of what happened on September 11 would take resources and personnel away from the effort in the war on terrorism. I acknowledged that concern, and it is for that reason that the Intelligence Committee is going to begin this effort, trying to limit the scope and the overall review of what happened. But clearly, I think the American people are entitled to know what happened and why."
Daschle has been married to Linda Hall, who was Miss Kansas in 1976, since 1984, one year after his marriage to his first wife, Laurie, later-U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, ended in divorce.
Hall was acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the Clinton administration; she is now a Washington lobbyist. Her lobbying clients have included American Airlines, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, Senate lobbying records show.
Tom Daschle has three children from his first marriage: Kelly, Nathan, and Lindsay. Nathan is the CEO of Ruck.us and former executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30930 |
Throughput
In general terms, throughput is the rate of production or the rate at which something is processed.
When used in the context of communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the rate of "successful" message delivery over a communication channel. The data these messages belong to may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or it can pass through a certain network node. Throughput is usually measured in bits per second (bit/s or bps), and sometimes in data packets per second (p/s or pps) or data packets per time slot.
The system throughput or aggregate throughput is the sum of the data rates that are delivered to all terminals in a network. Throughput is essentially synonymous to digital bandwidth consumption; it can be analyzed mathematically by applying the queueing theory, where the load in packets per time unit is denoted as the arrival rate (), and the throughput, where the drop in packets per time unit, is denoted as the departure rate ().
The throughput of a communication system may be affected by various factors, including the limitations of underlying analog physical medium, available processing power of the system components, and end-user behavior. When various protocol overheads are taken into account, useful rate of the transferred data can be significantly lower than the maximum achievable throughput; the useful part is usually referred to as goodput.
Users of telecommunications devices, systems designers, and researchers into communication theory are often interested in knowing the expected performance of a system. From a user perspective, this is often phrased as either "which device will get my data there most effectively for my needs?", or "which device will deliver the most data per unit cost?". Systems designers are often interested in selecting the most effective architecture or design constraints for a system, which drive its final performance. In most cases, the benchmark of what a system is capable of, or its "maximum performance" is what the user or designer is interested in. When examining throughput, the term "maximum throughput" is frequently used where end-user maximum throughput tests are discussed in detail.
Maximum throughput is essentially synonymous to digital bandwidth capacity.
Four different values have meaning in the context of "maximum throughput", used in comparing the 'upper limit' conceptual performance of multiple systems. They are 'maximum theoretical throughput', 'maximum achievable throughput', and 'peak measured throughput' and 'maximum sustained throughput'. These represent different quantities and care must be taken that the same definitions are used when comparing different 'maximum throughput' values. Comparing throughput values is also dependent on each bit carrying the same amount of information. Data compression can significantly skew throughput calculations, including generating values greater than 100%. If the communication is mediated by several links in series with different bit rates, the maximum throughput of the overall link is lower than or equal to the lowest bit rate. The lowest value link in the series is referred to as the bottleneck.
This number is closely related to the channel capacity of the system, and is the maximum possible quantity of data that can be transmitted under ideal circumstances. In some cases this number is reported as equal to the channel capacity, though this can be deceptive, as only non-packetized systems (asynchronous) technologies can achieve this without data compression. Maximum theoretical throughput is more accurately reported to take into account format and specification overhead with best case assumptions. This number, like the closely related term 'maximum achievable throughput' below, is primarily used as a rough calculated value, such as for determining bounds on possible performance early in a system design phase
The asymptotic throughput (less formal "asymptotic bandwidth") for a packet-mode communication network is the value of the maximum throughput function, when the incoming network load approaches infinity, either due to a message size as it approaches infinity, or the number of data sources is very large. As other bit rates and data bandwidths, the asymptotic throughput is measured in bits per second (bit/s), very seldom bytes per second (B/s), where 1 B/s is 8 bit/s. Decimal prefixes are used, meaning that 1 Mbit/s is 1000000 bit/s.
Asymptotic throughput is usually estimated by sending or simulating a very large message (sequence of data packets) through the network, using a greedy source and no flow control mechanism (i.e. UDP rather than TCP), and measuring the network path throughput in the destination node. Traffic load between other sources may reduce this maximum network path throughput. Alternatively, a large number of sources and sinks may be modeled, with or without flow control, and the aggregate maximum network throughput measured (the sum of traffic reaching its destinations). In a network simulation model with infinite packet queues, the asymptotic throughput occurs when the latency (the packet queuing time) goes to infinity, while if the packet queues are limited, or the network is a multi-drop network with many sources, and collisions may occur, the packet-dropping rate approaches 100%.
A well known application of asymptotic throughput is in modeling point-to-point communication where (following Hockney) message latency T(N) is modeled as a function of message length N as T(N) = (M + N)/A where A is the asymptotic bandwidth and M is the half-peak length.
As well as its use in general network modeling, asymptotic throughput is used in modeling performance on massively parallel computer systems, where system operation is highly dependent on communication overhead, as well as processor performance. In these applications, asymptotic throughput is used in Xu and Hwang model (more general than Hockney's approach) which includes the number of processors, so that both the latency and the asymptotic throughput are functions of the number of processors.
The above values are theoretical or calculated. Peak measured throughput is throughput measured by a real, implemented system, or a simulated system. The value is the throughput measured over a short period of time; mathematically, this is the limit taken with respect to throughput as time approaches zero. This term is synonymous with "instantaneous throughput". This number is useful for systems that rely on burst data transmission; however, for systems with a high duty cycle this is less likely to be a useful measure of system performance.
This value is the throughput averaged or integrated over a long time (sometimes considered infinity). For high duty cycle networks this is likely to be the most accurate indicator of system performance. The maximum throughput is defined as the asymptotic throughput when the load (the amount of incoming data) is very large. In packet switched systems where the load and the throughput always are equal (where packet loss does not occur), the maximum throughput may be defined as the minimum load in bit/s that causes the delivery time (the latency) to become unstable and increase towards infinity. This value can also be used deceptively in relation to peak measured throughput to conceal packet shaping.
Throughput is sometimes normalized and measured in percentage, but normalization may cause confusion regarding what the percentage is related to. "Channel utilization", "channel efficiency" and "packet drop rate" in percentage are less ambiguous terms.
The channel efficiency, also known as bandwidth utilization efficiency, is the percentage of the net bitrate (in bit/s) of a digital communication channel that goes to the actually achieved throughput. For example, if the throughput is 70 Mbit/s in a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet connection, the channel efficiency is 70%. In this example, effective 70 Mbit of data are transmitted every second.
Channel utilization is instead a term related to the use of the channel disregarding the throughput. It counts not only with the data bits but also with the overhead that makes use of the channel. The transmission overhead consists of preamble sequences, frame headers and acknowledge packets. The definitions assume a noiseless channel. Otherwise, the throughput would not be only associated to the nature (efficiency) of the protocol but also to retransmissions resultant from quality of the channel. In a simplistic approach, channel efficiency can be equal to channel utilization assuming that acknowledge packets are zero-length and that the communications provider will not see any bandwidth relative to retransmissions or headers. Therefore, certain texts mark a difference between channel utilization and protocol efficiency.
In a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication link, where only one terminal is transmitting, the maximum throughput is often equivalent to or very near the physical data rate (the channel capacity), since the channel utilization can be almost 100% in such a network, except for a small inter-frame gap.
For example, the maximum frame size in Ethernet is 1526 bytes: up to 1500 bytes for the payload, eight bytes for the preamble, 14 bytes for the header, and four bytes for the trailer. An additional minimum interframe gap corresponding to 12 bytes is inserted after each frame. This corresponds to a maximum channel utilization of 1526 / (1526 + 12) × 100% = 99.22%, or a maximum channel use of 99.22 Mbit/s inclusive of Ethernet datalink layer protocol overhead in a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet connection. The maximum throughput or channel efficiency is then 1500 / (1526 + 12) = 97.5 Mbit/s, exclusive of the Ethernet protocol overhead.
The throughput of a communication system will be limited by a huge number of factors. Some of these are described below:
The maximum achievable throughput (the channel capacity) is affected by the bandwidth in hertz and signal-to-noise ratio of the analog physical medium.
Despite the conceptual simplicity of digital information, all electrical signals traveling over wires are analog. The analog limitations of wires or wireless systems inevitably provide an upper bound on the amount of information that can be sent. The dominant equation here is the Shannon-Hartley theorem, and analog limitations of this type can be understood as factors that affect either the analog bandwidth of a signal or as factors that affect the signal to noise ratio. The bandwidth of wired systems can be in fact surprisingly narrow, with the bandwidth of Ethernet wire limited to approximately 1 GHz, and PCB traces limited by a similar amount.
Digital systems refer to the 'knee frequency', the amount of time for the digital voltage to rise from 10% of a nominal digital '0' to a nominal digital '1' or vice versa. The knee frequency is related to the required bandwidth of a channel, and can be related to the 3 db bandwidth of a system by the equation: formula_1
Where Tr is the 10% to 90% rise time, and K is a constant of proportionality related to the pulse shape, equal to 0.35 for exponential rise, and 0.338 for Gaussian rise.
Computational systems have finite processing power, and can drive finite current. Limited current drive capability can limit the effective signal to noise ratio for high capacitance links.
Large data loads that require processing impose data processing requirements on hardware (such as routers). For example, a gateway router supporting a populated class B subnet, handling 10 x 100 Mbit/s Ethernet channels, must examine 16 bits of address to determine the destination port for each packet. This translates into 81913 packets per second (assuming maximum data payload per packet) with a table of 2^16 addresses this requires the router to be able to perform 5.368 billion lookup operations per second. In a worst-case scenario, where the payloads of each Ethernet packet are reduced to 100 bytes, this number of operations per second jumps to 520 billion. This router would require a multi-teraflop processing core to be able to handle such a load.
Ensuring that multiple users can harmoniously share a single communications link requires some kind of equitable sharing of the link. If a bottle neck communication link offering data rate "R" is shared by "N" active users (with at least one data packet in queue), every user typically achieves a throughput of approximately "R/N", if fair queuing best-effort communication is assumed.
The maximum throughput is often an unreliable measurement of perceived bandwidth, for example the file transmission data rate in bits per seconds. As pointed out above, the achieved throughput is often lower than the maximum throughput. Also, the protocol overhead affects the perceived bandwidth. The throughput is not a well-defined metric when it comes to how to deal with protocol overhead. It is typically measured at a reference point below the network layer and above the physical layer. The most simple definition is the number of bits per second that are physically delivered. A typical example where this definition is practiced is an Ethernet network. In this case the maximum throughput is the gross bitrate or raw bitrate.
However, in schemes that include forward error correction codes (channel coding), the redundant error code is normally excluded from the throughput. An example in modem communication, where the throughput typically is measured in the interface between the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) and the circuit switched modem connection. In this case the maximum throughput is often called net bitrate or useful bitrate.
To determine the actual data rate of a network or connection, the "goodput" measurement definition may be used. For example, in file transmission, the "goodput" corresponds to the file size (in bits) divided by the file transmission time. The "goodput" is the amount of useful information that is delivered per second to the application layer protocol. Dropped packets or packet retransmissions as well as protocol overhead are excluded. Because of that, the "goodput" is lower than the throughput. Technical factors that affect the difference are presented in the "goodput" article.
Often, a block in a data flow diagram has a single input and a single output, and operate on discrete packets of information. Examples of such blocks are Fast Fourier Transform modules or binary multipliers. Because the units of throughput are the reciprocal of the unit for propagation delay, which is 'seconds per message' or 'seconds per output', throughput can be used to relate a computational device performing a dedicated function such as an ASIC or embedded processor to a communications channel, simplifying system analysis.
In wireless networks or cellular systems, the system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/area unit, bit/s/Hz/site or bit/s/Hz/cell, is the maximum system throughput (aggregate throughput) divided by the analog bandwidth and some measure of the system coverage area.
Throughput over analog channels is defined entirely by the modulation scheme, the signal to noise ratio, and the available bandwidth. Since throughput is normally defined in terms of quantified digital data, the term 'throughput' is not normally used; the term 'bandwidth' is more often used instead. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30932 |
TiVo
TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "Season Pass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList" searches which allow the user to find and record shows that match their interests by title, actor, director, category, or keyword. TiVo also provides a range of features when the TiVo DVR is connected to a home network, including film and TV show downloads, advanced search, personal photo viewing, music offerings, and online scheduling.
Since its launch in its home market of the United States, TiVo has also been made available in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Taiwan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Newer models, however, have adopted the CableCARD standard, which is only deployed in the United States, and which limits the availability of certain features.
TiVo was developed by Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay through a corporation they named "Teleworld" which was later renamed to TiVo Inc. Though they originally intended to create a home network device, it was redesigned as a device that records digitized video onto a hard disk. They began the first public trials of the TiVo device and service in late 1998 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
After exhibiting at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1999, Mike Ramsay announced to the company that the first version of the TiVo digital video recorder would ship "In Q1", (the last day of which is March 31) despite an estimated 4 to 5 months of work remaining to complete the device. Because March 31, 1999, was a blue moon, the engineering staff code-named this first version of the TiVo DVR "Blue Moon".
The original TiVo DVR digitized and compressed analog video from any source (antenna, cable or direct broadcast satellite). TiVo also integrates its DVR service into the set-top boxes of satellite and cable providers. In late 2000, Philips Electronics introduced the DSR6000, the first DirecTV receiver with an integrated TiVo DVR. This new device, nicknamed the "DirecTiVo", stored digital signals sent from DirecTV directly onto a hard disk.
In early 2000, TiVo partnered with electronics manufacturer Thomson Multimedia (now Technicolor SA) and broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting to deliver the TiVo service in the UK market. This partnership resulted in the Thomson PVR10UK, a stand-alone receiver released in October 2000 that was based on the original reference design used in the United States by both Philips and Sony. TiVo ended UK unit sales in January 2003, though it continued to sell subscriptions and supply guide data to existing subscribed units until June 2011. TiVo branded products returned to the UK during 2010 under an exclusive partnership with cable TV provider Virgin Media.
TiVo was launched in Australia in July 2008 by Hybrid Television Services, a company owned by Australia's Seven Media Group and New Zealand's TVNZ. TiVo also launched a special 2009 Christmas TiVo DVR that has a 320Gb hard Drive and comes with the HNP free. TiVo Australia also launched Blockbuster on demand and as of early December launched a novel service called Caspa on Demand. TiVo also went on sale in New Zealand on 6 November 2009.
Janet Jackson's Super Bowl halftime show incident on February 1, 2004, set a record for being the most watched, recorded and replayed moment in TiVo history. The baring of one of Jackson's breasts at the end of her duet with Justin Timberlake, which caused a flood of outraged phone calls to CBS, was replayed a record number of times by TiVo users. A company representative stated, "The audience measurement guys have never seen anything like it. The audience reaction charts looked like an electrocardiogram."
A TiVo DVR serves a function similar to that of a videocassette recorder (VCR), in that both allow a TV viewer to record programming for viewing at a later time, known as time shifting. Unlike a videocassette recorder, which uses removable magnetic tape cartridges, a TiVo DVR stores TV programs on an internal hard drive, much like a computer.
A TiVo DVR also automatically records programs that the user is likely to be interested in. TiVo DVRs also implement a patented feature that TiVo calls "trick play", allowing the viewer to pause live television and rewind and replay up to 30 minutes of recently viewed TV. TiVo DVRs can be connected to a computer local area network, allowing the TiVo device to download information, access video streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu, as well as music from the Internet.
TiVo DVRs "call home" (access TiVo servers) daily to receive program information updates, including description, regular and guest actors, directors, genres, whether programs are new or repeats, and whether broadcast is in High Definition (HD). Information is updated daily into its program guide from Tribune Media Services.
Users can select individual programs to record or a "Season Pass" to record an entire season (or more). There are options to record First Run Only, First Run and Repeats, or All Episodes. An episode is considered "First Run" if aired within two weeks of that episode's initial air date.
When users' requests for multiple programs are conflicting, the lower priority program in the Season Pass Manager is either not recorded or clipped where times overlap. The lower priority program will be recorded if it is aired later. TiVo DVRs with two tuners record the top two priority programs.
TiVo pioneered recording programs based on household viewing habits; this is called TiVo Suggestions. Users can rate programs from three "thumbs up" to three "thumbs down". TiVo user ratings are combined to create a recommendation, based on what TiVo users with similar viewing habits watch. For example, if one user likes "American Idol", "America's Got Talent" and "Dancing with the Stars", then another TiVo user who watched just "American Idol" might get a recommendation for the other two shows.
The amount of storage capacity for programs is dependent upon the size of the hard drive inside the TiVo; different models have different sized hard drives. When the space is full on the hard drive, the oldest programs are deleted to make space for the newer ones; programs that users flag to not be deleted are kept and TiVo Suggestions are always lowest priority. The recording capacity of a TiVo HD DVR can be expanded with an external hard drive, which can add additional hours of HD recording space and standard definition video recording capacity.
When not recording specific user requests, the current channel is recorded for up to 30 minutes. Dual-tuner models record two channels. This allows users to rewind or pause anything that has been shown in the last thirty minutes — useful when viewing is interrupted. Shows already in progress can be entirely recorded if less than 30 minutes have been shown. Unlike VCRs, TiVo can record and play at the same time. A program can be watched from the beginning even if it's in the middle of being recorded, which is something that VCRs cannot do. Some users take advantage of this by waiting 10 to 15 minutes after a program starts (or is replayed from a recording), so that they can fast forward through commercials. In this way, by the end of the recording viewers are caught up with live television.
Unlike most DVRs, TiVo DVRs are easily connected to home networks, allowing users to schedule recordings on TiVo's website (via TiVo Central Online), transfer recordings between TiVo units (Multi-Room Viewing (MRV)) or to/from a home computer (TiVoToGo (TTG) transfers), play music and view photos over the network, and access third-party applications written for TiVo's Home Media Engine (HME) API.
TiVo has added a number of broadband features, including integration with Amazon Video on Demand, Jaman.com and Netflix Watch Instantly, offering users access to thousands of movie titles and television shows right from the comfort of their couch. Additionally, broadband connected to TiVo boxes can access digital photos from Picasa Web Albums or Photobucket. Another popular feature is access to Rhapsody music through TiVo, allowing users to listen to virtually any song from their living room. TiVo also teamed up with One True Media to give subscribers a private channel for sharing photos and video with family and friends. They can also access weather, traffic, Fandango movie listings (including ticket purchases), and music through Live365. In the summer of 2008 TiVo announced the availability of YouTube videos on TiVo.
On 7 June 2006, TiVo began offering TiVoCast, a broadband download service that initially offered content from places such as Rocketboom or, The New York Times; now there are over 70 TivoCast channels available for TiVo subscribers.
TiVo is expanding media convergence. In January 2005, TiVoToGo, a feature allowing transfer of recorded shows from TiVo boxes to PCs, was added. TiVo partnered with Sonic in the release of MyDVD 6.1, software for editing and converting TiVoToGo files. In January, 2007, TiVoToGo was extended to the Macintosh with Toast Titanium 8, Roxio software for assembly and burning digital media on CD and DVD media. In August 2005, TiVo rolled out "TiVo Desktop" allowing moving MPEG2 video files from PCs to TiVo for playback by DVR. As of June 5, 2013, TiVo stopped distributing the free version of TiVo Desktop for PC in favor of selling TiVo Desktop Plus. Users who previously downloaded the free version of TiVo Desktop can continue to use the software without paying a fee for the Plus edition.
TiVo KidZone (later removed in the Premiere and Roamio devices) was designed to give parents greater control over what their children see on television. This feature allows parents to choose which shows their children can watch and record. It also helps kids discover new shows through recommendations from leading national children's organizations. TiVo KidZone provides a customized Now Playing List for children that displays only pre-approved shows, keeping television as safe as possible.
The information that a TiVo DVR downloads regarding television schedules, as well as software updates and any other relevant information is available through a monthly service subscription in the United States. A different model applies in Australia where the TiVo media device is bought for a one-off fee, without further subscription costs.
There are multiple types of Product Lifetime Service. For satellite-enabled TiVo DVRs, the lifetime subscription remains as long as the account is active; the subscription does not follow a specific piece of hardware. This satellite lifetime subscription cannot be transferred to another person. Toshiba and Pioneer TiVo DVD recording equipped units include a "Basic Lifetime Subscription", which is very similar to Full Lifetime, except only three days of the program guide are viewable; and search and Internet capabilities are not available, or at least limited. All units (except satellite but including DVD units) can have "Product Lifetime Subscription" to the TiVo service, which covers the life of the TiVo DVR, not the life of the subscriber. The Product Lifetime Subscription accompanies the TiVo DVR in case of ownership-transfer. TiVo makes no warranties or representations as to the expected lifetime of the TiVo DVR (aside from the manufacturer's Limited Warranty). In the past TiVo has offered multiple "Trade Up" programs where you could transfer the Product Lifetime Subscription from an old unit to a newer model with a fee. A TiVo can be used without a service-agreement, but it will act more like a VCR in that you can only perform manual recordings and the TiVo can't be connected to the TiVo service for local time, program guide data, software updates, etc. or TiVo will shut down the recording function.
The TiVo service is available in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Spain and Taiwan at present. Over the years since its initial release in the United States, TiVo Series1 and Series2 DVRs have also been modified by end users to work in Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and South Africa.
TiVo went on sale in New Zealand in the first week of November 2009.
The TiVo Service came to an end in Australia on 31 October 2017. The electronic programming guide and TiVo recording features are no longer available, thus making all TiVo machines in Australia virtually useless.
The TiVo service was launched in the United Kingdom in the autumn of 2000. It sold only 35,000 units over the next 18 months. Thomson, makers of the only UK TiVo box, abandoned it in early 2002 after BSkyB launched its Sky+ integrated "set-top" decoder and DVR, which dominated the market for DVRs in homes subscribing to BSkyB's paid-for satellite television service. Many manufacturers, including Thomson have launched integrated decoder boxes/DVRs in the UK for other digital platforms, including free satellite, terrestrial, cable and IPTV.
A technical issue caused TiVo Suggestions to stop recording for S1 UK TiVo customers in late September 2008, but this was fixed in late January 2009.
Since December 2010, UK TiVo units that were not already on an active monthly subscription or lifetime subscription could no longer be re-activated. BSkyB who were operating the support for TiVo no longer had full access to the TiVo systems to activate accounts.
The TiVo S1 subscription service was maintained for both lifetime and monthly subscriptions until 1 June 2011. A community project known as AltEPG was established in March 2011 with the aim of providing a replacement for the discontinued subscription service. This project now provides programme guide data and software upgrades for S1 TiVos.
On 24 November 2009, cable television provider Virgin Media entered into a strategic partnership with TiVo. Under the mutually exclusive agreement, TiVo developed a converged television and broadband interactive interface to power Virgin Media's next generation, high definition set top boxes. TiVo will become the exclusive provider of middleware and user interface software for Virgin Media's next generation set top boxes. Virgin Media will be the exclusive distributor of TiVo services and technology in the United Kingdom. Virgin Media released its first TiVo co-branded product in December 2010. On 17 March 2011, Virgin Media enabled access to a third tuner.
As of 12 February 2015, Virgin Media has 2 million TiVo customers, 50% of their TV customers.
The TiVo DVR was designed by TiVo Inc., which currently provides the hardware design and Linux-based TiVo software, and operates a subscription service (without which, most models of TiVo will not operate). TiVo units have been manufactured by various OEMs, including Philips, Sony, Cisco, Hughes, Pioneer, Toshiba, and Humax, which license the software from TiVo Inc. To date, there have been six "series" of TiVo units produced.
TiVo DVRs are based on PowerPC (Series1) or MIPS (Series2) processors connected to MPEG-2 encoder/decoder chips and high-capacity IDE/ATA hard drives. Series1 TiVo units used one or two drives of 13–60 GB; current Series2 units have drives of 40–250 GB in size. TiVo has also partnered with Western Digital to create an external hard drive, the My DVR Expander, for TiVo HD and Series3 Boxes. It plugs into the TiVo box using an eSATA interface. It expands the High-Definition boxes by up to 67 hours of HD, and around 300 hours of standard programming. Other TiVo users have found many ways to expand TiVo storage, although these methods are not supported by TiVo, and may void the warranty.
Some recent models manufactured by Toshiba, Pioneer, and Humax, under license from TiVo, contain DVD-R/RW drives. The models can transfer recordings from the built-in hard drive to DVD Video compliant disc, playable in most modern DVD systems.
All standalone TiVo DVRs have coax/RF-in and an internal cable-ready tuner, as well as analog video input — composite/RCA and S-Video, for use with an external cable box or satellite receiver. The TiVo unit can use a serial cable or infrared blasters to control the external receiver. They have coax/RF, composite/RCA, and S-Video output, and the DVD systems also have component out. Audio is RCA stereo, and the DVD systems also have digital optical out.
Until 2006, standalone TiVo systems could only record one channel at a time, though a dual-tuner Series2DT (S2DT) box was introduced in April 2006. The S2DT has two internal cable-ready tuners and it supports a single external cable box or satellite receiver. The S2DT is therefore capable of recording two analog cable channels, one analog and one digital cable channel, or one analog cable and one satellite channel at a time, with the correct programming sources. Note, however, that the S2DT, unlike earlier units, cannot record from an antenna. This is due to an FCC mandate that all devices sold after March 2007 with an NTSC tuner must also contain an ATSC tuner. TiVo therefore had to choose between adding ATSC support, or removing NTSC support. With the S2DT they opted to remove NTSC; the Series3 supports NTSC and ATSC, along with digital cable channels (with CableCards).
The Series2 DVRs also have USB ports, currently used only to support network (wired Ethernet and WiFi) adapters. The early Series2 units, models starting with 110/130/140, have USB1.1 hardware, while all other systems have USB2.0. There have been four major generations of Series2 units. The TiVo-branded 1xx and 2xx generations were solid grey-black. The main difference was the upgrade from USB 1.1 to the much faster USB 2.0. The 5xx generation was a new design. The chassis is silver with a white oval in the faceplate. The white oval is backlit, leading to these units being called "Nightlight" boxes. The 5xx generation was designed to reduce costs, and this also caused a noticeable drop in performance in the system menus as well as a large performance drop in network transfers. The 5xx generation also introduced changes in the boot PROM that make them unmodifiable without extensive wiring changes. The 6xx generation resembles the previous 5xx model, except that it has a black oval. The 6xx is a new design and the only model available today is the S2DT with dual tuners and a built-in 10/100baseT Ethernet port as well. The 6xx is the best performing Series2 to date, outperforming even the old leader, the 2xx, and far better than the lowest performing 5xx.
Some TiVo systems are integrated with DirecTV receivers. These "DirecTiVo" recorders record the incoming satellite MPEG-2 digital stream directly to hard disk without conversion. Because of this and the fact that they have two tuners, DirecTiVos are able to record two programs at once. In addition, the lack of digital conversion allows recorded video to be of the same quality as live video. DirecTiVos have no MPEG encoder chip, and can only record DirecTV streams. However, DirecTV has disabled the networking capabilities on their systems, meaning DirecTiVo does not offer such features as multi-room viewing or TiVoToGo. Only the standalone systems can be networked without additional unsupported hacking.
DirecTiVo units (HR10-250) can record HDTV to a 250 GB hard drive, both from the DirecTV stream and over-the-air via a standard UHF- or VHF-capable antenna. They have two virtual tuners (each consisting of a DirecTV tuner paired with an ATSC over-the-air tuner) and, like the original DirecTiVo, can record two programs at once; further, the program guide is integrated between over-the-air and DirecTV so that all programs can be recorded and viewed in the same manner.
In 2005, DirecTV stopped marketing recorders powered by TiVo and focused on its own DVR line developed by its business units. DirecTV continues to support the existing base of DirecTV recorders powered by TiVo.
On 8 July 2006, DirecTV announced an upgrade to version 6.3 on all remaining HR10-250 DirecTiVo receivers, the first major upgrade since this unit was released. This upgrade includes features like program grouping (folders), a much faster on-screen guide, and new sorting features.
In September 2008, DirecTV and TiVo announced that they have extended their current agreement, which includes the development, marketing and distribution of a new HD DIRECTV DVR featuring the TiVo service, as well as the extension of mutual intellectual property arrangements.
Since the discontinued Hughes Electronics DirectTV DVR with TiVo model HR10-250, all newer TiVo units have been fully HDTV capable. Other TiVo models will only record analog standard definition television (NTSC or PAL/SECAM). The Series3 "TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL" DVRs and the Series4 "TiVo Premiere and TiVo Premiere XL" DVRs are capable of recording HDTV both from antenna (over the air) and cable (unencrypted QAM tuner or encrypted with a Cable Card) in addition to normal standard definition television from the same sources. Unlike the HR10-250, neither the Series3 nor Series4 units can record from the DirecTV service; conversely, the HR10-250 cannot record from digital cable. Other TiVo models may be connected to a high definition television (HDTV), but are not capable of recording HDTV signals, although they may be connected to a cable HDTV set-top box and record the down-converted outputs.
In 2008, some cable companies started to deploy switched digital video (SDV) technology, which initially was incompatible with the Series3 and TiVo HD units. TiVo Inc worked with cable operators on a tuning-adapter with USB connection to the TiVo to enable SDV. Some MSOs now offer these adapters for free to their customers with TiVo DVRs.
TiVo has partnered with Western Digital to create an external hard drive, the My DVR Expander eSATA Edition, for TiVo HD and Series3 systems. The external drive plugs into the TiVo box using an eSATA interface. The first version of the eSATA drive shipped was a 500 GB drive that shipped in June 2008. In June 2009 the 1 TB version of the drive began shipping. The 1 TB version expands the TiVo HD and Series3 systems' capacity by up to 140 hours of HD content or 1,200 hours of standard programming.
TiVo was not designed to have an external drive disconnected once it has been added, because data for each recording is spread across both the internal and external disk drives. As a result, it is not possible to disconnect the external drive without deleting content recorded after the external drive was added. If disconnected, any recordings made will not be usable on either the internal or external drives. However, the external drive may be removed (along with content) without losing settings.
Various capacities of external drives have been shipped since the product was initially released. There were reports of product reliability issues, and a brief period of unavailability.
The Western Digital 1 TB and 500 GB My DVR Expander eSATA Edition and My DVR Expander USB Edition drives have been discontinued and replaced with the Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1 TB drive. This drive has received a facelift from the previous generation, which now sports a glossy finish, and a tiny white LED power indicator, along with a push button power switch in the back. The biggest change is that this drive now includes both eSATA and USB in one device. This device is DirectTV, Dish Network, TiVo, Moxi, Pace, and Scientific Atlanta (Cisco) certified. Press Release Seagate has come out with their own DVR Expander drive called the Seagate GoFlex DVR which comes in a 1 TB and 2 TB capacity. TiVo has not approved the Seagate product for use with TiVo DVRs and they will not currently function with any TiVo products.
Users have installed additional or larger hard drives in their TiVo boxes to increase their recording capacity. Others have designed and built Ethernet cards, a web interface (TiVoWeb), and figured out how to extract, insert and transfer video among their TiVo boxes. Other hacks include adding time to the start and end of recording intelligently and sending daily e-mails of the TiVos activity.
TiVo still uses the same encoding, however, for the media files (saved as .TiVo files). These are MPEG files encoded with the user's Media Access Key (MAK). However, software developers have written programs such as tivodecode and tivodecode Manager to strip the MAK from the file, allowing the user to watch or send the recordings to friends.
On January 4, 2018 TiVo announced its next-gen platform, a catch-all product for providers like cable companies. It's available for multiple TV devices, including not only Linux- and Android TV-based set-top boxes and traditional DVRs, but also DVR-free streaming devices like Apple TV and Amazon's Fire TV, as well as phones, tablets and PCs. The platform allows providers to take advantage of TiVo's user interface, voice control, personalization and recommendations. TiVo expects its user interface could provide an advantage over competitors such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video in a world where cord-cutting is increasingly popular.
As of June 2020, TiVo's cloud-based offering has yet to formally take shape or launch.
While its former main competitor in the United States, ReplayTV, had adopted a commercial-skip feature, TiVo decided to avoid automatic implementation fearing such a move might provoke backlash from the television industry. ReplayTV was sued over this feature as well as the ability to share shows over the Internet, and these lawsuits contributed to the bankruptcy of SONICblue, its owner at the time. Its new owner, DNNA, dropped both features in the final ReplayTV model, the 5500.
After demonstrating the WebTV capability at the same 1999 CES with TiVo and ReplayTV demonstrating their products, Dish (then named Dish Network) a few months later added DVR functionality to their DishPlayer 7100 (and later its 7200) with its Echostar unit producing the hardware while Microsoft provided the software that included WebTV, the same software Microsoft would later use for its UltimateTV DVR for DirecTV. The TiVo, ReplayTV, and DishPlayer 7100 represent very first DVRs that were in development at the same time and were released to market at about the same time.
SONICblue, the owners of ReplayTV would file for bankruptcy after being sued for its ability to automatically skip commercials and other features that were thought to violate copyrights; Echostar (Dish) would eventually sue Microsoft in 2001 for failing to support the software in DishPlayer 7100 and 7200 with Dish ending their relationship with Microsoft and cease offering the DishPlayer 7100/7200 to its subscribers and, instead, produce their own in-house DVR; and DirecTV would eventually drop Microsoft's UltimateTV and keep DirecTiVo as its only DVR offering for quite some time.
Other distributors' competing DVR sets in the United States include Comcast and Verizon, although both distribute third-party hardware from manufacturers such as Motorola and the former Scientific Atlanta unit of Cisco Systems with this functionality built-in. Verizon uses boxes fitted for FiOS, allowing high-speed Internet access and other features. However, TiVo is compatible with the FiOS TV service because when the TV programming arrives at the home via FiOS Fiber to the Home network, it is converted to CableLabs specification QAM channels exactly as those used by cable TV companies. AT&T is an IPTV service that is incompatible with the TiVo.
Despite having gained 234,000 subscribers in the last quarter of 2011, as of January 2012 TiVo had only (approximately) 2.3 million subscribers in the United States. This is down from a peak of 4.36 million in January 2006. As of January 31, 2016, TiVo reported 6.8 million subscribers.
TiVo collects detailed usage data from units via broadband Internet. As units are downloading schedule data, they transmit household viewing habits to TiVo Inc. Collected information includes a log of everything watched (time and channel) and remote keypresses such as fast forwarding through or replaying content. Many users were surprised when TiVo released data on how many users rewatched the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the 2004 Super Bowl. TiVo records usage data for their own research and they also sell it to other corporations such as advertisers. Nielsen and TiVo have also previously collaborated to track viewing habits. This data is sold to advertising agencies as a way of documenting the number of viewers watching specific commercials to their corporate clients.
TiVo has three levels of data collection. By default, the user is in "opt-out" status, where all usage data is aggregated by ZIP Code, and individual viewing habits are not tracked. Certain optional features and promotions require the user to opt in, and individual information is then collected for targeted show suggestions or advertising. Users can request that TiVo block the collection of anonymous viewing information and diagnostic information from their TiVo DVR.
TiVo holds several patents that have been asserted against cable TV operators and competing DVR box makers.
In September 2005, a TiVo software upgrade added the ability for broadcasters to "flag" programs to be deleted after a certain date. Some customers had recordings deleted, or could not use their flagged recordings (transfer to a computer or burn to DVD), as they could with unflagged material. The initial showing of this for random shows was a bug in the software. It later was enabled on pay-per-view and video-on-demand content.
During early 2005, TiVo began test marketing "pop-up" advertisements to select subscribers, to explore it as an alternative source of revenue. The idea was that as users fast-forward through certain commercials of TiVo advertisers, they would also see a static image ad more suitable and effective than the broken video stream.
At its announcement, the concept of extra advertisements drew heavy criticism from subscribers. Some lifetime subscribers were upset that they had already paid for a service based upon their previous ad-free experience, while others argued that they had purchased the service for the specific purpose of dodging advertisements. In 2007, TiVo made changes to its pop-up ad system to show pop-up ads only if the user fast-forwards through a commercial that has a corresponding pop-up ad.
In 2006, the Free Software Foundation decided to combat TiVo's technical system of blocking users from running modified software.
This behavior, which Richard Stallman dubbed tivoization, was tackled by creating a new version of the GNU General Public License, the GNU GPLv3, which prohibits this activity.
The kernel of the operating system of TiVo-branded hardware, the Linux kernel, is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPLv2. The FSF's goal is to ensure that all recipients of software licensed under the GPLv3 are not restricted by hardware constraints on the modification of distributed software.
This new license provision was acknowledged by TiVo in its April 2007 SEC filing: "we may be unable to incorporate future enhancements to the GNU/Linux operating system into our software, which could adversely affect our business". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30936 |
Tacticity
Tacticity (from Greek τακτικός "taktikos" "of or relating to arrangement or order") is the relative stereochemistry of adjacent chiral centers within a macromolecule. The practical significance of tacticity rests on the effects on the physical properties of the polymer. The regularity of the macromolecular structure influences the degree to which it has rigid, crystalline long range order or flexible, amorphous long range disorder. Precise knowledge of tacticity of a polymer also helps understanding at what temperature a polymer melts, how soluble it is in a solvent and its mechanical properties.
A tactic macromolecule in the IUPAC definition is a macromolecule in which essentially all the configurational (repeating) units are identical. Tacticity is particularly significant in vinyl polymers of the type -H2C-CH(R)- where each repeating unit with a substituent R on one side of the polymer backbone is followed by the next repeating unit with the substituent on the same side as the previous one, the other side as the previous one or positioned randomly with respect to the previous one. In a hydrocarbon macromolecule with all carbon atoms making up the backbone in a tetrahedral molecular geometry, the zigzag backbone is in the paper plane with the substituents either sticking out of the paper or retreating into the paper. This projection is called the Natta projection after Giulio Natta. Monotactic macromolecules have one stereoisomeric atom per repeat unit, ditactic to n-tactic macromolecules have more than one stereoisomeric atom per unit.
Two adjacent structural units in a polymer molecule constitute a diad. If the diad consists of two identically oriented units, the diad is called a meso diad reflecting similar features as a meso compound. If the diad consists of units oriented in opposition, the diad is called a racemo diad as in a racemic compound. In the case of vinyl polymer molecules, a meso diad is one in which the book carbon chains are oriented on the same side of the polymer backbone.
The stereochemistry of macromolecules can be defined even more precisely with the introduction of triads. An isotactic triad (mm) is made up of two adjacent meso diads, a syndiotactic triad (also spelled syndyotactic) {rr} consists of two adjacent racemo diads and a heterotactic triad (rm) is composed of a meso diad adjacent to a racemo diad. The mass fraction of isotactic (mm) triads is a common quantitative measure of tacticity.
When the stereochemistry of a macromolecule is considered to be a Bernoulli process, triad composition can be calculated from the probability of finding meso diads (Pm). When this probability is 0.25 then the probability of finding:
with a total probability of 1. Similar relationships with diads exist for tetrads.
The definition of tetrads and pentads introduce further sophistication and precision to defining tacticity, especially when information on long-range ordering is desirable. Tacticity measurements obtained by Carbon-13 NMR are typically expressed in terms of the relative abundance of various pentads within the polymer molecule, e.g. "mmmm", "mrrm".
The primary convention for expressing tacticity is in terms of the relative weight fraction of triad or higher-order components, as described above. An alternative expression for tacticity is the average length of "meso" and "racemo" sequences within the polymer molecule. The average meso sequence length may be approximated from the relative abundance of pentads as follows:
formula_1
Isotactic polymers are composed of isotactic macromolecules (IUPAC definition). In isotactic macromolecules all the substituents are located on the same side of the macromolecular backbone. An isotactic macromolecule consists of 100% meso diads. Polypropylene formed by Ziegler–Natta catalysis is an isotactic polymer. Isotactic polymers are usually semicrystalline and often form a helix configuration.
In syndiotactic or syntactic macromolecules the substituents have alternate positions along the chain. The macromolecule consists 100% of racemo diads. Syndiotactic polystyrene, made by metallocene catalysis polymerization, is crystalline with a melting point of 161 °C. Gutta percha is also an example for Syndiotactic polymer.
In atactic macromolecules the substituents are placed randomly along the chain. The percentage of meso diads is between 1 and 99%. With the aid of spectroscopic techniques such as NMR it is possible to pinpoint the composition of a polymer in terms of the percentages for each triad.
Polymers that are formed by free-radical mechanisms such as polyvinyl chloride are usually atactic. Due to their random nature atactic polymers are usually amorphous. In hemi isotactic macromolecules every other repeat unit has a random substituent.
Atactic polymers are technologically very important. A good example is polystyrene (PS). If a special catalyst is used in its synthesis it is possible to obtain the syndiotactic version of this polymer, but most industrial polystyrene produced is atactic. The two materials have very different properties because the irregular structure of the atactic version makes it impossible for the polymer chains to stack in a regular fashion. The result is that, whereas syndiotactic PS is a semicrystalline material, the more common atactic version cannot crystallize and forms a "glass" instead. This example is quite general in that many polymers of economic importance are atactic glass formers.
In eutactic macromolecules, substituents may occupy any specific (but potentially complex) sequence of positions along the chain. Isotactic and syndiotactic polymers are instances of the more general class of eutactic polymers, which also includes heterogeneous macromolecules in which the sequence consists of substituents of different kinds (for example, the side-chains in proteins and the bases in nucleic acids).
In vinyl polymers the complete configuration can be further described by defining polymer head/tail configuration. In a regular macromolecule all monomer units are normally linked in a head to tail configuration so that all β-substituents are separated by three carbon atoms. In head to head configuration this separation is only by 2 carbon atoms and the separation with tail to tail configuration is by 4 atoms. Head/tail configurations are not part of polymer tacticity but should be taken into account when considering polymer defects.
Tacticity may be measured directly using proton or carbon-13 NMR. This technique enables quantification of the tacticity distribution by comparison of peak areas or integral ranges corresponding to known diads (r, m), triads (mm, rm+mr, rr) and/or higher order "n"-ads depending on spectral resolution. In cases of limited resolution stochastic methods such as Bernoullian or Markovian analysis may also be used to fit the distribution and back then forward predict higher "n"-ads and calculate the isotacticity of the polymer to the desired level.
Other techniques sensitive to tacticity include x-ray powder diffraction, secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), vibrational spectroscopy (FTIR) and especially two-dimensional techniques. Tacticity may also be inferred by measuring another physical property, such as melting temperature, when the relationship between tacticity and that property is well-established. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30941 |
Tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the "Nicotiana" genus and the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of the tobacco plant. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chief commercial crop is "N. tabacum". The more potent variant "N. rustica" is also used around the world.
Tobacco contains the highly addictive stimulant alkaloid nicotine as well as harmala alkaloids. Dried tobacco leaves are mainly used for smoking in cigarettes and cigars, as well as pipes and shishas. They can also be consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco and snus.
Tobacco use is a cause or risk factor for many diseases; especially those affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, as well as many cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organization named tobacco use as the world's single greatest preventable cause of death.
The English word "tobacco" originates from the Spanish and Portuguese word . The precise origin of this word is disputed, but it is generally thought to have derived at least in part, from Taíno, the Arawakan language of the Caribbean. In Taíno, it was said to mean either a roll of tobacco leaves (according to Bartolomé de las Casas, 1552) .
However, perhaps coincidentally, similar words in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian were used from 1410 for certain medicinal herbs. These probably derived from the Arabic "ṭubbāq" (also "ṭubāq"), a word reportedly dating to the 9th century, referring to various herbs.
Tobacco has long been used in the Americas, with some cultivation sites in Mexico dating back to 1400–1000 BC. Many Native American tribes traditionally grow and use tobacco. Historically, people from the Northeast Woodlands cultures have carried tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item. It was smoked both socially and ceremonially, such as to seal a peace treaty or trade agreement. In some Native cultures, tobacco is seen as a gift from the Creator, with the ceremonial tobacco smoke carrying one's thoughts and prayers to the Creator.
Following the arrival of the Europeans to the Americas, tobacco became increasingly popular as a trade item. Hernández de Boncalo, Spanish chronicler of the Indies, was the first European to bring tobacco seeds to the Old World in 1559 following orders of King Philip II of Spain. These seeds were planted in the outskirts of Toledo, more specifically in an area known as "Los Cigarrales" named after the continuous plagues of cicadas ("cigarras" in Spanish). Before the development of the lighter Virginia and white burley strains of tobacco, the smoke was too harsh to be inhaled. Small quantities were smoked at a time, using a pipe like the "midwakh" or "kiseru," or newly invented waterpipes such as the bong or the hookah (see thuốc lào for a modern continuance of this practice). Tobacco became so popular that the English colony of Jamestown used it as currency and began exporting it as a cash crop; tobacco is often credited as being the export that saved Virginia from ruin.
The alleged benefits of tobacco also contributed to its success. The astronomer Thomas Harriot, who accompanied Sir Richard Grenville on his 1585 expedition to Roanoke Island, mistakenly explained that the plant "openeth all the pores and passages of the body" so that the natives’ "bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal we in England are often times afflicted."
Production of tobacco for smoking, chewing, and snuffing became a major industry in Europe and its colonies by 1700.
Tobacco has been a major cash crop in Cuba and in other parts of the Caribbean since the 18th century. Cuban cigars are world-famous.
In the late 19th century, cigarettes became popular. James Bonsack invented a machine to automate cigarette production. This increase in production allowed tremendous growth in the tobacco industry until the health revelations of the late 20th century.
Following the scientific revelations of the mid-20th century, tobacco was condemned as a health hazard, and eventually became recognized as a cause for cancer, as well as other respiratory and circulatory diseases. In the United States, this led to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which settled the many lawsuits by the U.S. states in exchange for a combination of yearly payments to the states and voluntary restrictions on advertising and marketing of tobacco products.
In the 1970s, Brown & Williamson cross-bred a strain of tobacco to produce Y1, a strain containing an unusually high nicotine content, nearly doubling from 3.2-3.5% to 6.5%. In the 1990s, this prompted the Food and Drug Administration to allege that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.
In 2003, in response to growth of tobacco use in developing countries, the World Health Organization successfully rallied 168 countries to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The convention is designed to push for effective legislation and enforcement in all countries to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco.
The desire of many addicted smokers to quit has led to the development of tobacco cessation products.
Many species of tobacco are in the genus of herbs "Nicotiana". It is part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) indigenous to North and South America, Australia, south west Africa, and the South Pacific.
Most nightshades contain varying amounts of nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin to insects. However, tobaccos tend to contain a much higher concentration of nicotine than the others. Unlike many other Solanaceae species, they do not contain tropane alkaloids, which are often poisonous to humans and other animals.
Despite containing enough nicotine and other compounds such as germacrene and anabasine and other piperidine alkaloids (varying between species) to deter most herbivores, a number of such animals have evolved the ability to feed on "Nicotiana" species without being harmed. Nonetheless, tobacco is unpalatable to many species due to its other attributes. For example, although the cabbage looper is a generalist pest, tobacco's gummosis and trichomes can harm early larvae survival. As a result, some tobacco plants (chiefly "N. glauca") have become established as invasive weeds in some places.
The types of tobacco include:
Tobacco is cultivated similarly to other agricultural products. Seeds were at first quickly scattered onto the soil. However, young plants came under increasing attack from flea beetles ("Epitrix cucumeris" or "E. pubescens"), which caused destruction of half the tobacco crops in United States in 1876. By 1890, successful experiments were conducted that placed the plant in a frame covered by thin cotton fabric. Today, tobacco seeds are sown in cold frames or hotbeds, as their germination is activated by light. In the United States, tobacco is often fertilized with the mineral apatite, which partially starves the plant of nitrogen, to produce a more desired flavor.
After the plants are about tall, they are transplanted into the fields. Farmers used to have to wait for rainy weather to plant. A hole is created in the tilled earth with a tobacco peg, either a curved wooden tool or deer antler. After making two holes to the right and left, the planter would move forward two feet, select plants from his/her bag, and repeat. Various mechanical tobacco planters like Bemis, New Idea Setter, and New Holland Transplanter were invented in the late 19th and 20th centuries to automate the process: making the hole, watering it, guiding the plant in — all in one motion.
Tobacco is cultivated annually, and can be harvested in several ways. In the oldest method, still used today, the entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a tobacco knife; it is then speared onto sticks, four to six plants a stick, and hung in a curing barn. In the 19th century, bright tobacco began to be harvested by pulling individual leaves off the stalk as they ripened. The leaves ripen from the ground upwards, so a field of tobacco harvested in this manner entails the serial harvest of a number of "primings", beginning with the "volado" leaves near the ground, working to the "seco" leaves in the middle of the plant, and finishing with the potent "ligero" leaves at the top. Before harvesting, the crop must be "topped" when the pink flowers develop. Topping always refers to the removal of the tobacco flower before the leaves are systematically harvested. As the industrial revolution took hold, the harvesting wagons which were used to transport leaves were equipped with man-powered stringers, an apparatus that used twine to attach leaves to a pole. In modern times, large fields are harvested mechanically, although topping the flower and in some cases the plucking of immature leaves is still done by hand. Most tobacco in the U.S. is grown in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia.
Curing and subsequent aging allow for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids in tobacco leaf. This produces certain compounds in the tobacco leaves and gives a sweet hay, tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavor that contributes to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Starch is converted to sugar, which glycates protein, and is oxidized into advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), a caramelization process that also adds flavor. Inhalation of these AGEs in tobacco smoke contributes to atherosclerosis and cancer. Levels of AGEs are dependent on the curing method used.
Tobacco can be cured through several methods, including:
Some tobaccos go through a second stage of curing, known as "fermenting" or "sweating". Cavendish undergoes fermentation pressed in a "casing" solution containing sugar and/or flavoring.
Production of tobacco leaf increased by 40% between 1971, when 4.2 million tons of leaf were produced, and 1997, when 5.9 million tons of leaf were produced. According to the Food and Agriculture organization of the UN, tobacco leaf production was expected to hit 7.1 million tons by 2010. This number is a bit lower than the record-high production of 1992, when 7.5 million tons of leaf were produced. The production growth was almost entirely due to increased productivity by developing nations, where production increased by 128%. During that same time, production in developed countries actually decreased. China's increase in tobacco production was the single biggest factor in the increase in world production. China's share of the world market increased from 17% in 1971 to 47% in 1997. This growth can be partially explained by the existence of a high import tariff on foreign tobacco entering China. While this tariff has been reduced from 64% in 1999 to 10% in 2004, it still has led to local, Chinese cigarettes being preferred over foreign cigarettes because of their lower cost.
Every year, about 6.7 million tons of tobacco are produced throughout the world. The top producers of tobacco are China (39.6%), India (8.3%), Brazil (7.0%) and the United States (4.6%).
Around the peak of global tobacco production, 20 million rural Chinese households were producing tobacco on 2.1 million hectares of land. While it is the major crop for millions of Chinese farmers, growing tobacco is not as profitable as cotton or sugarcane, because the Chinese government sets the market price. While this price is guaranteed, it is lower than the natural market price, because of the lack of market risk. To further control tobacco in their borders, China founded a State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) in 1982. The STMA controls tobacco production, marketing, imports, and exports, and contributes 12% to the nation's national income. As noted above, despite the income generated for the state by profits from state-owned tobacco companies and the taxes paid by companies and retailers, China's government has acted to reduce tobacco use.
India's Tobacco Board is headquartered in Guntur in the state of Andhra Pradesh. India has 96,865 registered tobacco farmers and many more who are not registered. In 2010, 3,120 tobacco product manufacturing facilities were operating in all of India. Around 0.25% of India's cultivated land is used for tobacco production.
Since 1947, the Indian government has supported growth in the tobacco industry. India has seven tobacco research centers, located in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Mysore, and West Bengal houses the core research institute.
In Brazil, around 135,000 family farmers cite tobacco production as their main economic activity. Tobacco has never exceeded 0.7% of the country's total cultivated area. In the southern regions of Brazil, Virginia, and Amarelinho, flue-cured tobacco, as well as burley and Galpão Comum air-cured tobacco, are produced. These types of tobacco are used for cigarettes. In the northeast, darker, air- and sun-cured tobacco is grown. These types of tobacco are used for cigars, twists, and dark cigarettes.
Brazil's government has made attempts to reduce the production of tobacco but has not had a successful systematic antitobacco farming initiative. Brazil's government, however, provides small loans for family farms, including those that grow tobacco, through the "Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar".
The International Labour Office reported that the most child-laborers work in agriculture, which is one of the most hazardous types of work. The tobacco industry houses some of these working children. Use of children is widespread on farms in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. While some of these children work with their families on small, family-owned farms, others work on large plantations.
In late 2009, reports were released by the London-based human-rights group Plan International, claiming that child labor was common on Malawi (producer of 1.8% of the world's tobacco) tobacco farms. The organization interviewed 44 teens, who worked full-time on farms during the 2007-8 growing season. The child-laborers complained of low pay and long hours, as well as physical and sexual abuse by their supervisors. They also reported suffering from Green tobacco sickness, a form of nicotine poisoning. When wet leaves are handled, nicotine from the leaves gets absorbed in the skin and causes nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. Children were exposed to levels of nicotine equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes, just through direct contact with tobacco leaves. This level of nicotine in children can permanently alter brain structure and function.
Major tobacco companies have encouraged global tobacco production. Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco each own or lease tobacco-manufacturing facilities in at least 50 countries and buy crude tobacco leaf from at least 12 more countries. This encouragement, along with government subsidies, has led to a glut in the tobacco market. This surplus has resulted in lower prices, which are devastating to small-scale tobacco farmers. According to the World Bank, between 1985 and 2000, the inflation-adjusted price of tobacco dropped 37%. Tobacco is the most widely smuggled legal product.
Tobacco production requires the use of large amounts of pesticides. Tobacco companies recommend up to 16 separate applications of pesticides just in the period between planting the seeds in greenhouses and transplanting the young plants to the field. Pesticide use has been worsened by the desire to produce larger crops in less time because of the decreasing market value of tobacco. Pesticides often harm tobacco farmers because they are unaware of the health effects and the proper safety protocol for working with pesticides. These pesticides, as well as fertilizers, end up in the soil, waterways, and the food chain. Coupled with child labor, pesticides pose an even greater threat. Early exposure to pesticides may increase a child's lifelong cancer risk, as well as harm his or her nervous and immune systems.
As with all crops, tobacco crops extract nutrients (such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium) from soil, decreasing its fertility.
Furthermore, the wood used to cure tobacco in some places leads to deforestation. While some big tobacco producers such as China and the United States have access to petroleum, coal, and natural gas, which can be used as alternatives to wood, most developing countries still rely on wood in the curing process. Brazil alone uses the wood of 60 million trees per year for curing, packaging, and rolling cigarettes.
In 2017 WHO released a study on the environmental effects of tobacco.
Several tobacco plants have been used as model organisms in genetics. Tobacco BY-2 cells, derived from "N. tabacum" cultivar 'Bright Yellow-2', are among the most important research tools in plant cytology. Tobacco has played a pioneering role in callus culture research and the elucidation of the mechanism by which kinetin works, laying the groundwork for modern agricultural biotechnology. The first genetically modified plant was produced in 1982, using "Agrobacterium tumefaciens" to create an antibiotic-resistant tobacco plant. This research laid the groundwork for all genetically modified crops.
Because of its importance as a research tool, transgenic tobacco was the first GM crop to be tested in field trials, in the United States and France in 1986; China became the first country in the world to approve commercial planting of a GM crop in 1993, which was tobacco.
Many varieties of transgenic tobacco have been intensively tested in field trials. Agronomic traits such as resistance to pathogens (viruses, particularly to the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV); fungi; bacteria and nematodes); weed management via herbicide tolerance; resistance against insect pests; resistance to drought and cold; and production of useful products such as pharmaceuticals; and use of GM plants for bioremediation, have all been tested in over 400 field trials using tobacco.
Currently, only the US is producing GM tobacco. The Chinese virus-resistant tobacco was withdrawn from the market in China in 1997. From 2002 to 2010, cigarettes made with GM tobacco with reduced nicotine content were available in the US under the market name Quest.
Tobacco is consumed in many forms and through a number of different methods. Some examples are:
Smoking in public was, for a long time, reserved for men, and when done by women was sometimes associated with promiscuity; in Japan, during the Edo period, prostitutes and their clients often approached one another under the guise of offering a smoke. The same was true in 19th-century Europe.
Following the American Civil War, the use of tobacco, primarily in cigars, became associated with masculinity and power. Today, tobacco use is often stigmatized; this has spawned quitting associations and antismoking campaigns. Bhutan is the only country in the world where tobacco sales are illegal. Due to its propensity for causing detumescence and erectile dysfunction, some studies have described tobacco as an anaphrodisiacal substance.
Research on tobacco use is limited mainly to smoking, which has been studied more extensively than any other form of consumption. An estimated 1.1 billion people, and up to one-third of the adult population, use tobacco in some form. Smoking is more prevalent among men (however, the gender gap declines with age), the poor, and in transitional or developing countries. A study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that in 2019 approximately one in four youths (23.0%) in the U.S. had used a tobacco product during the past 30 days. This represented approximately three in 10 high school students (31.2%) and approximately one in eight middle school students (12.5%).
Rates of smoking continue to rise in developing countries, but have leveled off or declined in developed countries. Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006, falling from 42% to 20.8% in adults. In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year.
Tobacco smoking endangers health due to the inhalation of poisonous chemicals in tobacco smoke, such as carbon monoxide, cyanide, and carcinogens, which have been proven to cause heart and lung diseases and cancer.
Thousands of different substances in cigarette smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as benzopyrene), formaldehyde, cadmium, nickel, arsenic, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, and phenols contribute to the harmful effects of smoking.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death globally. The WHO estimates that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century. Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide." Due to these health consequences, it is estimated that a 10 hectare field of tobacco used for cigarettes causes 30 deaths per year – 10 from lung cancer and 20 from cigarette-induced diseases like cardiac arrest, gangrene, bladder cancer, mouth cancer, etc.
The harms caused by inhalation of tobacco smoke include diseases of the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (emphysema), and cancer (particularly cancers of the lungs, larynx, mouth, and pancreas). Cancer is caused by inhaling carcinogenic substances in tobacco smoke.
Inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke (which has been exhaled by a smoker) can cause lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. In the United States, about 3,000 adults die each year due to lung cancer from secondhand smoke exposure. Heart disease caused by secondhand smoke kills around 46,000 nonsmokers every year.
The addictive alkaloid nicotine is a stimulant, and popularly known as the most characteristic constituent of tobacco. In drug effect preference questionnaires, a rough indicator of addictive potential, nicotine scores almost as highly as opioids. Users typically develop tolerance and dependence. Nicotine is known to produce conditioned place preference, a sign of psychological enforcement value. In one medical study, tobacco's overall harm to user and self was determined at 3 percent below cocaine, and 13 percent above amphetamines, ranking 6th most harmful of the 20 drugs assessed.
Polonium-210 is a radioactive trace contaminant of tobacco, providing additional explanation for the link between smoking and bronchial cancer. A 1968 study found 0.33-0.36 picocurie polonium-210 (about 0.000,000,000,077 microgram) per gram cigarette tobacco, a tiny fraction of the lethal dose of 1 microgram.
Tobacco has a significant economic impact. The global tobacco market in 2010 was estimated at US$760 billion, excluding China. Statistica estimates that in the U.S. alone, the tobacco industry has a market of US$121 billion, despite the fact the CDC reports that US smoking rates are declining steadily. In the US, the decline in the number of smokers, the end of the Tobacco Transition Payment Program in 2014, and competition from growers in other countries, made tobacco farming economics more challenging.
Of the 1.22 billion smokers worldwide, 1 billion of them live in developing or transitional economies, and much of the disease burden and premature mortality attributable to tobacco use disproportionately affect the poor. While smoking prevalence has declined in many developed countries, it remains high in others, and is increasing among women and in developing countries. Between one-fifth and two-thirds of men in most populations smoke. Women's smoking rates vary more widely but rarely equal male rates.
In Indonesia, the lowest income group spends 15% of its total expenditures on tobacco. In Egypt, more than 10% of low-income household expenditure is on tobacco. The poorest 20% of households in Mexico spend 11% of their income on tobacco.
The tobacco industry advertises its products through a variety of media, including sponsorship, particularly of sporting events. Because of the health risks of these products, this is now one of the most highly regulated forms of marketing. Some or all forms of tobacco advertising are banned in many countries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30942 |
National anthem of South Africa
The national anthem of South Africa was adopted in 1997 and is a hybrid song combining new English lyrics with extracts of the 19th century hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" (, ) and the Afrikaans song "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (), which was formerly used as the South African national anthem from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s. The committee responsible for this new composition included Anna Bender, Elize Botha, Richard Cock, Dolf Havemann (Secretary), Mzilikazi Khumalo (Chairman), Masizi Kunene, John Lenake, Fatima Meer, Khabi Mngoma, Wally Serote, Johan de Villiers, and Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph.
The South African national anthem is often referred to by its incipit of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", but this has never been its official title, which is simply "National anthem of South Africa".
The fact that it shifts (modulates) and ends in a different key, a feature it shares with the Italian and the Philippine national anthems, makes it compositionally unusual. The lyrics employ the five of the most widely spoken of South Africa's eleven official languages – Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza), and English (final stanza). The lyrics are sung in these languages regardless of the native language of the singer. The first half was arranged by Mzilikazi Khumalo and the latter half of the song was arranged by Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph, who also wrote the final verse.
From the late 1940s to the early 1990s, South Africa was governed by a system known as apartheid, a widely condemned system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that was based on white supremacy and the repression of the black majority for the benefit of the politically and economically dominant Afrikaner minority and other whites. During this period, South Africa's national anthem was "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika", also known as "Die Stem", an Afrikaans language song that chronicled the Voortrekkers and their "Great Trek". "Die Stem" is a poem written by C. J. Langenhoven in 1918 and was set to music by the Reverend Marthinus Lourens de Villiers in 1921. "Die Stem" () was the co-national anthem with "God Save The King"/"God Save The Queen" between 1938 and 1957, when it became the sole national anthem until 1994. "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" () was composed of eight stanzas (The original four in Afrikaans and four in English - a translation of the Afrikaans with a few modifications). It was seldom sung in its entirety; usually, the first stanza was the most widely known and sung sometimes followed by the last stanza.
When apartheid came to an end in the early 1990s, the future of "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" was called into question. It was ultimately retained as the national anthem, though "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", a Xhosa language song that was used by the anti-apartheid movement, was also introduced and adopted as a second national anthem of equal standing. "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" was composed by a Methodist school teacher named Enoch Sontonga in 1897. It was first sung as a church hymn but later became an act of political defiance against the apartheid regime.
The South African government adopted both songs as dual national anthems in 1994, when they were performed at Nelson Mandela's inauguration.
For the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Morné du Plessis suggested that the Springboks learn all the words of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", and "they did so with great feeling", according to their instructor Anne Munnik.
The practice of having two national anthems proved to be a cumbersome arrangement as performing both of them took as much as five minutes. This was rectified when South Africa's dual national anthems were merged in abridged forms in early 1997 to form the current national anthem. The new national anthem was performed at an opening of the South African parliament in February 1997, and was published in the South African "Government Gazette" on 10 October 1997. During the drafting of the new national anthem, it was requested by South African president Nelson Mandela that it be no more than 1 minute and 48 seconds in length. The new English lyrics were adapted from the last four lines of the first stanza of "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (), with the changes made to reflect hope in post-apartheid South African society.
Lines borrowed from the two previous national anthems were modified to be more inclusive, omitting overt reference to specific groups of the country's population groups. Thus, lines from the apartheid-era national anthem's first stanza referencing the Voortrekkers' "Great Trek" were omitted, as "this was the experience of only one section of" South African society. Likewise, the words "Woza Moya", used in "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" were also omitted, as the phrase is a specifically Christian reference, rather than a generically religious one, and thus not acceptable to South Africans of other religions, particularly Muslim South Africans. A new verse found in neither song was also added. The English version of "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" was less prominent than the Afrikaans version and thus could be changed with little objection or controversy. As such, the English portion of the new South African national anthem was the one which had its lyrics changed from the previous version.
In recent years, the South African national anthem has come under criticism for its Afrikaans verse as it was originally part of the national anthem of South Africa that was used during the apartheid era, with some such as the Economic Freedom Fighters calling for the verse to be removed because of this connection. Others defend the inclusion of the verse, pointing out that it is included in large part due to the wishes of the first post-apartheid South African president, Nelson Mandela, who intended its inclusion as a re-conciliatory measure for the post-apartheid future of South Africa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30944 |
The Undertones
The Undertones are a rock band formed in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. From 1975 to 1983, the Undertones consisted of Feargal Sharkey (vocals), John O'Neill (rhythm guitar, vocals), Damian O'Neill (lead guitar, vocals), Michael Bradley (bass, vocals) and Billy Doherty (drums). Much of the earlier Undertones material drew influence from punk rock and new wave; the Undertones also incorporated elements of rock, glam rock and post-punk into material released after 1979, before citing soul and Motown as the influence for the material released upon their final album. The Undertones released thirteen singles and four studio albums between 1978 and 1983 before Sharkey announced his intention to leave the band in May 1983, citing musical differences as the reason for the break up.
Despite the backdrop of the Troubles in Derry and across Northern Ireland, the vast majority (though not all) of the material the Undertones released focused not upon the political climate, but upon issues such as adolescence, teenage angst and heartbreak. The merging of instruments has led "AllMusic" to state that guitarists John and Damian O'Neill "mated infectious guitar hooks to 1960s garage, 1970s glam rock, and Feargal Sharkey's signature vocal quaver."
In 1999, the Undertones reformed, replacing lead singer Sharkey with Paul McLoone.
The Undertones remain the most successful band to have emerged from Derry, and one of the most successful bands to have emerged from Northern Ireland.
The Undertones formed in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. The band members were five friends from Creggan and the Bogside, who originally drew inspiration from such artists as the Beatles, Small Faces and Lindisfarne. The band initially rehearsed cover versions at the home of the guitarists, brothers John and Vincent O'Neill, and in the shed of a neighbour. (In early 1976, before the band had played gigs at any venues, Vincent O'Neill left the band; being replaced by his younger brother Damian.)
Beginning in February 1976 the group, at this stage still unnamed, began playing gigs at various minor local venues, including schools, parish halls and Scout huts, where the band's lead singer, Feargal Sharkey, was a local Scout leader. Sharkey was also responsible for giving the band their first name: at the introduction to a gig at Saint Joseph's Secondary School in Derry on 16 March 1976, Feargal Sharkey was asked the name of the band and quickly replied "The Hot Rods". At a later gig, Sharkey named the band "Little Feat": another name already used by another group.
Later that year, drummer Billy Doherty proposed an alternate name for the group: The Undertones, which Doherty had discovered in his school history book. The other members of the band agreed to the proposal.
With the arrival of punk rock in late 1976, the artistic focus of the band changed. Artists such as the Adverts, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and, particularly, the Ramones became major influences on the Undertones.
In addition to being a Scout leader, Feargal Sharkey worked as a television repairman and delivery man. The van which Sharkey drove in this employment was used by the Undertones to transport their equipment to and from various venues.
By 1977 the band were performing their own three-chord pop punk material, which was performed alongside cover versions at concerts, primarily at the Casbah, where the band began to perform in February. The Undertones had occasionally earned money at venues where they had performed throughout 1976, but these gigs at the Casbah were the first performances for which the Undertones were paid on a regular basis, as performing at the Casbah earned the group up to £30 for each attendance fee. Both the money earned and their popularity at this venue inspired the band to write and rehearse further material, as a means of remaining a popular act at the Casbah. By mid-year, the concerts the Undertones performed would include the song "Teenage Kicks", which had been written by guitarist John O'Neill in mid-1977. The gigs performed at the Casbah gave the Undertones increased confidence in their musical ability, and in June 1977 they performed concerts outside Derry for the first time, supporting a Dublin punk group named The Radiators from Space.
In March 1978, the Undertones recorded a demo tape at Magee University in Derry and sent copies of the tape to various record companies in the hope of securing a record deal, but only received official letters of rejection. The band had also sent a copy of their recordings to influential BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, requesting he play the songs on his radio programme. Peel replied to the band, offering to pay for a recording session in Belfast. On 15 June 1978, the band recorded their debut four-song EP "Teenage Kicks" on a budget of only £200. The EP was engineered by Davy Shannon at Wizard Studios, Belfast, and was released on Belfast's Good Vibrations record label. The title song became a hit with support from John Peel, who considered Teenage Kicks his all-time favourite song, an opinion he held through to his death in 2004.
Seymour Stein, the president of Sire Records – in London on business – heard John Peel play "Teenage Kicks" on BBC Radio 1 and became interested in the band. Stein sent a London-based representative named Paul McNally to Derry to discuss a record deal with the band. McNally saw the band play live in what would ultimately prove to be their final performance at the Casbah on 29 September 1978. The following day, McNally convened with the Undertones to discuss a record contract. Three members of the band signed the proposed contract on this date, with the understanding that Feargal Sharkey and Michael Bradley would discuss negotiations to the contract with Seymour Stein in person in London.
On 2 October 1978, Bradley and Sharkey agreed to an increased advance fee of £10,000 offered by Stein upon the recording contract and signed to Sire Records on a five-year contract. Sire Records subsequently obtained all rights to the material released upon the Teenage Kicks EP and the song was re-released as a standard vinyl single upon Sire's own label two weeks later.
On 26 October, the Undertones performed "Teenage Kicks" live on "Top of the Pops". With help from Peel (who had also recorded and broadcast a "Peel Session" with the Undertones on the 16th), Teenage Kicks peaked at number 31 in the UK Singles Chart the following month.
In November 1978, the Undertones embarked on their first tour of the UK. This tour lasted until 16 December and saw the band appear as the supporting act for The Rezillos and John Otway in England and Wales in addition to headlining in three concerts in Belfast and Derry.
In January 1979, the Undertones recorded their eponymous debut album at Eden Studios in Acton, West London, using producer Roger Bechirian, whom the band had worked with for the first time the previous December, when Bechirian had produced the band's second single, "Get Over You". Much of the material upon their first album had been performed regularly at the Casbah, and the band were able to record this album in the space of less than four weeks.
Following the release of "Get Over You" in February 1979, the Undertones' eponymous debut album was released in May. The primary lyrical concern of the songs focused upon youthful relationships and adolescence. Three further punk singles "Jimmy Jimmy", "Here Comes the Summer" and "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It?)" were released between April and October 1979, each to critical acclaim. In September 1979, the Undertones toured the United States for the first time, supporting The Clash with eight concerts in six different States.
Following the 'You Got My Number tour' of October 1979, the Undertones began recording the songs for their second album, "Hypnotised", at Wisseloord Studios in the Netherlands. The recording of the songs began in December. Ten songs were recorded before the band returned to Derry prior to Christmas to write and record further songs for the album. Three further songs were written during this break: "Tearproof", "More Songs About Chocolate and Girls" and "Wednesday Week".
In January 1980, the production of "Hypnotised" was finished at Eden Studios in London, with the Undertones recording the three further songs written the previous December, plus two further songs—"Hypnotised" and a cover of "Under The Boardwalk"—which had been written that month. Following the completion of their second LP, the band embarked upon a two-week tour of Ireland before touring continental Europe for the first time in March.
On 28 March 1980, the Undertones released their sixth single, "My Perfect Cousin". The song, which had been written the previous summer by Damian O'Neill and Michael Bradley, reached number 9 in the UK charts and would subsequently prove to be the band's highest charting single in the United Kingdom. The following month, on 21 April 1980, the band's second LP, "Hypnotised" was released. This album reached number 6 in the UK Albums Chart, remaining in the Top 10 for one month. The same week the album was released, the Undertones embarked on their 'Humming tour', which saw the band play a total of 25 gigs across the UK between April and June.
Less than two weeks after the completion of the 'Humming tour', the Undertones toured the United States for the second time; this time as the headlining band. "Wednesday Week"—the second single to be released from "Hypnotised"—was released in July 1980. This single reached number 11 in the UK chart and remained in the Top 40 for a total of seven weeks.
Between September and December 1980, the Undertones performed two further tours: the 'Disaster Tour (European Style)', which saw the band perform in continental Europe and—in December—the 'See No More' tour of the UK.
In terms of chart sales, the year 1980 was the Undertones' most successful year. In a review by "Sounds" magazine the same year, the Undertones were described as: "Possibly the best pop group in the English speaking world."
In December 1980, the Undertones announced their intention to split from Sire Records as they were unhappy with the lack of promotion they were receiving outside of the UK, particularly in the US. Following negotiations, their manager, Andy Ferguson, succeeded in the band retaining ownership rights to the material released on Sire Records; Ferguson subsequently signed the group to EMI in March 1981.
On 4 January 1981, the band began recording their third album, "Positive Touch", again at Wisseloord Studios, and again with Roger Bechirian as producer. The band recorded a total of eight songs in five days before returning to Derry. Later the same month, the band returned to Wisseloord Studios to complete the recording of the LP. The songs on this album indicated a change in both musical and lyrical influences: although the songs remained largely guitar-oriented, the band had written songs which focused upon the Troubles in Northern Ireland such as "Crisis of Mine", "You're Welcome" and the single "It's Going To Happen!", which preceded the release of the LP and was inspired by the 1980–81 Hunger Strikes. In addition, several songs upon the LP included instruments such as pianos, saxophones, recorders and brass instruments, with two further songs ("Julie Ocean" and "It's Going To Happen!") drawing musical inspiration from contemporary artists Orange Juice and Dexy's Midnight Runners respectively. The band themselves were content with the change of influences for "Positive Touch", which bassist Michael Bradley later described as a "natural progression" for the band, adding that, at the time, consensus between the band members was that the songs upon the LP were their best yet.
One month prior to the release of this third album, in April 1981, the Undertones embarked on their 'Positive Touch tour'; this tour saw the band perform a total of 36 gigs across the UK mainland in the space of less than two months.
"Positive Touch" was released in May 1981. This third album peaked at number 17 in the UK charts—remaining in the Top 40 for a total of four weeks. The album also received favourable reviews from several music critics and was listed by "NME" as one of the best albums to be released in 1981, although neither the album nor either of the singles released were as successful as any of the material released the previous year.
Following the conclusion of their 'Positive Touch tour' in June 1981, the Undertones released their second single of 1981, "Julie Ocean". The single – an extended recording of the 90-second album version – was produced by Hugh Jones and Dave Balfe.
On 29 September 1981, the Undertones embarked on their biggest tour of Continental Europe, which lasted until 20 October 1981 and saw the band perform a total of 19 concerts in six countries.
1982 saw a lull in activity from the Undertones, who only performed live on a total of five occasions throughout the entire year. Two of these gigs were held in England, with three further live appearances held in the United States in August. Much of the time the band spent together was devoted towards writing and recording songs for their next LP in their 8-track demo studio. Damian O'Neill, the Undertones' lead guitarist, later admitted: "We (had) definitely lost a bit of the spark. I don't know but I tend to think some of us got too complacent sitting in our homes in Derry." The Undertones released two studio singles, "Beautiful Friend" and "The Love Parade", in February and October; both of these singles failed to make an impact upon the UK charts.
In March 1983, the Undertones released their fourth album, "The Sin of Pride". This album, which drew inspiration from both soul and Motown, was produced by Mike Hedges, who had replaced Roger Bechirian as the Undertones' producer following the 1981 release of "Positive Touch". Feargal Sharkey is known to have stated he had worked harder upon this album than at any point in his singing career to date, and that he considers this album the finest the Undertones ever produced. "The Sin of Pride" was met with critical acclaim upon release, and the Undertones performed several gigs in both Scotland and England to promote the release of this album; it reached number 43 in the UK chart.
The Undertones released two further studio singles in 1983; their first single, "Got To Have You Back"—which was inspired by both ABC and Smokey Robinson—was released in February and their second single, "Chain of Love", was released in May. Both failed to make any major impact on the UK chart.
In April 1983, the Undertones embarked on their 'UK Sin of Pride tour' to promote their latest album. By this stage in their career, the band were acutely aware of the pressure they were under from EMI, who were unhappy with the lack of chart success of much of the material the band had released since the release of their "Positive Touch" LP. In addition, internal tensions between various members of the band, in particular between Feargal Sharkey and John O'Neill, had deteriorated significantly. These factors led to Sharkey announcing his intentions to leave the Undertones during the 'European Tour 1983', which the group performed in May of that year.
To fulfill agreed commitments, the Undertones remained together for a further two months, performing several gigs across continental Europe before disbanding in mid-1983, with their final concert being played at Punchestown Racecourse in County Kildare in Ireland on 17 July.
Following the disbandment of the Undertones in 1983, Feargal Sharkey was invited by Vince Clarke and Eric Radcliffe of the synthpop duet The Assembly to provide lead vocals on the single "Never Never," which was released by The Assembly in November 1983 and peaked at number 4 in the UK charts. Sharkey was never officially a member of The Assembly and his vocal contribution to "Never Never" proved to be Sharkey's only recording with the band, who would only issue this one single before folding.
Sharkey subsequently embarked upon a brief, but commercially successful solo career in the mid 1980s to early 1990s.
Two of the other band members, John O'Neill and Damian O'Neill, formed That Petrol Emotion in 1984. That Petrol Emotion released a total of fifteen singles and six albums between 1985 and 1994.
In the 1990s John O'Neill formed a trip hop group called Rare under the stage name "Seán Ó'Néill" with vocalist Mary Gallagher. They only had one notable chart appearance and disbanded shortly after the release of their only album in 1998.
The Undertones reformed in November 1999, initially to play concerts in Derry. For their reformation, the Undertones replaced Sharkey (who declined to rejoin) with singer Paul McLoone. Since 1999, the Undertones have performed several tours across the UK, Ireland, Continental Europe, Japan, Turkey and North America and continue to perform live.
Noteworthy gigs by the Undertones since their 1999 reformation include performing at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2005, providing pre-match entertainment prior to kick-off at Celtic Park in the UEFA Champions League play-off between Celtic and Arsenal in August 2009 and, in March and April 2011, performing a series of UK gigs in which they played their debut album, "The Undertones," in its entirety as part of each show. This tour was timed to accompany a re-release of a double compilation album containing all of the A- and B-sides of their singles.
Since their reformation, the Undertones have released two albums of original material with Paul McLoone providing vocals: "Get What You Need" on 30 September 2003; and "Dig Yourself Deep", on 15 October 2007.
In April 2013, the Undertones released their first new material for over five years with the double A-side single "Much Too Late / When It Hurts I Count To Ten." This single—limited to 1,000 numbered copies—was released as part of the Record Store Day promotion in the UK and was recorded at Toe Rag Studios in London.
In a 2000 poll by "Q" to discover the 100 greatest British albums of all time as voted by the British public, the Undertones' eponymous debut LP was voted the 90th greatest British album.
The Undertones have also been the subject of two documentaries: The first documentary to be produced: "The Story of the Undertones: Teenage Kicks", was recorded in 2001 and released in 2004. Directed by Tom Collins, this 65-minute documentary was produced with the cooperation of John Peel, who interviews all current and former members of the band (with the exception of Vincent O'Neill) in addition to Seymour Stein and Eamonn McCann. In this documentary, the band discuss their formation, career, subsequent careers, personal lives and 1999 reunion.
The second documentary relating to The Undertones: "Here Comes the Summer: The Undertones Story", was commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on BBC Four in September 2012. This documentary also features with interviews with current and former members of the Undertones (excluding Feargal Sharkey) in addition to numerous fans, friends, journalists, and additional personnel involved in the band's recordings and career. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30950 |
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is a retired American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. He is best known for the pithy and humorous songs that he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though he usually created original melodies when doing so. A notable exception is "The Elements", in which he set the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance".
Lehrer's early musical work typically dealt with non-topical subject matter and was noted for its black humor in songs such as "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". In the 1960s, he produced a number of songs that dealt with social and political issues of the day, particularly when he wrote for the U.S. version of the television show "That Was the Week That Was". The popularity of these songs has far outlasted their topical subjects and references. Lehrer quoted a friend's explanation: "Always predict the worst and you'll be hailed as a prophet." In the early 1970s, Lehrer largely retired from public performances to devote his time to teaching mathematics and musical theater history at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Tom Lehrer was born in 1928 to a secular Jewish family and grew up on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He began studying classical piano at the age of seven, but was more interested in the popular music of the age. Eventually, his mother also sent him to a popular-music piano teacher. At this early age, he began writing show tunes, which eventually helped him as a satirical composer and writer in his years of lecturing at Harvard University noting the influence of one of his professors Irving Kaplansky, and later at other universities.
Lehrer attended the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, part of The Bronx. He also attended Camp Androscoggin, both as a camper and a counselor. Lehrer was considered a child prodigy and entered Harvard College at the age of 15 after graduating from Loomis Chaffee School. As a mathematics undergraduate student at Harvard College, he began to write comic songs to entertain his friends, including "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" (1945). Those songs were later named collectively "The Physical Revue", a joking reference to a leading scientific journal, the "Physical Review".
He graduated Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from Harvard University, "magna cum laude", in 1946. At Harvard he was the roommate of the Canadian theologian Robert Crouse. He received his AM degree the next year and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He later taught mathematics and other classes at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Lehrer remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time out for his musical career and to work as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He was drafted into the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency (NSA). (Lehrer has stated that he invented the Jello shot during this time, as a means of circumventing the base's ban on alcoholic beverages.) These experiences became fodder for songs, such as "The Wild West is Where I Want to Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier". It was many years before Lehrer publicly revealed that he had been assigned to the NSA, since the mere fact of its existence was classified at the time; this left him in the interesting position of implicitly using nuclear weapons work as a cover story for something more sensitive.
Despite holding a master's degree in an era when American conscripts often lacked a high school diploma, Lehrer served as an enlisted soldier, achieving the rank of Specialist Third Class (later retitled "Specialist-4" and currently "Specialist"), which he described as being a "corporal without portfolio". In 1960, Lehrer returned to full-time studies at Harvard, but in 1965 he gave up on his mathematical dissertation on modes in statistics, after having worked on it intermittently for 15 years.
From 1962, Lehrer taught in the political science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1972, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz, teaching an introductory course entitled "The Nature of Mathematics" to liberal arts majors—"math for tenors", according to Lehrer. He also taught a class in musical theater. He occasionally performed songs in his lectures, primarily those relating to the topic.
In 2001, Lehrer taught his last mathematics class (on the topic of infinity) and retired from academia. He has remained in the area, and in 2003 said he still "hangs out" around the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The American Mathematical Society database lists him as co-author of two papers:
Lehrer was mainly influenced by musical theater. According to Gerald Nachman's book "Seriously Funny", the Broadway musical "Let's Face It!" (by Cole Porter) made an early and lasting impression on him. Lehrer's style consists of parodying various forms of popular song. For example, his appreciation of list songs led him to write "The Elements", which lists the chemical elements to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major-General's Song".
In author Isaac Asimov's second autobiographical volume "In Joy Still Felt", Asimov recounted seeing Lehrer perform in a Boston nightclub on October 9, 1954. Lehrer sang cleverly about Jim getting it from Louise, and Sally from Jim, "...and after a while you gathered the 'it' was venereal disease [the song was likely "I Got It From Sally" (in later versions "Agnes")]. Suddenly, as the combinations grew more grotesque, you realized he was satirizing every known perversion without using a single naughty phrase. It was clearly unsingable (in those days) outside a nightclub." Asimov also recalled a song that dealt with the Boston subway system, making use of the stations leading into town from Harvard, observing that the local subject-matter rendered the song useless for general distribution. Lehrer subsequently granted Asimov permission to print the lyrics to the subway song in his book. "I haven't gone to nightclubs often," said Asimov, "but of all the times I have gone, it was on this occasion that I had by far the best time."
Lehrer was encouraged by the success of his performances, so he paid $15 for some studio time in 1953 to record "Songs by Tom Lehrer". The initial pressing was 400 copies. Radio stations would not air his songs because of his controversial subjects, so he sold the album on campus at Harvard for $3, , while "several stores near the Harvard campus sold it for $3.50, taking only a minimal markup as a kind of community service. Newsstands on campus sold it for the same price." After one summer, he started to receive mail orders from all parts of the country, as far away as San Francisco, after the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote an article on the record. Interest in his recordings spread by word of mouth. People played their records for friends, who then also wanted a copy. Lehrer recalled, "Lacking exposure in the media, my songs spread slowly. Like herpes, rather than ebola."
The album included the macabre "I Hold Your Hand in Mine", the mildly risqué "Be Prepared", and "Lobachevsky" regarding plagiarizing mathematicians. It became a cult success by word of mouth, despite being self-published and without promotion. Lehrer embarked on a series of concert tours and recorded a second album in 1959. He released the second album in two versions: the songs were the same, but "More of Tom Lehrer" was a studio recording and "An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer" was recorded live in concert. In 2013, Lehrer recalled the studio session for "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", which referred to the practice of controlling pigeons in Boston with strychnine-treated corn:
Lehrer had a breakthrough in the United Kingdom on December 4, 1957, when the University of London awarded a doctor of music degree "honoris causa" to Princess Margaret, and the public orator, Professor J. R. Sutherland, said it was "in the full knowledge that the Princess is a connoisseur of music and a performer of skill and distinction, her taste being catholic, ranging from Mozart to the calypso and from opera to the songs of Miss Beatrice Lillie and Tom Lehrer." This prompted significant interest in Lehrer's works and helped to secure distributors for his material in Britain. It was there that his music achieved real popularity, as a result of the proliferation of university newspapers referring to the material, and the willingness of the BBC to play his songs on the radio, something that was a rarity in the United States. By the end of the 1950s, Lehrer had sold 370,000 records.
In 1960, Lehrer essentially retired from touring in the U.S. In the early 1960s, he was employed as the resident songwriter for the U.S. edition of "That Was The Week That Was" (TW3), a satirical television show.
An increased proportion of his output became overtly political, or at least topical, on subjects such as education ("New Math"), the Second Vatican Council ("The Vatican Rag", a tune based on the 1910 "Spaghetti Rag" by Lyons and Yosco), race relations ("National Brotherhood Week"), air and water pollution ("Pollution"), American militarism ("Send the Marines"), and nuclear proliferation ("Who's Next?" and "MLF Lullaby"). He also wrote a song satirizing rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who worked for Nazi Germany before working for the United States. (Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun.") Lehrer did not appear on the television show; vocalist Nancy Ames performed his songs, and network censors often altered his lyrics. Lehrer later performed these songs on the album "That Was The Year That Was" (1965) at which point people could hear them the way that he intended.
In 1966, David Frost invited him to contribute some of his classic compositions to his BBC program "The Frost Report". The show was transmitted live, and he pre-recorded all his segments at one performance. Lehrer was not featured in every edition, but his songs featured in an appropriate part of each show. At least two of his songs were not included on any of his LPs: a reworking of Noël Coward’s "That is the End of the News" (with some new lyrics) and a comic explanation of how Britain might adapt to the coming of decimal currency.
In 1960, Lehrer toured Australia and New Zealand, performing a total of 33 concerts to great acclaim. Yet this occurred during a time in which he was "banned, censored, mentioned in several houses of parliament and threatened with arrest", in his words. In particular, "Be Prepared" drew advance resistance in Brisbane from the chief of police. He performed several unreleased songs in Australia, including "The Masochism Tango".
Lehrer made a short tour in Norway and Denmark in 1967, where he performed some of the songs from the television program. The performance in Oslo on September 10 was recorded on video tape and aired locally that autumn, and this program was released on DVD some 40 years later. He performed as a prominent international guest at the "Studenterforeningen" (student association) in Copenhagen, which was televised, and he commented onstage that he might be America's "revenge for Victor Borge". He performed original songs in a Dodge automobile industrial film distributed primarily to automobile dealers and shown at promotional events in 1967, set in a fictional American wild west town and titled "The Dodge Rebellion Theatre presents Ballads For '67". He attempted to adapt Sweeney Todd as a Broadway musical, working with Joe Raposo, to star Jerry Colonna. They started a few songs but, as Lehrer noted, "Nothing ever came of it, and of course twenty years later Stephen Sondheim beat me to the punch."
The record deal with Reprise Records for "That Was The Year That Was" also gave Reprise distribution rights for his earlier recordings, as Lehrer wanted to wind up his own record imprint. The Reprise issue of "Songs by Tom Lehrer" was a stereo re-recording. This version was not issued on CD, but the songs were issued on the live "Tom Lehrer Revisited" CD. The live recording included bonus tracks "L-Y" and "Silent E", two of the ten songs that he wrote for the PBS children's educational series "The Electric Company". Lehrer later commented that worldwide sales of the recordings under Reprise surpassed 1.8 million units in 1996. That same year, "That Was The Year That Was" went gold. The album liner notes promote his songs with self-deprecating humor, such as quoting a "New York Times" review from 1958: Mr. Lehrer's muse is "not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste."
In the 1970s, Lehrer concentrated on teaching mathematics and musical theater, although he also wrote ten songs for the educational children's television show "The Electric Company". His last public performance took place in 1972, on a fundraising tour for Democratic US presidential candidate George McGovern.
There is a false rumor that Lehrer gave up political satire when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger in 1973. He did comment that awarding the prize to Kissinger made political satire obsolete, but has denied that he stopped creating satire as a form of protest, pointing out that he had not toured for several years previously. Another mistaken belief is that he was sued for libel by Wernher von Braun, the subject of one of his songs, and forced to relinquish his royalties to von Braun. Lehrer denied this in a 2003 interview.
When asked about his reasons for abandoning his musical career in an interview in the book accompanying his CD box set, released in 2000, Lehrer cited a simple lack of interest, a disdain of touring, and the monotony of performing the same songs repeatedly. He observed that when he was moved to write and perform songs, he did, and when he was not, he did not, and that after a while he simply lost interest. Even though Lehrer was "a hero of the anti-nuclear, civil rights left" and covered its political issues in many of his songs, and even though he shared the New Left's opposition to the Vietnam War, and advocated for civil rights, he disliked the aesthetics of the counterculture of the 1960s and stopped performing as the movement gained momentum.
Lehrer's musical career was relatively brief. He once mentioned that he performed a mere 109 shows and wrote 37 songs over 20 years. Nevertheless, he developed a significant following in the United States and abroad.
Cameron Mackintosh produced "Tom Foolery" in 1980, a revue of Lehrer's songs that was a hit on the London stage. Lehrer was not initially involved with the show, but he was pleased with it; he eventually gave the stage production his full support and updated several of his lyrics for the show. "Tom Foolery" contained 27 songs and led to more than 200 productions, including an Off-Broadway production at the Village Gate which ran for 120 performances in 1981. Lehrer made a rare TV appearance on BBC's "Parkinson" show in conjunction with the "Tom Foolery" premiere in 1980 at the Criterion Theatre in London, where he sang "I Got It from Agnes". In 1993, he wrote "That's Mathematics" for the closing credits to a Mathematical Sciences Research Institute video celebrating the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
Lehrer performed in public on June 7 and 8, 1998 for the first time in 25 years at the Lyceum Theatre, London as part of the show "Hey, Mr. Producer!" celebrating the career of Cameron Mackintosh, who produced "Tom Foolery". The June 8 show was his only performance before Queen Elizabeth II. Lehrer sang "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and an updated version of the nuclear proliferation song "Who's Next?"
The boxed CD set "The Remains of Tom Lehrer" was released in 2000 by Rhino Entertainment. It included live and studio versions of his first two albums, "That Was The Year That Was", the songs that he wrote for "The Electric Company", and some previously unreleased material. It was accompanied by a small hardbound book containing an introduction by Dr. Demento and lyrics for all the songs. In 2010, Shout! Factory launched a reissue campaign making Lehrer's long out of print albums available digitally. The CD/DVD combo "The Tom Lehrer Collection" was also issued and included his best-known songs, plus a DVD featuring an Oslo concert.
Sardonic composer Randy Newman said of Lehrer, "He's one of the great American songwriters without a doubt, right up there with everybody, the top guys. As a lyricist, as good as there's been in the last half of the 20th century." Singer and comedian Dillie Keane has acknowledged Lehrer's influence on her work.
Lehrer was praised by Dr. Demento as "the best musical satirist of the twentieth century." Other artists who cite Lehrer as an influence include "Weird Al" Yankovic, whose work generally addresses more popular and less technical or political subjects, and educator and scientist H. Paul Shuch, who tours under the stage name Dr. SETI, and calls himself "a cross between Carl Sagan and Tom Lehrer: He sings like Sagan and lectures like Lehrer."
Lehrer has commented that he doubts his songs had any real effect on those not already critical of the establishment: "I don't think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It's not even preaching to the converted; it's titillating the converted ... I'm fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin kabaretts of the 1930s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War."
In 2003, Lehrer commented that his particular brand of political satire is more difficult in the modern world: "The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban land mines ... I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them."
Gene Weingarten of "The Washington Post" interviewed Lehrer off the record in a February 2008 phone call. When Weingarten asked if there was anything he could print for the record, Lehrer responded, "Just tell the people that I am voting for Obama."
The play "Letters from Lehrer" by Canadian Richard Greenblatt was performed by him at CanStage in Toronto, from January 16 to February 25, 2006. It followed Lehrer's musical career, the meaning of several songs, the politics of the time, and Greenblatt's own experiences with Lehrer's music, while playing some of Lehrer's songs. There are currently no plans for more performances, although low-quality audio recordings have been on the Internet.
Performers influenced by Lehrer's style include American political satirist Mark Russell, Canadian comedian and songwriter Randy Vancourt, and the British duo Kit and The Widow. British medical satirists Amateur Transplants acknowledge the debt they owe to Lehrer on the back of their first album, "Fitness to Practice". Their song "The Menstrual Rag" uses the tune of Lehrer's "The Vatican Rag", and "The Drugs Song" mirrors Lehrer's song "The Elements", both using the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from "The Pirates of Penzance" by Gilbert and Sullivan. The Amateur Transplants' second album, "Unfit to Practise", opens with an update of Lehrer's "The Masochism Tango" called "Masochism Tango 2008".
In 1967, Swedish actor Lars Ekborg, outside Sweden most known for his part in Ingmar Bergman's "Summer with Monika", made an album called "I Tom Lehrers vackra värld" ("In the beautiful world of Tom Lehrer"), with 12 of Lehrer's songs interpreted in Swedish. Lehrer wrote in a letter to the producer Per–Anders Boquist that, "Not knowing any Swedish, I am obviously not equipped to judge, but it sounds to me as though Mr. Ekborg is perfect for the songs," along with further compliments to pianist Leif Asp for unexpected additional flourishes.
In 1971, Argentinian singer Nacha Guevara sang Spanish versions of several Lehrer songs for the show/live album "Este es el año que es".
Lehrer's song "The Old Dope Peddler" is sampled in rapper 2 Chainz's song "Dope Peddler", on his 2012 debut album, "Based on a T.R.U. Story." The following year, Lehrer said he was "very proud" to have his song sampled "literally sixty years after I recorded it". Lehrer went on to describe his official response to the request to use his song: "As sole copyright owner of 'The Old Dope Peddler', I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?"
Lehrer has said of his musical career, "If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while."
Many songs are performed (but not by Lehrer) in "That Was The Week That Was" (Radiola LP, 1981)
The sheet music of many songs is published in "The Tom Lehrer Song Book" (Crown Publishers Inc., 1954) Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 54-12068 and "Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer: with not enough drawings by Ronald Searle" (Pantheon, 1981, ; Methuen, 1999, ). A second song book, "Tom Lehrer's Second Song Book", is out of print, .
Lehrer wrote "The SAC Song", which was sung in the 1963 film "A Gathering of Eagles". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30951 |
Tuatha Dé Danann
The Tuath(a) Dé Danann (, meaning "the folk of the goddess Danu"), also known by the earlier name Tuath Dé ("tribe of the gods"), are a supernatural race in Irish mythology. They are thought to represent the main deities of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland. The Tuatha Dé Danann constitute a pantheon whose attributes appeared in a number of forms throughout the Celtic world.
The Tuath Dé dwell in the Otherworld but interact with humans and the human world. They are associated with ancient passage tombs, such as Brú na Bóinne, which were seen as portals to the Otherworld. Their traditional rivals are the Fomorians (Fomoire), who seem to represent the harmful or destructive powers of nature, and who the Tuath Dé defeat in the Battle of Mag Tuired. Each member of the Tuath Dé has associations with a particular feature of life or nature, but many appear to have more than one association. Many also have bynames, some representing different aspects of the deity and others being regional names or epithets.
Much of Irish mythology was recorded by Christian monks, who modified it to an extent. They often depicted the Tuath Dé as kings, queens and heroes of the distant past who had supernatural powers. Other times they were explained as fallen angels who were neither good nor evil. However, some medieval writers acknowledged that they were gods. They also appear in tales set centuries apart, showing them to be immortal. Prominent members of the Tuath Dé include The Dagda, who seems to have been a chief god; The Morrígan; Lugh; Nuada; Aengus; Brigid; Manannán, a god of the sea; Dian Cecht, a god of healing; and Goibniu, a god of metalsmithing and one of the "Trí Dé Dána" ("three gods of craftsmanship"). They have parallels in the pantheons of other Celtic peoples: for example Lugh is cognate with the pan-Celtic god Lugus, Nuada with the British god Nodens, Brigid with Brigantia; Tuirenn with Taranis; Ogma with Ogmios; and the Badb with Cathubodua.
The Tuath Dé eventually became the Aos Sí or "fairies" of later folklore.
The Old Irish word "tuath" (plural "tuatha") means "people, tribe, nation"; "dé" is the genitive case of "día" and, depending on context, can mean "god, gods, goddess" or more broadly "supernatural being, object of worship". In the earliest writings, the mythical race are referred to as the "Tuath Dé" (plural "Tuatha Dé"). However, Irish monks also began using the term "Tuath Dé" to refer to the Israelites, with the meaning "People of God". Apparently to avoid confusion with the Israelites, writers began to refer to the mythical race as the "Tuath Dé Danann" (plural "Tuatha Dé Danann"). The Old Irish pronunciation is and the Modern Irish pronunciation is in the West and North, and in the South. In Latin they are referred to as the "Plebes Deorum" or "folk of gods." A poem included in the Lebór Gábala Érenn also refers to the Tuath Dé as the "clann Eladan".
"Danann" is generally believed to be the genitive of a female name, for which the nominative case is not attested. It has been reconstructed as "Danu", of which "Anu" (genitive "Anann") may be an alternative form. "Anu" is called "mother of the Irish gods" by Cormac mac Cuilennáin. This may be linked to the Welsh mythical figure Dôn. Hindu mythology also has a goddess called Danu, who may be an Indo-European parallel. However, this reconstruction is not universally accepted. It has also been suggested that "Danann" is a conflation of "dán" ("skill, craft") and the goddess name "Anann". The name is also found as "Donann" and "Domnann", which may point to the origin being proto-Celtic "*don", meaning "earth" (compare the Old Irish word for earth, "doman"). There may be a link with the mythical Fir Domnann and the British Dumnonii.
The Tuatha Dé Danann were descended from Nemed, leader of a previous wave of inhabitants of Ireland. They came from four cities to the north of Ireland—Falias, Gorias, Murias and Finias—where they taught their skills in the sciences, including architecture, the arts, and magic, including necromancy. According to "Lebor Gabála Érenn", they came to Ireland "in dark clouds" and "landed on the mountains of [the] Conmaicne Rein in Connachta", otherwise Sliabh an Iarainn, "and they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights". They immediately burnt the ships "so that they should not think of retreating to them, and the smoke and the mist that came from the vessels filled the neighbouring land and air. Therefore it was conceived that they had arrived in clouds of mist".
A poem in the "Lebor Gabála Érenn" says of their arrival:
It is God who suffered them, though He restrained them
they landed with horror, with lofty deed,
in their cloud of mighty combat of spectres,
upon a mountain of Conmaicne of Connacht.
Without distinction to discerning Ireland,
Without ships, a ruthless course
the truth was not known beneath the sky of stars,
whether they were of heaven or of earth.
According to Tuan:
From them are the Tuatha Dé and Andé, whose origin the learned do not know, but that it seems likely to them that they came from heaven, on account of their intelligence and for the excellence of their knowledge.
Led by king Nuada, they fought the First Battle of Magh Tuireadh on the west coast, in which they defeated and displaced the native Fir Bolg, who then inhabited Ireland. In the battle, Nuada lost an arm to their champion, Sreng. Since Nuada was no longer "unblemished", he could not continue as king and was replaced by the half-Fomorian Bres, who turned out to be a tyrant. The physician Dian Cecht replaced Nuada's arm with a working silver one and he was reinstated as king. However, Dian Cecht's son Miach was dissatisfied with the replacement so he recited the spell, ""ault fri halt dí & féith fri féth"" (joint to joint of it and sinew to sinew), which caused flesh to grow over the silver prosthesis over the course of nine days and nights. However, in a fit of jealous rage Dian Cecht slew his own son. Because of Nuada's restoration as the leader, Bres complained to his family and his father, Elatha, who sent him to seek assistance from Balor, king of the Fomorians.
The Tuatha Dé Danann then fought the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh against the Fomorians. Nuada was killed by the Fomorian king Balor's poisonous eye, but Balor was killed by Lugh, champion of the Tuatha Dé, and who then took over as king.
A third battle was fought against a subsequent wave of invaders, the Milesians, from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day Galicia and Northern Portugal), descendants of Míl Espáine (who are thought to represent the Goidelic Celts). The Milesians encountered three Tuatha Dé Danann goddesses, Ériu, Banba and Fodla, who asked that the island be named after them; Ériu is the origin of the modern name Éire, and Banba and Fodla are still sometimes used as poetic names for Ireland.
Their three husbands, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine, were kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann at that time, and asked for a truce of three days, during which the Milesians would lie at anchor nine waves' distance from the shore. The Milesians complied, but the Tuatha Dé Danann created a magical storm in an attempt to drive them away. The Milesian poet Amergin calmed the sea with his verse, then his people landed and defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann at Tailtiu. When Amergin was called upon to divide the land between the Tuatha Dé Danann and his own people, he cleverly allotted the portion above ground to the Milesians and the portion underground to the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Tuatha Dé Danann were led underground into the Sidhe mounds by Manannán mac Lir and Tir na nOg onto a flowery plain/plain of honey attested to in the Voyage of Bran.
The Tuatha Dé Danann brought four magical treasures with them to Ireland, one apiece from their Four Cities:
The following is a chronology from the Annals of the Four Masters; based on reign-lengths given in Geoffrey Keating's "Forus Feasa ar Erinn". Nuada's original reign lacks a precise start date.
In the Irish version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius, the chief men of science of the "Tuatha Dé Danann" are listed with their partly Latin names and associations as follows:
In the Annals of Inisfallen, the following are listed as members of the "Tuatha Dé" who overcame the Fir Bolg: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30957 |
Time-sharing
In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.
Its emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s represented a major technological shift in the history of computing. By allowing many users to interact concurrently with a single computer, time-sharing dramatically lowered the cost of providing computing capability, made it possible for individuals and organizations to use a computer without owning one, and promoted the interactive use of computers and the development of new interactive applications.
The earliest computers were extremely expensive devices, and very slow in comparison to later models. Machines were typically dedicated to a particular set of tasks and operated by control panels, the operator manually entering small programs via switches in order to load and run a series of programs. These programs might take hours, or even weeks, to run. As computers grew in speed, run times dropped, and soon the time taken to start up the next program became a concern. Batch processing methodologies evolved to decrease these "dead periods" by queuing up programs so that as soon as one program completed, the next would start.
To support a batch processing operation, a number of comparatively inexpensive card punch or paper tape writers were used by programmers to write their programs "offline". When typing (or punching) was complete, the programs were submitted to the operations team, which scheduled them to be run. Important programs were started quickly; how long before less important programs were started was unpredictable. When the program run was finally completed, the output (generally printed) was returned to the programmer. The complete process might take days, during which time the programmer might never see the computer.
The alternative of allowing the user to operate the computer directly was generally far too expensive to consider. This was because users might have long periods of entering code while the computer remained idle. This situation limited interactive development to those organizations that could afford to waste computing cycles: large universities for the most part. Programmers at the universities decried the behaviors that batch processing imposed, to the point that Stanford students made a short film humorously critiquing it. They experimented with new ways to interact directly with the computer, a field today known as human–computer interaction.
Time-sharing was developed out of the realization that while any single user would make inefficient use of a computer, a large group of users together would not. This was due to the pattern of interaction: Typically an individual user entered bursts of information followed by long pauses but a group of users working at the "same time" would mean that the pauses of one user would be filled by the activity of the others. Given an optimal group size, the overall process could be very efficient. Similarly, small slices of time spent waiting for disk, tape, or network input could be granted to other users.
The concept is claimed to have been first described by John Backus in the 1954 summer session at MIT, and later by Bob Bemer in his 1957 article "How to consider a computer" in "Automatic Control Magazine". In a paper published in December 1958 by W. F. Bauer, he wrote that "The computers would handle a number of problems concurrently. Organizations would have input-output equipment installed on their own premises and would buy time on the computer much the same way that the average household buys power and water from utility companies." Christopher Strachey, who became Oxford University's first professor of computation, filed a patent application for time-sharing in February 1959. He passed the concept on to J. C. R. Licklider at the first UNESCO Information Processing Conference in Paris in June that year where he gave a paper "Time Sharing in Large Fast Computers".
Implementing a system able to take advantage of this was initially difficult. Batch processing was effectively a methodological development on top of the earliest systems. Since computers still ran single programs for single users at any time, the primary change with batch processing was the time delay between one program and the next. Developing a system that supported multiple users at the same time was a completely different concept. The "state" of each user and their programs would have to be kept in the machine, and then switched between quickly. This would take up computer cycles, and on the slow machines of the era this was a concern. However, as computers rapidly improved in speed, and especially in size of core memory in which users' states were retained, the overhead of time-sharing continually decreased, relatively speaking.
The first project to implement time-sharing of user programs was initiated by John McCarthy at MIT in 1959, initially planned on a modified IBM 704, and later on an additionally modified IBM 709 (one of the first computers powerful enough for time-sharing). One of the deliverables of the project, known as the "Compatible Time-Sharing System" or CTSS, was demonstrated in November 1961. CTSS has a good claim to be the first time-sharing system and remained in use until 1973. Another contender for the first demonstrated time-sharing system was PLATO II, created by Donald Bitzer at a public demonstration at Robert Allerton Park near the University of Illinois in early 1961. But this was a special-purpose system. Bitzer has long said that the PLATO project would have gotten the patent on time-sharing if only the University of Illinois had not lost the patent for two years. JOSS began time-sharing service in January 1964.
The first commercially successful time-sharing system was the Dartmouth Time Sharing System.
Throughout the late 1960s and the 1970s, computer terminals were multiplexed onto large institutional mainframe computers (centralized computing systems), which in many implementations sequentially polled the terminals to see whether any additional data was available or action was requested by the computer user. Later technology in interconnections were interrupt driven, and some of these used parallel data transfer technologies such as the IEEE 488 standard. Generally, computer terminals were utilized on college properties in much the same places as "desktop computers" or "personal computers" are found today. In the earliest days of personal computers, many were in fact used as particularly smart terminals for time-sharing systems.
The Dartmouth Time Sharing System's creators wrote in 1968 that "any response time which averages more than 10 seconds destroys the illusion of having one's own computer". Conversely, timesharing users thought that their terminal was the computer.
With the rise of microcomputing in the early 1980s, time-sharing became less significant, because individual microprocessors were sufficiently inexpensive that a single person could have all the CPU time dedicated solely to their needs, even when idle.
However, the Internet brought the general concept of time-sharing back into popularity. Expensive corporate server farms costing millions can host thousands of customers all sharing the same common resources. As with the early serial terminals, web sites operate primarily in bursts of activity followed by periods of idle time. This bursting nature permits the service to be used by many customers at once, usually with no perceptible communication delays, unless the servers start to get very busy.
Genesis
In the 1960s, several companies started providing time-sharing services as service bureaus. Early systems used Teletype Model 33 KSR or ASR or Teletype Model 35 KSR or ASR machines in ASCII environments, and IBM Selectric typewriter-based terminals (especially the IBM 2741) with two different seven-bit codes. They would connect to the central computer by dial-up Bell 103A modem or acoustically coupled modems operating at 10–15 characters per second. Later terminals and modems supported 30–120 characters per second. The time-sharing system would provide a complete operating environment, including a variety of programming language processors, various software packages, file storage, bulk printing, and off-line storage. Users were charged rent for the terminal, a charge for hours of connect time, a charge for seconds of CPU time, and a charge for kilobyte-months of disk storage.
Common systems used for time-sharing included the SDS 940, the PDP-10, and the IBM 360. Companies providing this service included GE's GEISCO, IBM subsidiary The Service Bureau Corporation, Tymshare (founded in 1966), National CSS (founded in 1967 and bought by Dun & Bradstreet in 1979), Dial Data (bought by Tymshare in 1968), Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) and Time Sharing Ltd. in the UK. By 1968, there were 32 such service bureaus serving the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) alone. The "Auerbach Guide to Timesharing" (1973) lists 125 different timesharing services using equipment from Burroughs, CDC, DEC, HP, Honeywell, IBM, RCA, Univac, and XDS.
In 1975, it was said about one of the major super-mini computer manufacturers that "The biggest end-user market currently is time-sharing." For DEC, for a while the second largest computer company (after IBM), this was also true: Their PDP-10 and IBM's 360/67 were widely used by commercial timesharing services such as CompuServe, On-Line Systems (OLS), Rapidata and Time Sharing Ltd.
The advent of the personal computer marked the beginning of the decline of time-sharing. The economics were such that computer time went from being an expensive resource that had to be shared to being so cheap that computers could be left to sit idle for long periods in order to be available as needed.
Although many time-sharing services simply closed, Rapidata held on, and became part of National Data Corporation. It was still of sufficient interest in 1982 to be the focus of "A User's Guide to Statistics Programs: The Rapidata Timesharing System". Even as revenue fell by 66% and National Data subsequently developed its own problems, attempts were made to keep this timesharing business going.
Beginning in 1964, the Multics operating system was designed as a computing utility, modeled on the electrical or telephone utilities. In the 1970s, Ted Nelson's original "Xanadu" hypertext repository was envisioned as such a service. It seemed as the computer industry grew that no such consolidation of computing resources would occur as timesharing systems. In the 1990s the concept was, however, revived in somewhat modified form under the banner of cloud computing.
Time-sharing was the first time that multiple processes, owned by different users, were running on a single machine, and these processes could interfere with one another. For example, one process might alter shared resources which another process relied on, such as a variable stored in memory. When only one user was using the system, this would result in possibly wrong output - but with multiple users, this might mean that other users got to see information they were not meant to see.
To prevent this from happening, an operating system needed to enforce a set of policies that determined which privileges each process had. For example, the operating system might deny access to a certain variable by a certain process.
The first international conference on computer security in London in 1971 was primarily driven by the time-sharing industry and its customers.
Significant early timesharing systems: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30958 |
Tuba
The tuba (; ; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibration, or a buzz, into a large mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band. The tuba largely replaced the ophicleide. "Tuba" is Latin for "trumpet".
In America, a person who plays the tuba is known as a tubaist or tubist. In the United Kingdom, a person who plays the tuba in an orchestra is known simply as a tuba player; in a brass band or military band, they are known as bass players.
Prussian Patent No. 19 was granted to Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Johann Gottfried Moritz (1777–1840) on September 12, 1835 for a "bass tuba" in F1. The original Wieprecht and Moritz instrument used five valves of the Berlinerpumpen type that were the forerunners of the modern piston valve. The first tenor tuba was invented in 1838 by Carl Wilhelm Moritz (1810–1855), son of Johann Gottfried Moritz.
The addition of valves made it possible to play low in the harmonic series of the instrument and still have a complete selection of notes. Prior to the invention of valves, brass instruments were limited to notes in the harmonic series, and were thus generally played very high with respect to their fundamental pitch. Harmonics starting three octaves above the fundamental pitch are about a whole step apart, making a useful variety of notes possible.
The ophicleide used a bowl-shaped brass instrument mouthpiece but employed keys and tone holes similar to those of a modern saxophone. Another forerunner to the tuba was the serpent, a bass instrument that was shaped in a wavy form to make the tone holes accessible to the player. Tone holes changed the pitch by providing an intentional leak in the bugle of the instrument. While this changed the pitch, it also had a pronounced effect on the timbre. By using valves to adjust the length of the bugle the tuba produced a smoother tone that eventually led to its popularity. These popular instruments were mostly written for by French composers, especially Hector Berlioz. Berlioz famously wrote for the ophicleide in his compositions "Symphonie fantastique" and "Benvenuto Cellini (opera)". These pieces are now normally performed on F or CC tuba.
Adolphe Sax, like Wieprecht, was interested in marketing systems of instruments from soprano to bass, and developed a series of brass instruments known as saxhorns. The instruments developed by Sax were generally pitched in E and B, while the Wieprecht "basstuba" and the subsequent Cerveny contrabass tuba were pitched in F and C (see below on pitch systems). Sax's instruments gained dominance in France, and later in Britain and America, as a result of the popularity and movements of instrument makers such as Gustave Auguste Besson (who moved from France to Britain) and Henry Distin (who eventually found his way to America).
The Cimbasso is also seen instead of a tuba in the orchestral repertoire. The name is translated from "corno in basso" in German. The original design was inspired by the ophicleide and bassoon. It is rare to see the cimbasso performed today, but are still around and used in historically accurate performances.
An orchestra usually has a single tuba, though an additional tuba may be requested. It serves as the bass of the orchestral brass section and it can reinforce the bass voices of the strings and woodwinds. It provides the bass of brass quintets and choirs (though many small brass ensembles will use the euphonium or bass trombone as the lowest voice). It is the principal bass instrument in concert bands, brass bands and military bands, and those ensembles generally have two to four tubas. It is also a solo instrument.
Tubas are used in marching bands, drum and bugle corps and in many jazz bands (see below). In British style brass bands, two E and two B tubas are used and are referred to as "basses".
Well known and influential parts for the tuba include:
Concertos have been written for the tuba by many notable composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams (Tuba Concerto), Edward Gregson, John Williams, Alexander Arutiunian, Eric Ewazen, James Barnes, Joseph Hallman, Martin Ellerby, Philip Sparke, Kalevi Aho, Josef Tal, Bruce Broughton (Tuba Concerto), John Golland, Roger Steptoe and David Carlson.
Tubas are found in various pitches, most commonly in F, E, C, or B. The main tube of a B tuba is approximately long, while that of a C tuba is , of an E tuba , and of an F tuba . The instrument has a conical bore, meaning the bore diameter increases as a function of the tubing length from the mouthpiece to the bell. The conical bore causes the instrument to produce a preponderance of even-order harmonics.
A tuba with its tubing wrapped for placing the instrument on the player's lap is usually called a concert tuba or simply a tuba. Tubas with the bell pointing forward ("pavillon tournant") instead of upward are often called "recording tubas" because of their popularity in the early days of recorded music, as their sound could more easily be directed at the recording microphone. When wrapped to surround the body for cavalry bands on horseback or marching, it is traditionally known as a hélicon. The modern sousaphone, named after American bandmaster John Philip Sousa, resembles a hélicon with the bell pointed up (in the original models as the J. W. Pepper prototype and Sousa's concert instruments) and then curved to point forward (as developed by Conn and others). Some ancestors of the tuba, such as the military "bombardon", had unusual valve and bore arrangements compared to modern tubas.
During the American Civil War, most brass bands used a branch of the brass family known as "saxhorns", which, by today's standards, have a narrower bore taper than tuba—the same as true cornets and baritones, but distinct from trumpets, euphoniums, and others with different tapers or no taper. Around the start of the Civil War, saxhorns manufactured for military use in the USA were commonly wrapped with the bell pointing backwards over the player's shoulder, and these were known as "over-the-shoulder saxhorns", and came in sizes from cornets down to E basses. However, the E bass, even though it shared the same tube length as a modern E tuba, has a narrower bore and as such cannot be called by the name "tuba" except as a convenience when comparing it to other sizes of the Saxhorn.
Most music for the tuba is written in bass clef in concert pitch, so tuba players must know the correct fingerings for their specific instruments. Traditional British-style brass band parts for the tuba are usually written in treble clef, with the B tuba sounding two octaves and one step below and the E tuba sounding one octave and a major sixth below the written pitch. This allows musicians to change instruments without learning new fingerings for the same written music. Consequently, when its music is written in treble clef, the tuba is a transposing instrument, but not when the music is in bass clef.
The lowest pitched tubas are the contrabass tubas, pitched in C or B, referred to as CC and BB tubas respectively, based on a traditional distortion of a now-obsolete octave naming convention. The fundamental pitch of a CC tuba is 32 Hz, and for a BB tuba, 29 Hz. The CC tuba is used as an orchestral, and concert band instrument in the U.S., but BB tubas are the contrabass tuba of choice in German, Austrian, and Russian orchestras. In the United States, the BB tuba is the most common in schools (largely due to the use of BB sousaphones in high school marching bands) and for adult amateurs. Many professionals in the U.S. play CC tubas, with BB also common, and many train in the use of all four pitches of tubas.
The next smaller tubas are the bass tubas, pitched in F or E (a fourth above the contrabass tubas). The E tuba often plays an octave above the contrabass tubas in brass bands, and the F tuba is commonly used by professional players as a solo instrument and, in America, to play higher parts in the classical repertoire (or parts that were originally written for the F tuba, as is the case with Berlioz). In most of Europe, the F tuba is the standard orchestral instrument, supplemented by the CC or BB only when the extra weight is desired. Wagner, for example, specifically notates the low tuba parts for "Kontrabasstuba," which are played on CC or BB tubas in most regions. In the United Kingdom, the E is the standard orchestral tuba.
The euphonium is sometimes referred to as a tenor tuba and is pitched in B, one octave higher than the BB contrabass tuba. The term "tenor tuba" is often used more specifically to refer to B rotary-valved tubas pitched in the same octave as euphoniums. The "Small Swiss Tuba in C" is a tenor tuba pitched in C, and provided with 6 valves to make the lower notes in the orchestral repertoire possible. The French C tuba was the standard instrument in French orchestras until overtaken by F and C tubas since the Second World War. One popular example of the use of the French C tuba is the "Bydło" movement in Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", though the rest of the work is scored for this instrument as well.
Larger BBB subcontrabass tubas exist, but are extremely rare (there are at least four known examples). The first two were built by Gustave Besson in BBB, one octave below the BB Contrabass tuba, on the suggestion of John Philip Sousa. The monster instruments were not completed until just after Sousa's death. Later, in the 1950s, British musician Gerard Hoffnung commissioned the London firm of Paxman to create a subcontrabass tuba in EEE for use in his comedic music festivals. Also, a tuba pitched in FFF was made in Kraslice by Bohland & Fuchs probably during 1910 or 1911 and was destined for the World Exhibition in New York in 1913. Two players are needed; one to operate the valves and one to blow into the mouthpiece.
In addition to the length of the instrument, which dictates the fundamental pitch, tubas also vary in overall width of the tubing sections. Tuba sizes are usually denoted by a quarter system, with designating a normal, full-size tuba. Larger rotary instruments are known as "kaisertubas" and are often denoted . Larger piston tubas, particularly those with front action, are sometimes known as "grand orchestral tubas" (examples: the Conn 36J Orchestra Grand Bass from the 1930s, and the current model Hirsbrunner HB-50 "Grand Orchestral", which is a replica of the large York tubas owned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra). Grand orchestral tubas are generally described as tubas. Smaller instruments may be described as instruments. No standards exist for these designations, and their use is up to manufacturers who usually use them to distinguish among the instruments in their own product line. The size designation is related to the larger outer branches, and not to the bore of the tubing at the valves, though the bore is usually reported in instrument specifications. The quarter system is also not directly related to bell size, though there is typically a correlation. tubas are common in American grade schools for use by young tuba players for whom a full size instrument might be too cumbersome. Though smaller and lighter, they are tuned and keyed identically to full-size tubas of the same pitch, although they usually have 3 rather than 4 or 5 valves.
Tubas are made with either piston or rotary valves. Rotary valves, invented by Joseph Riedl, are based on a design included in the original valve patents by Friedrich Blühmel and Heinrich Stölzel in 1818. Červeny of Graslitz was the first to use true rotary valves, starting in the 1840s or 1850s. Modern piston valves were developed by François Périnet for the saxhorn family of instruments promoted by Adolphe Sax around the same time. Pistons may either be oriented to point to the top of the instrument (top-action, as pictured in the figure at the top of the article) or out the front of the instrument (front-action or side-action). There are advantages and disadvantages to each valve style, but assertions concerning sound, speed, and clarity are difficult to quantify. German players generally prefer rotary valves while British and American players favor piston valves; the choice of valve type remains up to the performer.
Piston valves require more maintenance than rotary valves – they require regular oiling to keep them freely operating, while rotary valves are sealed and seldom require oiling. Piston valves are easy to disassemble and re-assemble, while rotary valve disassembly and re-assembly is much more difficult and is generally left to qualified instrument repair persons.
Tubas generally have from three to six valves, though some rare exceptions exist. Three-valve tubas are generally the least expensive and are almost exclusively used by amateurs, and the sousaphone (a marching version of a BB tuba) almost always has three valves. Among advanced players, four and five valve tubas are by far the most common choices, with six-valve tubas being relatively rare except among F tubas, which mostly have five or six valves.
The valves add tubing to the main tube of the instrument, thus lowering its fundamental pitch. The first valve lowers the pitch by a whole step (two semitones), the second valve by a semitone, and the third valve by three semitones. Used in combination, the valve tubing is too short and the resulting pitch tends to be sharp. For example, a BB tuba becomes (in effect) an A tuba when the first valve is depressed. The third valve is long enough to lower the pitch of a BB tuba by three semitones, but it is not long enough to lower the pitch of an A tuba by three semitones. Thus, the first and third valves used in combination lower the pitch by something "just short" of five semitones, and the first three valves used in combination are nearly a quarter tone sharp.
The fourth valve is used in place of combinations of the first and third valves, and the second and fourth used in combination are used in place of the first three valves in combination. The fourth valve can be tuned to lower the pitch of the main tube accurately by five semitones, and thus its use corrects the main problem of combinations being too sharp. By using the fourth valve by itself to replace the first and third combination, or the fourth and second valves in place of the first, second and third valve combinations, the notes requiring these fingerings are more in tune. The fourth valve used in combination with, rather than instead of, the first three valves fills in the missing notes in the bottom octave allowing the player to play chromatically down to the fundamental pitch of the instrument. For the reason given in the preceding paragraph some of these notes will tend to be sharp and must by "lipped" into tune by the player.
A fifth and sixth valve, if fitted, are used to provide alternative fingering possibilities to improve intonation, and are also used to reach into the low register of the instrument where all the valves will be used in combination to fill the first octave between the fundamental pitch and the next available note on the open tube. The fifth and sixth valves also give the musician the ability to trill more smoothly or to use alternative fingerings for ease of playing. This type of tuba is what is most found in orchestras and wind bands around the world.
The bass tuba in F is pitched a fifth above the BB tuba and a fourth above the CC tuba, so it needs additional tubing length beyond that provided by four valves to play securely down to a low F as required in much tuba music. The fifth valve is commonly tuned to a flat whole step, so that when used with the fourth valve, it gives an in-tune low B. The sixth valve is commonly tuned as a flat half step, allowing the F tuba to play low G as 1-4-5-6 and low G as 1-2-4-5-6. In CC tubas with five valves, the fifth valve may be tuned as a flat whole step or as a minor third depending on the instrument.
Some tubas have a compensating system to allow accurate tuning when using several valves in combination, simplifying fingering and removing the need to constantly adjust slide positions. The most popular of the automatic compensation systems was invented by Blaikley (Bevan, 1874) and was patented by Boosey (later, Boosey and Hawkes, which also, later still, produced Besson instruments). The patent on the system limited its application outside of Britain, and to this day tubas with compensating valves are primarily popular in the United Kingdom and countries of the former British Empire. The Blaikley design plumbs the instrument so that if the fourth valve is used, the air is sent back through a second set of branches in the first three valves to compensate for the combination of valves. This does have the disadvantage of making the instrument significantly more "stuffy" or resistant to air flow when compared to a non-compensating tuba. This is due to the need for the air to flow through the valves twice. It also makes the instrument heavier. But many prefer this approach to additional valves or to manipulation of tuning slides while playing to achieve improved intonation within an ensemble. Most modern professional-grade euphoniums also now feature Blaikley-style compensating valves.
Some tubas have a strong and useful resonance that is not in the well-known harmonic series. For example, most large B tubas have a strong resonance at low E (E1, 39 Hz), which is between the fundamental and the second harmonic (an octave higher than the fundamental). These alternative resonances are often known as false tones or privileged tones. Adding the six semitones provided by the three valves, these alternative resonances let the instrument play chromatically down to the fundamental of the open bugle (which is a 29 Hz B0). The addition of valves below that note can lower the instrument a further six semitones to a 20 Hz E0. Thus, even three-valved instruments with good alternative resonances can produce very low sounds in the hands of skilled players; instruments with four valves can play even lower. The lowest note in the widely known repertoire is a 16 Hz double-pedal C0 in the William Kraft piece "Encounters II", which is often played using a timed flutter tongue rather than by buzzing the lips. The fundamental of this pitch borders on infrasound and its overtones define the pitch in the listener's ear.
The most convincing explanation for false tones is that the horn is acting as a "third of a pipe" rather than as a half-pipe. The bell remains an anti-node, but there would then be a node one-third of the way back to the mouthpiece. If so, it seems that the fundamental would be missing entirely, and would only be inferred from the overtones. However, the node and the antinode collide in the same spot and cancel out the fundamental.
The tuba is generally constructed of brass, which is either unfinished, lacquered or electro-plated with nickel, gold or silver. Unfinished brass will eventually tarnish and thus must be periodically polished to maintain its appearance.
There are many types of tubas that are manufactured in Europe, the United States, and Asia. In Europe, the predominant models that are professionally used are Meinl-Weston (Germany) and Miraphone (Germany). Asian brands include the Yamaha Corporation (Japan) and Jupiter Instruments (Taiwan). Holton Instrument Company and King Musical Instruments are the some of the most well known brands from the United States.
Some tubas are capable of being converted into a marching style, known as "marching tubas". A leadpipe can be manually screwed on next to the valves. The tuba is then usually rested on the left shoulder (although some tubas allow use of the right shoulder), with the bell facing directly in front of the player. Some marching tubas are made only for marching, and cannot be converted into a concert model. Most marching bands opt for the sousaphone, an instrument that is easier to carry since it was invented specifically for this and almost always cheaper than a true marching tuba. The earlier helicon is still used by bands in Europe and other parts of the world. Drum and bugle corps players, however, generally use marching tubas or Contrabass bugles. Standard tubas can also be played whilst standing. With the comfort of the player in mind, companies have provided harnesses that sometimes use a strap joined to the tuba with two rings, a 'sack' to hold the bottom of the tuba, or numerous straps holding the larger parts of tubing on the tuba. The strap(s) goes over the shoulder like a sash or sit at the waist, so the musician can play the instrument in the same position as when sitting.
The tuba has been used in jazz since the genre's inception. In the earliest years, bands often used a tuba for outdoor playing and a double bass for indoor performances. In this context, the tuba was sometimes called "brass bass", as opposed to the double bass "(string bass)". Many musicians played both instruments.
This practice was mostly used in the New Orleans jazz scene. The tuba was used most frequently with the Louis Armstrong groups and prominent in the album "Hot Five".
In modern jazz, it is not unknown for their players to take solos. New Orleans style brass bands like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band use a sousaphone as the bass instrument. Bill Barber played tuba on several Miles Davis albums, including the sessions compiled as the "Birth of the Cool" and "Miles Ahead". New York City-based tubist Marcus Rojas performed frequently with Henry Threadgill. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30961 |
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise, titled simply Enterprise for its first two seasons, is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. It originally aired from September 26, 2001, to May 13, 2005, on UPN, spanning . The sixth series in the "Star Trek" franchise, it served as a prequel to "". The show is set in the 22nd century, a hundred years before the events of "The Original Series" and just prior to the formation of the United Federation of Planets. The series follows the adventures of the "Enterprise", Earth's first starship capable of traveling at warp five, as it explores the galaxy and encounters various alien species.
Following the culmination of "" and with "" scheduled to end, UPN asked Braga and Berman to devise a new series to continue the franchise. Rather than setting it in the 24th century alongside "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager", the duo decided to set "Enterprise" in an earlier period, allowing them to explore new parts of the "Star Trek" fictional universe. Wanting a more basic, relatable, and character-driven series, Berman and Braga concentrated the episodes around a core trio of characters: Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III (Connor Trinneer) and Sub-commander T'Pol (Jolene Blalock). The show broke with "Star Trek" convention in several respects: in addition to dropping the "Star Trek" prefix, "Enterprise" used the pop-influenced song "Where My Heart Will Take Me" (performed by Russell Watson) as its theme. It was filmed on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles, California, on the same stages that housed the "Star Trek" series and films since the abandoned "" in the late 1970s.
The first two seasons were characterized by stand-alone episodes that explored topics like humanity's early relations with the Vulcans and their first encounters with the Klingons and Andorians, alien species already familiar to the "Star Trek" franchise. Wanting to attract greater viewers, UPN called for changes for its . The series was renamed, pursuing more action-driven plots and a single, serialized storyline: the crew's mission to prevent the Earth being destroyed by a newly introduced alien species called the Xindi. UPN cancelled the series after its fourth season; a fan-led campaign for a fifth proved unsuccessful. The cancellation of "Star Trek: Enterprise" in 2005 marked the first point in eighteen years that no new "Star Trek" episodes were produced, the beginning of a hiatus that continued until the launch of "" in 2017.
"Star Trek: Enterprise" follows the adventures of the crew of the first starship "Enterprise", designation NX-01. They are the first deep space explorers in Starfleet, using the first Warp 5 equipped vessel. At the start of the series, it is revealed that the Vulcans have withheld advanced technology from humanity since their first contact, concerned that humans were not ready for it. This has delayed human space exploration and caused resentment in Captain Jonathan Archer, whose father developed the Warp 5 engine but did not live to see it used.
"Enterprise" was intentionally equipped with less advanced versions of technologies seen in previous series. For example, it has no tractor beam, uses missiles instead of photon torpedoes, and has only limited means of synthesizing foods and other consumable items. Communications Officer Linguist Hoshi Sato's expertise in linguistics helps compensate for the lack of advanced universal translators.
The series also showed the crew making first contacts with a number of races previously seen in the franchise. Notably, the Klingons who appear in the pilot "" have the ridged makeup seen in the movie franchise and from "" onwards (excluding ), rather than the smooth-headed versions seen in "". This particular change was attributed by Berman and Braga to advancements in makeup. They felt that contradictions in the continuity such as the Klingon ridges were unavoidable, as well as those involving technology. However, continuity was restored, by attributing the change to a plague caused by genetic experimentation. (Advances in the real world now made mobile telephones smaller than the communicators seen in "The Original Series", and even desktop computers and monitors are more compact than those seen in "Voyager".)
The series's first season emphasized a core trio of characters: Jonathan Archer, T'Pol, and Charles "Trip" Tucker III. Other main characters had primary roles in particular episodes, such as "Dear Doctor" and "". The second season saw deepening relationships between characters—for example, the friendship between Tucker and Reed, seen in episodes such as "Two Days and Two Nights"; and the relationship between Tucker and T'Pol, which begins contentiously but leads to romance in later seasons.
The addition of a futuristic Temporal Cold War element was seen as a "nod to mystery" by Rick Berman, who sought to add an element of "The X-Files" to the series. Berman decided that the full story of the war would be revealed over the course of several years. At the start of the second season, Braga said that the Temporal Cold War storyline would continue to be included if viewers were still interested, but later described it as "strangulating". Initially featured in the pilot episode, "Broken Bow", it featured the Suliban being manipulated by an unknown humanoid figure from the future, nicknamed "Future Guy" by viewers—a moniker later adopted by the series's writers. At the start of the series, Braga said that they did not have a plan for who the character would turn out to be. Ten years after the end of the series, Braga stated on Twitter that Future Guy was Archer manipulating his own timeline; he and Berman had previously stated, however, that the character was intended to be a Romulan.
Crewman Daniels (Matt Winston), introduced in the episode "", was revealed as an operative from 900 years in the future who was fighting against the forces which included the Suliban. Archer found that he was being manipulated by those forces, as "Enterprise" was blamed for the destruction of a mining colony in "".
In the third season, an escalation of the Temporal Cold War introduced the Xindi and dealt with the repercussions of their attack on Earth. Daniels explained Archer's importance in history during a trip to the future in "Azati Prime" to witness the final battle against the Sphere Builders—aliens who were also manipulating the Xindi into attacking Earth during Archer's time period. In the closing phase of the Temporal Cold War, Daniels sent the "Enterprise" back to the 1940s, following a temporal incursion by aliens who had altered the outcome of the Second World War to permit Nazi Germany to invade the United States. Once Vosk, the leader of the aliens, is killed, the timeline corrects itself.
Braga and Berman created the season long Xindi story arc which began with the second-season finale, "The Expanse" and ran throughout the third season until it was resolved in the episode "". It opens with an attack on Earth by a mysterious space probe which killed seven million people in a destructive swath stretching through Florida to Venezuela. As a result, the "Enterprise" is re-directed to the unexplored Delphic Expanse to find the Xindi and stop a further attack which will destroy Earth. Although certain elements such as the success of the mission against the Xindi were preplanned, others such as the details of the actual enemy race were not. At the time of the initial development, Berman and Braga were uncertain if the storyline would last for a whole season or for just half a season.
The Xindi themselves were developed from on-set discussions with the writers and the actors who portrayed them. In this manner, the six species which make up the Xindi were created, with one of them called the "humanoid Xindi", but after further discussions these were renamed to the "primate Xindi". The first part of the third season saw the crew searching the Delphic Expanse attempting to find clues that would lead them to the Xindi. In order to complete this mission they took on additional crew members in the form of Military Assault Command Operations (abbreviated as MACO) soldiers due to the increased military nature of the task.
The birth of the Federation was first hinted at during part two of "Shockwave", which opened the second season. When Manny Coto was made showrunner for the fourth season, he decided that the focus of the series should be to link to that event. With this in mind, his intention was for this season to move towards that goal. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens were hired as writers on "Enterprise" because they wrote the non-canon novel "Federation" and after it was suggested by producer Mike Sussman. The episodes for the fourth season were intended to lay the framework for the later creation of the Federation. This was something that the cast said that they would have liked to see more of, with Scott Bakula later saying "I would have loved to have been able to explore that journey to the Federation and their creation of it ... to a greater extent. And I think that would have been, um, just more fun for the audience ... just better, longer storytelling."
In "United", the founding races of the Federation, the humans, the Vulcans, the Andorians and the Tellarites worked together for the first time to defeat a Romulan plot. In "", the xenophobic Terra Prime movement is introduced, which Coto felt was the final element of human nature that must be defeated before the Federation could be formed. The foundation of the Federation was shown on screen in the final episode of the series, "These Are the Voyages...", which was set several years after the rest of the season.
Prior to the end of "" and following the end of "" on June 1999, UPN approached Rick Berman and Brannon Braga about the production of a fifth "Star Trek" series, either to overlap with the final season of "Voyager" or to immediately follow. Berman had previously created "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" alongside Michael Piller, "Voyager" with Piller and Jeri Taylor, and had been wanting to work with Braga on a series concept. While the fans online were suggesting that it could either be based on Starfleet Academy or the adventures of Hikaru Sulu, the producers took care that no information was leaked to reveal what the concept was going to be. They later revealed that the Academy idea was never properly considered.
Instead, they opted to create a prequel to "The Original Series" which is set after the events in the film "", as Braga and Berman felt it was a period in the "Star Trek" universe which was unexplored. The idea was for the series to portray the first deep space explorers in the "Star Trek" universe, with Braga explaining that everything will be new to the crew and that since the setting was closer in the timeframe to the modern day, that their reactions to situations would be more contemporary. As part of this, they sought feedback from members of the submarine service of the United States Navy, which was reflected in certain design work on the series such as the Starfleet uniforms. The network executives needed to be convinced of the viability of a prequel series, as they had presumed that the series would take the franchise further into the future. The initial idea was for the first season to be almost entirely set on Earth as the "Enterprise" is rushed to completion to respond to first contact with the Klingons, and the crew being put together. This idea was rejected by the studio executives, and these story elements were instead restricted to the pilot, "Broken Bow".
They sought to make "Enterprise" more character driven than the previous series in the "Star Trek" franchise, and hoped that this would gain viewers who had watched "The Next Generation" but had lost interest with "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager". It was intended to link the series directly into "The Original Series" by having T'Pau as a main character, who had previously appeared in the episode "Amok Time". Instead, this character was developed into an original Vulcan character, T'Pol. Berman explained his vision for the series at launch, saying that "we'll be seeing humanity when they truly are going where no man has gone before. We are seeing people who don't take meeting aliens as just another part of the job. It's not routine. Nothing is routine. Also, by bringing it back 200 years from "Voyager", we're making the characters closer to the present, and by doing that they can be a little bit more accessible and a little bit more flawed and a little bit more familiar to you and me."
He said that this setting would combine elements of "The Original Series" while having "a lot of fresh and new elements in it". It was initially considered whether or not to have "Enterprise" overlap with the final season of "Voyager", but it was decided that there would be a gap in broadcasting between the two series, as Berman was concerned with the "oversaturation" of the franchise. But he hoped that the "dramatic change" in "Enterprise" would mean that new viewers were drawn in to watch it. As part of this change, the decision was made to drop "Star Trek" from the title but Berman explained that "if there's any one word that says "Star Trek" without actually saying "Star Trek", that word is "Enterprise"". This title would last until the third episode of season three, "", when the series was renamed to "Star Trek: Enterprise" following a demand by Paramount Television executives in an effort to reconnect the series with the fans of the franchise.
In addition to the executive producers, a number of former "Star Trek" crew members joined the new series at launch. Herman Zimmerman was recruited as Production Designer/Illustrator, having worked on Trek projects throughout "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine" and the feature films. Marvin V. Rush resumed his role as Director of Photography, having been involved with Trek since the of "The Next Generation". Working with him were Douglas Knapp and William Peets as Camera Operator and Chief Lighting Technician respectively. Both had previously worked on "Voyager". Another alumna from the previous series was Louise Dorton, who had started in the of that show as Set Designer, but joined "Enterprise" as Art Director. Andre Bormanis, who had served as science consultant as well as a writer on "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine", and "Voyager", was brought on as a staff writer.
John Eaves, who had previously worked on "Star Trek: First Contact", became the Senior Illustrator for the show, while Doug Drexler worked to him as Junior Illustrator. Michael Westmore was once again the Head of Make-up for the series, and was joined by his daughter-in-law Suzanne Westmore, who had previously been credited on "Voyager" as Suzanne Diaz. Ronald B. Moore returned once again as Visual Effectors Supervisor, a veteran of Trek productions since "The Next Generation" and also worked on the feature film "Star Trek Generations". Carol Kuntz was the Costume Supervisor, a position she had held since the production of "The Next Generation", while Charlotte A. Parker was "Enterprise"'s Hair Stylist, and had been previously credited as Charlotte A. Gravenor on "Voyager".
A number of directors who had previously worked on episodes in other Star Trek series returned once more to work on "Enterprise". These included former "Star Trek" alumni, such as LeVar Burton, aka Geordi La Forge from "The Next Generation", and Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Tom Paris on "Voyager". Roxann Dawson was also announced to direct at the start of the series, having previously played B'Elanna Torres, also on "Voyager". She went on to direct ten episodes of the series. Following the first season, the majority of the writers on the series were fired by Braga with the exception of Chris Black. He was promoted for the second season to co-executive producer, and former "The X-Files" and "The Lone Gunmen" writer John Shiban joined the writing team and was also named co-executive producer. Berman called the recruitment of Shiban a "coup" for the series. Shiban stayed for the second season, while Black left after the third.
The fourth season of "Enterprise" saw a change to the leadership for the crew, with Manny Coto taking over as executive producer and showrunner from Braga and Berman. He had previously come onto the writing staff during the third season, and wrote the well received episode "". Coto was a fan of "The Original Series" and sought to link "Enterprise" closer to that earlier show. He brought Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens onto "Enterprise" as writers; they had previously written books on the production of the franchise, as well as working with William Shatner on his Shatnerverse series of "Star Trek" novels. Braga and Berman remained on staff, with Coto describing the situation as having "three showrunners". Coto set the direction for the final season, while the other two gave notes and feedback.
The crew issued a casting call for the main roles in the series, and Keating and Billingsley made immediate impressions on the casting director and staff. Braga said that they knew they were right for those roles "right off the bat". Keating had previously auditioned for a role on "Voyager" two years prior, but Berman wanted to keep him for a future main role, saying that when he auditioned for Reed that the actor "nailed it", although there were discussions about the accent he should be using with Keating suggesting one from the North of England but the producers mistook it for Scottish. In the end, they chose to go with Keating's natural voice. He also praised the casting processes involving Trinneer, Park and Billingsley, calling the latter "perfect" in his role as Doctor Phlox. Park was not required to audition, but instead was hired on the basis of her performance in a scene she appeared in The WB series "Popular" alongside Anthony Montgomery – despite that the character was intended to be older until Park was cast. Montgomery had previously auditioned to play Tuvok's son in "Voyager", and after being chosen for the part of Travis Mayweather, he elected to take the part instead of a role in a low budget movie he had been offered.
The longest casting process was that of Bakula as Archer, due to the extended contract negotiations that took place, which added to a delay in production. He had been sought for the part by the executive producers, although Bakula wanted to do the show, he "wanted to feel that [he] was making a good deal and that everyone was going to work together to make this a good experience." He had signed up for a pilot for CBS called "Late Bloomers" before agreeing to appear on "Enterprise". One of the reasons he agreed to join the cast of "Enterprise" was that he had previously worked with Kerry McCluggage, one of the co-founders of UPN, on "Quantum Leap". Berman later admitted that they did not have an alternative in mind if Bakula decided to turn down the role.
Braga explained that the most difficult casting was that for T'Pol, as they were seeking a Kim Cattrall type. Blalock and Marjorie Monaghan were among the final three to be considered for the part, with Blalock gaining the role, despite her agents rejecting requests for her to attend auditions early in the casting process. By the time that Blalock auditioned in the final group, the crew had seen hundreds of actresses according to Berman. His main issue at the time was to find a "beautiful woman who can act and doesn't want to go right into feature films". Blalock was excited about the casting as she had been a lifelong "Star Trek" fan, with her favourite character being Spock. Bakula's casting as Archer was announced via press release on May 10, 2001. However, some of the British media mistook the announcement for Bakula taking over from Patrick Stewart. Details of the rest of the main cast were released on May 15, with the rest of the character details publicised the following day.
Some recurring characters were played by actors who had previously appeared in "Star Trek" productions, with Jeffrey Combs portraying the Andorian Shran, making his first appearance in the season one episode "The Andorian Incident". He had previously portrayed the Vorta Weyoun as well as the Ferengi Brunt on "Deep Space Nine". Vaughn Armstrong, who played Admiral Maxwell Forest, had previously appeared in a number of roles in various Trek productions since his first part as a Klingon in "The Next Generation" episode "Heart of Glory" and by the end of the "Enterprise" run, he had appeared as 13 different characters in total. Randy Oglesby, Rick Worthy and Scott MacDonald had also appeared in a variety of roles within the franchise before taking on the recurring parts of Xindi council members throughout season three.
Throughout the production on "Enterprise", there were rumours that William Shatner would make a guest appearance. During season four, this idea was raised once again with the Reeves-Stevens suggesting that the tantalus field (previously thought to be a disintegrator) seen in "The Original Series" episode "" actually sent its victims back in time to a penal colony in the regular universe. This in turn would allow Shatner to reprise his role as the Mirror Universe version of Captain James T. Kirk. He pitched this to Braga and Berman, but instead they pitched another idea back to the actor in which he could play the chef of the "Enterprise", who was taken to the future by Daniels and required to impersonate Kirk. After they could not settle on an idea, the Mirror Universe concept was reworked into the two-part episode "In a Mirror, Darkly".
The majority of the filming took place on the Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles, California. The temporary sets for the show were housed on stages 8 and 9; while the permanent sets including the bridge, engineering and the armory were located on stage 18. The engineering set itself was built across two levels with the large warp drive taking up the majority of the space. Stages 8 and 9 had housed sets for the earlier "Star Trek" series since production was started on the abandoned "" during the late 1970s. They were subsequently used for the films "", "", "" and "" before being used for "The Next Generation" and "Voyager". Stage 18 had not been previously used for the production of any "Star Trek" series or films.
During the course of filming the pilot, between 130 and 150 members of staff worked on constructing the sets; this reduced to 20 to 25 crew members when the show went to series. These teams were led by construction coordinator Tom Arp, who had previously worked on "Deep Space Nine" and a number of "Star Trek" films in the same capacity. Although a number of episodes required specific sets to be built from scratch, the team would save certain elements to enable them to be reused in later episodes. The production had a warehouse in Burbank to store those pieces while they were not being used. Midway through the third season, from "" onwards, the series started to be broadcast in 1080i High-definition television. Alongside "Jake 2.0", it was one of the first two series on UPN to be broadcast in high-definition. The show contains over 4,214 minutes of special effects, dialogue, and other scenes. Although it was broadcast in high definition at 1080i, it was not released on 1080p blu-ray until later and an example is the 2017 Blu-ray collection of the full series called "Enterprise: The Full Journey".
Until the start of the fourth season, the series was shot on traditional film stock. It (the first three seasons) were shot on wide screen 35mm film with and an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and it was 3-perf Super 35mm film. After Rush began testing a Sony digital camera on the standing sets for two days prior to production on "" and demonstrated the footage to Braga and Berman, the decision was made to switch to digital production. Rush felt that the audience would not see a great deal of difference as the footage can be shot in a way to look the same as the earlier seasons, but felt that the filming in high definition would be a benefit because of the additional detail that could be seen on screen. At the time this was cutting edge for a TV show, with allowing the production team improved low-light performance and it enabled shooting more compared to chemical films. The actual camera used was the Sony HDW-F900 CineAlta High-Definition camera, and the recording technology also used Sony' CineAlta 24P, a trademarked name of that company. The decision to move to Sony's technology was a triple agreement of the three executive producers of the show, and also supported by the Directory of Photography. Season four's Blu-ray release of "Enterprise" in 1080p has been praised as sharp and with satisfying color, and the best looking of the seasons. The fourth season has been released multiple times, with latest as a combined full-series set in January 2017.
Dennis McCarthy was recruited by the production team to score the pilot, "Broken Bow". He had scored other episodes of the franchise, including the pilot of "The Next Generation", "Encounter at Farpoint", and won an Emmy Award for his work on the "Voyager" episode "Heroes and Demons". His work on "Broken Bow" was subsequently released in the United States on CD by Decca Records. Other composers who worked on "Enterprise" included Paul Ballinger, David Bell, Jay Chattaway, John Frizzell, Kevin Kiner, Mark McKenzie, Velton Ray Bunch and Brian Tyler.
The franchise was known for typically using orchestral themes, but Berman said that the theme tune would be more "contemporary" than heard in previous series and a "little hipper". The theme was revealed to be a cover of the Rod Stewart single "Faith of the Heart", by British tenor Russell Watson. Stewart's song had originally appeared on the soundtrack to the 1998 film "Patch Adams". For the use in "Enterprise", it was retitled to "Where My Heart Will Take Me", but prompted a negative reaction from existing "Star Trek" fans. These included an online petition to have the song removed, and there was a protest held outside of Paramount Studios. Executive producers Braga and Berman both defended the choice, with Berman saying that the fan response was split over the song while Braga said that some people found the song "uplifting".
Illustrator John Eaves created a drawing of a number of real-world and "Star Trek" vessels leaving Earth, which was subsequently turned into a poster by Dan Madsen at the "Star Trek Communicator" magazine. Eaves gave copies of this poster to Braga and Berman, with Berman suggesting the possibility that this could be a good concept for an opening sequence. The aim of the sequence was to follow the evolution of exploration, flight and space flight. As suggested by Eaves' poster, it included real-world vessels such as HMS "Enterprise", "Spirit of St. Louis", the Bell X-1, the Space Shuttle "Enterprise" amongst others in addition to the Mars rover "Sojourner" and the International Space Station. "Star Trek" vessels featured included two new designs by Eaves as well as the first warp vessel, the "Phoenix", and the "Enterprise" (NX-01). The "Phoenix" spacecraft was presented in the 1996 feature film "" as Earth's first warp vessel, whose inaugural warp flight triggered first contact with the Vulcans.
The two-part episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" utilizes a different opening sequence than the remainder of the series, reflecting themes of war and conquest in the Mirror Universe.
The series was considered for cancellation at the end of the second season, with Paramount executives instead requesting a number of changes to "Enterprise" in order to renew it following a letter writing campaign from fans. These included a change of name to "Star Trek: Enterprise" early in the third season and a new action-oriented plot, which resulted in the development of the Xindi. There was a major turn over of staff at Paramount in June 2004, with Jonathan Dolgen, the head of entertainment at parent company Viacom, quitting following the departure of Viacom President Mel Karmazin. Dolgen was described by Bakula as being the "huge "Star Trek" guy" at Paramount, and his departure was followed by several other staff members leaving. During these departures, UPN was purchased by CBS. Fans were resigned to cancellation at the end of the third season, but were surprised when the series was renewed, which was due in part to a reduction in the fees Paramount was charging UPN on a per-episode basis. However "Enterprise" was moved to a slot on Friday evening, the same night on which "The Original Series" was broadcast during its own before it was cancelled.
On February 3, 2005, it was announced that "Enterprise" had been cancelled. This news was passed to the cast and crew during the sixth day of production on "In a Mirror, Darkly". The end of the series marked the first time in 18 years that no new "Star Trek" episodes were scheduled for broadcast, and "Enterprise" was the first live-action series of the franchise since "The Original Series" to last less than seven years. Braga said at a talk to students in Los Angeles shortly after the news of the cancellation was released that "After 18 straight years on the air and 750-some episodes the current run of "Star Trek" is over. Which is a good thing. It needs a rest". He added that he was not sure how long "Star Trek" would be off the air, but called it a "gestation" instead of a "cancellation". Russell T Davies, showrunner of the then-upcoming revived series of "Doctor Who", was in talks about producing a crossover episode in which the Ninth Doctor lands the TARDIS on board the NX-01, but these plans were abandoned with the cancellation of "Enterprise".
The cancellation resulted in protests by fans, both at Paramount Studios and around the world as well as online. A website entitled TrekUnited.com was set up to raise funds for a fifth season, but failed to do so with the money refunded after the unsuccessful campaign. A total of $32 million had been raised. Several years later, the possibility of a fifth season was still being discussed with Braga suggesting that fans could prompt Netflix into producing a new season of "Enterprise" by watching the existing four seasons on the service. This resulted in a Facebook campaign set up to promote the idea of a fifth season.
At the time of the cancellation, Coto had hoped for renewal and had already started to make plans for the fifth season. These included the expectation that the show would begin to cover the buildup to the Romulan War, as well as continue to link to "The Original Series" with references to things such as the cloud city of Stratos as seen in "The Cloud Minders". Another feature that Coto planned was to have a "miniseries within a series" with four or five episodes devoted to following up on events from the Mirror Universe episode "In a Mirror, Darkly". The producers had also intended to bring Jeffrey Combs onto the series as a regular by placing his recurring Andorian character Shran onto the bridge of the Enterprise in an advisory capacity.
Work had already begun on an episode referred to by Coto as "Kilkenny Cats", which would have seen the return of Larry Niven's Kzinti, usually seen in his "Known Space" novels, and which had previously appeared in the "" episode "The Slaver Weapon". At the same time that "Enterprise" was broadcast, writer Jimmy Diggs was pursuing the idea of a CGI animated film called "Star Trek: Lions of the Night", in which Captain Hikaru Sulu would lead the USS "Enterprise" (NCC-1701-B) in attempting to prevent a Kzinti invasion of the Federation. Coto's episode was based on a similar premise, with Diggs brought onto the "Enterprise" team to work on the episode. Production had begun on the new Kzinti ships for "Kilkenny Cats", with Josh Finney commissioned.
The pilot, "Broken Bow", was watched by 12.5 million viewers on the first broadcast on UPN. This was during the first full week of the new season on American television, and it was felt at the time that the combination of "Enterprise" alongside "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Roswell" would help to cross-promote each other due to the science fiction and fantasy genre links. This even included a cross-over episode of "Roswell" with a character from that series auditioning before Jonathan Frakes for a role on "Enterprise". After the first few weeks of episodes of "Enterprise", the ratings were considered to be solid enough and the expectation was that the series would run for seven seasons in the same manner as "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager". However, the viewing figures began to decrease towards the end of the season.
Changes were made for the third season, with the introduction of the season-long Xindi storyline. This improved the reviews that the series was receiving, and the viewers in the 18 to 35 demographics but the overall ratings continued to decrease. UPN cut the 26 episode order for the third season to 24, meaning that if 24 episodes were created for the fourth season as well then they would have the 100 episodes needed for syndication. As well as a move to Friday nights, the fourth season was shortened further to 22 episodes, meaning that at cancellation there were 98 episodes produced in total. At the time of cancellation, "Enterprise" remained the highest rated drama series on UPN. The series went immediately into broadcast syndication; the arrangements having been made by UPN prior to the cancellation. It is distributed by CBS Television Distribution.
In the UK, the series was first broadcast on satellite TV channel Sky One, before airing on Channel 4 during July 2002, becoming the first "Star Trek" series not to be broadcast terrestrially by the BBC. In Australia, the series was broadcast on the Nine Network. All four seasons of "Enterprise" entered broadcast syndication in the United States during the week of September 17, 2005. The episodes were initially aired out of sequence, with episodes from the third and fourth season being broadcast directly after episodes from the first. Episodes from the second season were not planned to air until September 2006.
The first season of "Enterprise" was released on VHS cassette in both the United Kingdom and Ireland, during 2002. In each of the thirteen volumes, there were two episodes on each tape. The first home media release of "Enterprise" in the United States was of the full first season on DVD, which was released on May 3, 2005. The remaining seasons were released over the course of the next months, with season four brought out in November of that year. In addition, 2005 saw the release of the complete series as a DVD box-set.
"Enterprise" was the third "Star Trek" series to be released in high definition on Blu-ray following the earlier releases of "Star Trek: The Original Series" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation", with season one delivered on March 26, 2013. The fans of the franchise were asked for feedback on potential covers for the first season release, but as there was no clear winner, a new design was created based on the feedback received. The second season was released on August 20, 2013, the third season was on January 7, 2014, and the final season on April 29, 2014. The Blu-ray releases featured both the same additional features as the DVD release, in addition to new features exclusive to these releases. In January 2017 a new 24 disc Blu-ray set of the whole series was released. This set includes the whole series in 1080p with a screen size ratio of 1.78:1 (widescreen) and with the sound in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (5 channels plus subwoofer). The set includes 97 episodes from its original broadcast run at the dawn of the 21st century and features like a cast reunion. Note that the Blu-ray release in 1080p is actually higher than its original broadcast resolution which ranged from 720p to 1080i.
The first novel released based on the series was an adaptation of the pilot episode, "Broken Bow", authored by Diane Carey for Pocket Books and released in October 2001 in the United States. It also contained an additional chapter of production material on the series at the back of the novel, written by Paul Ruditis. The first original novel was "By the Book", published in January 2002 and written by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katheryn Rusch. The duo had not seen any episodes of the series at the time of writing, instead basing the book on the first three scripts and the initial trailer. Other books expanded on the backgrounds of specific characters, with "What Price Honor?" concentrating on Reed and "Daedalus" describing Tucker's work on a previous warp vessel.
A further novelization was written by Paul Ruditis of the two-part episode "Shockwave" which closed the first season and opened the second. The final novelization of "Enterprise" episodes was contained within "The Expanse" by J.M. Dillard which covered the second-season finale, "The Expanse" and the first episode of the third season, "The Xindi". Margaret Clark, an editor at Pocket Books explained on TrekBBS that the reason for the low numbers of "Enterprise" related books was not due to poor sales, but instead because the fourth season of the show addressed topics that had been previously intended for novelizations. Books released subsequent to the end of the series as part of the covered topics such as the Earth-Romulan War, and the initial years of the Federation.
In the video games "" and "", both released in 2006, the first vessel controlled by the player in each storyline is the "Enterprise" (NX-01). As both games progress chronologically, the gamer then moves onto the USS "Enterprise" seen in "The Original Series" and later depictions afterwards. The film "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013) references "Enterprise" with a model of the NX-01 in a collection depicting the history of flight in Fleet Admiral Alexander Marcus' (Peter Weller) office. It was placed next to other historical vessels such as the Wright Flyer, the Space Shuttle and the "NX-Alpha". Events and elements of the series, including the MACOs and the Xindi war, are also referenced in the 2016 film "Star Trek Beyond". The long-lost vessel featured in the film, the USS "Franklin" (NX-326), is similar in design and said to be a precursor to the NX-01. The Earth-Romulan War, which occurred after the events of the series in the official timeline but was seeded during the series, is also mentioned in "Beyond".
The pilot episode of "Enterprise", "Broken Bow", was well received by critics, with Ed Bark for the "Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service" saying that it all came together in an "impressive fashion", while Brandon Easton said in "The Boston Herald" that the cast was "impeccable" and the writing was "strong" despite the "limitations of a questionable premise". In a differing opinion, Charlie McCollum for "Knight Ridder" said that the premise was "great", although at the time had yet to see the episode. Dan Snierson, while writing for the "Entertainment Weekly" praised the series, saying "It's hot, it's sexy, it's kinda funny" and called it the saviour of UPN.
Following the pilot, the critical reaction became mixed. David Segal said in "The Washington Post" that the series "has a bargain basement feel that lands this side of camp." During the course of the second season, mainstream media publications began publishing that the show was "broken". Tom Russo proclaimed in "Entertainment Weekly" that "It's dead Jim – almost", attributing the lack of appeal of "" and the dwindling ratings received by "Enterprise" as demonstrating that the franchise was tired. The frequency of stand-alone episodes broadcast during the second season resulted in a negative fan reaction.
The reception for the third and fourth seasons improved overall, but with some negative reviews being received. One such criticism was from Gareth Wigmore in "TV Zone" who said that ""Enterprise" isn't so much reacting to current events as it is lazily picking items from the news to produce stories." Coto felt that the critics "dumped on the show", and despite his feelings that the final season marked an improvement, he was disappointed that the critics did not change their minds. Critics received the news of the cancellation with mixed opinions with Ted Cox in "The Daily Herald" saying that it was "good riddance to space rubbish", while an article in the "Lethbridge Herald" blamed the cancellation on the poor ratings despite the improved quality of the series.
The series finale, "These Are the Voyages...", was poorly received, with Cox adding that "Enterprise" ended "with a whimper", while Kevin Williamson stating in the "Calgary Sun" that it was the worst series finale since "Turnabout Intruder" and criticised the concentration on characters from "The Next Generation" instead of "Enterprise". A similar opinion was held by Mark Perigard in "The Boston Herald", saying that William T. Riker "has no business walking the ship", and that the death of Tucker was "for no other reason than the show's creators realized at least one dramatic thing had to happen in the hour". Braga later admitted that killing Tucker "wasn't a great idea", and called making the finale TNG-centric his biggest regret of the series. Others found the conclusion a comforting reminder of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "", which aired about 11 years prior in real-time.
In 2016, in a listing that included each "Star Trek" film and TV series together, this series was ranked 12th by the "L.A. Times", ahead of the 1994 film "Star Trek: Generations".
"Star Trek: Enterprise" was nominated for seventeen awards over the course of the four seasons at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. It won on four occasions, for Outstanding Special Visual Effects For A Series for "Broken Bow", Outstanding Hairstyling For A Series for "Two Days and Two Nights", Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Dramatic Underscore) for "Similitude" and Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series for "". It also received sixteen nominations at the Saturn Awards, with the only wins coming following the first season both for Jolene Blalock in the Best Supporting Actress on Television and Faces of the Future categories.
The series won an award ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards in 2002 for Top Television Series, and twice at the Visual Effects Society Awards for "Dead Stop" in the category Best Models and Miniatures in a Televised Program, Music Video, or Commercial and for the second part of "Stormfront" for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series, with a further two nominations received. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27074 |
List of Star Trek: Enterprise episodes
"" is an American science fiction television series that originally aired on the UPN network from September 26, 2001 to May 13, 2005. Until the episode "" towards the start of the , the series was called simply "Enterprise" without the "Star Trek" prefix. The series aired for 98 episodes across four seasons, centering on the adventures of the 22nd century starship "Enterprise". They are the first deep space explorers in Starfleet, using the first Warp 5 equipped vessel. It was set within the universe of the "Star Trek" franchise, with the series placed earlier in the chronology than "".
Following the end of "", executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga entered immediately into production on "Enterprise" in line with feedback from the studio. They remained sole executive producers and show runners until the when Manny Coto took the lead on the show. He had joined the crew as co-producer during the . The pilot, "Broken Bow", was watched by 12.5 million viewers on the first broadcast on UPN. After the first few weeks of episodes, the ratings were considered to be solid enough and the expectation was that the series would run for seven seasons in the same manner as "", "" and "". However, the viewing figures began to decrease towards the end of the season. Changes were made for the third season, with the introduction of the season-long Xindi storyline. This improved the reviews that the series was receiving, but the ratings continued to decrease. Critics began to talk of giving "Star Trek" a break from television and suggesting that the decline was caused by overall franchise fatigue. UPN cut the 26 episode order for the third season to 24, meaning that if 24 episodes were created for the fourth season as well then they would have the 100 episodes needed for syndication. However, it was cancelled two episodes short of this target.
"Broken Bow" aired as a two-hour episode on UPN. When the series entered syndication, it began airing as a two-part episode. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27075 |
The Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager)
The Doctor, an Emergency Medical Hologram Mark I (or EMH for short), is a fictional character from the television series "", played by actor Robert Picardo. He is an artificial intelligence manifesting as a holographic projection, designed to act as a short-term supplement to the medical staff of a starship during emergency situations, but when the starship "Voyager" is stranded on the far side of the galaxy with no medical personnel, he is forced to act as the ship's chief medical officer for several years. In the style of the "Star Trek" franchise's exploration of artificial intelligence, a simple software program becomes a major character in the show, which aired on UPN between 1995 and 2001.
The character also appeared in "", as well as the now-closed amusement exhibition at the Las Vegas Hilton. In 2019, Picardo said CBS producers had expressed interest in having him appear in "", as either The Doctor or his creator, Lewis Zimmerman, whom Picardo also portrayed.
In a 2020 interview, Picardo said his agent told him that he was selected from 900 actors who auditioned for the role.
He added that he first learned what a hologram was from being selected for the role. "I was confused, I didn’t know what it meant for him to be a hologram or a computer program. I didn’t understand enough about Star Trek 'science,' which is based on real science, although we still don’t know how to make a hologram with density. So I got the part without knowing at all what I was in for."
Picardo initially auditioned for Neelix. Despite Ethan Phillips' getting the part, Picardo was asked by the producers to come back and audition for The Doctor — something that shocked him, because usually actors would be passed over completely. During his audition for the role of The Doctor, Picardo was asked only to say, "Somebody forgot to terminate my program." However, he then ad libbed, "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight!" (Picardo was initially afraid that he might have ruined his chances—ad libbing, he explained, was something that one just "did not do" in an audition.)
The Doctor began his service on the USS "Voyager" as the standard Emergency Medical Hologram built into almost every newer Starfleet ship's sickbay. The EMH is to be used should the ship's doctor be incapacitated or require emergency assistance. In the series' first episode, "Voyager"s chief medical officer, along with his nurse, are killed, necessitating extended use of the EMH. The EMH eventually developed his own personality, although he generally maintained his acerbic wit and irritating "version one" bedside manner. As he was originally intended as a temporary medical backup system, not as a digital life form, "Voyager"s journey strains his programming to some limits. He gave himself a name during episode S1E12 Heroes and Demons. “Switzer”. This name did not carry the whole series. The Doctor becomes the chief medical officer, with Kes and Tom Paris at various times acting as nurses.
Attempting to develop a realistic personality, the Doctor not only manufactured a holographic family (""), he also had an increasing number of other "human" experiences. This resulted in the Doctor's program evolving to become more lifelike, with emotions and ambitions. He developed meaningful and complex relationships with many members of the ship's crew. The Doctor also developed talents as a playwright, artist, and photographer, and even became a connoisseur of opera. He has had multiple other experiences with "family", including having had a son with a "roommate" while trapped on a planet for three years. During the episode "", he asked an associate to inquire further about his progeny.
A recurring theme was the ethical aspects of an artificial, yet apparently sentient, being. In the episode "", treating two patients with an equal chance of survival, with only enough time to treat one, The Doctor chose Harry Kim, a friend. The other patient, Ensign Jetal, died. The Doctor was overwhelmed with guilt, believing that his friendship influenced his choice. When the stress nearly led to his program breaking down, Captain Janeway had his memories of these events deleted. When The Doctor later discovered clues as to what had happened, Captain Janeway was convinced by him and others that he had a right to learn to come to grips with the guilt in the manner of any other sentient being rather than be treated merely as a defective piece of equipment.
The Doctor submitted a holonovel titled "Photons Be Free" to a publisher on Earth, detailing the manner in which holograms were sometimes treated by Starfleet. His characters were closely based on "Voyager"s crew, but exaggerated to appear more intense and vicious, creating fears among the crew their reputations would be ruined. Tom Paris convinced The Doctor to make adjustments without sacrificing his theme. The Doctor lacked legal rights as Federation law did not classify him as a "sentient being". Thus he was forbidden to make any subsequent changes to the holonovel. Captain Janeway's efforts resulted in The Doctor being accorded the status of "artist", (though not a "person"). This permitted him to rewrite the novel. Four months later, it was known throughout the Alpha Quadrant as a very thought-provoking piece of work. Several other EMHs, now relegated to mining duty, experienced the novel.
The Doctor's standard greeting was "Please state the nature of the medical emergency" when activated, though later modified to say whatever he chose. In "Jetrel", it was revealed that he was given the ability to activate and deactivate himself.
The Doctor later acquired a mobile holographic emitter from the 29th century ("Future's End"). Although he had previously been confined to Sickbay or the Holodeck, the mobile emitter allowed The Doctor to move about freely, making him ideal for missions where the environment would be harmful or otherwise fatal to the crew. In one notable incident, when an away team was trapped on a radioactive planet, The Doctor was able to infiltrate the people and almost single-handedly rescue the team because, as he pointed out, being a hologram renders him immune to the radiation, stating that "being a hologram does have its advantages."
In a 2020 interview, Picardo recalled his initial reticence to the concept of a mobile emitter:
The Doctor's programming evolved from his first romance, Dr. Denara Pel, to the point where he fell in love with Seven of Nine, though she was unable to reciprocate. In an alternate future episode, "", The Doctor finally adopts a name (see below) and marries a human female named Lana.
In the final episode of "Star Trek: Voyager", a future version of Janeway also informs him of his later invention of a device known as a 'synaptic transceiver', something that fascinates The Doctor; he's cut off by the 'present' Janeway, who is abiding by the Temporal Prime Directive, before he can learn more.
The "Emergency Command Hologram", aka "ECH", is first coined by The Doctor in the episode "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy", in which he creates a program which allows him to daydream.
In these grandiose daydreams, The Doctor adds routines which allow him to take command of "Voyager" in the event of the command crew being disabled.
A dramatic morph transformation occurs changing his uniform from medical blue to command red, his rank pips subsequently appearing. The daydreams are picked up by a Hierarchy vessel in a nearby nebula and believed to be real events.
Once the crew discover that The Doctor is daydreaming they use the holodeck to view his dreams, including the one expressing his desire to be an Emergency Command Hologram, Captain Janeway promises to consider his proposal.
The Doctor soon gets the opportunity to live out his daydreams as, with the assistance of the crew, he pretends to be in charge to neutralize a war fleet.
The ECH made its debut the following season in "", in which after an incident with a subspace mine that releases a great amount of tetryon radiation, the crew is forced to abandon ship. To keep the ship moving, The Doctor takes over the command functions.
In the episode "", against the wishes of the crew, The Doctor uses his ECH program to eject the warp core.
The Doctor's program required a custom-built photonic processor, and Starfleet outfitted "Voyager" with only two. This hardware itself also could not be replicated, hence the Doctor could not be easily backed up, restored, or copied.
"Voyager"'s computers could not help run his photonic program, and could not contain a usable backup of its image. The Doctor's entire program used 50 million gigaquads ("" and "" mention these limitations). The episode "Living Witness" depicts a future Delta Quadrant civilization building a museum around "Voyager" artifacts, including its redundant EMH photonic processor.
A recurring theme in the Doctor's life was his lack of a proper name. Starfleet did not assign a name to him, and initially, the Doctor claimed that he did not want one until the episode “”, when he asks Kes to give him a name. He later adopted such names as 'Schweitzer' (after Albert Schweitzer), 'Shmullus' (in "" (by Vidiian patient Dr. Denara Pel), 'Van Gogh,' 'Kenneth,' 'Jones' and several others. His friends suggest the famous historical Earth doctors "Galen" and "Spock". The captioned dialog of early episodes, and early promotional material for the series premiere, referred to him as 'Dr. Zimmerman', after his creator, Lewis Zimmerman. The Doctor is ultimately referred to as simply "The Doctor" and addressed as "Doctor", which he answers to without concern, and the issue of the Doctor's name virtually disappears over the course of the series. However, in the , in an alternate future timeline the Doctor has finally chosen the name "Joe" after his new wife's grandfather (Tom Paris remarked in "" that "it took you "33 years" to come up with ""Joe""?").
Before the arrival of the mobile emitter, The Doctor's holo-program was confined to sickbay, holodecks, and other areas equipped with holographic systems.
Depending on the availability of suitable holographic patterns and the capacity of his pattern buffers, The Doctor can alter his appearance. This was illustrated especially in the episode "".
The Doctor is also able to download his program and personality subroutines into a humanoid with Borg implants, indirectly "possessing" that individual and gaining control over its "host" body. Such was the case when he was forced to hide within the body of Seven of Nine in "".
The EMH is a holographic computer program designed to treat patients during emergency situations, or when the regular medical staff is unavailable or incapacitated. EMHs are a standard feature onboard all Starfleet ships, but they are there only to supplement the living medical crew, not replace it. Programmed with all current Starfleet medical knowledge, The Doctor and all Mark I programs are equipped with the knowledge and mannerisms of historic Federation doctors, as well as the physical appearance of their programmer Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. Zimmerman, along with the EMH, appeared in the "" episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?", in which the former was in the process of trying to upgrade Starfleet's EMH programs to LMH, i.e. Long-term Medical Hologram, status.
There has been only one update to the Mark I seen on screen, the Mark II played by Andy Dick in the episode "", which supposedly had a "better" bedside manner than the Mark I, as well as possibly some updated medical information. However, later episodes mention that further versions of the EMH exist.
Picardo had a minor role in the movie "", where he played the emergency medical hologram of the USS "Enterprise"-E. Doctor Beverly Crusher activates him, albeit reluctantly, as a means of distracting the Borg while she and other crew members escape from the besieged sickbay. He replies, "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop", an homage to Doctor McCoy's catchphrase line "I'm a doctor, not a ..." (The Doctor also made this reference several other times, on "Voyager".) Nevertheless, when the Borg do break in, he does attempt to distract them by noting that Borg implants can cause skin irritation and offering to prescribe an analgesic cream. Although the Borg would be unable to harm or assimilate him, he still appears intimidated as they advance upon him. Another EMH appeared in the "" episode "Doctor Bashir I Presume".
His reference to an analgesic cream in this scene was reprised in the PC video game "".
In 2018, The Wrap ranked Voyager's EMH as the 22nd best character of "Star Trek" overall, noting the character as a "sarcastic, overworked hologram", one that also had time for jokes and helping fellow crewmates.
In 2016, "Wired" magazine ranked the character as the 16th most important character in service to Starfleet within the "Star Trek" science fiction universe.
In 2016, SyFy ranked "The Doctor/Voyager EMH" as the second best of the six main-cast space doctors of the Star Trek franchise. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27076 |
Worf
Worf, son of Mogh ( in the Klingon language) is a fictional character in the "Star Trek" franchise. He appears in the television series "" "(TNG)" and seasons four through seven of "" "(DS9)" as well as the feature films "Star Trek Generations" (1994), "" (1996), "" (1998), and "" (2002). Worf is the first Klingon main character to appear in "Star Trek", and in 11 seasons as a regular character on "TNG" and then "DS9", has appeared in more "Star Trek" franchise episodes than any other character. He is portrayed by actor Michael Dorn.
Initially, Worf was not intended to be a regular character, as Gene Roddenberry wanted to avoid "retreads of characters or races featured prominently in the original "Star Trek" series". Accordingly, a cast portrait released in June 1987 to promote the upcoming series did not include Worf. Several "tall, slim, black actors" auditioned for Worf before Michael Dorn came along, walking into the audition in character and not smiling. Not only did the Worf character become a regular on "The Next Generation", he was continued on the "Deep Space Nine" series for four more seasons (1995-99) and talk of a spin-off Worf show continued even into the 2010s.
He made his debut in 1987 in "Encounter at Farpoint", and last appeared in character in 2002. Dorn as Worf made 282 on screen appearances, the most of any actor in the "Star Trek" franchise.
Worf was orphaned as a child, and raised on Earth by human parents: Helena and Sergey Rozhenko. This creates conflicts between his upbringing and his desire to honor his biological heritage. He has two brothers, each with a unique backstory, as well as two adoptive human parents, and one son. Important "Star Trek" episodes for Worf's family include "The Bonding", "", "", "", "", and "You Are Cordially Invited".
The House of Mogh was a family of high social and political rank, which was for a time represented on the Klingon High Council. In "" (set around 70 years before the "Next Generation" era began), Colonel Worf (also portrayed by Dorn) appears as the legal advocate of Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy after they are accused of killing Chancellor Gorkon of the Klingon High Council. He was also a member of the Klingon delegation at Camp Khitomer. Although not explicitly stated, he was intended to be Worf's grandfather.
Worf has a son named Alexander with a half-human half-Klingon woman named K'Ehleyr, a character introduced in "“; however, she is later killed in "", a "sequel" to that episode and part of the Worf story arc, leaving Worf as a single parent. Alexander has to live aboard "Enterprise"-D when K'Ehleyr is killed. After TNG ends, Worf gets moved to the Deep Space Nine space station where he eventually marries the Trill symbiont Jadzia Dax. (see "You Are Cordially Invited") On DS9 Worf misses the "Enterprise"-D "family" that he had, often bemoaning the cut-rate work ethic and unfriendliness on the wayward outpost.
The episode "Sins of the Father" introduces Worf's long-lost brother Kurn, who is also an orphan of the House of Mogh. His adoptive parents have another son, Nikolai Rozhenko, whom Worf grew up with. Nikolai and Worf interact in "Homeward" where it is revealed that Worf will likely have a nephew or niece.
In "The Bonding" (TNG S3E5, aired 1989) Worf adopts an orphan boy into the House of Mogh. In the first "Star Trek" episode written by screenwriter Ron Moore, the orphan Jeremy (played by Gabriel Damon) has a special Klingon ceremony to be adopted into Worf's family.
Worf was born in 2340 on Kronos (the Klingon homeworld) as the son of Mogh. Five years later, his parents moved to the Khitomer colony. Worf's parents were killed during a surprise attack by the Romulans on the Khitomer outpost. The colony's distress call was answered by the Federation starship USS "Intrepid". Chief Petty Officer Sergey Rozhenko found Worf in the rubble and took him in after failing to find any living relatives. Rozhenko and his wife Helena raised him on a small farm colony on the planet Gault, a world of about 20,000 inhabitants, almost all of them human. Worf also has a human brother, Nikolai, with whom he often quarreled. He also spent time on Earth in his parents' native city of Minsk, later recommending it to Miles O'Brien as one of his favorite places on Earth.
Worf did not take the Rozhenkos' last name, preferring to be addressed by the Klingon designation "Worf, son of Mogh". However, his son Alexander Rozhenko, who was raised by the Rozhenkos after his mother K'Ehleyr died, did use their surname. Although Worf was raised by humans, he considered himself a Klingon at heart and studied the ways of his people. As an adult, his mannerisms and personality, as well as his innate sense of honor, became more Klingon than human.
Worf's brother Kurn, barely a year old at the time of the Khitomer attack, had been left behind on the Klingon homeworld by his parents. Lorgh, a friend to House of Mogh (appearing only in dialog of the episode ""), was charged with the care of the younger son, originally expecting Mogh's stay at the Khitomer outpost to be short-term. Lorgh adopted Kurn after the attack, but informed Klingon authorities that he had died with the rest of the family. Kurn was not revealed as being alive until both brothers were adults.
In 2357, Worf entered Starfleet Academy. He graduated in 2361 and was commissioned with the rank of Ensign, becoming the first Klingon officer in Starfleet. Although Worf took immense pride and a sense of honor from serving in Starfleet, most other Klingons shunned and belittled his choice of vocation.
In 2359, he became briefly involved with K'Ehleyr who was the daughter of a Klingon father and a human mother.
In 2364, Worf was assigned to the USS "Enterprise"-D as relief flight control and tactical officer with the rank of lieutenant junior grade ("TNG": ""). The next year, he was made Acting Chief of Security following the death of Tasha Yar, even though he believed that a promotion due to the death of a comrade was not honorable ("TNG": ""). The next year, he transferred to operations division and was formally made Chief of Security ("TNG": "").
In 2365, he renewed his relationship with K'Ehleyr when she came aboard the "Enterprise" as a Federation emissary on an urgent mission. He proposed marriage but was rejected ("TNG": "").
In 2366, he was promoted lieutenant ("TNG": ""). After an accident caused the death of Lt. Marla Astor, Worf brought the orphaned Jeremy Astor into the House of Mogh through the rite of R'uustai ("TNG": "").
Worf learned of Kurn's existence when Kurn was assigned to the "Enterprise" as an Exchange Officer. Kurn specifically asked for the "Enterprise" so he could observe his brother. He then revealed his true identity, informing Worf that the House of Mogh's rival Duras accused their father of betraying the Klingon Empire by helping the Romulans attack Khitomer. When they and the "Enterprise" crew discovered that it was in fact Duras's father that betrayed the Empire, Worf, realizing that the powerful House of Duras could not be publicly shamed without throwing the Empire into civil war, accepted a ritual discommendation from the Klingon High Council. While Worf decided to accept this dishonor, it was decided to keep Kurn's true identity secret in order to protect his honor (and the House of Mogh as a whole be left alone) ("TNG": "").
In 2367, K'Ehleyr returned with Klingon Chancellor K'mpec who had come to meet with Captain Picard. When she came aboard, Worf learned he had a son named Alexander. She wanted to marry him but Worf refused because he did not want to share his dishonor with her and their son ("TNG": "").
After K'mpec's death, she assisted Captain Picard with the rite of succession. K'Ehleyr was eventually murdered by Duras when she found evidence of his involvement in the effort to discredit Worf (and why he was discommended). Exercising his right of vengeance, Worf fought and killed Duras with a bat'leth in a duel, allowing Duras's political opponent Gowron to become chancellor ("TNG": "Reunion").
A civil war erupted when the Duras's son Toral challenged Gowron. Worf believed Gowron was the legitimate ruler and convinced his brother to bring forces loyal to him into battle on Gowron's behalf. Worf resigned from Starfleet to fight for Gowron and served on his brother's ship. Gowron won the war after Starfleet exposed Romulan support for the House of Duras. In appreciation of his support, Chancellor Gowron restored Worf's honor, allowing Kurn a seat on the High Council as the recognized brother and representative of the House of Mogh ("TNG": ""). Once the war was over, Worf regained his Starfleet commission, recognizing that he did not fully belong to Klingon society ("TNG": "Redemption, Part II").
In 2369 while the "Enterprise" was at Deep Space Nine, Worf investigated a claim that his father might still be alive in a Romulan prison camp. His father was not there (having indeed been killed during the battle at Khitomer), but a number of Klingons were living there with the Romulans. Unable to return home with honor, as Klingons are supposed to commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner, they stayed and strayed from their way of life. Worf's visit had a profound effect on the children of the prisoners and many chose to leave with him ("TNG": ).
Worf's visit to the camp caused him to reconsider his own beliefs. He visited the monastery at Boreth to meditate. One day, a man appeared before him claiming to be Kahless the Unforgettable who had returned to lead the Empire once more. Worf was willing to consider the idea that Kahless was genuine because he believed the Klingons had lost their ways. Gowron was skeptical. He questioned Kahless about details of his memories, which Kahless could not recall, and then challenged Kahless to combat, defeating him easily. The loss forced the clerics to reveal that they had created a clone of Kahless and implanted ancient scriptures of Kahless's battles as his memories. Despite this, Worf became convinced that the Klingons would make a leap of faith and accept him as the legitimate heir of Kahless. He convinced the Klingons to appoint the new Kahless as Emperor. While real power remained with Gowron as head of government, the Emperor would be the formal head of state and teach the stories of Kahless. Gowron was incited to go along with this arrangement when Worf threatened in private otherwise to oppose him publicly, which Gowron, still not fully in control of the Empire, could not afford. ("TNG": "").
Worf avoided romantic attachments with non-Klingons during his first few years on board the "Enterprise"-D. As Worf explained to both Commander Riker and Guinan, he felt that non-Klingon females would be too fragile, and that he would have to restrain himself too much. He eventually developed strong feelings for Counselor Deanna Troi, and explored a relationship with her for a time, which at times strained his relationship with her former romantic interest, Commander Riker. Worf and Troi seemed to end their relationship following the destruction of the "Enterprise"-D at Veridian III and Worf's reassignment to Deep Space Nine.
In 2371, he was promoted lieutenant commander ("Star Trek Generations"). After the destruction of the "Enterprise"-D, Worf took an extended leave to evaluate his future. He was at a monastery on the Klingon colony of Boreth when he was ordered to go to Deep Space 9 to advise Captain Sisko when a Klingon fleet massed at the station. When he arrived, he was met by former "Enterprise"-D crew member and DS9's Chief of Operations, Miles O'Brien. ("DS9": "").
Worf learned that the Klingons were planning to invade Cardassia because of a coup which they had been led to believe was engineered by the Dominion. Worf reluctantly informed Sisko, knowing this would jeopardize his status in the empire. After the invasion had begun, Gowron traveled to DS9 to ask Worf to join him in battle. Gowron believed the Federation was unworthy of Worf's loyalty because they would not fight the Dominion. Worf felt the war was wrong and he could not support it. Gowron punished him by reinstating Worf's discommendation, but this time executing it to the full degree, by stripping him and his family of his honor, lands, and titles, effectively bringing down the House of Mogh.
Worf submitted his resignation but Sisko rejected it because he still needed him. He had decided to rescue the members of the Cardassian council from certain death at the hands of the Klingons. In doing so, he was able to prove that there was no Dominion involvement by verifying their identities. The Klingons attacked the station in order to capture the council members but withdrew as Starfleet ships approached, fearing a war on two fronts.
At the end of the immediate crisis, Sisko convinced Worf to join the crew as Strategic Operations officer. In this role, he would coordinate all Starfleet activity in the Bajoran sector and act as executive officer of the USS "Defiant", meaning he had to adjust to the requirements and obligations that came with the red "command personnel" uniform. For the first months, Worf had difficulties adjusting to life on the station, unintentionally overstepping his boundaries by acting as he did on the "Enterprise", putting him for a while at odds with Chief of Security Odo. For Worf, the station's life seemed just too much 'grey', subsequently requesting to relocate his quarters aboard "Defiant".
After the Klingon civil war, Kurn had gained a seat on the High Council. Worf's opposition to the war against Cardassia cost Kurn his seat on the council. Four months later, he arrived at DS9 seeking help from his brother to perform a ritual to die with honor. He felt that the ritual, which involved Worf killing him, was the only way to restore his honor. Initially disregarding orders from Sisko not to carry out the honor killing, Worf failed in his first attempt to perform the ritual and later found he could not bring himself to do so again, as he had taken on a human feature of morality and would consider it murdering his brother. Worf arranged for his brother to have cosmetic surgery and his memory wiped so he could start a new life with no ties to the House of Mogh. Kurn now has the identity of Rodek, who believes he lost his memory after being hit by a plasma discharge ("DS9" episode "Sons of Mogh"). When Rodek sees Worf, he asks him whether he is family. Worf bitterly replies that he has no family.
After a year of war between the Federation and the Klingons, Worf joined a team sent to investigate claims that Gowron was a changeling in disguise. Worf nearly killed Gowron in combat but at the last moment the impostor was revealed to be disguised as Gowron's military adviser General Martok. The discovery helped restore peace between the Federation and the Klingons and to Worf again being shunned by Gowron for not having killed him when he had the chance, reaffirming his dishonor. ("DS9": "", "Apocalypse Rising").
In early 2373, Worf became involved with DS9 science officer Jadzia Dax, a Trill woman. She was familiar with Klingon customs due to the experience of the Dax symbiont's previous host, Curzon. She was the first non-Klingon that Worf could "physically" be with in the traditional Klingon way, although it still left bruises, cuts and broken bones .
While on a mission to the Gamma Quadrant, Worf was captured by the Dominion and sent to a Jem'Hadar prison camp where he met the real General Martok and was reunited with the real Dr. Bashir, who had both been captured and replaced by changelings. While the prisoners worked to escape, Worf entered a daily round of combat with each of the guards in turn. He earned the respect and admiration of Martok and even of the guards because he would not yield. Once the prisoners escaped, they managed to warn the station about the Bashir-changeling.
Upon their return, Martok was assigned command of the Klingon detachment on Deep Space Nine and command of the IKS "Rotarran". Martok asked Worf to be his first officer. The ship had suffered many losses to the Dominion, and morale was low. Martok's refusal to engage the enemy, due to his Dominion incarceration, made things worse. Worf challenged him for command, but allowed Martok to win and retain command. This led to Martok regaining his warrior's courage and, with renewed vigor, he led the crew to their first victory against the Dominion. Understanding what Worf had done, Martok thanked him for reminding him of his duty as a soldier and offered him a place in his house as his brother. By joining the House of Martok, Worf's status in the empire was restored (albeit the House of Mogh remains stricken). Worf's son, Alexander, was also assigned to the "Rotarran" after joining the Klingon Defense Force. Though Worf was initially estranged by his now adult son, and skeptical of his son's desire to serve the Empire, he eventually reconciled with him, and his son joined the House of Martok as well. Worf continued to serve on the "Rotarran" after Sisko withdrew from DS9 at the beginning of the Dominion War.
When Sisko eventually returned with a fleet of Federation ships to retake the station, Worf and Martok lobbied Gowron to send Klingon ships to join the battle. The entry of the Klingon ships turned the tide and allowed the Defiant to break through and retake the station ("DS9": "Favor the Bold", "Sacrifice of Angels").
Having helped liberate the station, Worf and Jadzia decided to get married. The wedding was a traditional Klingon ceremony which included a series of trials on Jadzia's part in order to gain the approval of Martok's wife to join the House of Martok. This almost ended in disaster, as the free-spirited Jadzia felt forced into a position rather than taking the matter seriously enough. Eventually, realizing its importance to Worf and counseled by Sisko that she needed to mature, Jadzia yielded and she was allowed to marry Worf. ("DS9": "You Are Cordially Invited").
In the "DS9" episode "", Worf prematurely ended a mission to contact a Cardassian informant inside the Dominion in order to save his injured wife. The informant was subsequently executed by the Dominion, causing Captain Sisko to officially caution that Starfleet might not grant Worf his own command after this incident (being another official reprimand in Worf's records of consequence). However, Sisko added that, had he been forced to choose between his duty and his wife, he would have done the same thing.
By late 2374, Worf and Jadzia were married less than a year when they decided to try to have a child, despite the extreme difficulties posed by the disparate biologies of Trill and Klingons. While Worf was away during a mission, Jadzia visited the Bajoran temple on the station where she was attacked and killed by an alien possessing the body of Gul Dukat, who had come aboard the station to destroy an Orb of the Prophet. ("DS9": "Time's Orphan", "Tears of the Prophets")
In 2375, Worf led a mission to destroy a Dominion shipyard. He dedicated this mission to his late wife, in order to ensure her entry into Sto-Vo-kor, the Valhalla-like realm of the honored dead, being joined by Quark, Bashir and O'Brien ("DS9": "Shadows and Symbols").
Julian Bashir was able to save the Dax symbiont, which was sent back to the Trill homeworld to be rejoined with a new host aboard the USS "Destiny". When the symbiont's health worsened, the Dax symbiont was implanted into a new host named Ezri Dax, who was the assistant ship's counselor. She had not been trained to be a host, but she was the only available unjoined Trill aboard. Ezri had difficulty making the transition and sought out Ben Sisko on Earth. She helped him on his mission and then returned to DS9 with him. She accepted his request to stay on as station counselor.
Worf avoided Ezri at first, confused about what to do about this new situation. Her quick posting to DS9 led to a number of awkward moments between her and Worf, since the new host carried all the memories of their former hosts but had its own distinct personality, despite their shared past. Also, it was considered taboo on Trill for new hosts to fraternize with former lovers. After a brief rekindling of their feelings for one another, they decided that things were just too different and, eventually, the two settled into a comfortable friendship, with Ezri eventually becoming romantically involved with Julian Bashir (who previously had feelings for Jadzia). This allowed Worf to accept 'his' Jadzia to have her place into Sto-Vo-Kor.
In 2375, Worf became concerned with the leadership of Gowron. The entry of the Breen into the war on the side of the Dominion temporarily sidelined the Federation and Romulan fleets, which proved vulnerable to Breen weaponry. This left the Klingons alone to carry on the fight as their ships were not affected in the same manner. Gowron assumed direct command because he feared Martok's growing popularity and devised a plan to discredit Martok. He began ordering Martok on near-suicidal missions against Dominion forces, hoping that a string of defeats would weaken Martok's popularity and discredit him as a military leader. Recognizing that Gowron was jeopardizing the entire war effort for the sake of his personal pride, Worf tried to convince Martok that he should challenge Gowron for the leadership. After Martok refused, Worf challenged Gowron himself, citing his faulty battle planning, his dishonorable conduct in trying to discredit Martok, and poor strategies at the later stages of the Dominion War. After a brief battle, Worf killed Gowron; by right, he was proclaimed the new chancellor of the Klingon High Council. However, Worf declined in favor of Martok ("DS9": "Tacking Into the Wind"). Ironically, it was again by Worf's hand the next chancellor of the Empire was decided (having slain Duras to allow Gowron's ascension after K'mpec's death), and the second time he and Gowron dueled, this time finishing Gowron off. As a token of respect, Worf performed the Klingon Death Howl after Gowron's death, essentially forgiving his misdeeds and recognizing a worthy warrior was on his way to Sto-Vo-Kor.
After the conclusion of the Dominion War, Worf was offered the position of the Federation ambassador to Qo'noS (the Klingon homeworld), as depicted in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" series finale "What You Leave Behind".
Worf continued to appear in "TNG" films which is explained in various ways, such as being rescued from the damaged "Defiant" during a battle with the Borg ("Star Trek: First Contact") and taking leave that led to him travelling on the "Enterprise" ("Star Trek: Insurrection"). "" was released after the conclusion of "DS9" and Worf's status at this time is unclear. Worf attended the wedding of William Riker and Deanna Troi on Earth and travelled to Betazed with the "Enterprise" crew for the second wedding ceremony when the ship was diverted to investigate positronic signals from a system near the Romulan border.
In 2370 after returning from a tournament, Worf encountered a quantum fissure and began shifting into different realities. In one reality, he became involved with Deanna Troi while recovering from a spinal injury. He asked permission from Commander Riker to court Troi. By the time the events in this episode takes place, he has been married to her for two years. In another reality, Worf is first officer of the "Enterprise" serving under Capt. Riker who assumed command after Capt. Picard was killed by the Borg. He is married to Deanna Troi and has a daughter Shannara Rozhenko and a son Eric Christopher Rozhenko. However, she doesn't know anything about Alexander ("TNG": "Parallels").
In an alternate future, Alexander becomes a diplomat instead of a warrior. He wanted to end the feuding among the great houses and declared that the House of Mogh would no longer engage in blood feuds. Worf warned him that this was a show of weakness but Alexander persisted. Shortly after Alexander's decision, he witnesses Worf being killed on the floor of the High Council. Had he become a warrior, he thinks perhaps he could have saved his father's life. Eventually, he finds a way to travel back in time to try to prevent these events from occurring by convincing his younger self to train to become a warrior while under the assumed name of K'Mtar, but Worf convinces him to return to the future with assurances that he has already changed his own history ("TNG": "Firstborn").
In an alternate future, Worf had been reluctant to become involved with Troi and her subsequent death led to a rift between Riker and himself as a result. He later served as a member of the Klingon High Council and was governor of the Klingon colony of H'atoria with his fellow Klingons possibly at the brink of war with the Federation after conquering the Romulan Star Empire ("TNG": "All Good Things").
While on a mission in the Gamma Quadrant, the "Defiant" detects an energy barrier surrounding a planet in a nearby solar system. When they enter the barrier, the ship is damaged and they detect a settlement with 8,000 people who are mostly human. When they investigate, they learn they have been expected. The settlers explain they are the descendants of the "Defiant" crew. In a couple of days, when the "Defiant" tries to leave orbit, they will be thrown back in time two centuries and crash land on the planet. Worf learns he married and raised a family. He meets his descendant Brota who leads the Sons of Mogh. The members are descendants of Worf and Jadzia and others who choose to join them. They follow Klingon customs as first taught to them by Worf ("DS9": "Children of Time").
In the mirror universe, Worf leads the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance as Regent. After Terran rebels take over Terok Nor, Worf tries to recapture the station but is defeated by the rebels who have a new ship based on the design of the "Defiant" from the prime universe. Enraged, Worf claimed he lost only because he had been betrayed, with the Mirror Garak blaming Intendant Kira Nerys as the likely source ("DS9": "Shattered Mirror"). Eventually, Worf captured her and Grand Nagus Zek who crossed over to this universe to open new markets. Worf agreed to let Zek go in exchange for a cloaking device, but the device was sabotaged and his ship was disabled, allowing the Terran rebels to capture him ("DS9": "The Emperor's New Cloak").
The series finale of "Webster" had the titular character go into the future to the "Enterprise"-D bridge where he encountered several unnamed "Enterprise" crew members and Worf. Worf initially tells Webster he cannot return him to his time due to the "Enterprise" not being able to escape the gravitational pull of a planet, but eventually they were able to reverse engineer the process that brought Webster to them. Shortly after Webster gets returned, Webster wakes up from what seemed to be a dream. None of the regular cast members of "Star Trek" TNG were in this episode of Webster.
During the film "Ted 2", Michael Dorn played a character by the name of Rick. This character in the film attended the New York Comic Con amateurishly dressed as Worf playing on the fact that Dorn was the actor who portrayed Worf.
Worf's character is further developed in non-canon media.
According to the Pocket Books novels set after the "Nemesis", Worf takes over William T. Riker's position of first officer aboard the "Enterprise"-E. According to "Death in Winter", Worf was to transfer with Riker to the "Titan", but after Data's death, Picard asks Worf to stay aboard the "Enterprise", and Worf obliges. In early 2380 in "Resistance", Starfleet Command approves Picard's request to make Worf the permanent first officer, but Worf refuses as he doubts his command skills (due to his choice of love over duty in "Change of Heart"). Soon afterwards, however, Worf successfully leads the rescue of Picard from another Borg crisis, and is sufficiently convinced to accept the permanent promotion. As of 2385 in the novel miniseries "Star Trek: The Fall", Worf continues to remain as first officer of the "Enterprise"-E. According to the Titan series, he also adopted Data's cat Spot. In Una McCormack's "Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope", Worf is promoted to Captain of the "Enterprise"-E in 2381 once Picard is promoted to Admiral.
Worf had a relationship with "Enterprise"-E Chief of Security Jasminder Choudhury in the books, until her death in the 2012 Novel "The Persistence Of Memory" by David Mack.
The Pocket Books series continued in the 2016 trilogy "Prey", written by John Jackson Miller. In it, Worf and the cloned Klingon Emperor Kahless are drawn into battle with a group of discommendated Klingons, all disciples of the late Kruge, the villain from the movie "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", being manipulated by Kruge's secret heir Korgh. By 2386, Worf's son Alexander is an Ambassador, working alongside Admiral William Riker. The events of "Prey" conclude with the last survivors of the discommendated Klingons taking on roles as guardians for a planet whose previous guards were killed as part of the conspiracy, with Kahless joining them to help them learn how to be truly Klingon. As acknowledgement of Worf's role in helping them redeem themselves, the group name the first child born during this crisis after Worf.
IDW Comics took the character in a different direction in its licensed works. In the official comic book prequel to the 2009 movie "Star Trek", Worf is a General in the Klingon Empire who is dispatched to deal with Romulan Captain Nero and his significantly altered mining vessel, the "Narada". When the Klingon forces suffer a crushing defeat, Worf agrees to Nero's demand to board a shuttle and come on board the "Narada". Worf takes the opportunity to surprise Nero, cutting into the "Narada's" hull and fighting his way to the main bridge for a confrontation with Nero. Already prepared for such a tactic, Nero succeeds in surprising Worf by impaling him through the back with a large mechanical tentacle. When the "Enterprise"-E arrives to do battle with the "Narada", Nero agrees to beam Worf over if the ship will lower its shields. When Captain Data agrees, Worf is beamed back to the ship, giving the "Narada" time to fire on the "Enterprise". The ship suffers heavy damage, but manages to raise its shields in time to prevent a second attack. Nero then leaves the battle to continue his assault on the planet Vulcan. Worf is assumed to have survived, but this is never explicitly mentioned in the comic.
Worf is a decidedly popular character among fans. The episode "Heart of Glory" (S1E20 of TNG), which focuses on Worf and his relationship to other Klingons, is credited with planting "many seeds for successive Klingon storylines ... and new insights into Klingon culture".
With "TNG" over in 1995, the writers of "DS9" came up with the idea of adding Worf to the cast in response to pressure to boost ratings.
Due to Worf's popularity there was some talk of a Captain Worf series before the franchise went into the "Trek" re-boots. The actor was reportedly offered a role as a Worf-ancestor on "Star Trek: Discovery" but this did not come to fruition.
"Screen Rant" has rated the character Worf a number of times, and by several authors, at its site. Author Edward Cambro ranks Worf as the 13th best "Star Trek" character overall, and remarks how Worf had to "walk the line between two cultures, neither of which entirely understood him (nowhere is this more apparent than in episodes like “,” “,” and “”)." Said cultures being Klingons and human. Then author Sara Schmidt ranks Worf the 7th most attractive person in the "Star Trek" universe, in between T'Pol ("Enterprise") and Michael Burnham ("Star Trek: Discovery"), and in another article, she goes on to suggest ideas for a Worf spin-off saying a young Worf would be "interesting to explore" as well as a "series about Worf's experiences as a Federation ambassador to Qo'noS." Dusty Stowe then ranks the top 8 most powerful characters of "Star Trek" and places Worf as the most powerful between Spock and Q.
"TheWrap" rates Worf as the 9th best character of "Star Trek", saying that he "started the trend of turning enemies from past series into complex characters who became vital Starfleet crew members despite cultural differences."
SyFy rated Worf as the 2nd greatest Klingon of the "Star Trek" franchise. The author explains that Worf is only in second place because he was raised by humans and relies mostly on honor. He goes on to admit, "Michael Dorn created a "Trek" legend here, there can be no doubt."
"Den of Geek" places four (really five since one is a two part episode), squarely Worf-centric episodes, in its list of 25 "must-watch" "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes which include "The Emissary", "Sins of the Father", "Reunion", "Redemption" (Parts I & II).
Worf is ranked the 13th most important character of Starfleet within the "Star Trek" science fiction universe by "Wired" magazine, beating out such favorites as Uhura. To be included in this list, characters must be Starfleet personnel or crew, plus in original media only.
"IndieWire" ranks Worf as the 7th best character on "Star Trek:The Next Generation" and "CBR" ranks Worf as the 8th best Starfleet character of "Star Trek".
Filk artists Ookla the Mok include a song about Worf entitled "Mr. W" on their 2003 album "Oh Okay LA". The lyrics are a parody on why Worf would not make a good captain, since he is not afraid to die and how not everyone feels the same about that. It even includes a rap from what sounds like Worf himself, toward the end.
Musician Voltaire wrote a song called "Worf's Revenge" for his EP "Banned on Vulcan" whose lyrics detail imaginings of Worf's likes and dislikes. In the band's view, Worf hates tribbles and calls Barclay a "lowly white P'tak."
Some shows have a major or major subplot for the Worf character, the first of these debuted in 1988, "Heart of Glory" (which was S1E20 of "The Next Generation") This kicked off a long-running story arc that continued until the end of DS9 in 1999 on television and 2002 on film.
TNG:
DS9:
Worf also has significant scenes in the four TNG-era theater films, "Star Trek" 7, 8, 9, and 10. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27078 |
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek Generations is a 1994 American science fiction film directed by David Carson and based on the franchise "Star Trek". It is the seventh film in the "Star Trek" film series, and brings together cast members from the 1960s television show "" and the 1987 spin-off show "", with Malcolm McDowell also starring. In the film, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS "Enterprise"-D joins forces with Captain James T. Kirk to stop a villain from destroying a solar system.
"Generations" was conceived as a handoff from the original television series cast and their movies to "The Next Generation". Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga wrote the script concurrently with their work on the final season of "The Next Generation"; production of the film began while the television series was still being made. Parts of the film were shot at the Valley of Fire State Park, Paramount Studios, and Lone Pine, California. The film uses a mix of traditional optical effects alongside computer-generated imagery. The film was scored by regular "Star Trek" composer Dennis McCarthy.
"Star Trek Generations" was released in the United States on November 18, 1994. Paramount promoted the film with a number of merchandising tie-ins, including toys, books, games, and a website—a first for a major motion picture. Grossing $118 million, it was a box office success despite receiving a mixed critical reception. "Generations" was followed by 1996's "", exclusively featuring the "Next Generation" cast.
In 2293, retired Starfleet officers James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott, and Pavel Chekov attend the maiden voyage of the USS "Enterprise"-B. During the shakedown cruise, the "Enterprise" is pressed into a rescue mission to save two El-Aurian refugee ships that have been snared by a massive, unknown energy ribbon. "Enterprise" is able to save some of the refugees before their ships are destroyed, but itself becomes trapped by the ribbon. Kirk goes to engineering to help "Enterprise" escape, and is presumed dead after the trailing end of the ribbon hits the ship's hull where he was working.
In 2371, the crew of the USS "Enterprise"-D is celebrating the promotion of shipmate Worf to Lieutenant Commander on the holodeck when Captain Jean-Luc Picard learns his brother and nephew were killed in a fire. Picard is distraught that the Picard family line will end with him. The "Enterprise" receives a distress call from an observatory where an El-Aurian, Dr. Tolian Soran, launches a trilithium probe at a star. The probe causes the star to implode, creating a shockwave that destroys its solar system. Soran kidnaps "Enterprise" engineer Geordi La Forge and is transported off the station by a Klingon Bird of Prey belonging to the Duras sisters.
"Enterprise" crewman Guinan tells Picard that she and Soran were among the El-Aurians rescued in 2293 and that Soran is obsessed with reentering the ribbon to reach the "Nexus", an extra-dimensional realm that exists outside of normal space-time. Picard and Data determine that Soran, unable to fly a ship directly into the ribbon, is altering the path of the ribbon by removing the gravitational effects from nearby stars. He plans to destroy another star to bring the ribbon to him on the planet Veridian III, killing millions on a nearby inhabited planet in the process.
Upon entering the Veridian system, Picard offers himself to the Duras sisters in exchange for La Forge, but insists that he be transported to Soran directly. La Forge is returned to "Enterprise", but unwittingly transmits "Enterprise"s defense details to the Klingons. The Duras sisters attack, and "Enterprise" sustains critical damage before destroying the Bird of Prey. Commander William Riker evacuates the crew to the forward saucer section of the ship, which separates from the engineering section and crashes onto the surface of Veridian III.
Picard fails to stop Soran from launching another probe and both men enter the Nexus. Picard finds himself surrounded by an idealized family, but realizes it is an illusion. He is confronted by an "echo" of Guinan, and after being told that he may go "wherever and whenever" he wishes within the Nexus, Guinan sends him to meet Kirk, also safe in the Nexus. Though Kirk is at first entranced by the opportunity to make up for past regrets in the Nexus, he likewise realizes that nothing there is real. Picard convinces Kirk to leave the Nexus and return to Veridian III shortly before Soran launches the probe.
Working together, Kirk and Picard distract Soran long enough for Picard to lock the probe in place, causing it to explode on the launchpad and kill Soran. Kirk is fatally injured in the effort, and Picard buries him in a makeshift grave on the mountain. Three Federation starships arrive to retrieve "Enterprise"s survivors from Veridian III. With "Enterprise" declared un-salvageable, Picard muses that given the name's legacy, the ship will not be the last to carry the name "Enterprise".
The starring cast of "" reprise their roles in "Generations". Patrick Stewart plays Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Frakes plays Commander William T. Riker, LeVar Burton plays Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, Brent Spiner plays Lieutenant Commander Data, Gates McFadden plays Chief Medical Officer Commander Beverly Crusher, Michael Dorn plays Lieutenant Commander Worf, and Marina Sirtis plays ship's counselor Commander Deanna Troi. Recurring characters from the series also return, including Barbara March and Gwynyth Walsh as the villainous Klingon sisters Lursa and B'Etor, Patti Yasutake as "Enterprise" nurse Lieutenant Alyssa Ogawa, and Whoopi Goldberg as "Enterprise" bartender Guinan.
Malcolm McDowell plays Tolian Soran, the film's antagonist. McDowell had previously worked with Stewart on stage decades earlier, and relished the chance to be the one to kill Shatner's character. He liked his character's spiked hair and black ensemble, and requested that he not play an alien; "If I’m going to play this part, I don't want a scar. I don't want to look like a mutant. I’m not getting up at four in the morning to get in makeup."
Alan Ruck plays "Enterprise"-B captain John Harriman. When approached for the role, Ruck assumed he would play an alien, saying, "Look, when I shave every day, I don't look in the mirror and say, 'Hey! There's a starship commander.'" Producer Rick Berman informed him that the character was from a wealthy and connected family, and was placed in command as a stepping stone to a political career. Jacqueline Kim plays "Enterprise"-B helmsman Demora Sulu. Kim consulted with art supervisor Michael Okuda to make sure her hand movements and manipulations of the ships' controls were consistent and accurate. Glenn Morshower played an "Enterprise"-B navigator; he apologized to director David Carson for a poor first rehearsal of his scenes, because as a "Star Trek" fan he had to get used to playing alongside his idols.
Initially, the entire principal cast of "The Original Series" was featured in the film's first script, but only three members appeared in the film: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, James Doohan as Montgomery Scott, and Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley declined to appear as Spock and Leonard McCoy. Nimoy felt that there were story problems with the script and that Spock's role was extraneous. "The Next Generation" Rick Berman said that "Both Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley felt they made a proper goodbye in the last movie [""]". Nimoy and Kelley's lines were subsequently modified for Doohan and Koenig. The news that not all of the "Original Series" cast was in the film was not passed to all of "The Next Generation" actors. When Goldberg arrived on set on her first day, she immediately asked to see Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed Uhura in "The Original Series". When told that Nichols was not in the film, she said to Koenig, "The fans have been waiting for years to see Nichelle and me and Uhura and Guinan on screen together." Patrick Stewart said that he had made an effort to ensure that the original cast were involved in the film, saying "I've been passionate about that from the first time that a "Next Generation" movie had been mentioned; I didn't want us to sail into the future just as "The Next Generation" cast."
Many of the background players throughout the film appeared in different roles in the television series. Tim Russ, who appears as an "Enterprise"-B bridge officer, played a terrorist in "Starship Mine" and a Klingon in "", and later joined the cast of "" as the Vulcan Tuvok. Various background roles were played by the main cast's stunt doubles.
Four months before the official announcement of a followup to "" in late 1992, Paramount Pictures executives approached "The Next Generation" producer Rick Berman about creating another feature film. Berman informed Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga that Paramount had approved a two-picture deal around midway through "The Next Generation"s sixth season. Moore and Braga, who were convinced Berman had called them into his office to tell them "The Next Generation" was cancelled and they were out of a job, instead found Berman asking them to write one of the "Star Trek" films. Berman also worked with former "Next Generation" producer Maurice Hurley to develop possible story ideas, intending to develop two film scripts simultaneously and prioritize whichever was most promising for the first film. Executive producer Michael Piller turned down the opportunity to develop ideas, objecting to what he saw as a "competition" for the job. Ultimately Moore and Braga's script was chosen; the writers spent weeks with Berman developing the story before taking a working vacation in May 1993 to write the first-draft screenplay, completed June 1.
Moore described "Generations" as a project with a number of required elements that the film "had to have". Berman felt that including the original cast of the previous "Star Trek" films felt like a "good way to pass the baton" to the next series. The studio wanted the original cast to only appear in the first minutes, with Kirk only recurring at the end of the film. Other requests included a Khan Noonien Singh-like antagonist, Klingons, and a humorous Data plot. At one point, the writers toyed with the idea of pitting the two crews against each other. "We were obsessed with the poster image of the two "Enterprises" locked in combat: " said Moore. Ultimately, the writers could not come up with a plausible explanation for such a conflict, and abandoned the idea.
In the initial draft of the screenplay, the original series cast appeared in a prologue, and Guinan served as the bridge between the two generations. The opening shot would have been the entire original series cast crammed into an elevator aboard the "Enterprise"-B, happy to be back together. The "Enterprise"-D's end also appeared—the saucer crash had first been proposed as the cliffhanger for Moore's original seventh-season finale "All Good Things...", which eventually became the series finale. Kirk's death was initially developed in Braga, Moore, and Berman's story sessions. Moore recalled that "we wanted to aim high, do something different and big... We knew we had to have a strong Picard story arc, so what are the profound things in a man's life he has to face? Mortality tops the list." After the idea of killing off a "Next Generation" cast member was vetoed, someone suggested that Kirk die instead. Moore recalled that "we all sorta looked around and said, 'That might be it.' " The studio and Shatner himself had few concerns about the plot point.
Refining the script also meant facing the realities of budget constraints. The initial proposal included location shooting in Hawaii, Idaho and the Midwestern United States and the total budget was over $30 million. After negotiations, the budget was reduced to $25 million. A revised version of the script from March 1994 included feedback from the producers, studio, actors and director; the writers changed a sequence where Harriman trained his predecessors in the "Enterprise"-B's operation after Shatner felt the scene's joke went too far. Picard's personal tragedy was written as his brother Robert's heart attack, but Stewart suggested the loss of his entire family in a fire to add emotional impact. The draft script's opening sequence took place on the solar observatory with two Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-influenced characters talking shortly before the Romulans' attack; "Next Generation" writer Jeri Taylor suggested that the opening should be something "fun", leading to the switch to a holodeck promotion-at-sea.
Nimoy turned down the chance to direct the feature as well as reprise the role of Spock. The producers chose David Carson. The British director had no feature film experience, but had directed several episodes of "Star Trek", including the popular "Next Generation" episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the "" double-length pilot episode "".
"Generations"s production designer was "Star Trek" veteran Herman Zimmerman, who had worked on previous "Star Trek" films, "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine". Zimmerman collaborated with illustrator John Eaves for many designs. Zimmerman's approach to realizing a vision of the future was to take existing and familiar designs and use them in a different manner to express living in the future. Taking cues from director Nicholas Meyer's approach to "", Zimmerman noted that even in the future humanity will still need life support and have the same furniture needs, so a logical approach was to start with what would remain the same and work from there.
Transitioning from a television screen to a movie meant that sets and designs needed to be more detailed, with a higher level of polish to stand up on the big screen. Zimmerman felt obliged to improve on the sets fans had watched for seven seasons, especially the bridge. Zimmerman repainted the set, added computer consoles, raised the captain's chair for a more commanding presence, and reworked the bridge's ceiling struts; Zimmerman had always been unhappy with how the ceiling looked but had never had the time or money to rework it previously.
The script called for an entirely new location on the "Enterprise", stellar cartography. According to Zimmerman, the script characterized the location as a small room with maps on one wall. Finding the concept uninteresting, Zimmerman designed a circular set with three stories to give the impression the actors are inside a star map. Zimmerman's previous work designing a crisis management center influenced the design, dominated by video screens. Before the rise of large-format inkjet printers and computer graphics software in the few years before the film was made, the backlit starmaps that covered three-quarters of the wall would have been infeasible to create. These starmaps were removed and replaced with a bluescreen for scenes where the static images would be replaced by computer-animated star maps by Santa Barbara Studios. The set's size made it one of the largest sets ever constructed on a Paramount lot.
The film marked the first appearance of the "Enterprise"-B. The ship model was a modification of the "Excelsior" vessel, designed and built by Bill George and effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for "" a decade earlier. Coproducer Peter Lauritson, illustrator John Eaves, and Zimmerman designed the "Enterprise"-B with additions to its hull, some of which were added so that they could depict damage to the ship without harming the underlying model's surface, and to improve the look of the ship when it was filmed from angles called for in the script. The ship's bridge was based on previous designs for the "Enterprise"-A and "Excelsior" sets he had created for "The Undiscovered Country", using pieces from each. The surrounding spacedock for "Enterprise"s maiden voyage was a modification of the model created for "" (1979), refurbished and modified by removing a row of lights to fit better into the anamorphic screen frame.
Like Zimmerman, George also took the opportunity for the "Enterprise"-D's screen debut to touch up its exterior. Because "Generations" featured the "Enterprise"-D separating into its saucer and engineering sections, the original model built by ILM for the television series was hauled out of storage. The ship was stripped, rewired, and its surface detailed to stand up to scrutiny of the silver screen. George changed the paint job, as he recalled they had been in a rush to prep the model for television and its green-and-blue color scheme did not properly read on film. The paint scheme was shifted towards a "battleship grey", with glossy tiled areas reminiscent of the original feature film "Enterprise".
While the feature film made use of new sets and props, set decorator John M. Dwyer reused previous "Star Trek" props or made new ones out of premade materials where possible rather than spend more money on entirely new items: a chair used to torture LaForge was created using a birthing chair, nosehair clippers and flashlights for accents; packing materials formed the shapes of set walls for the Bird of Prey bridge; and Soran's missile used a bird feeder and other garden store supplies for its interior elements. The Amargosa stellar observatory set was filled with reused props from "The Next Generation", with others added in deliberate nods to past episodes. In addition to sets used on "The Next Generation", other reused sets included the Klingon bridge built for "", and ribbed plastic walls in the Jefferies tubes were repurposed from the sets of "The Hunt for Red October". Other set pieces and props were original; these included paintings of Picard's ancestors and a cowboy for the locations in the Nexus.
Robert Blackman, "The Next Generation"s long serving costume designer re-designed the Starfleet uniforms which the "Enterprise"-D crew would wear in the film. Blackman designed militaristic-looking uniforms with rank sleeves inspired by "The Original Series", high collars, and jackets reminiscent of the uniforms developed for "". Ultimately the redesign was abandoned, and the cast wore combinations of uniforms seen on the later episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and the uniforms from the early episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and throughout "Star Trek: Voyager"; the only new addition was an Eaves-designed angular com badge that replaced the previous oval shape. Time was so short that Jonathan Frakes and Levar Burton had to borrow Avery Brooks and Colm Meaney's costumes respectively for filming. Playmates Toys released a number of action figures depicting the Next Generation crew wearing the abandoned uniforms prior to the film's release. Also created by Blackman was a skydiving outfit worn by Shatner; though the scene was cut from the film, the costume was eventually reused in the "Voyager" episode "".
Berman backed Carson's choice to hire John A. Alonzo, the director of photography for "Chinatown" and "Scarface". Alonzo was not a "Star Trek" fan, and was given more than a dozen television episodes to familiarize himself with the franchise. Alonzo favored lighting scenes as much as possible from within rather than staging lights and flags for each shot, which Carson credited with saving time and allowing more freedom with shooting. He wrote that the production moved at a "TV-like" pace, and principal photography wrapped after 51 days.
Filming commenced Monday, March 28, 1994; "Generations" and "The Next Generation" were filmed simultaneously on different soundstages on Paramount Studio's lot. After the end of "The Next Generation", there was only six months before the film was scheduled to be released in theaters. Scenes that did not feature the television series regulars were filmed first, starting with those in the "Enterprise"-B deflector room. The scenes of Harriman, Chekov and Scott reacting to Kirk's apparent death were filmed a week later, to allow time for the deflector room to be suitably distressed to visualize the damage.
Stage 7 was where the "Enterprise"-B's bridge, deflector room and corridors were built and filmed. The jolts and shocks of the ship in the hold of the energy ribbon were created by camera bumps and motors to shake the set. Filming of the scenes took place in April 1994, while residents were still skittish from the recent 1994 Northridge earthquake; the effects staff deliberately hid the set shakers until cameras were rolling to elicit more genuine reactions. The Amargosa observatory set was an elaborate redress of the "Enterprise"-B bridge, with an added back room, second level, and swapped walls changing the layout. Control panels styled after those in the original "Star Trek" series helped suggest the age of the station.
The cast of "The Next Generation" started filming their scenes for "Generations" four days after wrapping on the show. The "Enterprise"-D crash scenes were filmed mid-May 1994, and were among the last remaining shots before the existing "Next Generation" sets were demolished to make way for "Voyager". As a result, the crew distressed and damaged the sets for the end result of the crash more than would have been normal during the series' run.
Despite the budget cuts, "Generations" shot many scenes on location. The rushed pace of filming meant that not all locations had been selected before the start of principal photography, and the production was still scouting locations until two weeks before the final scenes. The production exhausted possible options within Los Angeles' studio zone and looked up to 150 miles away for suitable locations. The "Enterprise"-D promotion ceremony on the holodeck was filmed on , a full-scale replica of the first American sailing ship to visit Japan. Carson had fought hard to keep the shoot during budget trims, deciding to sacrifice other days in the schedule to keep the holodeck scene. "Lady Washington" was anchored at Marina del Rey and sailed out a few miles from shore over five days of shooting. Some of "Lady Washington"s crew appeared amongst "Enterprise" crew members.
Picard's house in the Nexus was a private home in Pasadena, California; almost all the furnishings were custom props or outside items. Portions of the scene were shot in May 1994, followed by new shoots five months later. The revisions included adding Picard's nephew René to his imagined Christmas celebration with his family. The house of Kirk's Nexus recollections was located in Lone Pine, California, with the cabin filled with props to represent Kirk's career, from a Klingon bat'leth to a painting of "Enterprise".
Carson wanted a suitably remote and alien mountain location for the film's climax at Soran's compound. The scenes were filmed over eight days on an elevated plateau in the "Valley of Fire", north of Las Vegas, Nevada. The rise's height and sloped sides required cast and crew to climb using safety ropes and carry all provisions and equipment with them. The heat was difficult for all involved, especially Shatner, whose character wore an all-wool uniform. Safety harnesses and wires were used to keep performers safe from tumbling off a precipice, and were removed digitally in postproduction.
As originally filmed, Kirk was shot in the back and killed by Soran. Test audiences reacted negatively to the death, so the scene was rewritten and reshot over two weeks so that instead, Kirk sacrifices himself by leaping across a broken walkway to retrieve Soran's control pad and de-cloak the trilithium warhead. Paramount allowed the film to go over budget to $35 million for the re-shoots. As the production crew had already spent weeks removing traces of their shoot from the Valley of Fire, the set had to be rebuilt under a very tight schedule, followed by effects work to remove wires and rigging in time for the footage to be included in the final cut.
"Generations" special effects tasks were split between the television series' effects vendors and ILM. ILM CG Supervisor John Schlag recalled that it was easy to recruit staff who wanted to work on "Star Trek"; working on the film "gave me a chance to be a part of the whole "Trek" thing [...] ILM is practically an entire company filled with "Trek" geeks." Effects supervisor John Knoll recalled that "Generations" screenwriters filled the initial drafts with exciting—and expensive—effects. Knolls's team then storyboarded the effects sequences, figuring out how to best service the script as cheaply as possible. When even those estimates proved too costly, ILM continued cutting shots. "[We had] nothing left to cut, and we still had to cut stuff out," Knoll recalled.
The previous "Star Trek" films had used conventional motion control techniques to record multiple passes of the starship models and miniatures. For "Generations", the effects artists began using computer-generated imagery (CGI) and models for certain shots. No physical shooting models were ever built for the refugee ships, although George recalled that he found it easier to create a quick physical miniature for CG modeler Rob Coleman to iterate from, rather than try to articulate his feedback without it. Other CGI elements included the solar collapses, and the Veridian III planet. Knoll also used a digital version of the "Enterprise"-D for the warp effect; the limitations of the motion-control programming and slitscan effect for the original meant that the effect "barely holds up", Knoll said, whereas the CG recreation could keep consistent lighting throughout. While digital techniques were used for many sequences and ships, a few new models were physically built, including the observatory, built by model shop foreman John Goodson.
The climactic battle between "Enterprise" and the Klingons over Veridian III was accomplished using traditional motion control, but without the budget for practical explosions and special breakaway models, the impacts and battle damage were simulated with practical compositing tricks and computer-generated effects, while the final destruction of the Bird of Prey was a reuse of footage from "The Undiscovered Country". The weapons fire and energy bolts were hand-animated, but Knoll had a different idea for the photon torpedoes. A fan of the impressive, arcing look of the torpedoes from "The Motion Picture", Knoll scanned in footage from the film and turned to computer-generated effects. A simulator program created a similar look that could be animated from any point the effects artists wanted, without the expense and tedium required to replicate the original effect, produced by shining lasers through a crystal in a smoky environment.
Carson described the Nexus energy ribbon as the true villain of the film; ILM was responsible for conceiving what the ribbon would look like with no natural analog. "When creating something from scratch, it's always important to rough out the whole thing [...] because there are so many paths you can explore, it's easy to get bogged down," recalled effects co-supervisor Alex Seiden, who had worked as a technical director on the from "The Undiscovered Country". Knoll decided the ribbon was a rip through universes, filled with chaotic energy, taking inspiration from images he had seen of magnetic fields around Uranus from a Jet Propulsion Laboratory simulation. The airfoil-shaped core of the undulating ribbon was enhanced with electrical tendrils. To sell the ribbon's vastness in space shots where no sense of scale would be available, Seiden and George created a debris field of embers that trailed the ribbon. The inside of the ribbon was conceptualized as similar to a dense electrical storm, with tendrils of electricity fogging the screen. Because of the complex interplay of the ribbon elements with the ships that would be trapped within it, ILM decided the refugee ships and "Enterprise"-B should be CG models. To make the switch between computer-generated and motion-control passes of the physical model appear seamless, ILM created a wireframe of the physical model, with the computer-generated model's textures taken from photos of the physical model, shot in flat light with a long lens. The tendril strike that sends Kirk into the Nexus was simulated with the layering of multiple pieces of animation, including CG explosions Knoll rendered on his personal computer and a recycled explosion effect from "The Empire Strikes Back".
The "Enterprise"-D crash sequence was filmed in a forest floor set extended by matte paintings, built outside so ILM could use natural light. A model "Enterprise" saucer was constructed specifically for the shots; the model's size gave it the right sense of scale for flying dirt and debris, an illusion enhanced by shooting with a high-speed camera to give the saucer the expected slow movement of a massive object. ILM shot its crew members walking about their parking lot and matted the footage onto the top of the saucer to represent the Starfleet personnel evacuating the saucer section.
Dennis McCarthy, the principal composer for "The Next Generation", was given the task of writing "Generations" score. Critic Jeff Bond wrote that while McCarthy's score was "tasked with straddling the styles of both series", it also offered the opportunity for the composer to produce stronger dramatic writing. The film's opening music is a choral piece that plays while a floating champagne bottle tumbles through space. For the action scenes with the "Enterprise"-B, McCarthy used low brass chords. Kirk was given a brass motif accented by snare drums (a sound not used on "The Next Generation"), while the scene ends with dissonant notes as Scott and Chekov discover Kirk has been blown into space.
McCarthy expanded his brassy style for the film's action sequences, such as the battle over Veridian III and the crash-landing of the "Enterprise". For Picard's trip to the Nexus, more choral music and synthesizers accompany Picard's discovery of his family. A broad fanfare—the film's only distinct theme—first plays when Picard and Kirk meet. This theme blends McCarthy's theme for Picard from "The Next Generation"s first season, notes from the theme for "", and Alexander Courage's "Star Trek" theme. For the final battle of Kirk and Picard against Soran, McCarthy used staccato music to accentuate the fistfight. For Kirk's death, McCarthy mated lyrical strings with another statement of the Courage theme, while a shot of Picard standing over Kirk's grave is scored with more pomp. The Courage theme plays again at the film's close.
The soundtrack was released in 1994 in a two-disc format on GNP Crescendo Records. In 2013, the soundtrack was rereleased in a two-disc, expanded collector's edition on GNP [GNPD 8080] to include previously unheard tracks.
The marketing of "Generations" included a website, the first on the internet to officially publicize a motion picture. The site was a success, being viewed millions of times worldwide in the weeks leading to the film's release at a time when fewer than a million Americans had internet access. Paramount also promoted the film on the Prodigy online service.
Among the tie-in merchandise released to promote the film included collectible cups and calendars from Jack in the Box, promotional kiosks at Kmarts, and action figures by Playmates Toys. Due to production timelines, these figures wore the Blackman-designed Starfleet uniforms that were ultimately unused in the film itself. Other collectibles included a 600,000-run special issue of "Entertainment Weekly" dedicated to the film, and stamps and souvenir sheets produced by Guyana. A novelization of the film written by J. M. Dillard spent three weeks on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. Paramount's licensing group estimated promotional partners could add up to $15 million in the film's support.
Several tie-in video games were released to coincide with the film's release. These included a PC game by developers MicroProse called "Star Trek Generations" (albeit three years after the film's release), which featured the film's cast as voice actors. The game roughly followed the plot of the film with the majority of the game played in a first-person perspective. Absolute Entertainment published "" for the Game Boy and the Game Gear handheld devices.
Versions of the film's script leaked out in advance of the film. A bootleg script revealed the energy ribbon and Kirk's death; James Doohan confirmed the script's authenticity at a fan convention in March 1994, but his agent denied he had seen the finished script. In September, another copy of the film's script leaked onto the internet. As a result, news of Captain Kirk's death was widespread.
"Star Trek Generations" went on general release in North America on November 18, 1994 and grossed $23.1 million during the opening weekend, averaging $8,694 across 2,659 theatres. It was the highest-grossing film during the first week of its release in the United States, and stayed in the top ten for a further four weeks. The film went on to gross $75,671,125 in the United States and $42,400,000 internationally, making $118 million worldwide against a $35 million budget. In Britain, "Generations" opened on February 10, 1995 at no.1 and went on to earn £7,340,239. In Japan, the film grossed $1.2 million its opening weekend, a large amount considering the franchise's usual poor performance in that market.
"Star Trek Generations" earned mixed reviews from critics and fans. As of March 2020, the film holds a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 56 reviews. On Metacritic the film has score of 55 out 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+.
Kenneth Turan, James Berardinelli, and Roger Ebert called the film safe. Turan wrote that "Generations" relied heavily on viewers' appreciation for the "Star Trek" television series, and Berardinelli and "People"s Ralph Novak felt that the film felt like a longer version of the television series. Jay Carr of "The Boston Globe" described the film as "reassuringly predictable", saying that it featured elements that would be recognizable by the fans of both series, but said that the "lack of surprises" was a benefit in this instance.
Opinions were divided on whether or not the film was accessible to non-"Star Trek" fans. "The New York Times"s Janet Maslin suggested that despite being "predictably flabby and impenetrable in places", there was enough action and spectacle to engage others. Berardinelli and Turan felt it was inaccessible, and Roger Ebert wrote that the film was too preoccupied with fan-focused elements that it detracted from the overall story.
The meeting of Kirk and Picard prompted comparisons between the two respective actors, Stewart's performance often winning the day. Berardinelli and Ebert wrote that Kirk's lack of presence through much of the film was still keenly felt. McDowell's turn as Soran received differing opinions, with Berardinelli calling Soran "Star Trek"s weakest villain and too restrained. Novak called Soran a "standard-issue "Trek" villain, while Maslin, "Newsweek"s Michel Marriott, and "Entertainment Weekly"s Lisa Schwarzbaum enjoyed the performance. Novak wrote that Data's subplot of learning about emotions was a highlight and probably the most enjoyable part of the film for non-fans, while Ebert said that the premise "could have led to some funny scenes, but doesn't."
"Generations" was given a bare-bones DVD release in 1998, with a non-anamorphic transfer and no special features. A new anamorphic transfer formed the basis of a Special Edition release in 2004, with audio and text commentaries and special featurettes. The film was released on Blu-ray disc in 2009 as part of a box set of "The Next Generation" films, complete with additional material. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27079 |
Odo (Star Trek)
Odo , played by René Auberjonois, is a fictional character in the science fiction television series "". He is a member of a shapeshifting species called Changelings and serves as the head of security for the space station Deep Space Nine on which the show is set. Intelligent, observant and taciturn, Odo uses his unique abilities throughout the show to maintain security on the DS9 station and, later, aids the Bajoran people and the Federation throughout the Dominion War against his own people, the Founders.
The original Writer's Bible from 1992 for described Odo as follows:
Odo, an alien male, middle-aged curmudgeon, and a shape-shifter. In his natural state he is a gelatinous liquid. He was a Bajoran law enforcement officer on the space station under the Cardassians. Starfleet decides to have him continue in that role, since he's extremely savvy about the Promenade and all who frequent it. His backstory is: 50 years ago, with no memory of his past, he was found alone in a mysterious spacecraft that appeared in the Denarias asteroid belt. He was found by the Bajoran and lived amongst them. At first he was sort of an Elephant Man, a source of curiosity and humor as he turned himself into a chair or pencil. Finally he realized he would have to take the form of a humanoid to assimilate and function in their environment. He does it, but resents it. As a result, Odo performs a uniquely important role in the ensemble: he is a character who explores and comments on Human values. Because he is forced to pass as one of us, his point of view usually comes with a cynical and critical edge. But he can't quite get it right, this humanoid shape, though he continues to try. So he looks a little unfinished in a way. He's been working on it a long time. Someone might ask him: Why don't you take the form of a younger man. His answer: I would if I could. He has the adopted child syndrome, searching for his own personal identity. Although he doesn't know anything about his species, he is certain that justice is an integral part of their being, because the necessity for it runs through every fiber of his body – a racial memory. That's why he became a law man. He has a couple of Bajoran deputies; he doesn't allow weapons on the Promenade, and once every day he must return to his gelatinous form.
Actor René Auberjonois describes Odo as "a very unformed being" who was "trying to get some kind of shape to his life". Co-creator of "", Michael Piller, speaks of Odo's role within the show as being prompted by needing "a character who represented the traditions of Spock and Data, the outsider who looks in at humanity."
Late in the , in the episode "", an Odo who has lived an additional 200 years tells the "current" Kira Nerys that he has loved her from the time their friendship first began. With this revelation, Kira and the "current" Odo eventually become a couple.
According to the backstory of the series, Odo was found adrift in his natural gelatinous state in the Denorios Belt in the Bajoran system. Doctor Mora Pol studied him for seven years, not initially recognising him as a sentient being. Doctor Mora was later forced to recognise Odo's sentience when he copied a beaker on a laboratory table. Odo's name stemmed from the Cardassian language word "Odo'ital", meaning "nothing", which was the loose translation of the "unknown sample" label in Bajoran on his laboratory flask. Later on the story was slowly developed: Over 200 years before, the "Changlings" "Great Link" [a planet in the Gamma Quadrent where Changlings exist in their "natural "gelatious" form) had sent out 100 "Changlings" "Infants" in containers throughout the universe in order to see how other alien races to react to the presence to "Changlings". Of those sent out four have been accounted for:
In the Mirror Universe, Odo is the supervisor of the mining complex at Terok Nor. He is a brutal taskmaster over Terran slaves there and tolerates no deviation from his strict rules. Relatively little is known of him, as no one in the Mirror Universe is aware that the wormhole exists or who Odo's people are. During a mining accident, Odo begins an evacuation of the Terran workers from the complex. Julian Bashir, seizing the opportunity to escape, disintegrates him with a disruptor.
In this reality, Odo has his own set of rules called the "Rules of Obedience" and quotes one of the rules in the same way that regular universe Quark would quote his "Rules of Acquisition".
After filming of the episode "", which was mirror Odo's sole onscreen appearance, actor René Auberjonois liked the alternate uniform so much he began wearing it while playing the regular universe version of Odo as well.
In the initial "Deep Space Nine" relaunch novels, Odo is succeeded as security chief by Ro Laren, who is working for the Bajoran Militia. He also sent a Jem'Hadar ambassador to the Alpha Quadrant to foster understanding in the Dominion of other cultures, and soon returned to DS9.
In the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Millennium" series of novels, it is revealed that Odo rarely shifted into smaller forms such as insects due to a psychological block from his original "training" under Doctor Mora. The novel series also speculates that the Founders placed a mental block on Odo's abilities to make it difficult for him to alter his face, thus explaining why he can never get faces quite right, even after linking with other Changelings on several occasions.
In the "Star Trek: Terok Nor" novel "Night of the Wolves", Odo was found in a spherical module in the Denorios Belt by the Cardassian vessel "Kevalu", which was under the command of Dalin Malyn Ocett, in 2345.
In the "Star Trek: Typhon Pact" novel "Raise the Dawn", Odo returned to the Alpha Quadrant to help Sisko investigate reports that the Typhon Pact, an alliance of the Federation's enemies, have stolen Jem'Hadar technology to perfect their own quantum slipstream drive, only to be trapped in the Alpha Quadrant when the wormhole was seemingly destroyed thanks to Kira's attempt to stop a Typhon Pact ship from using it again. Sisko offered Odo a place on his new ship, the "Robinson", but the novel ends with Odo deciding to remain on Bajor for a time to think about what he will do next.
The character Odo, with voice acting by René Auberjonois, also appeared in the computer video games (1996) and (2000).
In 2009, IGN ranked Odo as the seventh best character of "Star Trek" overall. They note the character's search for identity, even as he struggles to maintain order on the space station. They highlight his relationships with Sisko, Quark, and Kira on the station, and that he can turn into any shape except a normal human form. In 2016, Odo was ranked as the 15th most important character of Starfleet and related enlisted crews within the "Star Trek" science fiction universe by Wired magazine.
In 2018, The Wrap ranked Odo as the 8th best main-cast character of "Star Trek" overall, noting his struggles with loyalties. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27080 |
Cardassian
The Cardassians () are a fictional extraterrestrial species in the American science fiction franchise "Star Trek". They were devised in 1991 for the series "" before being used in the subsequent series "" and "".
The writers of "The Next Generation" introduced the Cardassians for the fourth season episode "". The species was devised to be new antagonists for the crew of the USS "Enterprise"-D, ones with whom the protagonists could interact; the other major antagonists of "The Next Generation", the Borg, lacked personality or individuality, hindering interpersonal drama. In the series, which is set in the 24th century, the Cardassians are presented as living under a military government controlling an interstellar empire, the Cardassian Union. They are depicted occupying other planets, most notably Bajor. When the spin-off show, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", was launched in 1993, its writers set its events in the vicinity of Bajor in the aftermath of the Cardassian occupation. The Cardassians remained major antagonists throughout the series, with the Cardassian characters Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) and Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) being recurrent.
The Cardassians were invented by the writers of "" for the show's fourth season episode "". The story was written by Stuart Charno, Sara Charno, and Cy Chermak, while the teleplay was written by Jeri Taylor. The episode was first screened in January 1991. The episode's script related that the Cardassian Union and the United Federation of Planets—of which Earth is a part—had been involved in skirmishes for many years but had signed a peace treaty. Its plot begins with the revelation that the USS "Phoenix", a renegade Federation starship under the command of Captain Benjamin Maxwell (Bob Gunton), has begun attacking Cardassian targets, because Maxwell is convinced that the Cardassians are re-arming for a war against the Federation. The USS "Enterprise"-D, the starship captained by Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), is sent to stop the "Phoenix", with the Cardassian Gul Macet (Marc Alaimo) coming aboard the "Enterprise" to assist.
The design of the Cardassians was undertaken by the series' costume designer Bob Blackman and makeup designer Michael Westmore. They sought to give the species a "snakelike" appearance. Westmore was inspired by an abstract painting he had seen in a Ventura Boulevard store which featured a wide-shouldered woman with what looked like a spoon on her forehead.
For this episode, several Cardassians were depicted wearing helmets, something that was never again done in the franchise; Blackman and Westmore's designs also gave Gul Macet facial hair, the only time a Cardassian would be depicted this way.
Rick Sternbach designed the Cardassian spaceship used in "The Wounded". He initially proposed a pod-shaped vessel, before replacing that with a design resembling a scorpion, and then one based on the ankh symbol. Sternbach later noted that "The "Galor" class started with an Egyptian ankh, given how they [the Cardassians] were like the Pharaohs to the Bajoran slaves, but you don't really see the basic shape unless you look straight down on the vessel. The little disruptor pyramids were a bit more obvious, as were the 'temple' type structures on the ship's backbone, and the sandy yellow shades."
Miarecki and Tom Hudson then built the model from Sternbach's design. On art department maps, the Cardassian Union was placed west of the United Federation of Planets, while the Klingon and Romulan Empires were presented to the east of it. For this episode, the designers displayed Cardassian weapons firing a pink discharge, although in later episodes this would be changed to amber.
Alaimo's appearance as Gul Macet in "The Wounded" made him the second actor, after Mark Lenard, to have played three separate alien species in the "Star Trek" franchise; in earlier episodes he had portrayed an Antican ("Lonely Among Us") and a Romulan (""). He would later portray a human in "The Next Generation" episode "" before gaining a recurring role as the Cardassian Gul Dukat in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine".
In the fifth season episode "", written by Rick Berman and Michael Piller and first screened in October 1991, the Bajoran species were introduced. The script explained that the Cardassians annexed the Bajoran homeworld—called Bajor—forty years previously, with many Bajorans fleeing their planet as refugees and often fighting back with militant tactics. "Ensign Ro" was the first episode in which the Cardassian warships were introduced as being "Galor class" vessels. Although it had not been intended at the time, the situation between the Cardassians and Bajorans laid the groundwork for the plot of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine".
The Cardassians were central to the two-part sixth season episode "", written by Frank Abatemarco and screened in December 1992. In these episodes, the Federation have gained intelligence that the Cardassians are developing a genetically engineered virus on an uninhabited planet. Picard is sent on a mission to infiltrate and destroy the weapon but is apprehended and tortured by the Cardassian Gul Madred (David Warner).
"Chain of Command Part I" included the first mention that the Cardassians' homeworld was called "Cardassia" and also included the first mention of the "Cardassian Union" as the name of their interstellar state, with previous mentions being of the "Cardassian Empire". The script for "Chain of Command Part I" also introduced the news that the Cardassians had withdrawn from Bajor. This set the stage for the events of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", which began airing a month later. The show's designers first included the Cardassians' hand weapon in this episode, with Sternbach describing its appearance as being like a "copper-colored banana". The second part of "Chain of Command" provided a brief history of the Cardassians and their military government.
The Cardassians also appeared in the sixth season episode "", written by Joe Menosky and Ronald D. Moore and screened in April 1993. In this episode, it is revealed that humans and Cardassians—as well as the Klingons and Romulans—are all descended from an ancient species that seeded many planets with life. In the seventh season episode "", written by Ronald D. Moore, it is explained that the treaty between the Federation and the Cardassians left various Federation planets in Cardassian territory. Many of these Federation colonists refused to leave. The presence of these Federation colonists and their struggle for independence from Cardassian rule formed a recurring plot theme for both "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager". "Journey's End" was the first time that Cardassian communicators were featured; these were designed as affixed to the actors' wrists. The conflict between the Cardassians and these rebel colonists, known as the Maquis, was again used as the basis for the penultimate episode in the series, "", which was written by Naren Shankar and René Echevarria and directed by Stewart.
Launching the new series, "", was the pilot episode "", written by Rick Berman and Michael Pillar. For this episode, the writers focused in on the aftermath of the Cardassian departure from Bajor. The premise of the series revolves around the Federation taking control of Deep Space Nine, a Cardassian-built space station orbiting Bajor, at the request of the Bajoran provisional government. In "Emissary", the station's new Starfleet commander, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) is visited by the Cardassian who formerly served as prefect of Bajor, Gul Dukat (Alaimo). Alaimo had played a different Cardassian character in "The Next Generation"; he was brought in to replace the actor formerly cast as Dukat, whose performance had dissatisfied the creative team. Ira Behr recalled that "It was either Mike Piller or Rick Berman who finally said, 'Let's get Marc Alaimo,' who had done a bunch of "TNG" episodes for them in the past. Marc came in and, of course, he "was" Gul Dukat."
Later in the season, the show's creative team included another Cardassian-themed episode, "". Written by Lisa Rich and Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci as a bottle episode, it featured the arrest of a Cardassian believed to be guilty of war crimes against Bajor, Aamin Marritza (Harris Yulin), and the relationship he developed with the station's Bajoran second-in-command, Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor). The dialogue given to Marritza was an early example of what the writers came to call "Cardassian monologues": Behr stated that "Cardassians love to speak. Garak loves to speak, Enabran Tain loves to speak. Dukat loves to speak—very slowly—and certainly Marritza loves to speak."
In cosmology, the concept "Cardassian expansion" is a term used for a modification to the Friedmann equations. It is named after the fictional "Star Trek" race by the original authors, Katherine Freese and Matthew Lewis. In their 2002 paper (which has been cited more than 330 times), a footnote on the "Cardassian term" states: "2 The name Cardassian refers to a humanoid race in "Star Trek" whose goal is to take over the universe, i.e., accelerated expansion. This race looks foreign to us and yet is made entirely of matter." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27081 |
Martok
Martok, son of Urthog is a recurring character in "", played by actor J. G. Hertzler. Martok is a high-ranking Klingon leader at the Federation-Bajoran space station in the late 2300s.
J. G. Hertzler made his first appearance in the franchise in the "" pilot episode, "", as a Vulcan Captain who is killed when his vessel is destroyed. Following this, he made his first appearance as a Klingon in the video game "", directed by Jonathan Frakes and also starring Robert O'Reilly as Chancellor Gowron. When the producers of "Deep Space Nine" were casting Martok, Herzler auditioned after initially not considering the role but found himself getting angry during the interview due to a comment from the director which he felt was insulting. But this response led to him gaining the role, and it was included as a character trait for Martok.
It took around three hours each day for the make-up to be applied to Hertzler by David Quashnick, who was the "specialist" who did both Hertzler and O'Reilly's Klingon make-up. Hertzler did not mind the process, but stated that having the prostheses block the sight in his left side could sometimes make filming difficult as he couldn't see when turning that way. However he felt it was important to the character to remind him of the time spent on the Dominion prison world, and turned down the opportunity to have Martok's sight restored when it was suggested by executive producer Ira Steven Behr. In particular, Hertzler felt it gave the same air to Martok as Christopher Plummer's character in "".
Little backstory is given regarding the early life of Martok, except for a brief history sketched by himself in the "Deep Space Nine" episode "". It is known that he was born into a Klingon house (The House of Martok) that was not part of the aristocracy and was raised in the Ket'ha lowlands on the Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS. This area is considered a wasteland by the Klingons.
His family had been reputable soldiers and had loyally served the empire for 15 generations, although not as officers. It had long been the wish of his father Urthog to have young Martok become an officer and so he enlisted the aid of officers he had earned the respect of and eventually was able to get one to sponsor his son to the Klingon academy. Believing its approval was a mere formality, the application was submitted to the Oversight Committee but was rejected by one member, Kor, due to the elitist views of the legendary Klingon warrior regarding the honor and prestige of the "great houses". With a rejection on his record from such a legendary officer, Martok could no longer even serve as a common soldier. He opted to serve, regardless, and spent five years as a civilian laborer on General ShiVang's flagship. During his service the General's ship came under surprise attack by the Romulans. They attempted to board the ship at which time Martok took up arms and defended his General, successfully repelling the invasion. His performance and bravery in battle caught the eye of General ShiVang, who granted him a battlefield commission as an officer. Martok earned the rank of Lieutenant after the Battle of Tcha'voth, which earned him a spot as tactical officer aboard the Klingon Cruiser "Gothspar", captained by Kultan (ST:DS9 Books: "The Left Hand of Destiny"). At Martok's introduction to the series, he had attained the rank of General.
Around 2371, Martok was abducted by agents of the Dominion and replaced with a shapeshifter. The exact date of this is unclear. The shapeshifter was successful at beginning the war with the Cardassians but inadvertently revealed himself to Odo (who had been misled into believing that Chancellor Gowron was the shapeshifter) at a Klingon award ceremony, and was quickly killed by the Klingons attending the ceremony.
Martok spent two years in a Dominion internment camp, forced to fight Jem'Hadar soldiers daily in hand-to-hand combat for training purposes. Presumably it was during one of these fights that his left eye was gouged out. During his confinement, Martok came to respect the indomitable character and fighting qualities of Worf. In the episode "By Inferno's Light", Martok escapes and returns to the Alpha Quadrant with Elim Garak, Worf and Julian Bashir, and is made commander of the Klingon forces on "Deep Space Nine".
Weeks after this new assignment, Martok took command of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, the "Rotarran", and made it his personal flagship. Initially, the "Rotarran's" crew were beaten and fatalistic, a fact that was made worse by Martok's apparent reluctance to engage Jem'Hadar forces on their first mission. Eventually, a confrontation between Martok and Worf helped rally both the crew's warrior spirit as well as Martok's. The mission would conclude with the "Rotarran" engaging and destroying a Jem'Hadar vessel and rescuing thirty-five crewmen from a disabled Klingon ship. A grateful Martok would later invite Worf (who had earlier been stripped of his family name by Gowron) to join Martok's house.
Martok is portrayed as an excellent judge of character, caring deeply about those under his command. This, in turn, earned him great respect among fellow Klingons, since while they have a love for battle and conquest, they also have a very low opinion of those who wantonly throw soldiers into battle with little regard for their safety or well-being. These traits, along with his courage and leadership skills, would serve him well in the Dominion War, during which he fought in several battles, including the battle to retake Deep Space Nine, and the First and Second Battle of Chin'toka. Despite his humble background, or perhaps because of it, Martok would become extremely popular among other Klingon warriors and the civilian population, because he climbed his way up the ranks honorably, though Martok himself repeatedly stated he had no interest in politics. Eventually, he was made Supreme Commander of the Ninth Fleet, a position he initially resented because of the amount of paperwork involved. Like most Klingons, Martok had a disdain for Ferengi, which manifested itself in several refusals to even acknowledge Nog, who at the time was a Starfleet Cadet. It isn't until Nog stands up to Martok and directly challenges him that Martok begins to display a grudging respect for the young Ferengi (episodes "Soldiers of the Empire", "").
Shortly before the end of the war ("When It Rains…"), Gowron comes to Deep Space Nine to honor Martok by inducting him into the Order of Kahless, and then announces that he would be taking control of the Klingon forces from Martok because it was time for him to "take a more active role in the war". However, it becomes clear that Gowron is simply worried about Martok getting too powerful politically, and intends to usurp Martok's standing by sending him into battles that he cannot win. Worf tries to convince Martok to challenge Gowron, but he refuses, saying he is a loyal soldier of the Empire and has no desire whatsoever to enter politics, let alone become Chancellor. Worf then kills Gowron himself, and rather than accept the title of Chancellor, gives it to Martok ("Tacking into the Wind").
When the Dominion forces suddenly withdrew into Cardassian territory, the Allies realized that they were withdrawing in order to gain time to recover from their battle wounds, so that they could come back stronger a few years later.
Martok believed that the Empire should attack right away, and convinced the Federation and Romulans to attack as well. Martok, leading the Klingon fleet; Admiral Ross and Captain Sisko, leading the Federation fleet; and the Romulans attacked and defeated the Dominion on the Cardassian homeworld.
Despite the refusal of Admiral Ross and Captain Sisko to drink bloodwine with Martok in the halls of Cardassian Central Command, something most Klingons would consider a grave insult, the Federation and Klingons remain allies. Martok is happy to receive Lt. Commander Worf as the Federation Ambassador to Qo'noS. He comments that he now has an Ambassador that he can go targ hunting with and that, for this reason, "perhaps being Chancellor won't be "so bad" after all". Shortly after the end of the war, Martok and Worf leave DS9 for Qo'noS ("What You Leave Behind").
Martok is the son of Urthog, and is an only child, who grew up in the Ketha province on Qo'noS.
Martok is married to Sirella, a noble woman. They have one son, Drex ("You Are Cordially Invited", "") Martok views marriage as another form of combat, albeit one disguised and more subtle than most ("The Changing Face of Evil").
After Worf joined Martok's house, Worf's son Alexander would be inducted into the house as well, as would Jadzia Dax upon her marriage Worf (the marriage was initially opposed by Sirella). After Jadzia's death, Martok would come to regard Dax's new host Ezri as a worthy successor to Jadzia and would consider her part of his house as well.
Martok's first appearances on "" (in "" and "Apocalypse Rising") were actually the Changeling infiltrator posing as Martok. The real Martok did not appear onscreen until "In Purgatory's Shadow".
The Mirror Universe version of Martok has only appeared in the novels. Unlike the regular Martok, who is an honorable and caring commander, the MU version is foul-mouthed, slovenly and cruel. He is eventually killed by the mirror counterpart of Klag, who assumes Martok's role as Regent of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance.
"Season 4"
"Season 5"
"Season 6"
"Season 7"
In March 2019, SyFy rated Martok as the #1 greatest Klingon of the "Star Trek" franchise. In 2016, ScreenRant ranked the character Martok as the 12th best "Star Trek" character overall, in between Worf (#13) and Sarek (#11). They describe Martok as a "Klingon's Klingon", but instead of being obsessed with battle he appears as "battle-worn, flinty, and grateful to be alive".
In 2018, CBR ranked this character 10th best recurring character of all "Star Trek". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27082 |
Kathryn Janeway
Kathryn Janeway is a fictional character in the "Star Trek" franchise. As the captain of the Starfleet starship USS "Voyager", she was the lead character on the television series "", and later a Starfleet admiral, as seen in the 2002 feature film "". Although other female captains had appeared in previous "Star Trek" episodes and other media, she is the only one to serve as the central character of a "Star Trek" TV series. She has also appeared in other media including books, movies (notably "Nemesis"), and video games. In all of her screen appearances, she was played by actress Kate Mulgrew.
The character was originally named Elizabeth Janeway, after the noted writer of the same name. However, after Geneviève Bujold was cast, she requested the character to be renamed "Nicole Janeway". Bujold, whose experience was mainly in feature films, was unprepared for the schedule demanded by the television series, was unwilling to do news interviews, and dropped out on the second day of filming for the pilot episode "". Kate Mulgrew, who had previously auditioned for the role, was brought in. She suggested that the name be changed to "Kathryn", to which the producers agreed. Actresses Erin Gray and Chelsea Field also auditioned for the role. Field's husband Scott Bakula would later play Captain Jonathan Archer in "".
In 2018, Mulgrew said she would like to be cast in a movie with William Shatner (playing Kirk) and Patrick Stewart (Picard).
Kathryn Janeway was born on May 20, in Bloomington, Indiana on Earth. She was the daughter of Vice Admiral Janeway and has a sister named Phoebe, who is the artist in the family. Phoebe never chose to join Starfleet and stayed close to home with her mother, Gretchen Janeway. Kathryn Janeway was very close to her father, who taught her to look at the universe with a scientist's eye; she was devastated by his death. Her first mission after graduating the academy was as a science officer on the USS "Al-Batani", where she served as Chief Science Officer during the Arias mission.
Captain Janeway takes command of the "Intrepid"-class USS "Voyager" in 2371. Their first mission is to locate and capture a Maquis vessel last seen in the area of space known as the Badlands. While there, the Maquis ship and "Voyager" are transported against their will into the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 light-years away, by a massive displacement wave. The Maquis ship is destroyed while fighting the Kazon-Ogla, and although "Voyager" survives, there are numerous casualties. In order to protect the Ocampa, who live on a planet "Voyager" visits, Janeway destroys the Caretaker Array, the space station that transported the two ships to the Delta Quadrant, which provides energy to the Ocampa's planet, despite the fact that the Array may be the two ships' only chance to return home. In doing this, Janeway strands her ship and crew seven decades' travel from home.
Her first major task is integrating the surviving Maquis and "Voyager" crews. Chakotay, captain of the Maquis ship, succeeds the deceased Lieutenant Commander Cavit as her first officer. Janeway also grants convicted criminal, former Starfleet officer, and accomplished pilot Tom Paris a field commission, and makes him "Voyager"s helmsman.
Janeway's other interactions with her crew include helping the de-assimilated Borg Seven of Nine reclaim her individuality and humanity and advocating for the 's status as a sentient being.
During the course of the TV series, "Voyager" has contact with the Q Continuum on three occasions, and repeated contact with the Borg. With the intervention of a future/alternate version of herself, Janeway leads her crew in using one of the Borg's transwarp conduits to return her ship to Federation space after having traveled through the Delta Quadrant for seven years.
In a cameo in the film "", now-Admiral Janeway instructs Captain Jean-Luc Picard to travel to Romulus at the invitation of the film's antagonist.
Admiral Janeway also appeared in the Borg Invasion 4-D ride at the venue in Las Vegas, which closed in 2008. In the ride, Janeway leads "Voyager" to the rescue of ride participants who are ostensibly trapped first on a space station and later on a shuttlecraft that come under attack by a Borg Cube commanded by the Borg Queen. At the ride's end, Janeway tells the participants, "Congratulations. You've defeated the Borg with one thing the Queen can never assimilate: the human spirit. As long as we have that, resistance will never be futile."
Janeway continued as a major character in the "Star Trek" novels that depict the events in the lives of the "Voyager" characters after the end of that series. In Peter David's 2007 "" novel, "Before Dishonor", which is set after the events of "", Janeway is assimilated by a rogue faction of the Borg, and becomes their new Borg Queen. Seven of Nine, with the aid of Ambassador Spock and the "Enterprise"-E crew, manages to communicate with Janeway's consciousness, buried deep within the Queen's mind. During a brief moment of contact, Janeway helps them destroy the Borg cube, with all hands on board. Although Seven manages to escape, Janeway is killed. Her memorial service sees a vast turnout, and a tall gleaming pillar with a light burning atop it is constructed in tribute to her. The Q female appears to Janeway's spirit, and tells her that Q and the Q Continuum had taken an interest in her. Telling her that she has a destiny, Lady Q takes Janeway by the hand, and disappears with her into realms unknown. Writer Peter David explained the book was conceived by Pocket Books editorial as one in which Janeway would die, and that he was brought in to write it in order to give her a reportedly heroic send-off.
In the 2012 "Star Trek: Voyager" novel "The Eternal Tide" by Kirsten Beyer, Janeway returns to human life with the help of young Q, who needs her assistance, and by the book's end resumes her admiralship in Starfleet. In the 2014 "Star Trek: Voyager" novel "Protectors" by Kirsten Beyer, Janeway goes back to Earth per orders of Starfleet Command; by the end of the book she returns to the Delta Quadrant, taking charge of the starships stationed there. She continues this mission in Beyer's second 2014 "Star Trek: Voyager" novel, "Acts of Contrition".
In Cryptic Studios' online role-playing game, "Star Trek Online", Janeway is briefly mentioned in the background, exploring the Hobus system after the supernova that was the catalyst for the events of the 2009 "Star Trek" film.
In 2019, it was reported that both Stacey Abrams, former candidate for Governor of Georgia, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district, had drawn inspiration from the character of Janeway.
In 2019, Vulture.com ranked Captain Kathryn Janeway as the number one "Star Trek" captain by their selection criterion, a combination of competency and managerial style. In particular, they note her ability to overcome great challenges despite being on the other side of the Galaxy and commanding a crew in large part consisting of non-Starfleet personnel. One of her interesting relationships is noted as with the Former Maquis B'Elanna Torres (played by Roxann Dawson), and the Former Borg Seven of Nine (played by Jeri Ryan). Space.com rated Janeway as the number three best captain of "Star Trek". In 2017, "The Washington Post" ranked Janeway as the third best Captain of "Star Trek".
"Screen Rant" rated her the fifth best captain of the franchise, noting her ability to command in adverse situations; two praises were that she does not give up easily and tries to maintain crew morale. In a review of female characters from science fiction television and film, Janeway was in the top ten. Captain Janeway was ranked as the 18th best character of all "Star Trek" by IGN in 2009. In 2016, Captain Janeway was ranked as the 8th most important character of Starfleet within the "Star Trek" science fiction universe by Wired magazine.
The romance between Janeway and Kashyk in "" was praised by "Screen Rant", which they rated as one of the ten best episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager". In 2018, CBR ranked Janeway as the 4th best Starfleet character of "Star Trek". In 2017, "Screen Rant" ranked Kathryn Janeway as the 18th most attractive person in the "Star Trek" universe.
In 2018, The Gamer ranked Janeway as one of the top fifteen starship captains of the "Star Trek" franchise.
Captain Janeway was rated as one of the top seven time travelers, in the whole "Star Trek" franchise by "Nerdist" in 2019, for her exploits in "".
In July 2019, Screen Rant ranked Janeway the 4th smartest character of "Star Trek".
In 2019, three disconnected groups of Bloomington, Indiana residents joined the Janeway Collective, with the goal of building a birthplace monument such as the one existing for James T. Kirk in Riverside, Iowa. The monument will be located on the B-Line Trail immediately next to a children's science museum. Through attending local events and raising awareness, they were able to successfully raise funds through a crowdsourcing campaign on the platform Patronicity. The group worked directly with CBS to receive approvals for the likeness of the character and use of Star Trek symbolism.
The monument is constructed of a cast bronze bust with a limestone base with stainless steel plate. From above the monument will have the appearance of a comm badge.
Initially, the birthplace monument was to be unveiled on May 23, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic it has been rescheduled for October 24, 2020. An official groundbreaking event took place on June 27, 2020. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27083 |
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