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Statistical assumption
Statistics, like all mathematical disciplines, does not infer valid conclusions from nothing. Inferring interesting conclusions about real statistical populations almost always requires some background assumptions. Those assumptions must be made carefully, because incorrect assumptions can generate wildly inaccurate conclusions.
Here are some examples of statistical assumptions.
There are two approaches to statistical inference: "model-based inference" and "design-based inference". Both approaches rely on some statistical model to represent the data-generating process. In the model-based approach, the model is taken to be initially unknown, and one of the goals is to select an appropriate model for inference. In the design-based approach, the model is taken to be known, and one of the goals is to ensure that the sample data are selected randomly enough for inference.
Statistical assumptions can be put into two classes, depending upon which approach to inference is used.
The model-based approach is the most commonly used in statistical inference; the design-based approach is used mainly with survey sampling. With the model-based approach, all the assumptions are effectively encoded in the model.
Given that the validity of any conclusion drawn from a statistical inference depends on the validity of the assumptions made, it is clearly important that those assumptions should be reviewed at some stage. Some instances—for example where data are lacking—may require that researchers judge whether an assumption is reasonable. Researchers can expand this somewhat to consider what effect a departure from the assumptions might produce. Where more extensive data are available, various types of procedures for statistical model validation are available—e.g. for regression model validation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27592 |
Independence (probability theory)
This is a fundamental notion in probability theory, as in statistics and the theory of stochastic processes.
Two events are independent, statistically independent, or stochastically independent if the occurrence of one does not affect the probability of occurrence of the other (equivalently, does not affect the odds). Similarly, two random variables are independent if the realization of one does not affect the probability distribution of the other.
When dealing with collections of more than two events, a weak and a strong notion of independence need to be distinguished. The events are called pairwise independent if any two events in the collection are independent of each other, while saying that the events are mutually independent (or collectively independent) intuitively means that each event is independent of any combination of other events in the collection. A similar notion exists for collections of random variables.
The name "mutual independence" (same as "collective independence") seems the outcome of a pedagogical choice, merely to distinguish the stronger notion from "pairwise independence" which is a weaker notion. In the advanced literature of probability theory, statistics and stochastic processes, the stronger notion is simply named independence with no modifier. It is stronger since independence implies pairwise independence, but not the other way around.
Two events formula_1 and formula_2 are independent (often written as formula_3 or formula_4) if and only if their joint probability equals the product of their probabilities:
Why this defines independence is made clear by rewriting with conditional probabilities:
and similarly
Thus, the occurrence of formula_2 does not affect the probability of formula_1, and vice versa. Although the derived expressions may seem more intuitive, they are not the preferred definition, as the conditional probabilities may be undefined if formula_9 or formula_10 are 0. Furthermore, the preferred definition makes clear by symmetry that when formula_1 is independent of formula_2, formula_2 is also independent of formula_1.
Stated in terms of log probability, two events are independent if and only if the log probability of the joint event is the sum of the log probability of the individual events:
In information theory, negative log probability is interpreted as information content, and thus two events are independent if and only if the information content of the combined event equals the sum of information content of the individual events:
See for details.
Stated in terms of odds, two events are independent if and only if the odds ratio of and is unity (1). Analogously with probability, this is equivalent to the conditional odds being equal to the unconditional odds:
or to the odds of one event, given the other event, being the same as the odds of the event, given the other event not occurring:
The odds ratio can be defined as
or symmetrically for odds of given , and thus is 1 if and only if the events are independent.
A finite set of events formula_20 is pairwise independent if every pair of events is independent—that is, if and only if for all distinct pairs of indices formula_21,
A finite set of events is mutually independent if every event is independent of any intersection of the other events—that is, if and only if for every formula_22 and for every formula_23-element subset of events formula_24 of formula_20,
This is called the "multiplication rule" for independent events. Note that it is not a single condition involving only the product of all the probabilities of all single events (see below for a counterexample); it must hold true for all subsets of events.
For more than two events, a mutually independent set of events is (by definition) pairwise independent; but the converse is not necessarily true (see below for a counterexample).
Two random variables formula_26 and formula_27 are independent if and only if (iff) the elements of the π-system generated by them are independent; that is to say, for every formula_28 and formula_29, the events formula_30 and formula_31 are independent events (as defined above in ). That is, formula_26 and formula_27 with cumulative distribution functions formula_34 and formula_35, are independent iff the combined random variable formula_36 has a joint cumulative distribution function
or equivalently, if the probability densities formula_37 and formula_38 and the joint probability density formula_39 exist,
A finite set of formula_41 random variables formula_42 is pairwise independent if and only if every pair of random variables is independent. Even if the set of random variables is pairwise independent, it is not necessarily mutually independent as defined next.
A finite set of formula_41 random variables formula_42 is mutually independent if and only if for any sequence of numbers formula_45, the events formula_46 are mutually independent events (as defined above in ). This is equivalent to the following condition on the joint cumulative distribution function formula_47. A finite set of formula_41 random variables formula_42 is mutually independent if and only if
Notice that it is not necessary here to require that the probability distribution factorizes for all possible formula_50element subsets as in the case for formula_41 events. This is not required because e.g. formula_52 implies formula_53.
The measure-theoretically inclined may prefer to substitute events formula_54 for events formula_55 in the above definition, where formula_1 is any Borel set. That definition is exactly equivalent to the one above when the values of the random variables are real numbers. It has the advantage of working also for complex-valued random variables or for random variables taking values in any measurable space (which includes topological spaces endowed by appropriate σ-algebras).
Two random vectors formula_57 and formula_58 are called independent if
where formula_59 and formula_60 denote the cumulative distribution functions of formula_61 and formula_62 and formula_63 denotes their joint cumulative distribution function. Independence of formula_61 and formula_62 is often denoted by formula_66.
Written component-wise, formula_61 and formula_62 are called independent if
The definition of independence may be extended from random vectors to a stochastic process. Thereby it is required for an independent stochastic process that the random variables obtained by sampling the process at any formula_41 times formula_71 are independent random variables for any formula_41.
Formally, a stochastic process formula_73 is called independent, if and only if for all formula_74 and for all formula_75
where formula_76. Independence of a stochastic process is a property "within" a stochastic process, not between two stochastic processes.
Independence of two stochastic processes is a property between two stochastic processes formula_73 and formula_78 that are defined on the same probability space formula_79. Formally, two stochastic processes formula_73 and formula_78 are said to be independent if for all formula_74 and for all formula_75, the random vectors formula_84 and formula_85 are independent, i.e. if
The definitions above ( and ) are both generalized by the following definition of independence for σ-algebras. Let formula_86 be a probability space and let formula_87 and formula_88 be two sub-σ-algebras of formula_89. formula_87 and formula_88 are said to be independent if, whenever formula_92 and formula_93,
Likewise, a finite family of σ-algebras formula_95, where formula_96 is an index set, is said to be independent if and only if
and an infinite family of σ-algebras is said to be independent if all its finite subfamilies are independent.
The new definition relates to the previous ones very directly:
Using this definition, it is easy to show that if formula_26 and formula_27 are random variables and formula_27 is constant, then formula_26 and formula_27 are independent, since the σ-algebra generated by a constant random variable is the trivial σ-algebra formula_114. Probability zero events cannot affect independence so independence also holds if formula_27 is only Pr-almost surely constant.
Note that an event is independent of itself if and only if
Thus an event is independent of itself if and only if it almost surely occurs or its complement almost surely occurs; this fact is useful when proving zero–one laws.
If formula_26 and formula_27 are independent random variables, then the expectation operator formula_119 has the property
and the covariance formula_121 is zero, since we have
Similarly for two stochastic processes formula_73 and formula_78: If they are independent, then they are uncorrelated.
Two random variables formula_26 and formula_27 are independent if and only if the characteristic function of the random vector formula_36 satisfies
In particular the characteristic function of their sum is the product of their marginal characteristic functions:
though the reverse implication is not true. Random variables that satisfy the latter condition are called subindependent.
The event of getting a 6 the first time a die is rolled and the event of getting a 6 the second time are "independent". By contrast, the event of getting a 6 the first time a die is rolled and the event that the sum of the numbers seen on the first and second trial is 8 are "not" independent.
If two cards are drawn "with" replacement from a deck of cards, the event of drawing a red card on the first trial and that of drawing a red card on the second trial are "independent". By contrast, if two cards are drawn "without" replacement from a deck of cards, the event of drawing a red card on the first trial and that of drawing a red card on the second trial are "not" independent, because a deck that has had a red card removed has proportionately fewer red cards.
Consider the two probability spaces shown. In both cases, formula_130 and formula_131. The random variables in the first space are pairwise independent because formula_132, formula_133, and formula_134; but the three random variables are not mutually independent. The random variables in the second space are both pairwise independent and mutually independent. To illustrate the difference, consider conditioning on two events. In the pairwise independent case, although any one event is independent of each of the other two individually, it is not independent of the intersection of the other two:
In the mutually independent case, however,
It is possible to create a three-event example in which
and yet no two of the three events are pairwise independent (and hence the set of events are not mutually independent). This example shows that mutual independence involves requirements on the products of probabilities of all combinations of events, not just the single events as in this example. For another example, take formula_142 to be empty and formula_143 and formula_144 to be identical events with non-zero probability. Then, since formula_143 and formula_144 are the same event, they are not independent, but the probability of the intersection of the events is zero, the product of the probabilities.
The events formula_1 and formula_2 are conditionally independent given an event formula_149 when
formula_150.
Intuitively, two random variables formula_26 and formula_27 are conditionally independent given formula_153 if, once formula_153 is known, the value of formula_27 does not add any additional information about formula_26. For instance, two measurements formula_26 and formula_27 of the same underlying quantity formula_153 are not independent, but they are conditionally independent given formula_153 (unless the errors in the two measurements are somehow connected).
The formal definition of conditional independence is based on the idea of conditional distributions. If formula_26, formula_27, and formula_153 are discrete random variables, then we define formula_26 and formula_27 to be "conditionally independent given" formula_153 if
for all formula_28, formula_29 and formula_170 such that formula_171. On the other hand, if the random variables are continuous and have a joint probability density function formula_172, then formula_26 and formula_27 are conditionally independent given formula_153 if
for all real numbers formula_28, formula_29 and formula_170 such that formula_180.
If discrete formula_26 and formula_27 are conditionally independent given formula_153, then
for any formula_28, formula_29 and formula_170 with formula_171. That is, the conditional distribution for formula_26 given formula_27 and formula_153 is the same as that given formula_153 alone. A similar equation holds for the conditional probability density functions in the continuous case.
Independence can be seen as a special kind of conditional independence, since probability can be seen as a kind of conditional probability given no events. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27593 |
Sherrié Austin
Sherrie Veronica Krenn (born 28 August 1970), known professionally as Sherrié Austin, is an Australian actress and country music singer. Active as a singer since her teenage years, Austin initially recorded as one half of the duo Colourhaus, which also featured Phil Radford. After leaving Colourhaus, she recorded one album in her native Australia, before moving to the United States in pursuit of a singing career.
There, she recorded four studio albums, and charted several singles on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs charts. Her highest charting single was the No. 18 "Streets of Heaven" in 2003. Her fifth album was released on 15 November 2011.
Austin got her start in music opening for Johnny Cash in Australia at the age of 14. She later moved to the United States where she took up acting. She is most known in the United States for playing the role of Pippa McKenna on "The Facts of Life" in 1987–88.
In 1991, she appeared as "Lady Penelope" on episode No. 20 of the first season of the television comedy series "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". In the 1990s, she started a singing career, teaming up with Phil Radford in 1992, to form a duo called Colourhaus, which released one album, "Water to the Soul".
The Colorhaus song "Color Me You" was on the soundtrack of the "Rookie of the Year" episode of the television series "Baywatch" on 5 October 1992.
Afterwards, Austin moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in country music. Her first solo contract was with Arista Nashville, with the album "Words" being released in 1997. It produced singles in "Lucky in Love", "One Solitary Tear", "Put Your Heart into It", and "Innocent Man". "Lucky in Love" and "Put Your Heart into It" both reached Top 40 on the country charts with a peak of No. 34 each.
Her second and final album for Arista was 1999's "Love in the Real World", led off by the No. 29 "Never Been Kissed", which was followed by "Little Bird". After RCA acquired Arista Records, Austin's publishing company, Reynsong Publishing, formed Wrensong Entertainment and signed to Madacy Entertainment for her next album, "Followin' a Feelin'", which produced another single in its lead-off single, a cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene".
Later, she switched to the independent Broken Bow Records label. Her fourth album of country music, titled "Streets of Heaven", produced her biggest country hit in its title track. Following this single was "Son of a Preacher Man", a cover of the Dusty Springfield song, which was never included on an album.
Austin moved to New York City in 2005 and appeared in the New York Musical Theater Festival's production of "Bonnie & Clyde". "The New York Times" commented that she was "a sultry young country music singer who plays the notorious criminal Bonnie Parker and does for this musical what Reba McEntire did for the 1999 revival of "Annie Get Your Gun." That twang in her voice provides some much-needed authenticity in excellent pop-country numbers like "Ain't Goin' Back." And it's easy to tell by her hip-swiveling poses that this is a woman who knows how to hold a stage."
The following year, Austin performed in "Ring Of Fire – The Johnny Cash Musical Show" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. She also performed in the production of "Warrior", a musical about the American-Indian athlete Jim Thorpe, where CurtainUp.com described her as "outstanding". She returned to Nashville in 2006.
Austin co-wrote Danielle Peck's 2007 single "Bad for Me", the title track to Blake Shelton's 2008 album "Startin' Fires", George Strait's "Where Have I Been All My Life" off his 2009 album "Twang", and Tim McGraw's duet, with wife Faith Hill, "Shotgun Rider" off his "Let It Go" album in 2007. Austin left Broken Bow in 2008.
She was named one of 2011's "25 Most Beautiful People" by "Nashville Lifestyles Magazine".
In summer 2011, The Sundance Channel announced that Austin and her friend Shane Stevens would be on the second season of "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys", which was filmed in Nashville and features women and their gay best friends. The season started 18 November 2011.
Austin's most recent album, "Circus Girl", her first in eight years, is described as a series of stories interpreted by a strong woman, about women, and for women. Austin feels it’s something her female fans have been clamouring for, for quite some time.
"The last few years I had been complaining about that fact that there weren’t any females speaking to women above the age of 30, so I started thinking about how I was writing my songs and came up with the idea for “Friday Night Girls"... I wanted to write a three minute song with every "Sex and the City" episode that had ever existed, so I did. I quickly noticed that the women in my audiences loved it and so I switched my songwriting focus for a while to concentrate on that audience, who are my peers, to speak to them”, says Austin.
"Circus Girl" was released independently on 15 November 2011. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27595 |
Stratified sampling
In statistics, stratified sampling is a method of sampling from a population which can be partitioned into subpopulations.
In statistical surveys, when subpopulations within an overall population vary, it could be advantageous to sample each subpopulation (stratum) independently. Stratification is the process of dividing members of the population into homogeneous subgroups before sampling. The strata should define a partition of the population. That is, it should be collectively exhaustive and mutually exclusive: every element in the population must be assigned to one and only one stratum. Then simple random sampling or systematic sampling is applied within each stratum. The objective is to improve the precision of the sample by reducing sampling error. It can produce a weighted mean that has less variability than the arithmetic mean of a simple random sample of the population.
In computational statistics, stratified sampling is a method of variance reduction when Monte Carlo methods are used to estimate population statistics from a known population.
Assume that we need to estimate the average number of votes for each candidate in an election. Assume that a country has 3 towns: Town A has 1 million factory workers, Town B has 2 million office workers and Town C has 3 million retirees. We can choose to get a random sample of size 60 over the entire population but there is some chance that the resulting random sample is poorly balanced across these towns and hence is biased, causing a significant error in estimation. Instead if we choose to take a random sample of 10, 20 and 30 from Town A, B and C respectively, then we can produce a smaller error in estimation for the same total sample size. This method is generally used when a population is not a homogeneous group.
A real-world example of using stratified sampling would be for a political survey. If the respondents needed to reflect the diversity of the population, the researcher would specifically seek to include participants of various minority groups such as race or religion, based on their proportionality to the total population as mentioned above. A stratified survey could thus claim to be more representative of the population than a survey of simple random sampling or systematic sampling.
The reasons to use stratified sampling rather than simple random sampling include
If the population density varies greatly within a region, stratified sampling will ensure that estimates can be made with equal accuracy in different parts of the region, and that comparisons of sub-regions can be made with equal statistical power. For example, in Ontario a survey taken throughout the province might use a larger sampling fraction in the less populated north, since the disparity in population between north and south is so great that a sampling fraction based on the provincial sample as a whole might result in the collection of only a handful of data from the north.
Stratified sampling is not useful when the population cannot be exhaustively partitioned into disjoint subgroups.
It would be a misapplication of the technique to make subgroups' sample sizes proportional to the amount of data available from the subgroups, rather than scaling sample sizes to subgroup sizes (or to their variances, if known to vary significantly—e.g. by means of an F Test). Data representing each subgroup are taken to be of equal importance if suspected variation among them warrants stratified sampling. If subgroup variances differ significantly and the data needs to be stratified by variance, it is not possible to simultaneously make each subgroup sample size proportional to subgroup size within the total population. For an efficient way to partition sampling resources among groups that vary in their means, variance and costs, see "optimum allocation".
The problem of stratified sampling in the case of unknown class priors (ratio of subpopulations in the entire population) can have deleterious effect on the performance of any analysis on the dataset, e.g. classification. In that regard, minimax sampling ratio can be used to make the dataset robust with respect to uncertainty in the underlying data generating process.
Combining sub-strata to ensure adequate numbers can lead to Simpson's paradox, where trends that actually exist in different groups of data disappear or even reverse when the groups are combined.
The mean and variance of stratified random sampling are given by:
where,
Note that the term (formula_13 − formula_14) / (formula_13), which equals (1 − formula_14 / formula_13), is a finite population correction and formula_13 must be expressed in "sample units". Foregoing the finite population correction gives:
where the formula_20 = formula_13/formula_22 is the population weight of stratum formula_6.
For proportional allocation strategy, the size of the sample in each stratum is taken in proportion to the size of the stratum. Suppose that in a company there are the following staff:
and we are asked to take a sample of 40 staff, stratified according to the above categories.
The first step is to calculate the percentage of each group of the total.
This tells us that of our sample of 40,
Another easy way without having to calculate the percentage is to multiply each group size by the sample size and divide by the total population size (size of entire staff): | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27596 |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., or SFWA ( or ) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. While SFWA is based in the United States, its membership is open to writers worldwide. The organization was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. The president of SFWA as of 2019 is Mary Robinette Kowal.
SFWA has about 1,900 professionally published writer members worldwide.
SFWA Active members vote for the Nebula Awards, one of the principal English-language science fiction awards.
SFWA informs, supports, promotes, defends and advocates for its members.
SFWA activities include informing science fiction and fantasy writers on professional matters, protecting their interests, and helping them deal effectively with agents, editors, anthologists, and producers in print and non-print media; encouraging public interest in and appreciation for science fiction and fantasy literature; sponsoring, editing, and disseminating writings, papers, books, pamphlets, and other publications which exemplify science fiction and fantasy literature of high quality; conducting conferences, public discussion groups, forums, lectures, and seminar programs; and furnishing services connected with this stated purpose.
Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight in association with a group of writers connected to the Milford Conference, which he also headed. According to Todd McCaffrey, the organization immediately "acquired great status in its efforts to help J.R.R. Tolkien get fair recompense in America for pirated sales of "The Lord of the Rings"." In 1991, the name of the organization was changed to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, to reflect the fact that the organization had always included writers working in multiple genres. After the name change, both SFWA and SFFWA were used as acronyms. The acronym SFWA was re-established officially in 1996.
In 1982, Lisa Tuttle withdrew her short story "The Bone Flute" from the final Nebula ballot, to protest what she saw as excessive campaigning for awards and that voters did not receive copies of nominated works. Her withdrawal was sent after voting had been completed. When informed she had won, she contacted SFWA and told them she refused to accept it. She was told that her reasons for doing so would be announced. Her publisher accepted the award in her place, apparently with no knowledge of her withdrawal, and there was no mention of her objection.
In September 2009, SFWA joined the Open Book Alliance to oppose the Google Book Settlement. As a party to the class action suit, SFWA had recently explained its reservations about the settlement and declared its intention to file an objection.
In 2013, the "SFWA Bulletin" was the subject of a controversy about sexism. This led to a brief hiatus, followed by a reboot of the magazine.
In 2014, the original Massachusetts corporation was dissolved and SFWA reincorporated as a California nonprofit 501(c)3 organization with new bylaws.
SFWA participates in various trade shows and publishing industry events in the United States and abroad, including BookExpo America, the American Library Association Midwinter Conference, the USA Science & Engineering Festival, and several major (and minor) science fiction, fantasy and media conventions. SFWA holds a semi-annual business meeting at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) when it is held in North America, and at the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) otherwise.
SFWA also hosts its own events, which include:
As an organization, SFWA acts as an advocate to effect important changes within the publishing industry, especially among publishers of science fiction and fantasy, by promoting author-friendly copyright legislation, equitable treatment of authors, and fair contract terms.
SFWA sponsors Writer Beware, whose mission is to track, expose, and raise awareness of the prevalence of fraud and other questionable activities in and around the publishing industry. Writer Beware exists as a subpage of the SFWA website, which provides the latest information on literary schemes, scams, and pitfalls; the Writer Beware blog, which provides up-to-the-minute information on specific scams and schemes, along with advice for writers and industry news and commentary; and the Writer Beware Facebook page, which posts links to articles, news items, and warnings of interest to writers, and provides a forum for discussion. Writer Beware receives the support of the Mystery Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association.
Writer Beware maintains an extensive database of complaints on questionable literary agents, publishers, independent editors, writers’ services, contests, publicity services, and others, and offers a free research and information service for writers. Writer Beware staff assist law enforcement agencies with investigations of literary fraud, and have been instrumental in the convictions of several literary scammers.
Griefcom, or the Grievance Committee, is formed of member volunteers who undertake to mediate writer disputes and grievances between member writers and their publishers.
SFWA's Emergency Medical Fund was established to assist eligible writers who have unexpected medical expenses.
SFWA's Legal Fund was established to create loans for eligible member writers who have writing-related court costs and other related legal expenses.
Founded by longtime SFWA member Bud Webster, the Estate Project is now headed by Mishell Baker. It maintains a list of the estates of deceased SFWA member writers and coordinates with living member writers to make arrangements for their future estates. The Estate Project also accumulates information about authors' archives for member writers, living or dead.29.
"The SFWA Bulletin" is a quarterly magazine that SFWA members receive as part of their membership, but it is also available (by subscription) to non-members. The Bulletin carries nonfiction articles of general interest to writers, especially science fiction and fantasy writers. It accepts submissions, for which the pay rate is 8 cents a word. The current Bulletin editor is Neil Clarke.
A special issue (no. 203) published in March 2014 was edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Jaym Gates and "was specially created to be used as an outreach tool for conventions and other events." The issue's contents and cover were welcomed by some as an antidote to the perceived sexism of past issues though Sue Granquist felt that something looked "suspiciously like a woman in a burka".
In 2013, a controversy about sexism in the "Bulletin" led to the resignation of editor Jean Rabe on June 5, 2013. More than 50 authors wrote blog posts in objection to comments by longtime contributors Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg that included references to "lady editors" and "lady writers" who were "beauty pageant beautiful" or a "knock out", an article by C. J. Henderson praising Barbie for maintaining "quiet dignity the way a woman should", and the "exploitative" cover image of no. 200 of the "Bulletin" depicting a woman in a chain-mail bikini. Several authors used the occasion to speak out against sexism in science fiction genre circles more broadly. The controversy continued through Bulletin no. 202, which contained another column by Resnick and Malzberg, discussing the response to their earlier column. Their column framed that response as censorship, referring to their critics as "liberal fascists". In February 2014 a proposal to establish an advisory board to oversee content was met by a petition circulated by editor and critic Dave Truesdale supporting freedom of speech in the Bulletin.
As a result of the controversy, SFWA president John Scalzi apologized to members, and the "Bulletin" was put on hiatus for six months. It reappeared with the Winter 2014 Special Issue, #203, but has been on a reduced schedule, publishing an average of 2 issues per year.
The Forum Binary is a biannual publication that functions as SFWA's internal publication of record for members. As such, it is not available to non-members.
SFWA also publishes short essays and other content relevant to writers on the SFWA Blog.
Most members live in the United States but membership is open to qualifying writers worldwide. Authors, regardless of nationality or residence, must be professionally published in a qualifying market as listed by SFWA in order to become SFWA members. At present, all listed qualifying markets publish only in the English language.
Dues range from $90 for Associate membership up to $115 for Affiliate membership.
SFWA's Board of Directors consists of the current president, vice president, secretary, chief financial officer, and five directors-at-large. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27600 |
Soul Coughing
Soul Coughing was an American alternative rock band composed of vocalist/guitarist Mike Doughty (also known as M. Doughty), keyboardist/sampler Mark Degli Antoni, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and drummer Yuval Gabay. Soul Coughing developed a devout fanbase and garnered largely positive response from critics. Steve Huey of AllMusic describes the band as "one of the most unusual cult bands of the 1990s... driven by frontman Mike Doughty's stream-of-consciousness poetry. Soul Coughing's sound was a willfully idiosyncratic mix of improvisational jazz grooves, oddball samples, hip hop, electronics, and noisy experimentalism." The band's sound was described by Doughty as "deep slacker jazz."
All of the members of Soul Coughing were regulars at The Knitting Factory, a New York City nightclub and performance venue that was part of the experimental downtown scene of the 1980s and 1990s. Doughty was a doorman known for his improvised comedic quasi-raps, while the others appeared at the Knitting Factory in various bands. Doughty, Degli Antoni, and Steinberg all performed in versions of John Zorn's composition "Cobra", appearing on "" (recorded 1992, released 1995)."
Within a year of their formation, the band was signed to Slash Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records. They released three albums: "Ruby Vroom" (1994), "Irresistible Bliss" (1996), and "El Oso" (1998), with the latter showing a marked drum and bass influence. "Irresistible Bliss" and "El Oso" both reached the Billboard 200 albums chart. They enjoyed minor hit singles with "Soundtrack to Mary" and "Super Bon Bon." In 1996, Soul Coughing contributed to the AIDS benefit album "" produced by the Red Hot Organization. Also in 1996, the song "Unmarked Helicopters" was included in the "". The band also placed songs in the soundtracks to the films "Batman & Robin" ("The Bug"), "Tommy Boy" ("Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago") and "Spawn" ("A Plane Scraped Its Belly on a Sooty Yellow Moon" featuring Roni Size). Their song "Super Bon Bon" was included on the soundtrack for the PlayStation game "Gran Turismo 2" in 1999 and the soundtrack for the 2K Sports video game "The Bigs 2" in 2009.
The song "Circles" from "El Oso" reached #8 on the "Billboard" Alternative Songs chart, and was used as the soundtrack to a Cartoon Network extended commercial that poked fun at repeating cartoon backgrounds.
Soul Coughing broke up in 2000, after years of feuding over songwriting credits and publishing. Mark Degli Antoni moved on to a career as a film score composer, while Mike Doughty began a prolific solo career, occasionally revisiting Soul Coughing songs in new styles.
"Lust in Phaze", a greatest hits compilation including a few B-sides, was released in 2002. Rhino Records reissued Soul Coughing's three studio albums on 180-gram black vinyl in 2015. This marks the first time "Ruby Vroom" had been pressed to vinyl. In 2017, Swedish record label Woah Dad! acquired Soul Coughing's back catalog from Slash Records. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27606 |
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality.
The need to portray imaginary settings or characters with properties and abilities beyond the reach of current reality obliges producers to make extensive use of specialized techniques of television production.
Through most of the 20th century, many of these techniques were expensive and involved a small number of dedicated craft practitioners, while the reusability of props, models, effects, or animation techniques made it easier to keep using them. The combination of high initial cost and lower maintenance cost pushed producers into building these techniques into the basic concept of a series, influencing all the artistic choices.
By the late 1990s, improved technology and more training and cross-training within the industry made all of these techniques easier to use, so that directors of individual episodes could make decisions to use one or more methods, so such artistic choices no longer needed to be baked into the series concept.
Special effects (or "SPFX") have been an essential tool throughout the history of science fiction on television: small explosives to simulate the effects of various rayguns, squibs of blood and gruesome prosthetics to simulate the monsters and victims in horror series, and the wire-flying entrances and exits of George Reeves as Superman.
The broad term "special effects" includes all the techniques here, but more commonly there are two categories of effects. Visual effects ("VFX") involve photographic or digital manipulation of the onscreen image, usually done in post-production. Mechanical or physical effects involve props, pyrotechnics, and other physical methods used during principal photography itself. Some effects involved a combination of techniques; a ray gun might require a pyrotechnic during filming, and then an optical glowing line added to the film image in post-production. Stunts are another important category of physical effects. In general, all kinds of special effects must be carefully planned during pre-production.
"Babylon 5" was the first series to use computer-generated imagery, or "CGI", for all exterior space scenes, even those with characters in space suits. The technology has made this more practical, so that today models are rarely used. In the 1990s, CGI required expensive processors and customized applications, but by the 2000s (decade), computing power has pushed capabilities down to personal laptops running a wide array of software.
Models have been an essential tool in science fiction television since the beginning, when Buck Rogers took flight in spark-scattering spaceships wheeling across a matte backdrop sky. The original "" required a staggering array of models; the USS "Enterprise" had to be built in several different scales for different needs. Models fell out of use in filming in the 1990s as CGI became more affordable and practical, but even today, designers sometimes construct scale models which are then digitized for use in animation software.
Models of characters are puppets. Gerry Anderson created a series of shows using puppets living in a universe of models and miniature sets, notably "Thunderbirds". "ALF" depicted an alien living in a family, while "Farscape" included two puppets as regular characters. In "Stargate SG-1", the Asgard characters are puppets in scenes where they are sitting, standing, or lying down. In "Mystery Science Theater 3000", the characters of Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, two of the show's main (and most iconic) characters, are puppets constructed from random household items.
As animation is completely free of the constraints of gravity, momentum, and physical reality, it is an ideal technique for science fiction and fantasy on television. In a sense, virtually all animated series allow characters and objects to perform in unrealistic ways, so they are almost all considered to fit within the broadest category of speculative fiction (in the context of awards, criticism, marketing, etc.) The artistic affinity of animation to comic books has led to a large amount of superhero-themed animation, much of this adapted from comics series, while the impossible characters and settings allowed in animation made this a preferred medium for both fantasy and for series aimed at young audiences.
Originally, animation was all hand-drawn by artists, though in the 1980s, beginning with "Captain Power", computers began to automate the task of creating repeated images; by the 1990s, hand-drawn animation became defunct.
In recent years as technology has improved, this has become more common, notably since the development of the Massive software application permits producers to include hordes of non-human characters to storm a city or space station. The robotic Cylons in the new version of "Battlestar Galactica" are usually animated characters, while the Asgard in "Stargate SG-1" are animated when they are shown walking around or more than one is on screen at once.
In general, science fiction series are subject to the same financial constraints as other television shows. However, high production costs increase the financial risk, while limited audiences further complicate the business case for continuing production. "" was the first television series to cost more than $100,000 per episode, while "" was the first to cost more than $1 million per episode.
The innovative nature of science fiction means that new shows cannot rely on predictable market-tested formulas like legal dramas or sitcoms; the involvement of creative talent outside the Hollywood mainstream introduces more variables to the budget forecasts.
In the past, science fiction television shows have maintained a family friendly format that rendered them suitable for all ages, especially children, as the majority of them were of the action-adventure format. This enabled merchandising such as toy lines, animated cartoon adaptations, and other licensing. However, many modern shows include a significant amount of adult themes (such as sexual situations, nudity, profanity and graphic violence) rendering them unsuitable for young audiences, and severely limiting the remaining audience demographic and the potential for merchandising.
The perception, more than the reality, of science fiction series being cancelled unreasonably is greatly increased by the attachment of fans to their favorite series, which is much stronger in science fiction fandom than it is in the general population. While mainstream shows are often more strictly episodic, where ending shows can allow viewers to imagine that characters live happily, or at least normally, ever after, science fiction series generate questions and loose ends that, when unresolved, cause dissatisfaction among devoted viewers. Creative settings also often call for broader story arcs than is often found in mainstream television, requiring science fiction series many episodes to resolve an ongoing major conflict. Science fiction television producers will sometimes end a season with a dramatic cliffhanger episode to attract viewer interest, but the short-term effect rarely influences financial partners. "Dark Angel" is one of many shows ending with a cliffhanger scene that left critical questions open when the series was cancelled.
One of the earliest forms of media fandom was Star Trek fandom. Fans of the series became known to each other through the science fiction fandom. In 1968, NBC decided to cancel "". Bjo Trimble wrote letters to contacts in the National Fantasy Fan Foundation, asking people to organize their local friends to write to the network to demand the show remain on the air. Network executives were overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of correspondence, and they kept the show on the air. Although the series continued to receive low ratings and was canceled a year later, the enduring popularity of the series resulted in Paramount creating a set of movies, and then a new series "", which by the early 1990s had become one of the most popular dramas on American television.
"Star Trek" fans continued to grow in number, and first began organizing conventions in the 1970s. No other show attracted a large organized following until the 1990s, when "Babylon 5" attracted both "Star Trek" fans and a large number of literary SF fans who previously had not been involved in media fandom. Other series began to attract a growing number of followers. The British series, "Doctor Who", has similarly attracted a devoted following.
In the late 1990s, a market for celebrity autographs emerged on eBay, which created a new source of income for actors, who began to charge money for autographs that they had previously been doing for free. This became significant enough that lesser-known actors would come to conventions without requesting any appearance fee, simply to be allowed to sell their own autographs (commonly on publicity photos). Today most events with actor appearances are organized by commercial promoters, though a number of fan-run conventions still exist, such as Toronto Trek and Shore Leave.
The 1985 series "Robotech" is most often credited as the catalyst for the Western interest in anime. The series inspired a few fanzines such as "Protoculture Addicts" and "Animag" both of which in turn promoted interest in the wide world of anime in general. Anime's first notable appearance at SF or comic book conventions was in the form of video showings of popular anime, untranslated and often low quality VHS bootlegs. Starting in the 1990s, anime fans began organizing conventions. These quickly grew to sizes much larger than other science fiction and media conventions in the same communities; many cities now have anime conventions attracting five to ten thousand attendees. Many anime conventions are a hybrid between non-profit and commercial events, with volunteer organizers handling large revenue streams and dealing with commercial suppliers and professional marketing campaigns.
For decades, the majority of science fiction media fandom has been represented by males of all ages and for most of its modern existence, a fairly diverse racial demographic. The most highly publicized demographic for science fiction fans is the male adolescent; roughly the same demographic for American comic books. Female fans, while always present, were far fewer in number and less conspicuously present in fandom. With the rising popularity of fanzines, female fans became increasingly vocal. Starting in the 2000s (decade), genre series began to offer more prominent female characters. Many series featured women as the main characters with males as supporting characters. "True Blood" is an example. Also, such shows premises moved away from heroic action-adventure and focused more on characters and their relationships. This has caused the rising popularity of fanfiction, a large majority of which is categorized as slash fanfiction. Female fans comprise the majority of fanfiction writers.
U.S. television science fiction has produced "" and its various spin-off shows of the "Star Trek" franchise, "The Twilight Zone," and "The X-Files", among others.
British television science fiction began in 1938 when the broadcast medium was in its infancy with the transmission of a partial adaptation of Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R.". Despite an occasionally chequered history, programmes in the genre have been produced by both the BBC and the largest commercial channel, ITV. "Doctor Who" is listed in the "Guinness World Records" as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time.
Science fiction in Canada was produced by the CBC as early as the 1950s. In the 1970s, CTV produced "The Starlost". In the 1980s, Canadian animation studios including Nelvana, began producing a growing proportion of the world market in animation.
In the 1990s, Canada became an important player in live action speculative fiction on television, with dozens of series like "Forever Knight", "", and most notably "The X-Files" and "Stargate SG-1". Many series have been produced for youth and children's markets, including "Deepwater Black" and "MythQuest".
In the first decade of the 21st century, changes in provincial tax legislation prompted many production companies to move from Toronto to Vancouver. Recent popular series produced in Vancouver include "The Dead Zone", "Smallville", "Andromeda", "Stargate Atlantis", "Stargate Universe", "The 4400", "Sanctuary" and the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica".
Because of the small size of the domestic television market, most Canadian productions involve partnerships with production studios based in the United States and Europe. However, in recent years, new partnership arrangements are allowing Canadian investors a growing share of control of projects produced in Canada and elsewhere.
Australia's first locally produced Science Fiction series was "The Stranger" (1964–65) produced and screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Later series made in the 1960s included "The Interparis" (1968) "Vega 4" (1967), and "Phoenix Five" (1970). The country's best known Science Fiction series was "Farscape"; an American co-production, it ran from 1999 to 2003. A significant proportion of Australian produced Science Fiction programmes are made for the teens/young Adults market, including "The Girl from Tomorrow", the long-running "Mr. Squiggle", "Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left", "Ocean Girl", "Crash Zone", "Watch This Space" and "Spellbinder".
Other series like "Time Trax", "Roar", and "" were filmed in Australia, but used mostly US crew and actors.
Japan has a long history of producing science fiction series for television. Some of the most famous are anime such as Osamu Tezuka's "Astro Boy", the Super Robots such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama's "Tetsujin 28-go" ("Gigantor") and Go Nagai's "Mazinger Z", and the Real Robots such as Yoshiyuki Tomino's "Gundam" series and Shōji Kawamori's "Macross" series.
Other primary aspects of Japanese science fiction television are the superhero "tokusatsu" (a term literally meaning special effects) series, pioneered by programs such as "Moonlight Mask" and "Planet Prince". The suitmation technique has been used in long running franchises include Eiji Tsuburaya's Ultra Series, Shotaro Ishinomori's Kamen Rider Series, and the Super Sentai Series.
In addition, several dramas utilize science fiction elements as framing devices, but are not labeled as "tokusatsu" as they do not utilize actors in full body suits and other special effects.
Among the notable German language productions is "Lexx" and , a German series first broadcast in 1966. Movies by , include the miniseries .
"Star Maidens" (1975, aka "Medusa" or "Die Mädchen aus dem Weltraum") was a British-German coproduction of pure SF. Danish television broadcast the children's TV-series "Crash" in 1984 about a boy who finds out that his room is a space ship.
Early Dutch television series were "" (Tomorrow it will happen), broadcast from 1957 to 1959, about a group of Dutch space explorers and their adventures, "De duivelsgrot" (The devil's cave), broadcast from 1963 to 1964, about a scientist who finds the map of a cave that leads to the center of the earth and "Treinreis naar de Toekomst" (Train journey to the future) about two young children who are taken to the future by robots who try to recreate humanity, but are unable to give the cloned humans a soul. All three of these television series were aimed mostly at children.
Later television series were "Professor Vreemdeling" (1977) about a strange professor who wants to make plants speak and "" (1997) a nationalistic post-apocalyptic series where the Netherlands has been built full of housing and the highways are filled with traffic jams. The protagonist, a female superhero, wears traditional folkloric clothes and tries to save traditional elements of Dutch society against the factory owners.
Italian TV shows include "A come Andromeda" (1972) which was a remake of 1962 BBC miniseries "A for Andromeda" (from the novels of Hoyle and Elliott), "Geminus" (1968), "Il segno del comando" (1971), "Gamma" (1974) and "La traccia verde" (1975).
French series are "", French science-fiction/fantasy television series (both co-produced with Canada) and a number of smaller fiction/fantasy television series, including "Tang" in 1971, about a secret organization that attempts to control the world with a new super weapon, "Les atomistes" and 1970 miniseries "La brigade des maléfices".
Another French-produced science fiction series was the new age animated series (). Anime-influenced animation includes a series of French-Japanese cartoons/anime, including such titles as "Ulysses 31" (1981), "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" (1982), and "Ōban Star-Racers" (2006).
The first Spanish SF series was "Diego Valor", a 22 episode TV adaption of a radio show hero of the same name based on Dan Dare, aired weekly between 1958 and 1959. Nothing was survived of this series, not a single still; it is not known if the show was even recorded or just a live broadcast.
The 60s were dominated by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador and Narciso Ibáñez Menta, who adapted SF works from Golden Age authors and others to a series titled "Mañana puede ser verdad". Only 11 episodes were filmed. The 70s saw three important television films, "Los pajaritos" (1974), "La Gioconda está triste" (1977), and "La cabina" (1972), this last one, about a man who becomes trapped in a telephone booth, while passersby seem unable to help him, won the 1973 International Emmy Award for Fiction.
The series "Plutón B.R.B. Nero" (2008) was a brutal SF comedy by Álex de la Iglesia, in the line of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "Red Dwarf", or "Doctor Who", with 26 episodes of 35 minutes. Other series of the 2010s were "Los protegidos" (2010-2012), "El barco" (2011-2013), and "El internado" (2007-2010), all three inspired by North American productions, with minor SF elements.
The latest success is "El ministerio del tiempo" ("The ministry of time"), premiered on February 24, 2015 on TVE's main channel La 1. The series follows the exploits of a patrol of the fictional Ministry of Time, which deals with incidents caused by time travel. It has garnered several national prizes in 2015, like the Ondas Prize, and has a thick following on-line, called "los ministéricos".
Serbia produced "The Collector" (), a science fiction television series based upon Zoran Živković's story, winner of a World Fantasy Award. Several science-fiction series were also produced in various European countries, and never translated into English.
For a list of notable science fiction series and programs on television, see: List of science fiction television programs.
People who have influenced science fiction on television include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27608 |
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that provides support, shape and protection to the soft tissues and delicate organs of animals. There are several different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body, the hydroskeleton, a flexible skeleton supported by fluid pressure, and the cytoskeleton present in the cytoplasm of all cells, including bacteria, and archaea. The term comes .
There are two major types of skeletons: solid and fluid. Solid skeletons can be internal, called an endoskeleton, or external, called an exoskeleton, and may be further classified as pliant (elastic/movable) or rigid (hard/non-movable). Fluid skeletons are always internal.
Exoskeletons are external, and are found in many invertebrates; they enclose and protect the soft tissues and organs of the body. Some kinds of exoskeletons undergo periodic moulting or ecdysis as the animal grows, as is the case in many arthropods including insects and crustaceans.
The exoskeleton of insects is not only a form of protection, but also serves as a surface for muscle attachment, as a watertight protection against drying, and as a sense organ to interact with the environment. The shell of mollusks also performs all of the same functions, except that in most cases it does not contain sense organs.
An external skeleton can be quite heavy in relation to the overall mass of an animal, so on land, organisms that have an exoskeleton are mostly relatively small. Somewhat larger aquatic animals can support an exoskeleton because weight is less of a consideration underwater. The southern giant clam, a species of extremely large saltwater clam in the Pacific Ocean, has a shell that is massive in both size and weight. "Syrinx aruanus" is a species of sea snail with a very large shell.
The endoskeleton is the internal support structure of an animal, composed of mineralized tissue and is typical of vertebrates. Endoskeletons vary in complexity from functioning purely for support (as in the case of sponges), to serving as an attachment site for muscles and a mechanism for transmitting muscular forces. A true endoskeleton is derived from mesodermal tissue. Such a skeleton is present in echinoderms and chordates.
Pliant skeletons are capable of movement; thus, when stress is applied to the skeletal structure, it deforms and then reverts to its original shape. This skeletal structure is used in some invertebrates, for instance in the hinge of bivalve shells or the mesoglea of cnidarians such as jellyfish. Pliant skeletons are beneficial because only muscle contractions are needed to bend the skeleton; upon muscle relaxation, the skeleton will return to its original shape. Cartilage is one material that a pliant skeleton may be composed of, but most pliant skeletons are formed from a mixture of proteins, polysaccharides, and water. For additional structure or protection, pliant skeletons may be supported by rigid skeletons. Organisms that have pliant skeletons typically live in water, which supports body structure in the absence of a rigid skeleton.
Rigid skeletons are not capable of movement when stressed, creating a strong support system most common in terrestrial animals. Such a skeleton type used by animals that live in water are more for protection (such as barnacle and snail shells) or for fast-moving animals that require additional support of musculature needed for swimming through water. Rigid skeletons are formed from materials including chitin (in arthropods), calcium compounds such as calcium carbonate (in stony corals and mollusks) and silicate (for diatoms and radiolarians).
The cytoskeleton (gr. "kytos" = cell) is used to stabilize and preserve the form of the cells. It is a dynamic structure that maintains cell shape, protects the cell, enables cellular motion (using structures such as flagella, cilia and lamellipodia), and plays important roles in both intracellular transport (the movement of vesicles and organelles, for example) and cellular division.
A hydrostatic skeleton is a semi-rigid, soft tissue structure filled with liquid under pressure, surrounded by muscles. Longitudinal and circular muscles around their body sectors allow movement by alternate lengthening and contractions along their lengths. A common example of this is the earthworm.
The endoskeletons of echinoderms and some other soft-bodied invertebrates such as jellyfish and earthworms are also termed hydrostatic; a body cavity the coelom is filled with coelomic fluid and the pressure from this fluid acts together with the surrounding muscles to change the organism's shape and produce movement.
The skeleton of sponges consists of microscopic calcareous or silicious spicules. The demosponges include 90% of all species of sponges. Their "skeletons" are made of spicules consisting of fibers of the protein spongin, the mineral silica, or both. Where spicules of silica are present, they have a different shape from those in the otherwise similar glass sponges.
The skeleton of the echinoderms, which include, among other things, the starfish, is composed of calcite and a small amount of magnesium oxide. It lies below the epidermis in the mesoderm and is within cell clusters of frame-forming cells. This structure formed is porous and therefore firm and at the same time light. It coalesces into small calcareous ossicles (bony plates), which can grow in all directions and thus can replace the loss of a body part. Connected by joints, the individual skeletal parts can be moved by the muscles.
In most vertebrates, the main skeletal component is referred to as bone. These bones compose a unique skeletal system for each type of animal. Another important component is cartilage which in mammals is found mainly in the joint areas. In other animals, such as the cartilaginous fishes, which include the sharks, the skeleton is composed entirely of cartilage. The segmental pattern of the skeleton is present in all vertebrates (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians) with basic units being repeated. This segmental pattern is particularly evident in the vertebral column and the ribcage.
Bones in addition to supporting the body also serve, at the cellular level, as calcium and phosphate storage.
The skeleton, which forms the support structure inside the fish is either made of cartilage as in the (Chondrichthyes), or bones as in the (Osteichthyes). The main skeletal element is the vertebral column, composed of articulating vertebrae which are lightweight yet strong. The ribs attach to the spine and there are no limbs or limb girdles. They are supported only by the muscles. The main external features of the fish, the fins, are composed of either bony or soft spines called rays, which with the exception of the caudal fin (tail fin), have no direct connection with the spine. They are supported by the muscles which compose the main part of the trunk.
The bird skeleton is highly adapted for flight. It is extremely lightweight, yet still strong enough to withstand the stresses of taking off, flying, and landing. One key adaptation is the fusing of bones into single ossifications, such as the pygostyle. Because of this, birds usually have a smaller number of bones than other terrestrial vertebrates. Birds also lack teeth or even a true jaw, instead having evolved a beak, which is far more lightweight. The beaks of many baby birds have a projection called an egg tooth, which facilitates their exit from the amniotic egg.
To facilitate the movement of marine mammals in water, the hind legs were either lost altogether, as in the whales and manatees, or united in a single tail fin as in the pinnipeds (seals). In the whale, the cervical vertebrae are typically fused, an adaptation trading flexibility for stability during swimming.
The skeleton consists of both fused and individual bones supported and supplemented by ligaments, tendons, muscles and cartilage. It serves as a scaffold which supports organs, anchors muscles, and protects organs such as the brain, lungs, heart and spinal cord. Although the teeth do not consist of tissue commonly found in bones, the teeth are usually considered as members of the skeletal system.
The biggest bone in the body is the femur in the upper leg, and the smallest is the stapes bone in the middle ear. In an adult, the skeleton comprises around 14% of the total body weight, and half of this weight is water.
Fused bones include those of the pelvis and the cranium. Not all bones are interconnected directly: There are three bones in each middle ear called the ossicles that articulate only with each other. The hyoid bone, which is located in the neck and serves as the point of attachment for the tongue, does not articulate with any other bones in the body, being supported by muscles and ligaments.
There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton, although this number depends on whether the pelvic bones (the hip bones on each side) are counted as one or three bones on each side (ilium, ischium, and pubis), whether the coccyx or tail bone is counted as one or four separate bones, and does not count the variable wormian bones between skull sutures. Similarly, the sacrum is usually counted as a single bone, rather than five fused vertebrae. There is also a variable number of small sesamoid bones, commonly found in tendons. The patella or kneecap on each side is an example of a larger sesamoid bone. The patellae are counted in the total, as they are constant. The number of bones varies between individuals and with age – newborn babies have over 270 bones some of which fuse together. These bones are organized into a longitudinal axis, the axial skeleton, to which the appendicular skeleton is attached.
The human skeleton takes 20 years before it is fully developed, and the bones contain marrow, which produces blood cells.
There exist several general differences between the male and female skeletons. The male skeleton, for example, is generally larger and heavier than the female skeleton. In the female skeleton, the bones of the skull are generally less angular. The female skeleton also has wider and shorter breastbone and slimmer wrists. There exist significant differences between the male and female pelvis which are related to the female's pregnancy and childbirth capabilities. The female pelvis is wider and shallower than the male pelvis. Female pelvises also have an enlarged pelvic outlet and a wider and more circular pelvic inlet. The angle between the pubic bones is known to be sharper in males, which results in a more circular, narrower, and near heart-shaped pelvis.
Bones are rigid organs that form part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They function to move, support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue. Bones have a variety of shapes with a complex internal and external structure they are also lightweight, yet strong and hard. One of the types of tissue that makes up bone tissue is mineralized tissue and this
gives it rigidity and a honeycomb-like three-dimensional internal structure. Other types of tissue found in bones include marrow, endosteum and periosteum, nerves, blood vessels and cartilage.
During embryonic development the precursor to bone development is cartilage that mostly becomes replaced by bone, after flesh such as muscle has formed around it. Cartilage is a stiff and inflexible connective tissue found in many areas including the joints between bones, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the elbow, the knee, the ankle, the bronchial tubes and the intervertebral discs. It is not as hard and rigid as bone but is stiffer and less flexible than muscle.
Cartilage is composed of specialized cells called chondrocytes that produce a large amount of extracellular matrix composed of Type II collagen (except fibrocartilage which also contains type I collagen) fibers, abundant ground substance rich in proteoglycans, and elastin fibers. Cartilage is classified in three types, elastic cartilage, hyaline cartilage and fibrocartilage, which differ in the relative amounts of these three main components.
Unlike other connective tissues, cartilage does not contain blood vessels. The chondrocytes are supplied by diffusion, helped by the pumping action generated by compression of the articular cartilage or flexion of the elastic cartilage. Thus, compared to other connective tissues, cartilage grows and repairs more slowly.
In Western culture, the human skeleton is oftentimes seen as a fearful symbol of death and the paranormal. It is a popular motif in the holiday Halloween, as well as Day of the Dead.
Skeletons can also be found in movies. Skeletons in movies can be often depicted coming to life, commonly in horror movies. Skeletons can also be depicted in movies wearing chainmail, helmets, and shields. Commonly holding an axe or sword. In these types of movies they are commonly getting attacked, "killed", or fighting with character(s). Skeletons can also be found in a more "welcoming" and "friendly" way in movies. Such as, playing as a decoration, a Halloween costume/face paint, ETC. Another way skeletons can be shown in movies is debatably more common than the other depictions is a sign of severe burning from things such as chemicals, fire, and acid. This can also be a case of deterioration over time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27609 |
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze (née Gellar; born April 14, 1977) is an American actress. After being spotted by an agent at the age of four in New York City, she made her acting debut in the made-for-television film "An Invasion of Privacy" (1983). Following a role in the teen drama series "Swans Crossing" (1992), her television breakthrough came in 1993, when she originated the role of Kendall Hart on the ABC daytime soap opera "All My Children", winning the 1995 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series.
Gellar received widespread recognition for her portrayal of Buffy Summers on the WB drama series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997–2003), which earned her five Teen Choice Awards and a Golden Globe Award nomination, and became recognized as one of the greatest female characters in U.S. television. Her most successful films at the box office are "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (1997), "Scream 2" (1997), "Cruel Intentions" (1999), "Scooby-Doo" (2002), "" (2004), and "The Grudge" (2004). This was followed by roles in mostly independent films, such as "Southland Tales" (2006), "Suburban Girl" (2007), "TMNT" (2007), and "Veronika Decides to Die" (2009). Gellar went on to headline the short-lived CW drama thriller series "Ringer" (2011–2012) and the CBS comedy series "The Crazy Ones" (2013–2014).
In 2015, Gellar, along with Galit Laibow and Greg Fleishman, founded Foodstirs, a food crafting brand and e-commerce startup selling baking kits, and in 2017, she released her own cookbook, "Stirring Up Fun with Food".
Gellar was born on Long Island, New York. She is the only child of Rosellen (née Greenfield), a nursery school teacher, and Arthur Gellar, a garment worker. Both of her parents were Jewish, though Gellar's family also had a Christmas tree during her childhood. In 1984, when she was seven, her parents divorced and she was raised by her mother on Manhattan's Upper East Side. While growing up with her mother, she lost contact with her father, from whom she remained estranged until his death in 2001; she once described him as "non-existent", and in the early 2000s, she stated: "My father, you can just say, is not in the picture. I'm not being deliberately evasive about him, it's just that there's so little to say." Besides being a working child at the time, Gellar was a competitive figure skater, once finishing in third place at a New York State regional competition, as well as having a black belt in taekwondo.
Gellar was given a partial scholarship to study at the Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, as her mother was not able to pay full tuition, for which she was constantly bullied. She said in an interview with "The Independent": "I was different and that's the one thing you can't be at school, because you're ostracised. I didn't have the money these kids had". Gellar was not present in class for most of the time at the school as she had to work in several acting projects simultaneously, recalling that she "had more absences in the first month than you're supposed to have for an entire year. I was telling them that I had back problems and had to go to the doctor the whole time". Gellar then briefly attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, but dropped out due to acting obligations; the teachers threatened to fail her because of her constant absence from classes as she was busy going to auditions, despite earning good grades. Gellar graduated from the Professional Children's School in 1994 as a "straight A" student with a 4.0 grade average. As Gellar spent significant time working on "All My Children" while "trying to graduate", the majority of her senior year was completed through guided study.
At the age of four, she was spotted by an agent in a restaurant in Upper Manhattan. Two weeks later, she auditioned for a part in the television film "An Invasion of Privacy", with Valerie Harper, Carol Kane and Jeff Daniels. At the audition, Gellar read both her own lines and those of Harper, impressing the directors enough to cast her in the role. The film aired on CBS in January 1983. She subsequently appeared in a controversial television commercial for Burger King, in which her character criticized McDonald's and claimed to eat only at Burger King. The ad led to a lawsuit by McDonald's, naming Gellar and banning her from eating at the food chain; she recalled in a 2004 interview: "I wasn't allowed to eat there. It was tough because, when you're a little kid, McDonald's is where all your friends have their birthday parties, so I missed out on a lot of apple pies." While growing up, Gellar also worked as a model for Wilhelmina and acted in numerous television commercials.
During the 1980s, Gellar played minor roles in the films "Over the Brooklyn Bridge" (1984), "Funny Farm" (1988) and "High Stakes" (1989), and also guest starred in various television series, such as "" and "Crossbow". At the age of nine, she appeared alongside Matthew Broderick and Eric Stoltz in the Broadway production "The Widow Claire". She served briefly as a co-host of the teen girl talk show "Girl Talk", which aired in 1989. In 1991, she was cast as a young Jacqueline Bouvier in "A Woman Named Jackie", starring Roma Downey. The miniseries won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series.
Gellar next took on the leading role in the 1992 syndicated teen serial "Swans Crossing", which chronicled the lives of a group of wealthy teenagers. The series ran for one season and earned Gellar two Young Artist Award nominations, for Best Young Actress in a New Television Series and for Best Young Actress in an Off-Primetime Series. She made her debut in the soap opera "All My Children" in 1993, playing Kendall Hart, the long-lost daughter of character Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). As she got the role, Gellar was complimented as having the acting talent and the "forceful personality" needed to go up against Lucci's experience; Kendall was supposed to be like a younger version of Erica. Her stint on the show was successful as "longtime fans of the soap saw her as the second coming of Erica". Writers showcased her more after her initial reception and she became a household name to the soap opera medium. In 1995, at the age of eighteen, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series for the role. The same year, Gellar left the show to pursue other acting opportunities.
Gellar moved to Los Angeles following her departure from "All My Children", and in 1996, she read the script for Joss Whedon's television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", which follows Buffy Summers, a teenager burdened with the responsibility of fighting occult foes and supernatural occurrences. She screen tested several times originally for the role of Cordelia Chase, but after approaching Whedon and producers about playing Buffy Summers, she auditioned again and was eventually cast in the title role. The show premiered in March 1997, to widespread critical and popular acclaim, and Gellar's Buffy, created to subvert the stereotypical female horror movie victim, went on to become recognized as one of the 100 greatest female characters in U.S. television. "Buffy" ran for seven seasons (144 episodes), and during its broadcast, earned Gellar five Teen Choice Awards, the Saturn Award for Best Genre Television Actress and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. She sang during the series' musical episode "Once More, with Feeling", which spawned an original cast album, released in 2002.
During the early airing of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Gellar made her first major film appearances in two successful slasher films. In "I Know What You Did Last Summer", opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze, Jr, she took on the role of an ill-fated aspiring beauty actress. Budgeted at US$17million, the movie made US$125million globally. "Washington Post" found the cast to be "solid", in what "San Francisco Chronicle" described as a "competent but uninspired" film. For her part, Gellar earned a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actress – Horror and a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. In "Scream 2" (also 1997), Gellar played a likewise ill-fated vain character, this time that of a Sorority sister. She filmed her scenes in-between shots of "Buffy" and had only recently finished work on "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Despite the hectic scheduling, she agreed to perform in "Scream 2" without having read the script, on the basis of the success of the first film. "Scream 2" grossed over US$172million worldwide.
In 1998, Gellar hosted for the first time "Saturday Night Live", and provided the voice of the Gwendy Doll in "Small Soldiers", a moderate commercial success. Gellar also had her first appearance on the 'Most Beautiful' list by "People" magazine, which cemented her "It girl" status at the time. In 1999, she had a cameo appearance in the sleeper hit "She's All That", and took on the lead role of a struggling restaurant owner in the critically panned romantic comedy "Simply Irresistible". Gellar once called it "bad choice", but Roger Ebert, on the other hand, found her to be "lovely" in what he described as an "old-fashioned" comedy. In "Cruel Intentions" (1999), a modern-day retelling of "Les Liaisons dangereuses", Gellar played Kathryn Merteuil, a brunette cocaine addict with an appetite for manipulating people. The US$10million film was a hit at the box office, grossing US$75million worldwide. Roger Ebert felt that she is "effective as a bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp", and in an interview with "Chicago Tribune", director Roger Kumble, describing her work in the movie, said: "She unquestionably is the most professional actor I ever worked with". Gellar and co-star Selma Blair obtained the "Best Kiss" award at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. Around that time, she guest starred in three episodes of "Angel" and appeared as Debbie in the HBO series "Sex and the City" episode "Escape from New York".
Gellar played the daughter of a mobster in James Toback's independent drama "Harvard Man", which premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. While the film found a limited release in theaters, Gellar's performance in it, along with "Cruel Intentions", helped her shed her good girl image. Gellar portrayed Daphne Blake in the live action–comedy "Scooby-Doo", directed by Raja Gosnell and alongside Freddie Prinze, Jr., Linda Cardellini and Matthew Lillard. "Scooby-Doo" made over US$275million, and became Gellar's most widely seen film to date. She won the Teen Choice Award in the category of Choice Movie Actress – Comedy for her part in the picture. Alongside Jack Black, she hosted the 2002 MTV Movie Awards, which attracted 7.1million viewers on its June 6 broadcast, achieving the show's highest rating ever at the time.
During her growing film career, Gellar continued work on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but she left the show after the seventh season. When asked why, she explained, "This isn't about leaving for a career in movies, or in theater – it's more of a personal decision. I need a rest." In her feature in "Esquire" magazine Gellar expressed her pride for her work on "Buffy", "I truly believe that it is one of the greatest shows of all time and it will go down in history as that. And I don't feel that that is a cocky statement. We changed the way that people looked at television."
After the end of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Gellar provided her voice for the character Gina Vendetti in "The Simpsons" episode "The Wandering Juvie", which aired in March 2004. Her next film was "" (2004), reprising the role of Daphne. While "IGN" felt that both Gellar and Prinze "exhibit marked improvements over their work in [2002's "Scooby-Doo"]", the film was a commercial success, grossing US$181.4million around the globe. In the horror remake "The Grudge" (also 2004), Gellar portrayed Karen Davis, an exchange student living and working in Tokyo who becomes exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse. Critic Rob Blackwelder wrote that she "played her part well, and her fear and disorientation are terrifically enhanced by the decision to keep the [original] setting in this remake". The film was a major box office hit, grossing more than US$110million in the US, and US$187million worldwide. She received a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Frightened Performance as well as a nomination for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress – Thriller for her role. Since 2005, she has voiced several characters in 13 episodes of the animated television series "Robot Chicken", as of 2018.
Gellar starred opposite Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, and Justin Timberlake in Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales" (2006), as an adult film star working on creating a reality television show. Gellar had met with Kelly and was drawn to the original ideas for the movie, accepting the role before she even read the script. The film found a limited audience in theaters, but J. Hoberman for "Village Voice" remarked that the director "contrives two memorable comic performances" by Gellar and Johnson. In 2006, Gellar also briefly reprised her role of Karen in the critically panned sequel "The Grudge 2", and starred in the psychological thriller "The Return", as a businesswoman haunted by memories of her childhood and the mysterious death of a young woman. The film was a critical and commercial failure, grossing only US$11million. "The New York Times" called it a "career stagnation".
In 2007, Gellar voiced Ella in the poorly received animated film "Happily N'Ever After", and also April O'Neil in "TMNT", which made US$95million. She starred in the romantic comedy "Suburban Girl" and the drama "The Air I Breathe", both of which were screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. In "Suburban Girl", alongside Alec Baldwin, she took the role of a New York City editor and the love interest of a much older influential man (Baldwin). The film was released for DVD in January 2008. In the likewise little-seen film "The Air I Breathe", Gellar appeared with Forest Whitaker, Brendan Fraser and Kevin Bacon, portraying an up-and-coming pop singer. "The New York Times" called it a "gangster movie with delusions of grandeur", while "DVD Talk" noted that "her character here has the deepest emotional arc, and she hits all the right notes."
"Possession", a psychological thriller Gellar filmed in 2006, saw her play a lawyer whose life is thrown into chaos after a car accident sends her husband (Michael Landes) and brother-in-law (Lee Pace) into comas. Due to financial problems at Yari Film Group, the film went to DVD in March 2010. In the film adaptation "Veronika Decides to Die", Gellar starred as a young depressed woman who rediscovers the joy in life when she finds out that she only has days to live following a suicide attempt. Like "Possession", the film failed to find a proper release in North American theaters, and was released for VOD in 2015. Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" found the actress to be "reasonably compelling" in what he called a "ponderous and silly misfire".
Gellar took a two-year hiatus from acting following the birth of her daughter in 2009, and in 2011, she signed to star and work as executive producer for a new drama titled "Ringer", in which she played the dual role of twin sisters, one of whom is on the run and manages to hide by assuming the wealthy life of the other. Gellar has stated that part of her decision to return to a television series was because it allowed her to both work and raise her child. The series received positive reviews from critics; "E! Online" found her to be "awesome" and "fantastic", while "TV Line" felt she "does a fine job" as both characters. "Ringer" went on to have a large fan base, but it was canceled after the first season. For her portrayal, she received several award nominations, including one for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Television Actress – Drama.
In September 2011, Gellar returned as a guest star on the ABC soap opera "All My Children" before the show's ending but not as Kendall Hart; she portrayed a patient at Pine Valley Hospital who tells Maria Santos that she is "Erica Kane's daughter", and states that she saw vampires before they became trendy—a reference to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". She voiced a character in the "American Dad!" episode "Virtual In-Stanity", and again for the December 6, 2012 episode ("Adventures in Hayleysitting"). On September 30, 2012, she reprised her role of Gina Vendetti in the premiere episode of "The Simpsons"' season 24.
A fan of Robin Williams for years, once Gellar learned that he was making the single-camera television series "The Crazy Ones", she contacted her friend Sarah de Sa Rego, the wife of Williams' best friend, Bobcat Goldthwait, in order to lobby for a co-starring role. She obtained the part of an advertising director who runs an agency with her father. "Digital Spy" felt that Williams "shares a warm, genuine chemistry with his on-screen offspring Gellar," as part of a mixed critical response. The series was canceled after one season, but earned Gellar the People's Choice Award for Favorite Actress in a New Television Series.
In March 2015, Gellar guest-starred as Cinderella in Whitney Avalon's official YouTube channel video short "Princess Rap Battle", and joined the cast of "Star Wars Rebels" for season two, playing a recurring character known as the Seventh Sister. In early 2016, Gellar filmed for NBC a pilot presentation for a potential television series based on the cult-classic film, "Cruel Intentions", reprising her role of Kathryn Merteuil. The pilot was ultimately not picked up to series.
On May 16, 2019, Gellar appeared in the series finale of "The Big Bang Theory".
On January 10, 2019, it was announced Gellar would appear in the limited series "Sometimes I Lie", based on the best-selling book of the same name. The series is being produced by Gellar, as well as Ellen DeGeneres, in association with Warner Bros. Television. On August 22, 2019, it was reported that Gellar was attached to produce and appear in a pilot for Fox titled "Other People's Houses".
In February 2020, Gellar joined the main voice cast of Netflix and Kevin Smith's "" in the role of Teela.
Gellar has appeared on the covers and photo sessions of numerous magazines during her career. In February 1998, she appeared in "Seventeen", and in subsequent years the list has grown to include "Nylon", "Marie Claire", "Vogue", "Glamour", "Esquire", "Allure", "Cosmopolitan", "FHM", "Rolling Stone" and "Elle" among others. In 1999, Gellar signed on to be the face of Maybelline – becoming the company's first celebrity spokeswoman since Lynda Carter in the late 1970s. She was honored with a Woman of The Year Award by "Glamour" magazine in October 2002, and in the same year, her wax figure by Madame Tussauds, was unveiled as part of the "Trail of Vampires" exhibition.
With her work in "Buffy" and mainstream movies such as "Cruel Intentions", Gellar became a household name and a sex symbol across the globe, status she cemented with being a feature several times in the annual "Maxim" "Hot 100" list between 2002 and 2008. Wearing a black lace bra, she was on the cover of the December 2007 issue of "Maxim" and was named the 2009 Woman of the Year by the magazine. She was voted number 1 in "FHM"'s edition of "100 Sexiest Women" of 1999, and was featured in its 2005 list. She had also been in the magazine's German, Dutch, South African, Danish and Romanian editions of the 100 Sexiest Women list every year from 1998 onwards. "Topsocialite.com" listed her as the 8th Sexiest woman of the 90s along with Alicia Silverstone, Gillian Anderson and Shannen Doherty.
She was featured in Google's Top 10 Women Searches of 2002 and 2003, coming in at No. 8, and was included in UK Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sex Symbols in 2007, ranking at No. 16. Other appearances and listings include: "Entertainment Weekly" ranked her in its Top 100 TV Icons in 2007, and placed her No. 3 in its Top 12 Entertainers of the Year in 1998, and "Glamour" ranked her in its 50 Best Dressed Women in the World 2004 and 2005 at Nos. 17 and 24, respectively. BuddyTV ranked her No. 27 on TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2011 list, as well.
She has appeared in "Got Milk?" ads as well as in the Stone Temple Pilots music video "Sour Girl" and Marcy Playground's "Comin' Up From Behind". Gellar was featured on the cover of "Gotham" and their main story in the March 2008 issue, in which she spoke about how her style has evolved since she passed 30. Gellar said: "It sounds clichéd, but when women turn 30, they find themselves. You become more comfortable in your own skin. Last night on "Letterman", I wore this skintight Herve Leger dress. Two years ago, three years ago? I would never have worn it."
Gellar is an active advocate for various charities, including breast cancer research, Project Angel Food, Habitat for Humanity and CARE. Of her charitable pursuits, she says, "I started because my mother taught me a long time ago that even when you have nothing, there's ways to give back. And what you get in return for that is tenfold. But it was always hard because I couldn't do a lot. I couldn't do much more than just donate money when I was on ["Buffy"] because there wasn't time. And now that I have the time, it's amazing."
In 1999, she went to the Dominican Republic to help Habitat for Humanity's project of building homes for the residents; Gellar recalled in an interview she had worked with the cause a lot, explaining: "You actually get to physically do something, where you get to go and build these houses. I like working with things where you can directly affect someone in particular". With Project Angel Food, she delivered healthy meals to people infected with AIDS, and through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, she granted sick children's wishes of meeting her while working on "Buffy". In 2007, Gellar was featured in Vaseline's "Skin Is Amazing" campaign, with other actors such as Hilary Duff, Amanda Bynes and John Leguizamo. She agreed to auction nude-posed photos of herself on eBay, to raise money for the Coalition of Skin Diseases, an organization which supports clinical research, fosters physician and patient education.
In May 2011, Gellar joined "The Nestlé Share the Joy of Reading Program", which promotes reading to young children to encourage them to read during the summer break. The following year, she was presented with the Tom Mankiewicz Leadership Award during the Beastly Ball at the Los Angeles Zoo. The honor recognizes members of the entertainment community who have excelled in establishing meaningful and lasting programs that contribute to the welfare of the world's natural and civic environment. In 2014 and 2015, Gellar hosted two fundraisers for Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA.
In October 2015, Gellar, along with entrepreneurs Galit Laibow and Greg Fleishman, co-founded Foodstirs, a startup food crafting brand selling via e-commerce and retail easy to make organic baking mixes and kits for families. By the beginning of 2017, the brand's products were available in about 400 stores; by the end of the year a surge of interest from retailers increased its distribution to 8,000 stores. In 2018, Foodstirs entered into a deal with Starbucks to carry its mug cake mixes across 8,000 of its stores.
Gellar released a cook book titled "Stirring up Fun with Food" on April 18, 2017. The book was co-authored by Gia Russo, and features numerous food crafting ideas.
Gellar met her future husband Freddie Prinze Jr., while they were filming the 1997 teen horror film "I Know What You Did Last Summer", but the two did not begin dating until 2000. They were engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico on September 1, 2002, in a ceremony officiated by Adam Shankman, a director and choreographer with whom Gellar had worked on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
Prinze and Gellar have worked together several times; they played each other's respective love interests as Fred and Daphne in the 2002 film "Scooby-Doo" and its sequel, "", and both provided their voices for the animated feature film "Happily N'Ever After" (2007) and the animated science fiction series "Star Wars Rebels". In 2007, in honor of their fifth year of marriage, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze.
Together, Gellar and Prinze have two children, a daughter born in 2009 and a son born in 2012. The family lives in Los Angeles. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27611 |
Sonic screwdriver
The sonic screwdriver is a multifunctional fictional tool in the British science fiction television programme "Doctor Who" and its spin-offs, used by the Doctor. Like the TARDIS, it has become one of the icons of the programme, and spin-off media such as "The Sarah Jane Adventures" and "Torchwood" have replicated its functions in devices such as the sonic lipstick, sonic blaster, sonic probe, and sonic modulator.
The sonic screwdriver was first introduced in 1968 in the story "Fury from the Deep", and used twice more ("The Dominators" and "The War Games") during the Second Doctor's tenure. It became a popular tool for the Third Doctor and Fourth Doctor. It was written out of the series in 1982 due to the limitations it caused when writing for the show. It then featured briefly in the 1996 "Doctor Who" television movie, before making a full return in the 2005 continuation of the series.
Throughout the programme, there have been many different versions of the sonic screwdriver, as with subsequent Doctors the design of it was changed. It has also been destroyed on a number of occasions, thus leading to the introduction of the next model. Not all iterations of the Doctor have used the sonic screwdriver on screen; the Fifth Doctor in fact opted not to replace his after it was destroyed in "The Visitation".
The Twelfth Doctor loses his sonic screwdriver to the creator of the Daleks, Davros, after lending it to him when he was a child. In the last episode of Series 9, the Doctor received a new sonic screwdriver from the TARDIS in place of the temporary sonic glasses.
Despite the Doctor's claim not to give his screwdriver to anyone, he gives one to his own doppelgänger in "The Rebel Flesh", and gives his to Rory Williams in "The Girl Who Waited" after having either given or loaned one to him for use in "A Good Man Goes to War" and loaning him one in "The Big Bang". He also gives one to River Song in "The Husbands of River Song" which is then used by the Tenth Doctor to save her life in "Forest of the Dead".
The functions of a sonic screwdriver are based on its power over sound waves, radiation, wavelengths, frequencies, signals, and electro-magnetism. It is shown to hack, disable, activate, and otherwise control technology from almost everything, allowing it to remotely control almost any machinery, mechanisms and computers it is applied to, allowing it to open locks, detonate explosives, remotely activate electronics, override most systems, activate computers, and cause some energy weapons to burst into flames or sparks. There is technology the sonic is unable to interface with, such as wood, or the isomorphic controls seen in "A Christmas Carol". It also is capable of causing chemical reactions that allowed the Doctor to turn eye glass lenses black like sunglasses and causing cut barbed wire to regenerate (setting 2428B). It is also capable of detecting, amplifying and controlling certain energies, sound, signals, frequencies, and waves, allowing the Doctor to intercept a teleporting individual and send them where he chooses, scan and identify matter, send out communications, enhance sounds, signals and frequencies, and acting as a catalyst or conduit for energies. Sonics are also capable of calculations, such as "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), when the War Doctor used calculations to allow the sonic to work on wood, the calculations of which appeared partly done on the Tenth Doctor's sonic and completed in the Eleventh's. The War Doctor also used his sonic in tandem with the Tenth and Eleventh's to create a force field wave to repel a Dalek.
These are more specific functions of the sonic screwdriver:
Aside from being a tool, the sonic screwdriver can be used and considered as a defensive weapon, which is effective for a few types of assault weapons, but not designed to kill or injure living things as the only way it can really hurt or incapacitate a creature is by emitting painful bursts of sound, or, as of "Day of the Moon" (2011) by blasting a green wave of energy to incapacitate a target, though only the Eleventh and Twelfth's sonic has been shown to do the latter.
The sonic screwdriver made its first appearance in the serial "Fury from the Deep" (1968), written by Victor Pemberton. It was used thereafter by the Second Doctor as a multi-purpose tool, with occasional variations in appearance over the course of the series.
Its abilities and overall appearance varied greatly during the classic series. The name implies that it operates through the use of sound waves to exert physical forces on objects remotely. During the Second Doctor's tenure, it functioned much as its name implied—using sonic waves to dismantle equipment or to bypass locks. In addition, it was used as a welding torch in Episode Five of "The Dominators" (1968). In the audio commentary for "The Sea Devils" (1972), Michael Briant claims to have suggested it as a one-off gadget in 1968.
During the Third Doctor's tenure, producer Barry Letts was adamant that the device should not become a cure-all for the series and limited its use to avoid writers becoming over-reliant on it. During this time, the device underwent significant design changes. In "The Sea Devils", the Doctor used it to detonate landmines; Michael E. Briant explains that this was feasible, stating that the sonic waves shook the mines. In "The Three Doctors" (1972–73), the sonic screwdriver is almost unrecognisable, being a unique, one-use prop with a plastic red spherical head. In the DVD commentary, Letts himself remarks on the thickness of the prop and the fact that it belies the idea that it was the regular one, prompting Katy Manning to question whether it was indeed a sonic screwdriver. This was due to the serial being produced out of transmission order: the original sonic screwdriver prop went missing during the recording of "Carnival of Monsters" (1973), requiring a new prop to be built for the rest of the season; "The Three Doctors" was recorded after "Carnival", but set before it, so the screwdriver could be seen to revert to its previous appearance for one story after "The Three Doctors" before receiving a more permanent redesign thereafter.
During the first three years of the Fourth Doctor's tenure, producer Philip Hinchcliffe further reduced the use of the sonic screwdriver. Exceptions include "Robot" (which was the last story to be produced by Barry Letts), where it was again used to detonate mines, and as a "miniature sonic lance" to cut out a lock. Aside from unlocking doors, the device was greatly downplayed during the Fourth Doctor's second and third seasons. It saw a resurgence once Graham Williams took over as producer in 1977. In the final story of season 15, "The Invasion of Time", the Fourth Doctor conceded, "Not even the sonic screwdriver can get me out of this one."
It featured regularly in season 16 during the Key to Time saga. The Doctor's Time Lady companion Romana constructed a sonic screwdriver of her own similar to the Doctor's. It is depicted as being smaller and sleeker than the Doctor's, and he was sufficiently impressed with her design that he attempted to swap screwdrivers with her in "The Horns of Nimon" (1979–80). By season 18, both script editor Christopher H Bidmead and producer John Nathan-Turner were eager to downplay the device as much as possible.
The sonic screwdriver was written out of the series late in season 19, in the Fifth Doctor serial "The Visitation" (1982). It is destroyed by a Terileptil to prevent the Doctor from escaping a holding cell; in response, the Doctor sorrowfully remarked, "I feel as if you've just killed an old friend." Eric Saward later explained in a 2005 DVD interview that this was done on the instructions of producer John Nathan-Turner. Saward had written out the sonic screwdriver, believing that the Doctor had "a cupboard full of them" in the TARDIS. On the basis that a device that could help in any situation was very limiting for the script, Nathan-Turner decided that it would not return. The Tenth Doctor joked about the Fifth Doctor's lack of sonic screwdriver in the mini-episode "Time Crash" (2007), commenting that he "went hands-free" and could "save the universe using a kettle and some string." The device did not appear again for the remainder of the original series.
In the "Doctor Who" TV Movie (1996) and "The Night of the Doctor" (2013), the Seventh (TVM), Eighth (both), & the War Doctor ("The Night of the Doctor") were seen to have a new sonic screwdriver with a telescopic mechanism: similar to its predecessors but with subtle differences such as a gold/brass band on the handle, a flat base and a red emitter tip.
A redesigned sonic screwdriver appears in the new series, with a blue light in addition to the sound effect. In its first incarnation, the prop used in the new series was fragile and prone to breakage. Over the course of the next two years, the props were continually repaired and modified, with some additions being a new thumb slider design and different colours of wires used in the clear channel when extended.
For series 4 (2008), a new design of Screwdriver was commissioned by the BBC. Nick Robatto was hired to make two new props. These featured the final slider design, and redesigned body ridges, among other smaller changes. This design debuted in 2008's "Partners in Crime" and continued to be used until the Screwdriver's ultimate destruction in 2010's "The Eleventh Hour". This later design has gained the nickname "Series 3–4 Sonic" (relating to the fact that at the start of Series 3, in "Smith and Jones", the first Sonic Screwdriver was supposedly destroyed), even though strictly speaking it first appeared in Series 4.
In contrast with Nathan-Turner's attitude that the sonic screwdriver should not be used as a cure-all, the new production team gave it even more functionality than previous versions which has given the series some criticism as it seems to be a deus ex machina, a literary device that is generally avoided. Some of the uses in the new series include: repairing electronic equipment; re-attaching materials such as barbed wire; detecting, intercepting and sending signals; remotely operating the TARDIS; burning, cutting, or igniting substances; fusing metal; scanning and identifying substances; amplifying or augmenting sound; modifying mobile phones to enable "universal roaming"; disabling alien disguises; resonating concrete; reversing teleportation of another entity. It is sometimes used to disassemble robotic enemies or turn other objects into weapons; healing cuts and wounds. In "The Parting of the Ways" (2005) and "Utopia" (2007), it is used to operate the TARDIS controls remotely; when the Doctor attempts to counteract the Master's theft of the TARDIS, it is used to limit the TARDIS' destination. In "Doomsday" (2006), the Doctor states that the sonic screwdriver does not kill, wound or maim; however, it is sometimes brandished in a threatening manner, such as in "The Christmas Invasion" (2005), "The Impossible Planet" (2006), "The Runaway Bride" (2006), "The Lazarus Experiment" (2007), "The Day of the Doctor" (2013) and "The Infinite Quest" (2007). In "World War Three" (2005), when confronted by a group of Slitheen, the Doctor threatens to "triplicate the flammability" of a bottle of port wine with the sonic screwdriver, though one of the Slitheen realises he is bluffing. In "Closing Time" (2011), ringed energy beams are seen emitted from the device, giving it a more weapon-like appearance, particularly when used to disable a weakened Cyberman at a distance.
In "Smith and Jones", the sonic screwdriver burns out after the Doctor uses it to amplify the radiation output of a hospital X-ray machine. In the "Series Three concept Artwork Gallery", when referring to the burnt out sonic screwdriver, Peter McKinstry says "the green crystal structure visible under the shattered dome refers back to the TARDIS console crystal. It's the same technology – the TARDIS's little brother." Though initially saddened at the loss of the screwdriver, the Doctor obtains a new one at the conclusion of the episode.
The sonic screwdriver is unable to open a "deadlock seal", used as a plot device to prevent an easy solution. Russell T Davies once mentioned that he would never make the sonic screwdriver the solution to an episode. In "Silence in the Library" (2008), while trying to open a wooden door, the Doctor tells Donna that the sonic screwdriver won't work because the door is made of wood, a fact later restated in "The Hungry Earth" (2010); when Rory complains about this, the Doctor counters to not "diss the sonic." The sonic screwdriver's inability to work on wood is clarified in "In the Forest of the Night" (2014), when the Doctor states that the sonic screwdriver works by manipulating the moving parts in various machinery: since plant tissue lacks said moving parts, it is unaffected by the sonic screwdriver (though this claim is slightly inconsistent with its visible ability to repair human tissue). In "The Parting of the Ways" (2005), the Doctor mentions that when Emergency Program One was activated, the sonic screwdriver would receive a signal from the TARDIS. In "Forest of the Dead" (2008), he claims that a few hair-dryers can interfere with the device, though he states that he is "working on that".
In "The Eleventh Hour" (2010), the malfunctioning sonic screwdriver is destroyed when the Doctor tries to signal the Atraxi ships. The Doctor later receives a new one, which emerges from the newly regenerated TARDIS console. The Eleventh Doctor's sonic screwdriver is larger than its predecessor; it has a green light and metal claws that extend with a flick of the wrist. It is shown to have been created by the TARDIS as part of its automatic regeneration.
In "A Christmas Carol" (2010), the Doctor advises a young Kazran Sardick to pursue romance while implying that in a similar situation in his own past he had instead gone to his room to "design a new kind of screwdriver."
Also in that episode, the sonic screwdriver gets split into two pieces, one of which ends up inside a flying shark. The remaining piece is said to be signalling its other half in an effort to repair itself. The Doctor uses this to send a signal through the half inside the sky shark to open up the clouds. Afterwards, the half not in the shark is left with Kazran Sardick. The Doctor tells Kazran that he can call him for help using the Sonic; though Kazran declines to do so. The Doctor had duplicates of this screwdriver, which he continued to use throughout his travels.
In "Let's Kill Hitler" (2011), it is explained that instead of having settings, this version operates through a psychic interface, basically doing whatever the user thinks of while pointing and holding down the button. This version of the screwdriver also appears, although never officially announced, to have a flashlight setting, as the Doctor is seen to have it emitting a continuous glow while not uttering the classic sonic noise. Also in the episode, the Doctor uses another modified version of his sonic, which he calls a "Sonic Cane". It is similar to a Tuxedo cane, except the top replaced with the upper portion of his screwdriver, with a metal ball cut in fourths attached to the claws.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary special, a mini-episode entitled "The Night of the Doctor" (2013) was produced in which the Eighth Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver twice. The Doctor uses his telescopic screwdriver previously seen in the TV Movie, rather than his updated steampunk version which had been used in numerous Big Finish audio dramas.
For the 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), another version was seen in the hands of John Hurt's War Doctor. The design was similar to the one used by Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. This time the halo and bullet tip had been removed, replaced by a red light as well as a large red dial added to the base. Character Options released a version of this sonic screwdriver on 23 November 2013 at London's ExCel labelling it "The Other Doctor's Sonic". It was established as a plot point in that episode that the sonic screwdrivers employed by various Doctor incarnations all use the same software, something the War Doctor exploited by running a calculation over a course of several centuries with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors seeing the calculation completed through their models. It is also directly implied after the fact that the sonic screwdriver has actually been a part of every doctor's retinue, despite its disappearance for doctors six & seven; the Tenth Doctor says to the Gallifreyan high command, as all thirteen doctors are about to change history by saving the planet, that the calculations for doing what's about to be done have been "running all my lives." In addition, when combined, the screwdrivers of the War, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctor could create a sonic force field blast to repel and destroy a Dalek.
"The Magician's Apprentice" (2015) shows that the sonic screwdriver can create "an acoustic corridor" so that the Twelfth Doctor can communicate with a boy trapped in an extraterrestrial mine field. However, when the Doctor discovers that the boy is actually a young Davros, he abandons the boy, leaving the screwdriver behind, though it is revealed that he did save young Davros after all. Davros is shown to have kept the screwdriver in his possession ever since, and the Doctor tells Clara that he no longer has a screwdriver. By that time, the screwdriver had been withered and damaged by time and was seemingly useless.
In his first appearance at the beginning of series nine of "Doctor Who", the Doctor is seen wearing black Ray-Ban sunglasses ("The Magician's Apprentice"), and he says that he no longer has his sonic screwdriver. Later, in "The Witch's Familiar", he unveils that the sunglasses are actually a wearable version of the screwdriver, claiming that he is "over" screwdrivers: "They spoil the line of your jacket." The glasses are used by the Doctor, and Clara on occasion, throughout the ninth series.
The sonic sunglasses appears to have the same basic functions as the traditional sonic screwdriver, such as scanning objects, while having features not seen before:
The glasses appear to be more susceptible to damage than the screwdriver; in "The Girl Who Died", a Viking warrior takes the glasses off the Doctor's face and easily breaks them in half. Nevertheless, the glasses continue to appear via replacement or repair until the end of the season. They return the following season during the Doctor's temporary period of blindness, showing the ability to scan his surroundings and transmit the information to his brain, as well as transmit any data recorded to them. However, while he is able to tell things about a person such as height, weight, gender, age, and even heart rate, he doesn't get enough detail to know faces, clothing, etc. ("Extremis") He was once able to tell that a person was holding a computer tablet, but not what was written on it, as well as 'see' a combination lock but not the numbers. ("The Pyramid at the End of the World")
In "Hell Bent", the TARDIS gives the Doctor a brand new sonic screwdriver. The new screwdriver has a TARDIS-blue shaft with gold and silver highlights. The upper half is a rectangular light grid that, when switched on, has four different functions: green light with low-pitched sound, blue light with high-pitched sound, green lights that pulse with a pulsing sound, and a blue light chasing pattern with a pulsing sound. The new sonic screwdriver is meant to represent the TARDIS. The Doctor first uses it in "The Husbands of River Song" (although he also employs the sonic sunglasses earlier in the episode). The new screwdriver has seen use in the spin-off show "Class", where the Doctor increases the voltage of flood lights to expel the Shadow Kin and partially close a rift in space-time. He is shown to have working copies of every version of the Sonic Screwdriver ever seen before in a cup on his desk in "The Pilot." Nardole uses the Fifth Doctor's version when sealing bulkhead doors to keep out Daleks later in the episode.
In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", the Thirteenth Doctor is depicted constructing a new sonic screwdriver out of scrap metal and an orange glowing device from an alien travel capsule. She proudly proclaims that the new screwdriver is forged out of "Sheffield steel".
In the "Doctor Who" spin-off series, "The Sarah Jane Adventures", Sarah Jane Smith uses a "sonic lipstick", which is a gift the Tenth Doctor gave her alongside a new model of K9 and her scanner watch. It functions much like the sonic screwdriver, used primarily for opening and closing locked doors, and for disabling and re-enabling machines; like the sonic screwdriver, it remains ineffective against deadlock seals and wooden objects. A toy version is available.
Ownership of the sonic screwdriver was retained by the BBC. Victor Pemberton told an interviewer for "Doctor Who Magazine", "I'm very cross that the sonic screwdriver—which I invented—has been marketed with no credit to myself. … It's one thing not to receive any payment, but another not to receive any credit."
The toy version of the new series design (made by Character Options Ltd.) was slightly larger than the on screen version to accommodate a working sound chip. It also includes an ultraviolet light and changeable invisible ink nib for viewing messages written in the ultraviolet ink.
A metal version of the sonic screwdriver produced by Wow Stuff mounts a functional set of changeable flat and Phillips heads under a removable cover as well as providing light and sound effects.
QMx were given the licence to produce accurate replicas of this prop. In 2012, QMx released an "Artisan Master Series" replica of this sonic screwdriver, in a strictly limited run of 25, priced at nearly $5,000. These replicas were handmade by original prop-maker Nick Robatto, and have now sold out permanently. QMx later released an Artisan Master Series replica of River Song's sonic screwdriver, limited to a run of 15, also made by original prop maker Nick Robatto, which has also sold out.
The Wand Company released a universal remote control styled on the Eleventh Doctor's sonic screwdriver on 3 August 2012. Due to consumer demand, a Tenth Doctor version was released on 31 October 2013. An updated, extending version of the Eleventh Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver, named the Twelfth Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote Control, was released on 8 July 2015, to replace the older version, which is no longer produced.
Underground Toys have released the War Doctor's sonic screwdriver; titled "The Other Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver", it was released in the UK in November/December 2013 and in the US January 2014.
Character Options have also released toy versions of the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Doctors' Sonic Screwdrivers.
Various Hasbro replica sonics have been released like, the sonic stool, sonic sink, sonic T-shirt, sonic turntable, sonic flashlight, sonic hand towel and sonic deodorant. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27612 |
Pasta
Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils, are sometimes used in place of wheat flour to yield a different taste and texture, or as a gluten-free alternative. Pasta is a staple food of Italian cuisine.
Pastas are divided into two broad categories: dried ("pasta secca") and fresh ("pasta fresca"). Most dried pasta is produced commercially via an extrusion process, although it can be produced at home. Fresh pasta is traditionally produced by hand, sometimes with the aid of simple machines. Fresh pastas available in grocery stores are produced commercially by large-scale machines.
Both dried and fresh pastas come in a number of shapes and varieties, with 310 specific forms known by over 1300 documented names. In Italy, the names of specific pasta shapes or types often vary by locale. For example, the pasta form "cavatelli" is known by 28 different names depending upon the town and region. Common forms of pasta include long and short shapes, tubes, flat shapes or sheets, miniature shapes for soup, those meant to be filled or stuffed, and specialty or decorative shapes.
As a category in Italian cuisine, both fresh and dried pastas are classically used in one of three kinds of prepared dishes: as "pasta asciutta" (or "pastasciutta"), cooked pasta is plated and served with a complementary side sauce or condiment; a second classification of pasta dishes is "pasta in brodo", in which the pasta is part of a soup-type dish. A third category is "pasta al forno", in which the pasta is incorporated into a dish that is subsequently baked in the oven. Pasta dishes are generally simple, but individual dishes vary in preparation. Some pasta dishes are served as a small first course or for light lunches, such as pasta salads. Other dishes may be portioned larger and used for dinner. Pasta sauces similarly may vary in taste, color and texture.
In terms of nutrition, cooked plain pasta is 31% carbohydrates (mostly starch), 6% protein, and low in fat, with moderate amounts of manganese, but pasta generally has low micronutrient content. Pasta may be enriched or fortified, or made from whole grains.
First attested in English in 1874, the word "pasta" comes from Italian "pasta", in turn from Latin "pasta", latinisation of the Greek παστά ("pasta") "barley porridge".
In the 1st century AD writings of Horace, "lagana" (singular: "laganum") were fine sheets of fried dough and were an everyday foodstuff. Writing in the 2nd century Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a recipe for "lagana" which he attributes to the 1st century Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of dough made of wheat flour and the juice of crushed lettuce, then flavoured with spices and deep-fried in oil. An early 5th century cookbook describes a dish called "lagana" that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, an ancestor of modern-day "lasagna". However, the method of cooking these sheets of dough does not correspond to our modern definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product, which only had similar basic ingredients and perhaps the shape. The first concrete information concerning pasta products in Italy dates from the 13th or 14th century.
Historians have noted several lexical milestones relevant to pasta, none of which changes these basic characteristics. For example, the works of the 2nd century AD Greek physician Galen mention "itrion", homogeneous compounds made of flour and water. The Jerusalem Talmud records that "itrium", a kind of boiled dough, was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries AD. A dictionary compiled by the 9th century Arab physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali defines "itriyya", the Arabic cognate, as string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking. The geographical text of Muhammad al-Idrisi, compiled for the Norman King of Sicily Roger II in 1154 mentions "itriyya" manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily:
One form of "itriyya" with a long history is "laganum" (plural "lagana"), which in Latin refers to a thin sheet of dough, and gives rise to Italian "lasagna".
In North Africa, a food similar to pasta, known as couscous, has been eaten for centuries. However, it lacks the distinguishing malleable nature of pasta, couscous being more akin to droplets of dough. At first, dry pasta was a luxury item in Italy because of high labor costs; durum wheat semolina had to be kneaded for a long time.
There is a legend of Marco Polo importing pasta from China which originated with the "Macaroni Journal", published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting pasta in the United States. Rustichello da Pisa writes in his "Travels" that Marco Polo described a food similar to "lagana". Jeffrey Steingarten asserts that Arabs introduced pasta in the Emirate of Sicily in the ninth century, mentioning also that traces of pasta have been found in ancient Greece and that Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to have originated in the 1920s or 30s in an advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company.
Food historians estimate that the dish probably took hold in Italy as a result of extensive Mediterranean trading in the Middle Ages. From the 13th century, references to pasta dishes—macaroni, ravioli, gnocchi, vermicelli—crop up with increasing frequency across the Italian peninsula. In the 14th-century writer Boccaccio’s collection of earthy tales, The Decameron, he recounts a mouthwatering fantasy concerning a mountain of Parmesan cheese down which pasta chefs roll macaroni and ravioli to gluttons waiting below.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, dried pasta became popular for its easy storage. This allowed people to store pasta on ships when exploring the New World. A century later, pasta was present around the globe during the voyages of discovery.
Although tomatoes were introduced to Italy in the 16th century and incorporated in Italian cuisine in the 17th century, description of the first Italian tomato sauces dates from the late 18th century: the first written record of pasta with tomato sauce can be found in the 1790 cookbook "L'Apicio Moderno" by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi. Before tomato sauce was introduced, pasta was eaten dry with the fingers; the liquid sauce demanded the use of a fork.
At the beginning of the 17th century, Naples had rudimentary machines for producing pasta, later establishing the kneading machine and press, making pasta manufacturing cost-effective. In 1740, a license for the first pasta factory was issued in Venice. During the 1800s, water mills and stone grinders were used to separate semolina from the bran, initiating expansion of the pasta market. In 1859, Joseph Topits (1824−1876) founded the first pasta factory of Hungary in the city of Pest, which worked with steam machines; it was one of the first pasta factories of Central Europe. By 1867, Buitoni Company in Sansepolcro, Tuscany became an established pasta manufacturer. During the early 1900s, artificial drying and extrusion processes enabled greater variety of pasta preparation and larger volumes for export, beginning a period called "The Industry of Pasta". In 1884, the Zátka Brothers's plant in Boršov nad Vltavou was founded and this was the first pasta factory in Bohemia.
Using tomato sauce to give pasta its flavour was revolutionary, since it was originally eaten plain. The consumption of pasta has changed over time; while once a small, simple item, it is now often eaten in much larger portions and as part of complex, sophisticated dishes. Factors such as low prices and ease of cooking contribute to the growing popularity of this staple item.
The art of pasta making and the devotion to the food as a whole has evolved since pasta was first conceptualized. It is estimated that Italians eat over of pasta per person, per year, easily beating Americans, who eat about per person. Pasta is so beloved in Italy that individual consumption exceeds the average production of wheat of the country; thus Italy frequently imports wheat for pasta making. In contemporary society pasta is ubiquitous and individuals can find a variety of types in local supermarkets. With the worldwide demand for this staple food, pasta is now largely mass-produced in factories and only a tiny proportion is crafted by hand.
Pasta was originally solely a part of Italian and European cuisine. With an increase in popularity on a worldwide scale, pasta has crossed international borders and is now a popular form of fast food and a staple in North America and elsewhere. This is due to the great amount of Italian immigration into Canada and the United States around the beginning of the 20th century. Similarly, an immense immigration of Italians into South Africa ensured that spaghetti with meatballs became an essential part of South African cuisine.
Since at least the time of Cato's "De Agri Cultura", basic pasta dough has been made mostly of wheat flour or semolina, with durum wheat used predominantly in the South of Italy and soft wheat in the North. Regionally other grains have been used, including those from barley, buckwheat, rye, rice, and maize, as well as chestnut and chickpea flours.
To address needs of people affected by gluten-related disorders (such as coeliac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy sufferers), some recipes use rice or maize for making pasta. Grain flours may also be supplemented with cooked potatoes.
Other additions to the basic flour-liquid mixture may include vegetable purees such as spinach or tomato, mushrooms, cheeses, herbs, spices and other seasonings. While pastas are, most typically, made from unleavened doughs, the use of yeast-raised doughs are also known for at least nine different pasta forms.
Additives in dried, commercially sold pasta include vitamins and minerals that are lost from the durum wheat endosperm during milling. They are added back to the semolina flour once it is ground. Micronutrients added may include niacin (vitamin B3), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folate, thiamine (vitamin B1), and ferrous iron.
Fresh pasta is usually locally made with fresh ingredients unless it is destined to be shipped, in which case consideration is given to the spoilage rates of the desired ingredients such as eggs or herbs. Furthermore, fresh pasta is usually made with a mixture of eggs and all-purpose flour or “00” low-gluten flour. Since it contains eggs, it is more tender compared to dried pasta and only takes about half the time to cook. Delicate sauces are preferred for fresh pasta in order to let the pasta take front stage.
Fresh pastas do not expand in size after cooking; therefore, of pasta are needed to serve four people generously. Fresh egg pasta is generally cut into strands of various widths and thicknesses depending on which pasta is to be made (e.g. fettuccine, pappardelle, and lasagne). It is best served with meat, cheese, or vegetables to create ravioli, tortellini, and cannelloni. Fresh egg pasta is well known in the Piedmont region and Emilia Romagna region in North Italy. In this area, dough is only made out of egg yolk and flour resulting in a very refined flavour and texture. This pasta is often served simply with butter sauce and thinly sliced truffles that are native to this region. In other areas, such as Apulia, fresh pasta can be made without eggs. The only ingredients needed to make the pasta dough are semolina flour and water, which is often shaped into orecchiette or cavatelli. Fresh pasta for cavatelli is also popular in other places including Sicily. However, the dough is prepared differently: it is made of flour and ricotta cheese instead.
Dried pasta can also be defined as factory-made pasta because it is usually produced in large amounts that require large machines with superior processing capabilities to manufacture. Dried pasta is mainly shipped over to farther locations and has a longer shelf life. The ingredients required to make dried pasta include semolina flour and water. Eggs can be added for flavour and richness, but are not needed to make dried pasta. In contrast to fresh pasta, dried pasta needs to be dried at a low temperature for several days to evaporate all the moisture allowing it to be stored for a longer period. Dried pastas are best served in hearty dishes like ragu sauces, soups, and casseroles. Once it is cooked, the dried pasta will usually grow to twice its original size. Therefore, approximately of dried pasta serves up to four people.
Pasta is generally served with some type of sauce; the sauce and the type of pasta are usually matched based on consistency and ease of eating. Northern Italian cooking uses less tomato sauce, garlic and herbs, and "white sauce" is more common. However Italian cuisine is best identified by individual regions. Pasta dishes with lighter use of tomato are found in Trentino-Alto Adige and Emilia Romagna. In Bologna, the meat-based "Bolognese sauce" incorporates a small amount of tomato concentrate and a green sauce called "pesto" originates from Genoa. In Central Italy, there are sauces such as "tomato sauce", "amatriciana", "arrabbiata" and the egg-based "carbonara".
Tomato sauces are also present in Southern Italian cuisine, where they originated. In Southern Italy more complex variations include pasta paired with fresh vegetables, olives, capers or seafood. Varieties include "puttanesca", "pasta alla norma" (tomatoes, eggplant and fresh or baked cheese), "pasta con le sarde" (fresh sardines, pine nuts, fennel and olive oil), "spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino" (literally with garlic, [olive] oil and hot chili peppers).
Ingredients to make pasta dough include semolina flour, egg, salt and water. Flour is first mounded on a flat surface and then a well in the pile of flour is created. Egg is then poured into the well and a fork is used to mix the egg and flour. There are a variety of ways to shape the sheets of pasta depending on the type required. The most popular types include penne, spaghetti, and macaroni.
Kitchen pasta machines, also called pasta makers, are popular with cooks who make large amounts of fresh pasta. The cook feeds sheets of pasta dough into the machine by hand, and by turning a hand crank, rolls the pasta to thin it incrementally. On the final pass through the pasta machine, the pasta may be directed through a machine 'comb' to shape of the pasta as it emerges.
Semolina flour consists of a protein matrix with entrapped starch granules. Upon the addition of water, during mixing, intermolecular forces allow the protein to form a more ordered structure in preparation for cooking.
Durum wheat is ground into semolina flour which is sorted by optical scanners and cleaned. Pipes allow the flour to move to a mixing machine where it is mixed with warm water by rotating blades. When the mixture is of a lumpy consistency, the mixture is pressed into sheets or extruded. Varieties of pasta such as spaghetti and linguine are cut by rotating blades while pasta such as penne and rotini are extruded. The size and shape of the dies in the extruder through which the pasta is pushed determine the shape that results. The pasta is then dried at a high temperature.
The ingredients to make dried pasta usually include water and semolina flour; egg for colour and richness (in some types of pasta), and possibly vegetable juice (such as spinach, beet, tomato, carrot), herbs or spices for colour and flavour. After mixing semolina flour with warm water the dough is kneaded mechanically until it becomes firm and dry. If pasta is to be flavoured, eggs, vegetable juices, and herbs are added at this stage. The dough is then passed into the laminator to be flattened into sheets, then compressed by a vacuum mixer-machine to clear out air bubbles and excess water from the dough until the moisture content is reduced to 12%. Next, the dough is processed in a steamer to kill any bacteria it may contain.
The dough is then ready to be shaped into different types of pasta. Depending on the type of pasta to be made, the dough can either be cut or extruded through dies. The pasta is set in a drying tank under specific conditions of heat, moisture, and time depending on the type of pasta. The dried pasta is then packaged: Fresh pasta is sealed in a clear, airtight plastic container with a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen that inhibits microbial growth and prolongs the product's shelf life; dried pastas are sealed in clear plastic or cardboard packages.
Gluten, the protein found in grains such as wheat, rye, spelt, and barley, contributes to protein aggregation and firm texture of a normally cooked pasta. Gluten-free pasta is produced with wheat flour substitutes, such as vegetable powders, rice, corn, quinoa, amaranth, oats and buckwheat flours. Other possible gluten-free pasta ingredients may include hydrocolloids to improve cooking pasta with high heat resistance, xanthan gum to retain moisture during storage, or hydrothermally-treated polysaccharide mixtures to produce textures similar to those of wheat pasta.
The storage of pasta depends its processing and extent of drying. Uncooked pasta is kept dry and can sit in the cupboard for a year if airtight and stored in a cool, dry area. Cooked pasta is stored in the refrigerator for a maximum of five days in an airtight container. Adding a couple teaspoons of oil helps keep the food from sticking to itself and the container. Cooked pasta may be frozen for up to two or three months. Should the pasta be dried completely, it can be placed back in the cupboard.
Pasta exhibits a random molecular order rather than a crystalline structure. The moisture content of dried pasta is typically around 12%, indicating that dried pasta will remain a brittle solid until it is cooked and becomes malleable. The cooked product is, as a result, softer, more flexible, and chewy.
Semolina flour is the ground endosperm of durum wheat, producing granules that absorb water during heating and an increase in viscosity due to semi-reordering of starch molecules.
Another major component of durum wheat is protein which plays a large role in pasta dough rheology. Gluten proteins, which include monomeric gliadins and polymeric glutenin, make up the major protein component of durum wheat (about 75–80%). As more water is added and shear stress is applied, gluten proteins take on an elastic characteristic and begin to form strands and sheets. The gluten matrix that results during forming of the dough becomes irreversibly associated during drying as the moisture content is lowered to form the dried pasta product.
Before the mixing process takes place, semolina particles are irregularly shaped and present in different sizes. Semolina particles become hydrated during mixing. The amount of water added to the semolina is determined based on the initial moisture content of the flour and the desired shape of the pasta. The desired moisture content of the dough is around 32% wet basis and will vary depending on the shape of pasta being produced.
The forming process involves the dough entering an extruder in which the rotation of a single or double screw system pushes the dough toward a die set to a specific shape. As the starch granules swell slightly in the presence of water and a low amount of thermal energy, they become embedded within the protein matrix and align along the direction of the shear caused by the extrusion process.
Starch gelatinization and protein coagulation are the major changes that take place when pasta is cooked in boiling water. Protein and starch competing for water within the pasta cause a constant change in structure as the pasta cooks.
In 2015-16, the largest producers of dried pasta were Italy (3.2 million tonnes), the United States (2 million tonnes), Turkey (1.3 million tons), Brazil (1.2 million tonnes), and Russia (1 million tons). In 2018, Italy was the world's largest exporter of pasta, with $2.9 billion sold, followed by China with $0.9 billion.
The largest per capita consumers of pasta in 2015 were Italy (23.5 kg/person), Tunisia (16.0 kg/person), Venezuela (12.0 kg/person) and Greece (11.2 kg/person). In 2017, the United States was the largest consumer of pasta with 2.7 million tons.
When cooked, plain pasta is composed of 62% water, 31% carbohydrates (26% starch), 6% protein, and 1% fat. A 100 gram portion of unenriched cooked pasta provides 160 Calories and a moderate level of manganese (15% of the Daily Value), but few other micronutrients.
Pasta has a lower glycemic index than many other staple foods in Western culture, like bread, potatoes, and rice.
As pasta was introduced elsewhere in the world, it became incorporated into a number of local cuisines, which often have significantly different ways of preparation from those of Italy. In Hong Kong, the local Chinese have adopted pasta, primarily spaghetti and macaroni, as an ingredient in the Hong Kong-style Western cuisine.
When pasta was introduced to several nations, every culture adopted different style of preparing it. In the past, ancient Romans cooked pastas by frying or boiling it. It was also sweetened with honey or tossed with garum. Ancient Romans also enjoyed baking it in rich pies, called timballi.
In cha chaan teng, macaroni is cooked in water and served in broth with ham or frankfurter sausages, peas, black mushrooms, and optionally eggs, reminiscent of noodle soup dishes. This is often a course for breakfast or light lunch fare. These affordable dining shops evolved from American food rations after World War II due to lack of supplies, and they continue to be popular for people with modest means.
Two common spaghetti dishes served in Japan are the Bolognese and the Napolitan. In Nepal, macaroni has been adopted and cooked in a Nepalese way. Boiled macaroni is sautéed along with cumin, turmeric, finely chopped green chillies, onions and cabbage. In Greece hilopittes is considered one of the finest types of dried egg pasta. It is cooked either in tomato sauce or with various kinds of casserole meat. It is usually served with Greek cheese of any type.
Pasta is also widespread in the Southern Cone, as well most of the rest of Brazil, mostly pervasive in the areas with mild to strong Italian roots, such as Central Argentina, and the eight southernmost Brazilian states (where macaroni are called "macarrão", and more general pasta is under the umbrella term "massa", literally "dough", together with some Japanese noodles, such as "bifum" rice vermicelli and yakisoba, which also entered general taste). The local names for the pasta are many times varieties of the Italian names, such as ñoquis/nhoque for gnocchi, ravioles/ravióli for ravioli, or tallarines/talharim for tagliatelle, although some of the most popular pasta in Brazil, such as the "parafuso" ("screw", "bolt"), a specialty of the country's pasta salads, are also way different both in name and format from its closest Italian relatives, in this case the fusilli.
In Sweden, spaghetti is traditionally served with "köttfärssås" (Bolognese sauce), which is minced meat in a thick tomato soup.
In the Philippines, spaghetti is often served with a distinct, slightly sweet yet flavourful meat sauce (the base of which would be tomato sauce or paste and ketchup), frequently containing ground beef or pork and diced hot dogs and ham. It is spiced with some soy sauce, heavy quantities of garlic, dried oregano sprigs and sometimes with dried bay leaf, and afterwards topped with grated cheese. Other pasta dishes are also cooked nowadays in the Filipino kitchen, like carbonara, pasta with alfredo sauce, and baked macaroni. These dishes are usually cooked for gatherings and special occasions, like family reunions or Christmas. Macaroni or other tube pasta is also used in "sopas", a local chicken broth soup.
"Fettuccine alfredo" with cream, cheese and butter, and spaghetti with tomato sauce (with or without meat) are popular Italian-style dishes in the United States.
In Australia, boscaiola sauce, based on bacon and mushrooms, is popular.
Although numerous variations of ingredients for different pasta products are known, in Italy the commercial manufacturing and labeling of pasta for sale as a food product within the country is highly regulated. Italian regulations recognise three categories of commercially manufactured dried pasta as well as manufactured fresh and stabilized pasta:
Pasta, or dried pasta with three subcategories – (i.) Durum wheat semolina pasta ("pasta di semola di grano duro"), (ii.) Low grade durum wheat semolina pasta ("pasta di semolato di grano duro") and (iii.) Durum wheat whole meal pasta ("pasta di semola integrale di grano duro"). Pastas made under this category must be made only with durum wheat semolina or durum wheat whole-meal semolina and water, with an allowance for up to 3% of soft-wheat flour as part of the durum flour. Dried pastas made under this category must be labeled according to the subcategory.
Special pastas ("paste speciali") – As Pasta above, with additional ingredients other than flour and water or eggs. Special pastas must be labeled as durum wheat semolina pasta on the packaging completed by mentioning the added ingredients used (e.g., spinach). The 3% soft flour limitation still applies.
Egg pasta ("pasta all'uovo") – May only be manufactured using durum wheat semolina with at least 4 hens’ eggs (chicken) weighing at least 200 grams (without the shells) per kilogram of semolina, or a liquid egg product produced only with hen's eggs. Pasta made and sold in Italy under this category must be labeled egg pasta.
Fresh and stabilized pastas ("paste alimentari fresche e stabilizzate") – Includes fresh and stabilized pastas, which may be made with soft-wheat flour without restriction on the amount. Prepackaged fresh pasta must have a water content not less than 24%, must be stored refrigerated at a temperature of not more than 4 °C (with a 2 °C tolerance), must have undergone a heat treatment at least equivalent to pasteurisation, and must be sold within 5 days of the date of manufacture. Stabilized pasta has a lower allowed water content of 20%, and is manufactured using a process and heat treatment that allows it to be transported and stored at ambient temperatures.
The Italian regulations under Presidential Decree N° 187 apply only to the commercial manufacturing of pastas both made and sold within Italy. They are not applicable either to pasta made for export from Italy or to pastas imported into Italy from other countries. They also do not apply to pastas made in restaurants.
In the US, regulations for commercial pasta products occur both at the federal and state levels. At the Federal level, consistent with Section 341 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has defined standards of identity for what are broadly termed "macaroni products". These standards appear in 21 CFR Part 139. Those regulations state the requirements for standardized "macaroni products" of 15 specific types of dried pastas, including the ingredients and product-specific labeling for conforming products sold in the US, including imports:
Macaroni products – defined as the class of food prepared by drying formed units of dough made from semolina, durum flour, farina, flour, or any combination of those ingredients with water. Within this category various optional ingredients may also be used within specified ranges, including egg white, frozen egg white or dried egg white alone or in any combination; disodium phosphate; onions, celery, garlic or bay leaf, alone or in any combination; salt; gum gluten; and concentrated glyceryl monostearate. Specific dimensions are given for the shapes named macaroni, spaghetti and vermicelli.
Noodle products – the class of food that is prepared by drying units of dough made from semolina, durum flour, farina, flour, alone or in any combination with liquid eggs, frozen eggs, dried eggs, egg yolks, frozen yolks, dried yolks, alone or in any combination, with or without water. Optional ingredients that may be added in allowed amounts are onions, celery, garlic, and bay leaf; salt; gum gluten; and concentrated glyceryl monostearate.
The federal regulations under 21 CFR Part 139 are standards for the products noted, not mandates. Following the FDA's standards, a number of states have, at various times, enacted their own statutes that serve as mandates for various forms of macaroni and noodle products that may be produced or sold within their borders. Many of these specifically require that the products sold within those states be of the enriched form. According to a report released by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research, when Connecticut's law was adopted in 1972 that mandated certain grain products, including macaroni products, sold within the state to be enriched it joined 38 to 40 other states in adopting the federal standards as mandates.
Beyond the FDA's standards and state statutes, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which regulates federal school nutrition programs, broadly requires grain and bread products served under these programs either be enriched or whole grain (see 7 CFR 210.10 (k) (5)). This includes macaroni and noodle products that are served as part the category grains/breads requirements within those programs. The USDA also allows that enriched macaroni products fortified with protein may be used and counted to meet either a grains/breads or meat/alternative meat requirement, but not as both components within the same meal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23871 |
Polymerization
In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English, or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many forms of polymerization and different systems exist to categorize them.
In chemical compounds, polymerization can occur via a variety of reaction mechanisms that vary in complexity due to the functional groups present in the reactants and their inherent steric effects. In more straightforward polymerizations, alkenes form polymers through relatively simple radical reactions; in contrast, reactions involving substitution at a carbonyl group require more complex synthesis due to the way in which reactants polymerize. Alkanes can also be polymerized, but only with the help of strong acids.
As alkenes can polymerize in somewhat straightforward radical reactions, they form useful compounds such as polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which are produced in high tonnages each year due to their usefulness in manufacturing processes of commercial products, such as piping, insulation and packaging. In general, polymers such as PVC are referred to as "homopolymers," as they consist of repeated long chains or structures of the same monomer unit, whereas polymers that consist of more than one monomer unit are referred to as copolymers (or co-polymers).
Other monomer units, such as formaldehyde hydrates or simple aldehydes, are able to polymerize themselves at quite low temperatures (ca. −80 °C) to form trimers; molecules consisting of 3 monomer units, which can cyclize to form ring cyclic structures, or undergo further reactions to form tetramers, or 4 monomer-unit compounds. Such small polymers are referred to as oligomers. Generally, because formaldehyde is an exceptionally reactive electrophile it allows nucleophilic addition of hemiacetal intermediates, which are in general short-lived and relatively unstable "mid-stage" compounds that react with other molecules present to form more stable polymeric compounds.
Polymerization that is not sufficiently moderated and proceeds at a fast rate can be very hazardous. This phenomenon is known as hazardous polymerization and can cause fires and explosions.
There are two main classes of polymerization reaction mechanisms: step-growth and chain-growth. In step-growth (or step) polymerization, each step may involve the combination of two polymer molecules of any lengths to form a longer polymer molecule. The average molar mass increases slowly and long chains are formed only late in the reaction.
Step-growth polymers are formed by independent reaction steps between functional groups of monomer units, usually containing heteroatoms such as nitrogen or oxygen. Most step-growth polymers are also classified as condensation polymers, since a small molecule such as water is lost when the polymer chain is lengthened. For example, polyester chains grow by reaction of alcohol and carboxylic acid groups to form ester links with loss of water. However, there are exceptions; for example polyurethanes are step-growth polymers formed from isocyanate and alcohol bifunctional monomers) without loss of water or other small molecule, and are classified as addition polymers rather than condensation polymers.
Step-growth polymers increase in molecular weight at a very slow rate at lower conversions and reach moderately high molecular weights only at very high conversion (i.e., >95%).
In chain-growth (or chain) polymerization, the only chain-extension reaction step is the addition of a monomer to a growing chain with an active center such as a free radical or ion. Once the growth of a chain is initiated by formation of an active center, chain propagation is usually rapid by addition of a sequence of monomers. Long chains are formed from the beginning of the reaction.
Chain-growth polymerization (or addition polymerization) involves the linking together of molecules incorporating double or triple carbon-carbon bonds. These unsaturated "monomers" (the identical molecules that make up the polymers) have extra internal bonds that are able to break and link up with other monomers to form a repeating chain, whose backbone typically contains only carbon atoms. Chain-growth polymerization is involved in the manufacture of polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). A special case of chain-growth polymerization leads to living polymerization.
In the radical polymerization of ethylene, its π bond is broken, and the two electrons rearrange to create a new propagating center like the one that attacked it. The form this propagating center takes depends on the specific type of addition mechanism. There are several mechanisms through which this can be initiated. The free radical mechanism is one of the first methods to be used. Free radicals are very reactive atoms or molecules that have unpaired electrons. Taking the polymerization of ethylene as an example, the free radical mechanism can be divided into three stages: chain initiation, chain propagation, and chain termination.
Free radical addition polymerization of ethylene must take place at high temperatures and pressures, approximately 300 °C and 2000 atm. While most other free radical polymerizations do not require such extreme temperatures and pressures, they do tend to lack control. One effect of this lack of control is a high degree of branching. Also, as termination occurs randomly, when two chains collide, it is impossible to control the length of individual chains.
A newer method of polymerization similar to free radical, but allowing more control involves the Ziegler–Natta catalyst, especially with respect to polymer branching.
Other forms of chain growth polymerization include cationic addition polymerization and anionic addition polymerization. While not used to a large extent in industry yet due to stringent reaction conditions such as lack of water and oxygen, these methods provide ways to polymerize some monomers that cannot be polymerized by free radical methods such as polypropylene. Cationic and anionic mechanisms are also more ideally suited for living polymerizations, although free radical living polymerizations have also been developed.
Esters of acrylic acid contain a carbon-carbon double bond which is conjugated to an ester group. This allows the possibility of both types of polymerization mechanism. An acrylic ester by itself can undergo chain-growth polymerization to form a homopolymer with a carbon-carbon backbone, such as poly(methyl methacrylate). Also, however, certain acrylic esters can react with diamine monomers by nucleophilic conjugate addition of amine groups to acrylic C=C bonds. In this case the polymerization proceeds by step-growth and the products are poly(beta-amino ester) copolymers, with backbones containing nitrogen (as amine) and oxygen (as ester) as well as carbon.
To produce a high-molecular-weight, uniform product, various methods are employed to better control the initiation, propagation, and termination rates during chain polymerization and also to remove excess concentrated heat during these exothermic reactions compared to polymerization of the pure monomer (also referred to as bulk polymerization). These include emulsion polymerization, solution polymerization, suspension polymerization, and precipitation polymerization. Although the polymer dispersity and molecular weight may be improved, these methods may introduce additional processing requirements to isolate the product from a solvent.
Most photopolymerization reactions are chain-growth polymerizations which are initiated by the absorption of visible or ultraviolet light. The light may be absorbed either directly by the reactant monomer ("direct" photopolymerization), or else by a "photosensitizer" which absorbs the light and then transfers energy to the monomer. In general only the initiation step differs from that of the ordinary thermal polymerization of the same monomer; subsequent propagation, termination and chain transfer steps are unchanged.
In step-growth photopolymerization, absorption of light triggers an addition (or condensation) reaction between two comonomers that do not react without light. A propagation cycle is not initiated because each growth step requires the assistance of light.
Photopolymerization can be used as a photographic or printing process, because polymerization only occurs in regions which have been exposed to light. Unreacted monomer can be removed from unexposed regions, leaving a relief polymeric image. Several forms of 3D printing—including layer-by-layer stereolithography and
two-photon absorption 3D photopolymerization—use photopolymerization.
Multiphoton polymerization using single pulses have also been demonstrated for fabrication of complex structures using a digital micromirror device. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23872 |
Pat Cadigan
Pat Cadigan (born September 10, 1953) is an American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories all share a common theme of exploring the relationship between the human mind and technology.
Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. She was educated at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in theater and the University of Kansas (KU), where she studied science fiction and science fiction writing under author and editor Prof. James Gunn.
Cadigan met her first husband Rufus Cadigan while in college; they divorced shortly after she graduated from KU in 1975. That same year Cadigan joined the convention committee for MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention being held in Kansas City, Missouri, over the 1976 Labor Day weekend; she served on the committee as the convention's guest liaison to writer guest of honor Robert A. Heinlein, while also working for fantasy writer Tom Reamy at his Nickelodeon Graphics typesetting and graphic design firm. Following Reamy's death in 1977, Cadigan went to work as a writer for Kansas City's Hallmark Cards. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she also edited the small press fantasy and science fiction magazines "Chacal" and later "Shayol" with her second husband, Arnie Fenner.
Cadigan sold her first professional science fiction story in 1980; her success as an author encouraged her to become a full-time writer in 1987. She emigrated to London in the UK with her son Rob Fenner in 1996, where she is married to her third husband, Christopher Fowler (not to be confused with the author of the same name). She became a UK citizen in late 2014.
Cadigan's first novel, "Mindplayers", introduces what becomes the common theme to all her works: her stories blur the line between reality and perception by making the human mind a real, explorable place. Her second novel, "Synners", expands upon the same theme; both feature a future where direct access to the mind via technology is possible. While her stories include many of the gritty, unvarnished characteristics of the cyberpunk genre, she further specializes in this exploration of the speculative relationship between technology and the perceptions of the human mind.
Cadigan has won a number of awards. These include a 2013 Hugo Award for "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" in the Best Novelette category, presented at LoneStarCon 3, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention, held in San Antonio, Texas over the 2013 Labor Day weekend, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award both in 1992 and 1995 for her novels "Synners" and "Fools".
Robert A. Heinlein in part dedicated his 1982 novel "Friday" to Cadigan after becoming her friend, following her being the guest liaison to him for the 34th Worldcon in Kansas City.
In the 1960s Cadigan and a childhood girlfriend "invented a whole secret life in which we were twins from the planet Venus", she told National Public Radio. The Beatles "came to us for advice about their songs and how to deal with fame and other important matters," Cadigan says. "On occasion, they would ask us to use our highly developed shape-shifting ability to become them, and finish recording sessions and concert tours when they were too tired to go on themselves." The Venusian twins had other superpowers, that they would sometimes use to help out Superman, Wonder Woman and other heroes, she said.
In 2013, Cadigan announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
One of her early stories appeared in "Rock On" (1981), and in 1998 she contributed an original story to the collection "Disco 2000". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23873 |
Phoenix (TV series)
Phoenix is an Australian police drama television series. Phoenix screened as two thirteen-part series on Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1992 and 1993.
At the APRA Music Awards of 1993, the soundtrack won Television or Film Theme of the Year.
The first series of "Phoenix" in 1992 recounted the investigation of the bombing of the Victorian state police headquarters, loosely based on a real case in the mid-1980s, the Russell Street Bombing. It was aided by extensive research into police techniques and was lauded as one of the most realistic depictions of police investigation techniques, including both surveillance and forensics, as well as having an involving storyline.
The series was notable for its dark visual tone and for its no-holds-barred attitude to violence and language.
It spawned a second thirteen-part series, "Phoenix II", in 1993 as well as a spin-off series, "Janus", in 1994 devoted to the machinations of court cases.
The series was created by Alison Nisselle and Tony McDonald and produced by Bill Hughes and screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The ABC have released Series 1 and 2 on DVD (Region 4) as a 4 DVD box set. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23875 |
Penguin
Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) are a group of aquatic birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere, with only one species, the Galápagos penguin, found north of the equator. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch while swimming underwater. They spend roughly half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea.
Although almost all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin live so far south. Several species are found in the temperate zone, but one species, the Galápagos penguin, lives near the equator.
The largest living species is the emperor penguin ("Aptenodytes forsteri"): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the little blue penguin ("Eudyptula minor"), also known as the fairy penguin, which stands around tall and weighs . Among extant penguins, larger penguins inhabit colder regions, while smaller penguins are generally found in temperate or even tropical climates. Some prehistoric species attained enormous sizes, becoming as tall or as heavy as an adult human. These were not restricted to Antarctic regions; on the contrary, subantarctic regions harboured high diversity, and at least one giant penguin occurred in a region around 2,000 km south of the equator 35 mya, in a climate decidedly warmer than today.
The word "penguin" first appears in the 16th century as a synonym for great auk. When European explorers discovered what are today known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the great auk of the Northern Hemisphere, and named them after this bird, although they are not closely related.
The etymology of the word "penguin" is still debated. The English word is not apparently of French, Breton or Spanish origin (the latter two are attributed to the French word "auk"), but first appears in English or Dutch.
Some dictionaries suggest a derivation from Welsh , "head" and , "white", including the "Oxford English Dictionary", the "American Heritage Dictionary", the "Century Dictionary" and "Merriam-Webster", on the basis that the name was originally applied to the great auk, either because it was found on White Head Island () in Newfoundland, or because it had white circles around its eyes (though the head was black).
An alternative etymology links the word to Latin , which means "fat" or "oil". Support for this etymology can be found in the alternative Germanic word for penguin, or "fat-goose", and the related Dutch word .
Adult male penguins are called "cocks", females "hens"; a group of penguins on land is a "waddle", and a similar group in the water is a "raft".
Since 1871, the Latin word "Pinguinus" has been used in scientific classification to name the genus of the great auk ("Pinguinus impennis", meaning "penguin without flight feathers"), which became extinct in the mid-19th century. As confirmed by a 2004 genetic study, the genus "Pinguinus" belongs in the family of the auks (Alcidae), within the order of the Charadriiformes.
The birds currently known as penguins were discovered later and were so named by sailors because of their physical resemblance to the great auk. Despite this resemblance, however, they are not auks and they are not closely related to the great auk. They do not belong in the genus "Pinguinus", and are not classified in the same family and order as the great auks. They were classified in 1831 by Bonaparte in several distinct genera within the family Spheniscidae and order Sphenisciformes.
The number of extant penguin species is debated. Depending on which authority is followed, penguin biodiversity varies between 17 and 20 living species, all in the subfamily Spheniscinae. Some sources consider the white-flippered penguin a separate "Eudyptula" species, while others treat it as a subspecies of the little penguin; the actual situation seems to be more complicated. Similarly, it is still unclear whether the royal penguin is merely a colour morph of the macaroni penguin. The status of the rockhopper penguins is also unclear.
Updated after Marples (1962), Acosta Hospitaleche (2004), and Ksepka "et al." (2006).
Subfamily Spheniscinae – modern penguins
Order Sphenisciformes
The Early Oligocene genus "Cruschedula" was formerly thought to belong to Spheniscidae, however reexamination of the holotype in 1943 resulted in the genus being placed in Accipitridae. Further examination in 1980 resulted in placement as Aves "incertae sedis".
Some recent sources apply the phylogenetic taxon Spheniscidae to what here is referred to as Spheniscinae. Furthermore, they restrict the phylogenetic taxon Sphenisciformes to flightless taxa, and establish the phylogenetic taxon Pansphenisciformes as equivalent to the Linnean taxon Sphenisciformes, i.e., including any flying basal "proto-penguins" to be discovered eventually. Given that neither the relationships of the penguin subfamilies to each other nor the placement of the penguins in the avian phylogeny is presently resolved, this is confusing, so the established Linnean system is followed here.
The evolutionary history of penguins is well-researched and represents a showcase of evolutionary biogeography. Although penguin bones of any one species vary much in size and few good specimens are known, the alpha taxonomy of many prehistoric forms still leaves much to be desired. Some seminal articles about penguin prehistory have been published since 2005; the evolution of the living genera can be considered resolved by now.
The basal penguins lived around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event somewhere in the general area of (southern) New Zealand and Byrd Land, Antarctica. Due to plate tectonics, these areas were at that time less than apart rather than the of today. The most recent common ancestor of penguins and their sister clade can be roughly dated to the Campanian–Maastrichtian boundary, around 70–68 mya.
What can be said as certainly as possible in the absence of direct (i.e., fossil) evidence is that, by the end of the Cretaceous, the penguin lineage must have been evolutionarily well distinct, though much less so morphologically; it is fairly likely that they were not yet entirely flightless at that time, as flightless birds have generally low resilience to the breakdown of trophic webs that follows the initial phase of mass extinctions because of their below-average dispersal capabilities ("see also" Flightless cormorant).
The oldest known fossil penguin species is "Waimanu manneringi", which lived in the early Paleocene epoch of New Zealand, or about 62 mya. While they were not as well-adapted to aquatic life as modern penguins, "Waimanu" were generally loon-like birds but already flightless, with short wings adapted for deep diving. They swam on the surface using mainly their feet, but the wings were – as opposed to most other diving birds (both living and extinct) – already adapting to underwater locomotion.
"Perudyptes" from northern Peru was dated to 42 mya. An unnamed fossil from Argentina proves that, by the Bartonian (Middle Eocene), some 39–38 mya, primitive penguins had spread to South America and were in the process of expanding into Atlantic waters.
During the Late Eocene and the Early Oligocene (40–30 mya), some lineages of gigantic penguins existed. Nordenskjoeld's giant penguin was the tallest, growing nearly tall. The New Zealand giant penguin was probably the heaviest, weighing 80 kg or more. Both were found on New Zealand, the former also in the Antarctic farther eastwards.
Traditionally, most extinct species of penguins, giant or small, had been placed in the paraphyletic subfamily called Palaeeudyptinae. More recently, with new taxa being discovered and placed in the phylogeny if possible, it is becoming accepted that there were at least two major extinct lineages. One or two closely related ones occurred in Patagonia, and at least one other—which is or includes the paleeudyptines as recognized today – occurred on most Antarctic and Subantarctic coasts.
But size plasticity seems to have been great at this initial stage of penguin radiation: on Seymour Island, Antarctica, for example, around 10 known species of penguins ranging in size from medium to huge apparently coexisted some 35 mya during the Priabonian (Late Eocene). It is not even known whether the gigantic palaeeudyptines constitute a monophyletic lineage, or whether gigantism was evolved independently in a much restricted Palaeeudyptinae and the Anthropornithinae – whether they were considered valid, or whether there was a wide size range present in the Palaeeudyptinae as delimited as usually done these days (i.e., including "Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi"). The oldest well-described giant penguin, the -tall "Icadyptes salasi", actually occurred as far north as northern Peru about 36 mya.
In any case, the gigantic penguins had disappeared by the end of the Paleogene, around 25 mya. Their decline and disappearance coincided with the spread of the Squalodontoidea and other primitive, fish-eating toothed whales, which certainly competed with them for food, and were ultimately more successful. A new lineage, the Paraptenodytes, which includes smaller but decidedly stout-legged forms, had already arisen in southernmost South America by that time. The early Neogene saw the emergence of yet another morphotype in the same area, the similarly sized but more gracile Palaeospheniscinae, as well as the radiation that gave rise to the penguin biodiversity of our time.
Modern penguins constitute two undisputed clades and another two more basal genera with more ambiguous relationships. To help resolve the evolution of this order, 19 high-coverage genomes that, together with 2 previously published genomes, encompass all extant penguin species have been sequenced. The origin of the Spheniscinae lies probably in the latest Paleogene, and geographically it must have been much the same as the general area in which the order evolved: the oceans between the Australia-New Zealand region and the Antarctic. Presumably diverging from other penguins around 40 mya, it seems that the Spheniscinae were for quite some time limited to their ancestral area, as the well-researched deposits of the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia have not yielded Paleogene fossils of the subfamily. Also, the earliest spheniscine lineages are those with the most southern distribution.
The genus "Aptenodytes" appears to be the basalmost divergence among living penguins they have bright yellow-orange neck, breast, and bill patches; incubate by placing their eggs on their feet, and when they hatch the chicks are almost naked. This genus has a distribution centred on the Antarctic coasts and barely extends to some Subantarctic islands today.
"Pygoscelis" contains species with a fairly simple black-and-white head pattern; their distribution is intermediate, centred on Antarctic coasts but extending somewhat northwards from there. In external morphology, these apparently still resemble the common ancestor of the Spheniscinae, as "Aptenodytes" autapomorphies are in most cases fairly pronounced adaptations related to that genus' extreme habitat conditions. As the former genus, "Pygoscelis" seems to have diverged during the Bartonian, but the range expansion and radiation that led to the present-day diversity probably did not occur until much later; around the Burdigalian stage of the Early Miocene, roughly 20–15 mya.
The genera "Spheniscus" and "Eudyptula" contain species with a mostly Subantarctic distribution centred on South America; some, however, range quite far northwards. They all lack carotenoid colouration and the former genus has a conspicuous banded head pattern; they are unique among living penguins by nesting in burrows. This group probably radiated eastwards with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current out of the ancestral range of modern penguins throughout the Chattian (Late Oligocene), starting approximately 28 mya. While the two genera separated during this time, the present-day diversity is the result of a Pliocene radiation, taking place some 4–2 mya.
The "Megadyptes"–"Eudyptes" clade occurs at similar latitudes (though not as far north as the Galapagos penguin), has its highest diversity in the New Zealand region, and represents a westward dispersal. They are characterized by hairy yellow ornamental head feathers; their bills are at least partly red. These two genera diverged apparently in the Middle Miocene (Langhian, roughly 15–14 mya), but again, the living species of "Eudyptes" are the product of a later radiation, stretching from about the late Tortonian (Late Miocene, 8 mya) to the end of the Pliocene.
The geographical and temporal pattern or spheniscine evolution corresponds closely to two episodes of global cooling documented in the paleoclimatic record. The emergence of the Subantarctic lineage at the end of the Bartonian corresponds with the onset of the slow period of cooling that eventually led to the ice ages some 35 million years later. With habitat on the Antarctic coasts declining, by the Priabonian more hospitable conditions for most penguins existed in the Subantarctic regions rather than in Antarctica itself. Notably, the cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current also started as a continuous circumpolar flow only around 30 mya, on the one hand forcing the Antarctic cooling, and on the other facilitating the eastward expansion of "Spheniscus" to South America and eventually beyond. Despite this, there is no fossil evidence to support the idea of crown radiation from the Antarctic continent in the Paleogene, although DNA study favors such a radiation.
Later, an interspersed period of slight warming was ended by the Middle Miocene Climate Transition, a sharp drop in global average temperature from 14–12 mya, and similar abrupt cooling events followed at 8 mya and 4 mya; by the end of the Tortonian, the Antarctic ice sheet was already much like today in volume and extent. The emergence of most of today's Subantarctic penguin species almost certainly was caused by this sequence of Neogene climate shifts.
Penguin ancestry beyond "Waimanu" remains unknown and not well-resolved by molecular or morphological analyses. The latter tend to be confounded by the strong adaptive autapomorphies of the Sphenisciformes; a sometimes perceived fairly close relationship between penguins and grebes is almost certainly an error based on both groups' strong diving adaptations, which are homoplasies. On the other hand, different DNA sequence datasets do not agree in detail with each other either.
What seems clear is that penguins belong to a clade of Neoaves (living birds except paleognaths and fowl) that comprises what is sometimes called "higher waterbirds" to distinguish them from the more ancient waterfowl. This group contains such birds as storks, rails, and the seabirds, with the possible exception of the Charadriiformes.
Inside this group, penguin relationships are far less clear. Depending on the analysis and dataset, a close relationship to Ciconiiformes or to Procellariiformes has been suggested. Some think the penguin-like plotopterids (usually considered relatives of anhingas and cormorants) may actually be a sister group of the penguins and those penguins may have ultimately shared a common ancestor with the Pelecaniformes and consequently would have to be included in that order, or that the plotopterids were not as close to other pelecaniforms as generally assumed, which would necessitate splitting the traditional Pelecaniformes in three.
A 2014 analysis of whole genomes of 48 representative bird species has concluded that penguins are the sister group of Procellariiformes, from which they diverged about 60 million years ago (95% CI, 56.8-62.7).
The distantly related puffins, which live in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, developed similar characteristics to survive in the Arctic and sub-Arctic environments. Like the penguins, puffins have a white chest, black back and short stubby wings providing excellent swimming ability in icy water. But, unlike penguins, puffins can fly, as flightless birds would not survive alongside land-based predators such as polar bears and foxes; there are no such predators in the Antarctic. Their similarities indicate that similar environments, although at great distances, can result in similar evolutionary developments, i.e. convergent evolution.
Penguins are superbly adapted to aquatic life. Their wings have evolved to become flippers, useless for flight in the air. In the water, however, penguins are astonishingly agile. Penguins' swimming looks very similar to bird's flight in the air. Within the smooth plumage a layer of air is preserved, ensuring buoyancy. The air layer also helps insulate the birds in cold waters. On land, penguins use their tails and wings to maintain balance for their upright stance.
All penguins are countershaded for camouflage – that is, they have black backs and wings with white fronts. A predator looking up from below (such as an orca or a leopard seal) has difficulty distinguishing between a white penguin belly and the reflective water surface. The dark plumage on their backs camouflages them from above.
Diving penguins reach , though there are reports of velocities of (which are more realistic in the case of startled flight). The small penguins do not usually dive deep; they catch their prey near the surface in dives that normally last only one or two minutes. Larger penguins can dive deep in case of need. Dives of the large emperor penguin have been recorded reaching a depth of for up to 22 minutes.
Penguins either waddle on their feet or slide on their bellies across the snow while using their feet to propel and steer themselves, a movement called "tobogganing", which conserves energy while moving quickly. They also jump with both feet together if they want to move more quickly or cross steep or rocky terrain.
Penguins have an average sense of hearing for birds; this is used by parents and chicks to locate one another in crowded colonies. Their eyes are adapted for underwater vision, and are their primary means of locating prey and avoiding predators; in air it has been suggested that they are nearsighted, although research has not supported this hypothesis.
Penguins have a thick layer of insulating feathers that keeps them warm in water (heat loss in water is much greater than in air). The emperor penguin has a maximum feather density of about nine feathers per square centimeter which is actually much lower than other birds that live in antarctic environments. However, they have been identified as having at least four different "types" of feather: in addition to the traditional feather, the emperor has afterfeathers, plumules, and filoplumes. The afterfeathers are downy plumes that attach directly to the main feathers and were once believed to account for the bird's ability to conserve heat when under water; the plumules are small down feathers that attach directly to the skin, and are much more dense in penguins than other birds; lastly the filoplumes are small (less than 1 cm long) naked shafts that end in a splay of fibers— filoplumes were believed to give flying birds a sense of where their plumage was and whether or not it needed preening, so their presence in penguins may seem inconsistent, but penguins also preen extensively.
The emperor penguin has the largest body mass of all penguins, which further reduces relative surface area and heat loss. They also are able to control blood flow to their extremities, reducing the amount of blood that gets cold, but still keeping the extremities from freezing. In the extreme cold of the Antarctic winter, the females are at sea fishing for food leaving the males to brave the weather by themselves. They often huddle together to keep warm and rotate positions to make sure that each penguin gets a turn in the centre of the heat pack.
Calculations of the heat loss and retention ability of marine endotherms suggest that most extant penguins are too small to survive in such cold environments. In 2007, Thomas and Fordyce wrote about the "heterothermic loophole" that penguins utilize in order to survive in Antarctica. All extant penguins, even those that live in warmer climates, have a counter-current heat exchanger called the humeral plexus. The flippers of penguins have at least three branches of the axillary artery, which allows cold blood to be heated by blood that has already been warmed and limits heat loss from the flippers. This system allows penguins to efficiently use their body heat and explains why such small animals can survive in the extreme cold.
They can drink salt water because their supraorbital gland filters excess salt from the bloodstream. The salt is excreted in a concentrated fluid from the nasal passages.
The great auk of the Northern Hemisphere, now extinct, was superficially similar to penguins, and the word "penguin" was originally used for that bird, centuries ago. They are only distantly related to the penguins, but are an example of convergent evolution.
Perhaps one in 50,000 penguins (of most species) are born with brown rather than black plumage. These are called isabelline penguins. Isabellinism is different from albinism. Isabelline penguins tend to live shorter lives than normal penguins, as they are not well-camouflaged against the deep and are often passed over as mates.
Although almost all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin actually live so far south. Several species live in the temperate zone; one, the Galápagos penguin, lives as far north as the Galápagos Islands, but this is only made possible by the cold, rich waters of the Antarctic Humboldt Current that flows around these islands. Also, though the climate of the Arctic and Antarctic regions is similar, there are no penguins found in the Arctic.
Several authors have suggested that penguins are a good example of Bergmann's Rule where larger bodied populations live at higher latitudes than smaller bodied populations. There is some disagreement about this, and several other authors have noted that there are fossil penguin species that contradict this hypothesis and that ocean currents and upwellings are likely to have had a greater effect on species diversity than latitude alone.
Major populations of penguins are found in Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Chile, Namibia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Satellite images and photos released in 2018 show the population of two million in France's remote Ile aux Cochons has collapsed, with barely 200,000 remaining, according to a study published in Antarctic Science.
Penguins for the most part breed in large colonies, the exceptions being the yellow-eyed and Fiordland species; these colonies may range in size from as few as a 100 pairs for gentoo penguins, to several hundred thousand in the case of king, macaroni and chinstrap penguins. Living in colonies results in a high level of social interaction between birds, which has led to a large repertoire of visual as well as vocal displays in all penguin species. "Agonistic" displays are those intended to confront or drive off, or alternately appease and avoid conflict with, other individuals.
Penguins form monogamous pairs for a breeding season, though the rate the same pair recouples varies drastically. Most penguins lay two eggs in a clutch, although the two largest species, the emperor and the king penguins, lay only one. With the exception of the emperor penguin, where the male does it all, all penguins share the incubation duties. These incubation shifts can last days and even weeks as one member of the pair feeds at sea.
Penguins generally only lay one brood; the exception is the little penguin, which can raise two or three broods in a season.
Penguin eggs are smaller than any other bird species when compared proportionally to the weight of the parent birds; at , the little penguin egg is 4.7% of its mothers' weight, and the emperor penguin egg is 2.3%. The relatively thick shell forms between 10 and 16% of the weight of a penguin egg, presumably to reduce the effects of dehydration and to minimize the risk of breakage in an adverse nesting environment. The yolk, too, is large, and comprises 22–31% of the egg. Some yolk often remains when a chick is born, and is thought to help sustain the chick if the parents are delayed in returning with food.
When emperor penguin mothers lose a chick, they sometimes attempt to "steal" another mother's chick, usually unsuccessfully as other females in the vicinity assist the defending mother in keeping her chick. In some species, such as king and emperor penguins, the chicks assemble in large groups called crèches.
The majority of living penguin species have declining populations. According to the IUCN Red List, their conservation statuses range from Least Concerned through to Endangered.
Penguins have no special fear of humans, and will often approach groups of people. This is probably because penguins have no land predators in Antarctica or the nearby offshore islands. Dogs preyed upon penguins while they were allowed in Antarctica during the age of early human exploration as sled dogs, but dogs have long since been banned from Antarctica. Instead, adult penguins are at risk at sea from predators such as sharks, orcas, and leopard seals. Typically, penguins do not approach closer than around 9 feet (3 meters), at which point they appear to become nervous.
In June 2011, an Emperor penguin came ashore on New Zealand's Peka Peka Beach, 3200 km off course on its journey to Antarctica. Nicknamed Happy Feet, after the movie of the same name, it was suffering from heat exhaustion and had to undergo a number of operations to remove objects like driftwood and sand from its stomach. Happy Feet was a media sensation, with extensive coverage on TV and the web, including a live stream that had thousands of views and a visit from English actor Stephen Fry. Once he had recovered, Happy Feet was released back into the water south of New Zealand.
Penguins are widely considered endearing for their unusually upright, waddling gait, swimming ability and (compared to other birds) lack of fear of humans. Their black-and-white plumage is often likened to a white tie suit. Some artists and writers have penguins based at the North Pole, but there are no wild penguins in the Arctic. The cartoon series "Chilly Willy" helped perpetuate this myth, as the title penguin would interact with Arctic or subarctic species, such as polar bears and walruses.
Penguins have been the subject of many books and films, such as "Happy Feet", "Surf's Up" and "The Penguins of Madagascar", all CGI films; "March of the Penguins", a documentary based on the migration process of the emperor penguin; and a parody titled "Farce of the Penguins". "Mr. Popper's Penguins" is a children's book written by Richard and Florence Atwater; it was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1939. Penguins have also appeared in a number of cartoons and television dramas, including "Pingu", created by Silvio Mazzola in 1986 and covering more than 100 short episodes. At the end of 2009, "Entertainment Weekly" put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Whether they were walking ("March of the Penguins"), dancing ("Happy Feet"), or hanging ten ("Surf's Up"), these oddly adorable birds took flight at the box office all decade long."
A video game called "Pengo" was released by Sega in 1982. Set in Antarctica, the player controls a penguin character who must navigate mazes of ice cubes. The player is rewarded with cut-scenes of animated penguins marching, dancing, saluting and playing peekaboo. Several remakes and enhanced editions have followed, most recently in 2012. Penguins are also sometimes depicted in music.
In 1941, DC Comics introduced the avian-themed character of The Penguin as a supervillain adversary of the superhero Batman ("Detective Comics" #58). He became one of the most enduring enemies in Batman's rogue's gallery. In the 60s "Batman" TV series, as played by Burgess Meredith, he was one of the most popular characters, and in Tim Burton's reimagining of the character in the 1992 film "Batman Returns", he employed an actual army of penguins (mostly African penguins).
Several pro, minor, college and high school sport teams in the United States have named themselves after the species, including the Pittsburgh Penguins team in the National Hockey League and the Youngstown State Penguins in college athletics.
Penguins featured regularly in the cartoons of UK cartoonist Steve Bell in his strip in "The Guardian" newspaper, particularly during and following the Falklands War. Opus the Penguin, from the cartoons of Berkeley Breathed, is also described as hailing from the Falklands. Opus was a comical, "existentialist" penguin character in the cartoons "Bloom County", "Outland" and "Opus". He was also the star in the Christmas show "A Wish for Wings That Work".
In the mid-2000s, penguins became one of the most publicized species of animals that form lasting homosexual couples. A children's book, "And Tango Makes Three", was written about one such penguin family in the New York Zoo. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23878 |
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Joseph Stefano. It stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles, and Martin Balsam, and was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film centers on an encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer, and the motel's owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath.
"Psycho" was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film "North by Northwest", having been filmed on a low budget, in black-and-white, and by a television crew. The film initially received mixed reviews, but outstanding box-office returns prompted critical reevaluation. "Psycho" was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Leigh and Best Director for Hitchcock.
"Psycho" is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films and praised as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars. Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre.
After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Studios began producing follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a made-for-television spin-off, and a prequel television series set in the 2010s. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
During a lunchtime tryst in a Phoenix, Arizona hotel, real-estate secretary Marion Crane and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, discuss how they cannot afford to get married because of Sam's debts. After lunch, Marion returns to work, where a client leaves a $40,000 () cash payment on a property. Marion's boss asks her to deposit the money in the bank and allows her to leave work early after she complains of a headache. Once home, she decides to steal the money and drive to Fairvale, California, where Sam lives.
En route to Fairvale, Marion stops her car on the side of the road and falls asleep. She is awakened the next morning by a California Highway Patrol officer who follows Marion after questioning her and growing suspicious about her skittish behavior. Marion stops at a Bakersfield, California automobile dealership and trades in her car, with its Arizona license plates, for a new one with California tags. The officer spots Marion at the car dealership and eyes her suspiciously as she abruptly drives away.
During a heavy rainstorm, Marion stops for the night at the Bates Motel. The proprietor, Norman Bates, invites her to share a light dinner after she checks in. She accepts his invitation but overhears an argument between Norman and his mother about bringing a woman into their Gothic home, which sits perched above the motel. Instead they eat in the motel parlor, where he tells her about his life with his mother, who is mentally ill and forbids him to have a life apart from her.
Moved by Norman's story, Marion decides to drive back to Phoenix in the morning to return the stolen money, which she hides in a folded newspaper on the nightstand. As she showers, a shadowy figure stabs her to death. After seeing blood, Norman panics and runs to Marion's room, where he discovers her body. He cleans up the crime scene, putting Marion's corpse and her possessions – including (unbeknownst to him) the stolen money – into the trunk of her car and sinking it in the swamps near the motel.
A week later, Marion's sister Lila arrives in Fairvale and confronts Sam about Marion's whereabouts. Private investigator Milton Arbogast approaches them and confirms that Marion is wanted for stealing the $40,000. Arbogast sleuths the local motels and discovers Marion spent a night at the Bates Motel. He questions Norman, whose stammering and inconsistent answers arouse his suspicion. After Norman implies that Marion met his mother, Arbogast asks to speak with her, but Norman refuses to allow it. Arbogast updates Sam and Lila about his search for Marion and promises to phone again soon. He goes to the Bates' home in search of Norman's mother; as he reaches the top of the stairs, a shadowy figure stabs him to death.
When Lila and Sam do not hear from Arbogast, Sam visits the motel. Sam sees a figure in the house who he assumes is Mrs. Bates, but she ignores his knocking. Lila and Sam visit the local deputy sheriff, who informs them that Mrs. Bates died in a murder-suicide ten years ago. The sheriff concludes that Arbogast lied to Sam and Lila so he could pursue Marion and the money. Convinced that some ill has befallen Arbogast, Lila and Sam drive to the motel. Norman carries his mother from her room and hides her in the fruit cellar.
At the motel, Sam distracts Norman by engaging in conversation while Lila cases the property and sneaks inside the house. After Sam grills him, Norman becomes agitated, knocks Sam out, and rushes to the house. Lila hides in the cellar, where she finds Mrs. Bates in a chair. Lila turns her around and discovers she is a mummified corpse. Lila screams as Norman runs into the cellar, holding a chef's knife and wearing his mother's clothes and a wig. Before Norman can attack Lila, Sam – having regained consciousness – subdues him.
At the courthouse, a psychiatrist explains that Norman murdered Mrs. Bates and her lover ten years ago out of jealousy. Unable to bear the guilt, he stole her corpse and began to treat it as if she were still alive. He recreated his mother in his own mind as an alternate personality, dressing in her clothes and talking to himself in her voice. This "Mother" personality is as jealous and possessive as Mrs. Bates was while alive: whenever Norman feels attracted to a woman, "Mother" kills her. As "Mother", Norman killed two missing young girls before stabbing Marion and Arbogast to death. The psychiatrist says the "Mother" personality has taken permanent hold of Norman's mind. While Norman sits in a holding cell, "Mother's" voice-over protests that the murders were Norman's doing. Marion's car is towed from the swamp.
"Psycho" is based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, loosely inspired by the case of convicted Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein. Both Gein (who lived just from Bloch) and the story's protagonist Norman Bates were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. Each had deceased, domineering mothers, had sealed off a room in their home as a shrine to her, and dressed in women's clothes. However, unlike Bates, Gein is not strictly considered a serial killer, having been charged with murder only twice.
Peggy Robertson, Hitchcock's long-time assistant, read Anthony Boucher's positive review of the novel in his "Criminals at Large" column and decided to show the book to her employer; however, studio readers at Paramount Pictures already rejected its premise for a film. Hitchcock acquired rights to the novel for $9,500 and reportedly ordered Robertson to buy all copies to preserve the novel's surprises. Hitchcock, who had come to face genre competitors whose works were critically compared to his own, was seeking new material to recover from two aborted projects with Paramount: "Flamingo Feather" and "No Bail for the Judge". He disliked stars' salary demands and trusted only a few people to choose prospective material, including Robertson.
Paramount executives balked at Hitchcock's proposal and refused to provide his usual budget. In response, Hitchcock offered to film "Psycho" quickly and cheaply in black and white using his "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series crew. Paramount executives rejected this cost-conscious approach, claiming their sound stages were booked, but the industry was in a slump. Hitchcock countered he personally would finance the project and film it at Universal-International using his Shamley Productions crew if Paramount would distribute. In lieu of his usual $250,000 director's fee, he proposed a 60% stake in the film negative. This combined offer was accepted, and Hitchcock went ahead in spite of naysaying from producer Herbert Coleman and Shamley Productions executive Joan Harrison.
James P. Cavanagh, a writer on the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series, wrote the original screenplay. Hitchcock felt the script dragged and read like a television short horror story, an assessment shared by an assistant. Though Stefano had worked on only one film before, Hitchcock agreed to meet with him; despite Stefano's inexperience, the meeting went well and he was hired.
The screenplay is relatively faithful to the novel, with a few notable adaptations by Hitchcock and Stefano. Stefano found the character of Norman Bates—who, in the book, is middle-aged, overweight, and more overtly unstable—unsympathetic, but became more intrigued when Hitchcock suggested casting Anthony Perkins. Stefano eliminated Bates' drinking, which evidently necessitated removing Bates' "becoming" the mother personality when in a drunken stupor. Also gone is Bates' interest in spiritualism, the occult and pornography. Hitchcock and Stefano elected to open the film with scenes in Marion's life and not introduce Bates at all until 20 minutes into the film rather than open with Bates reading a history book as Bloch does. Writer Joseph W. Smith notes that "Her story occupies only two of the novel's 17 chapters. Hitchcock and Stefano expanded this to nearly half the narrative". He likewise notes there is no hotel tryst between Marion and Sam in the novel. For Stefano, the conversation between Marion and Norman in the hotel parlor in which she displays a maternal sympathy towards him makes it possible for the audience to switch their sympathies towards Norman Bates after Marion's murder. When Lila Crane is looking through Norman's room in the film, she opens a book with a blank cover whose contents are unseen; in the novel, these are "pathologically pornographic" illustrations. Stefano wanted to give the audience "indications that something was quite wrong, but it could not be spelled out or overdone." In his book of interviews with Hitchcock, François Truffaut notes that the novel "cheats" by having extended conversations between Norman and "Mother" and stating what Mother is "doing" at various given moments.
The first name of the female protagonist was changed from Mary to Marion because a real Mary Crane existed in Phoenix. Also changed is the novel's budding romance between Sam and Lila. Hitchcock preferred to focus the audience's attention on the solution to the mystery, and Stefano thought such a relationship would make Sam Loomis seem cheap. Instead of having Sam explain Norman's pathology to Lila, the film uses a psychiatrist. (Stefano was in therapy dealing with his relationship with his own mother while writing the script.) The novel is more violent than the film; for instance, Marion is beheaded in the shower as opposed to being stabbed to death. Minor changes include changing Marion's telltale earring found after her death to a scrap of paper that failed to flush down the toilet. This provided some shock effect because toilets almost never were seen in American cinema in the 1960s. The location of Arbogast's death was moved from the foyer to the stairwell. Stefano thought this would make it easier to conceal the truth about "Mother" without tipping that something was being hidden. As Janet Leigh put it, this gave Hitchcock more options for his camera.
Paramount, whose contract guaranteed another film by Hitchcock, did not want Hitchcock to make "Psycho". Paramount was expecting "No Bail for the Judge" starring Audrey Hepburn, who became pregnant and had to bow out, leading Hitchcock to scrap the production. Their official stance was that the book was "too repulsive" and "impossible for films", and nothing but another of his star-studded mystery thrillers would suffice. They did not like "anything about it at all" and denied him his usual budget. In response Hitchcock financed the film's creation through his own Shamley Productions, shooting at Universal Studios under the Revue television unit. The original Bates Motel and Bates house set buildings, which were constructed on the same stage as Lon Chaney Sr.'s "The Phantom of the Opera", are still standing at the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City near Hollywood and are a regular attraction on the studio's tour. As a further result of cost cutting, Hitchcock chose to film "Psycho" in black and white, keeping the budget under $1 million. Other reasons for shooting in black and white were his desire to prevent the shower scene from being too gory and his admiration for "Les Diaboliques"'s use of black and white.
To keep costs down, and because he was most comfortable around them, Hitchcock took most of his crew from his television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", including the cinematographer, set designer, script supervisor, and first assistant director. He hired regular collaborators Bernard Herrmann as music composer, George Tomasini as editor, and Saul Bass for the title design and storyboarding of the shower scene. In all, his crew cost $62,000.
Through the strength of his reputation, Hitchcock cast Leigh for a quarter of her usual fee, paying only $25,000 (in the 1967 book "Hitchcock/Truffaut", Hitchcock said that Leigh owed Paramount one final film on her seven-year contract which she had signed in 1953). His first choice, Leigh agreed after having only read the novel and making no inquiry into her salary. Her co-star, Anthony Perkins, agreed to $40,000. Both stars were experienced and proven box-office draws.
Paramount did distribute the film, but four years later Hitchcock sold his stock in Shamley to Universal's parent company (MCA) and his remaining six films were made at and distributed by Universal Pictures. After another four years, Paramount sold all rights to Universal.
The film, independently produced and financed by Hitchcock, was shot at Revue Studios, the same location as his television show. "Psycho" was shot on a tight budget of $807,000, beginning on November 11, 1959, and ending on February 1, 1960. Filming started in the morning and finished by six p.m. or earlier on Thursdays (when Hitchcock and his wife would dine at Chasen's). Nearly the whole film was shot with 50 mm lenses on 35 mm cameras. This provided an angle of view similar to human vision, which helped to further involve the audience.
Before shooting began in November, Hitchcock dispatched assistant director Hilton A. Green to Phoenix to scout locations and shoot the opening scene. The shot was supposed to be an aerial shot of Phoenix that slowly zoomed into the hotel window of a passionate Marion and Sam. Ultimately, the helicopter footage proved too shaky and had to be spliced with footage from the studio. Another crew filmed day and night footage on Highway 99 between Gorman and Fresno, California for projection when Marion drives from Phoenix. Footage of her driving into Bakersfield to trade her car is also shown. They also provided the location shots for the scene in which she is discovered sleeping in her car by the highway patrolman. In one street scene shot in downtown Phoenix, Christmas decorations were discovered to be visible; rather than re-shoot the footage, Hitchcock chose to add a graphic to the opening scene marking the date as "Friday, December the Eleventh".
Green also took photos of a prepared list of 140 locations for later reconstruction in the studio. These included many real estate offices and homes such as those belonging to Marion and her sister. He also found a girl who looked just like he imagined Marion and photographed her whole wardrobe, which would enable Hitchcock to demand realistic looks from Helen Colvig, the wardrobe supervisor. The look of the Bates house was modeled on Edward Hopper's painting "The House by the Railroad," a fanciful portrait of the Second Empire Victorian home at 18 Conger Avenue in Haverstraw, New York.
Both the leads, Perkins and Leigh, were given freedom to interpret their roles and improvise as long as it did not involve moving the camera. An example of Perkins' improvisation is Norman's habit of eating candy corn.
Throughout filming, Hitchcock created and hid various versions of the "Mother corpse" prop in Leigh's dressing room closet. Leigh took the joke well, and she wondered whether it was done to keep her on edge and thus more in character or to judge which corpse would be scarier for the audience.
During shooting, Hitchcock was forced to uncharacteristically do retakes for some scenes. The final shot in the shower scene, which starts with an extreme close-up on Marion's eye and pulls up and out, proved difficult for Leigh because the water splashing in her face made her want to blink, and the cameraman had trouble as well because he had to manually focus while moving the camera. Retakes were required for the opening scene because Hitchcock felt that Leigh and Gavin were not passionate enough. Leigh had trouble saying "Not inordinately" for the real estate office scene, requiring additional retakes. Lastly, the scene in which "Mother" is discovered required a complicated coordinating of the chair turning around, Vera Miles (as Lila Crane) hitting the light bulb, and a lens flare, which proved to be the sticking point. Hitchcock forced retakes until all three elements were to his satisfaction.
According to Hitchcock, a series of shots with Arbogast going up the stairs in the Bates house before he is stabbed were done by assistant director Hilton A. Green, working with storyboard artist Saul Bass' drawings only while Hitchcock was incapacitated with the common cold. However, upon viewing the dailies of the shots, Hitchcock was forced to scrap them. He claimed they were "no good" because they did not portray "an innocent person but a sinister man who was going up those stairs". Hitchcock later re-shot the scene, though a little of the cut footage made its way into the film. Filming the murder of Arbogast proved problematic owing to the overhead camera angle necessary to hide the film's twist. A camera track constructed on pulleys alongside the stairway together with a chairlike device had to be constructed and thoroughly tested over a period of weeks.
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In "Psycho", he can be seen through a window—wearing a Stetson hat—standing outside Marion Crane's office. Wardrobe mistress Rita Riggs has said that Hitchcock chose this scene for his cameo so that he could be in a scene with his daughter (who played one of Marion's colleagues). Others have suggested that he chose this early appearance in the film in order to avoid distracting the audience.
The murder of Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema. As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17–23, 1959, after Leigh had twice postponed the filming, firstly for a cold and then her period. Seventy-seven different camera angles were used. The finished scene runs three minutes and includes 50 cuts. Most of the shots are extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than it would have been if the images were presented alone or in a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".
To capture the straight-on shot of the shower head, the camera had to be equipped with a long lens. The inner holes on the shower head were blocked and the camera placed a sufficient distance away so that the water, while appearing to be aimed directly at the lens, actually went around and past it.
The soundtrack of screeching violins, violas, and cellos was an original all-strings piece by composer Bernard Herrmann titled "The Murder". Hitchcock originally intended to have no music for the sequence (and all motel scenes), but Herrmann insisted he try his composition. Afterward, Hitchcock agreed it vastly intensified the scene, and nearly doubled Herrmann's salary. The blood in the scene is reputed to have been Bosco chocolate syrup, which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood. The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.
There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath. In an interview with Roger Ebert and in the book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho", Leigh stated she was in the scene the entire time and Hitchcock used a stand-in only for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car. The 2010 book "The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower" by Robert Graysmith contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scene's shots. Graysmith also stated that Hitchcock later acknowledged Renfro's participation in the scene. Rita Riggs, who was in charge of the wardrobe, claims it was Leigh in the shower the entire time, explaining that Leigh did not wish to be nude and so she devised strategic items including pasties, moleskin, and bodystockings, to be pasted on Leigh for the scene. Riggs and Leigh went through strip tease magazines that showed all the different costumes, but none of them worked because they all had tassels on them. Riggs says that this is when she and Leigh became acquainted.
A popular myth emerged that, in order for Leigh's scream in the shower to sound realistic, ice-cold water was used. Leigh denied this on numerous occasions, saying the crew was accommodating, supplying hot water throughout the week-long shoot. All of the screams are Leigh's.
Another myth concerns Saul Bass, the graphic designer who created many of the title sequences of Hitchcock's films and storyboarded some of "Psycho"s scenes, claiming he had directed the shower scene. This was refuted by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people ... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots." Hilton A. Green, the assistant director, also refutes Bass' claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass." Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor, stating, "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene."
Commentators such as Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass' contribution to the scene in his capacity as visual consultant and storyboard artist. Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, François Truffaut asked about the extent of Bass' contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass providing storyboards for the shower scene. According to Bill Krohn's "Hitchcock At Work", Bass' first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution.
Krohn's analysis of the production of "Psycho" in his book "Hitchcock at Work", while refuting Bass' claims for directing the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene—most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn off its hooks, and the transition from the hole of the drainage pipe to Marion Crane's dead eyes. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for "Vertigo".
Krohn's research also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a BNC Mitchell, the other a handheld French "Éclair" camera which Orson Welles had used in "Touch of Evil" (1958). In order to create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a Moviola on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor George Tomasini worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass' storyboards.
According to Donald Spoto in "The Dark Side of Genius", Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, spotted a blooper in one of the last screenings of "Psycho" before its official release: after Marion was supposedly dead, one could see her blink. According to Patricia Hitchcock, talking in Laurent Bouzereau's "making of" documentary, Alma spotted that Leigh's character appeared to take a breath. In either case, the postmortem activity was edited out and was never seen by audiences. Although Marion's eyes should be dilated after her death, the contact lenses necessary for this effect would have required six weeks of acclimation to wear them, so Hitchcock decided to forgo them.
It is often claimed that, despite its graphic nature, the shower scene never once shows a knife puncturing flesh. However, a frame by frame analysis of the sequence shows one shot in which the knife appears to penetrate Leigh's abdomen, but the effect may have been created by lighting and reverse motion. Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open. She never realized until she first watched the film "how vulnerable and defenseless one is".
Leigh and Hitchcock fully discussed what the scene meant:
Film theorist Robin Wood also discusses how the shower washes "away her guilt". He comments upon the "alienation effect" of killing off the "apparent center of the film" with which spectators had identified.
The scene was the subject of Alexandre O. Philippe's 2017 documentary "78/52", the title of which references the number of cuts and set-ups, respectively, that Hitchcock used to shoot it.
Hitchcock insisted that Bernard Herrmann write the score for "Psycho" despite the composer's refusal to accept a reduced fee for the film's lower budget. The resulting score, according to Christopher Palmer in "The Composer in Hollywood" (1990) is "perhaps Herrmann's most spectacular Hitchcock achievement." Hitchcock was pleased with the tension and drama the score added to the film, later remarking "33% of the effect of "Psycho" was due to the music." and that "Psycho depended heavily on Herrmann's music for its tension and sense of pervading doom." The singular contribution of Herrmann's score may be inferred from the unusual penultimate placement of the composer's name in the film's opening credit sequence, as it is followed only by Hitchcock's directing credit.
Herrmann used the lowered music budget to his advantage by writing for a string orchestra rather than a full symphonic ensemble, contrary to Hitchcock's request for a jazz score. He thought of the single tone color of the all-string soundtrack as a way of reflecting the black-and-white cinematography of the film. The strings play "con sordini" (muted) for all the music other than the shower scene, creating a darker and more intense effect. Film composer Fred Steiner, in an analysis of the score to "Psycho", points out that string instruments gave Herrmann access to a wider range in tone, dynamics, and instrumental special effects than any other single instrumental group would have.
The main title music, a tense, hurtling piece, sets the tone of impending violence, and returns three times on the soundtrack. Though nothing shocking occurs during the first 15–20 minutes of the film, the title music remains in the audience's mind, lending tension to these early scenes. Herrmann also maintains tension through the slower moments in the film through the use of ostinato.
There were rumors that Herrmann had used electronic means, including amplified bird screeches to achieve the shocking effect of the music in the shower scene. The effect was achieved, however, only with violins in a "screeching, stabbing sound-motion of extraordinary viciousness." The only electronic amplification employed was in the placing of the microphones close to the instruments, to get a harsher sound. Besides the emotional impact, the shower scene cue ties the soundtrack to birds. The association of the shower scene music with birds also telegraphs to the audience that it is Norman, the stuffed-bird collector, who is the murderer rather than his mother.
Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith writes that the music for the shower scene is "probably the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music," but Hitchcock was originally opposed to having music in this scene. When Herrmann played the shower scene cue for Hitchcock, the director approved its use in the film. Herrmann reminded Hitchcock of his instructions not to score this scene, to which Hitchcock replied, "Improper suggestion, my boy, improper suggestion." This was one of two important disagreements Hitchcock had with Herrmann, in which Herrmann ignored Hitchcock's instructions. The second one, over the score for "Torn Curtain" (1966), resulted in the end of their professional collaboration. A survey conducted by PRS for Music, in 2009, showed that the British public consider the score from 'the shower scene' to be the scariest theme from any film.
To honor the fiftieth anniversary of "Psycho", in July 2010, the San Francisco Symphony obtained a print of the film with the soundtrack removed, and projected it on a large screen in Davies Symphony Hall while the orchestra performed the score live. This was previously mounted by the Seattle Symphony in October 2009 as well, performing at the Benaroya Hall for two consecutive evenings.
Several CDs of the film score have been released, including:
"Psycho" is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the United States during the 1960s after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene in which Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing the same bed, with Marion in a bra. In the Production Code standards of that time, unmarried couples shown in the same bed would have been taboo.
Another controversial issue was the gender bending element. Perkins, who was allegedly a homosexual, and Hitchcock, who previously made "Rope", were both experienced in the film's transgressive subject matter. The viewer is unaware of the Bates' gender bending, until, at the end of the movie, it is revealed that Bates crossdresses as his mother during the attempted murder of Lila. At the station, Sam asks why Bates was dressed that way. The police officer, ignorant of Bates' split personality, bluntly utters that Bates is a transvestite. The psychiatrist corrects him and says, "Not exactly". He explains that Bates believes that he is his own mother when he dresses in her clothes.
According to the 1990 book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho", the censors in charge of enforcing the Production Code wrangled with Hitchcock because some of them insisted they could see one of Leigh's breasts. Hitchcock held onto the print for several days, left it untouched, and resubmitted it for approval. Each of the censors reversed their positions: those who had previously seen the breast now did not, and those who had not, now did. They passed the film after the director removed one shot that showed the buttocks of Leigh's stand-in. The board was also upset by the racy opening, so Hitchcock said that if they let him keep the shower scene he would re-shoot the opening with them on the set. Because board members did not show up for the re-shoot, the opening stayed.
Another cause of concern for the censors was that Marion was shown flushing a toilet, with its contents (torn-up note paper) fully visible. No flushing toilet had appeared in mainstream film and television in the United States at that time.
Internationally, Hitchcock was forced to make minor changes to the film, mostly to the shower scene. In Britain, the BBFC requested cuts to stabbing sounds and visible nude shots, and in New Zealand the shot of Norman washing blood from his hands was objected to. In Singapore, though the shower scene was left untouched, the murder of Arbogast, and a shot of Norman's mother's corpse were removed.
The most controversial move was Hitchcock's "no late admission" policy for the film, which was unusual for the time. It was not entirely original as Clouzot had done the same in France for "Diabolique". Hitchcock thought that if people entered the theater late and never saw the star actress Janet Leigh, they would feel cheated. At first theater owners opposed the idea, claiming that they would lose business. However, after the first day, the owners enjoyed long lines of people waiting to see the film.
Hitchcock did most of the promotion on his own, forbidding Leigh and Perkins to make the usual television, radio, and print interviews for fear of them revealing the plot. Even critics were not given private screenings but rather had to see the film with the general public, which, despite possibly affecting their reviews, certainly preserved the secret.
The film's original trailer features a jovial Hitchcock taking the viewer on a tour of the set, and almost giving away plot details before stopping himself. It is "tracked" with Herrmann's "Psycho" theme, but also jovial music from Hitchcock's comedy "The Trouble with Harry"; most of Hitchcock's dialogue is post-synchronized. The trailer was made after completion of the film, and because Janet Leigh was no longer available for filming, Hitchcock had Vera Miles don a blonde wig and scream loudly as he pulled the shower curtain back in the bathroom sequence of the preview. Because the title "Psycho" instantly covers most of the screen, the switch went unnoticed by audiences for years. However, a freeze-frame analysis clearly reveals that it is Miles and not Leigh in the shower during the trailer.
The film was so successful that it was reissued to theaters in 1965.
A year later, CBS purchased the television rights for $450,000. CBS planned to televise the film on September 23, 1966 as an installment of its new movie night "The CBS Friday Night Movies". Three days prior to the scheduled telecast, Valerie Percy, daughter of Illinois senate candidate Charles H. Percy, was murdered. As her parents slept mere feet away, she was stabbed a dozen times with a double-edged knife. In light of the murder, CBS agreed to postpone the broadcast. As a result of the Apollo pad fire of January 27, 1967, the network washed its hands of "Psycho".
Shortly afterward Paramount included the film in its first syndicated package of post-1950 movies, "Portfolio I". WABC-TV in New York City was the first station in the country to air "Psycho" (with some scenes significantly edited), on its late-night movie series, "The Best of Broadway", on June 24, 1967.
Following another successful theatrical reissue in 1969, the film finally made its way to general television airing in one of Universal's syndicated programming packages for local stations in 1970. "Psycho" was aired for 20 years in this format, then leased to cable for two years before returning to syndication as part of the "List of a Lifetime" package.
The film was re-released to cinemas on September 20 & 23, 2015, as part of the "TCM Presents" series by Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events.
Initial reviews of the film were thoroughly mixed. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" wrote, "There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job." Crowther called the "slow buildups to sudden shocks" reliably melodramatic but contested Hitchcock's psychological points, reminiscent of Krafft-Ebing's studies, as less effective. While the film did not conclude satisfactorily for the critic, he commended the cast's performances as "fair". British critic C. A. Lejeune was so offended that she not only walked out before the end but permanently resigned her post as film critic for "The Observer". Other negative reviews stated, "a blot on an honorable career", "plainly a gimmick movie", and "merely one of those television shows padded out to two hours."
Positive reviews stated, "Anthony Perkins' performance is the best of his career ... Janet Leigh has never been better", "played out beautifully", and "first American movie since "Touch of Evil" to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films." A good example of the mix is the "New York Herald Tribune"s review, which stated, "... rather difficult to be amused at the forms insanity may take ... keeps your attention like a snake-charmer."
The public loved the film, with lines stretching outside of theaters as people had to wait for the next showing. This, along with box office numbers, led to a reconsideration of the film by critics, and it eventually received a large amount of praise. It broke box-office records in Japan and the rest of Asia, France, Britain, South America, the United States, and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period. It was the most profitable black-and-white sound film ever made, and Hitchcock personally realized well in excess of $15 million. He then swapped his rights to "Psycho" and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc., and his own boss at Universal, in theory; however, this did not stop them from interfering with his later films. "Psycho" was, by a large margin, the most profitable film of Hitchcock's career, earning over $32 million for the studio on release, and $18 million by the end of the year. Around the time of the run's end, the film had grossed $50 million in domestic theaters.
In the United Kingdom, the film shattered attendance records at the London Plaza Cinema, but nearly all British critics gave it poor reviews, questioning Hitchcock's taste and judgment. Reasons cited for this were the critics' late screenings, forcing them to rush their reviews, their dislike of the gimmicky promotion, and Hitchcock's expatriate status. Perhaps thanks to the public's response and Hitchcock's efforts at promoting it, the critics did a re-review, and the film was praised. "TIME" switched its opinion from "Hitchcock bears down too heavily in this one" to "superlative" and "masterly", and Bosley Crowther put it on his Top Ten list of 1960.
The Catholic Legion of Decency gave the film a B rating, meaning "morally objectionable in part".
"Psycho" was criticized for making other filmmakers more willing to show gore; three years later, "Blood Feast", considered to be the first "splatter film", was released. "Psycho"s success financially and critically had others trying to ride its coattails. Inspired by "Psycho", Hammer Film Productions launched a series of mystery thrillers including "The Nanny" (1965) starring Bette Davis and William Castle's "Homicidal" (1961) was followed by a slew of more than thirteen other splatter films.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Psycho" holds an approval rating of 96% based on 97 reviews, with an average score of 9.19/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre. Because "Psycho" was filmed with tact, grace, and art, Hitchcock didn't just create modern horror, he validated it."
In "Psycho", Hitchcock subverts the romantic elements that are seen in most of his work. The film is instead ironic as it presents "clarity and fulfillment" of romance. The past is central to the film; the main characters "struggle to understand and resolve destructive personal histories" and ultimately fail. Lesley Brill writes, "The inexorable forces of past sins and mistakes crush hopes for regeneration and present happiness." The crushed hope is highlighted by the death of the protagonist, Marion Crane, halfway through the film. Marion is like Persephone of Greek mythology, who is abducted temporarily from the world of the living. The myth does not sustain with Marion, who dies hopelessly in her room at the Bates Motel. The room is wallpapered with floral print like Persephone's flowers, but they are only "reflected in mirrors, as images of images—twice removed from reality". In the scene of Marion's death, Brill describes the transition from the bathroom drain to Marion's lifeless eye, "Like the eye of the amorphous sea creature at the end of Fellini's "La Dolce Vita", it marks the birth of death, an emblem of final hopelessness and corruption."
Marion is deprived of "the humble treasures of love, marriage, home and family", which Hitchcock considers elements of human happiness. There exists among "Psycho"s secondary characters a lack of "familial warmth and stability", which demonstrates the unlikelihood of domestic fantasies. The film contains ironic jokes about domesticity, such as when Sam writes a letter to Marion, agreeing to marry her, only after the audience sees her buried in the swamp. Sam and Marion's sister Lila, in investigating Marion's disappearance, develop an "increasingly connubial" relationship, a development that Marion is denied. Norman also suffers a similarly perverse definition of domesticity. He has "an infantile and divided personality" and lives in a mansion whose past occupies the present. Norman displays stuffed birds that are "frozen in time" and keeps childhood toys and stuffed animals in his room. He is hostile toward suggestions to move from the past, such as with Marion's suggestion to put
his mother "someplace" and as a result kills Marion to preserve his past. Brill explains, Someplace' for Norman is where his delusions of love, home, and family are declared invalid and exposed."
Light and darkness feature prominently in "Psycho". The first shot after the intertitle is the sunny landscape of Phoenix before the camera enters a dark hotel room where Sam and Marion appear as bright figures. Marion is almost immediately cast in darkness; she is preceded by her shadow as she reenters the office to steal money and as she enters her bedroom. When she flees Phoenix, darkness descends on her drive. The following sunny morning is punctured by a watchful police officer with black sunglasses, and she finally arrives at the Bates Motel in near darkness. Bright lights are also "the ironic equivalent of darkness" in the film, blinding instead of illuminating. Examples of brightness include the opening window shades in Sam's and Marion's hotel room, vehicle headlights at night, the neon sign at the Bates Motel, "the glaring white" of the bathroom tiles where Marion dies, and the fruit cellar's exposed light bulb shining on the corpse of Norman's mother. Such bright lights typically characterize danger and violence in Hitchcock's films.
The film often features shadows, mirrors, windows, and, less so, water. The shadows are present from the first scene where the blinds make bars on Marion and Sam as they peer out of the window. The stuffed birds' shadows loom over Marion as she eats, and Norman's mother is seen in only shadows until the end. More subtly, backlighting turns the rakes in the hardware store into talons above Lila's head.
Mirrors reflect Marion as she packs, her eyes as she checks the rear-view mirror, her face in the policeman's sunglasses, and her hands as she counts out the money in the car dealership's bathroom. A motel window serves as a mirror by reflecting Marion and Norman together. Hitchcock shoots through Marion's windshield and the telephone booth, when Arbogast phones Sam and Lila. The heavy downpour can be seen as a foreshadowing of the shower, and its cessation can be seen as a symbol of Marion making up her mind to return to Phoenix.
There are a number of references to birds. Marion's last name is Crane and she is from Phoenix. Norman comments that Marion eats like a bird. The motel room has pictures of birds on the wall. Brigitte Peucker also suggests that Norman's hobby of stuffing birds literalizes the British slang expression for sex, "stuffing birds", "bird" being British slang for a desirable woman. Robert Allan suggests that Norman's mother is his original "stuffed bird", both in the sense of having preserved her body and the incestuous nature of Norman's emotional bond with her.
"Psycho" has been called "the first psychoanalytical thriller." The sex and violence in the film were unlike anything previously seen in a mainstream film. "The shower scene is both feared and desired," wrote French film critic Serge Kaganski. "Hitchcock may be scaring his female viewers out of their wits, but he is turning his male viewers into potential rapists because Janet Leigh has been turning men on ever since she appeared in her brassiere in the first scene."
In his documentary "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema", Slavoj Žižek remarks that Norman Bates' mansion has three floors, paralleling the three levels of the human mind that are postulated by Freudian psychoanalysis: the top floor would be the superego, where Bates' mother lives; the ground floor is then Bates' ego, where he functions as an apparently normal human being; and the basement would be Bates' id. Žižek interprets Bates' moving his mother's corpse from top floor to basement as a symbol for the deep connection that psychoanalysis posits between superego and id.
In 1992, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
In 1998, "TV Guide" ranked it #8 on their list of the 50 Greatest Movies on TV (and Video).
Leigh asserted, "no other murder mystery in the history of the movies has inspired such merchandising." Any number of items emblazoned with "Bates Motel", stills, lobby cards, and highly valuable posters are available for purchase. In 1992, it was adapted scene-for-scene into three comic books by the Innovative Corporation.
"Psycho" has appeared on a number of lists by websites, television channels, and magazines. The shower scene was featured as number four on the list of Bravo Network's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, whilst the finale was ranked number four on "Premiere"s similar list. "Entertainment Weekly"'s book titled "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time" ranked the film as #11.
In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the twelfth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.
American Film Institute has included "Psycho" in these lists:
"Psycho" has become one of the most recognizable films in cinema history, and is arguably Hitchcock's best known film. In his novel, Bloch used an uncommon plot structure: he repeatedly introduced sympathetic protagonists, then killed them off. This played on his reader's expectations of traditional plots, leaving them uncertain and anxious. Hitchcock recognized the effect this approach could have on audiences, and utilized it in his adaptation, killing off Leigh's character at the end of the first act. This daring plot device, coupled with the fact that the character was played by the biggest box-office name in the film, was a shocking turn of events in 1960.
The shower scene has become a pop culture touchstone and is often regarded as one of the most terrifying scenes ever filmed. Its effectiveness is often credited to the use of startling editing techniques borrowed from the Soviet montage filmmakers, and to the iconic screeching violins in Bernard Herrmann's musical score. The scene has been frequently spoofed and referenced in popular culture, complete with the violin screeching sound effects (see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", among many others). "78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene", a documentary on its production by Alexandre O. Philippe, was released on October 13, 2017, including interviews with and analysis by Guillermo del Toro, Peter Bogdanovich, Bret Easton Ellis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Karyn Kusama, Eli Roth, Oz Perkins, Leigh Whannell, Walter Murch, Danny Elfman, Elijah Wood, Richard Stanley, and Neil Marshall.
"Psycho" is considered by some to be the first film in the slasher film genre, though some critics and film historians point to Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", a lesser-known film with similar themes of voyeurism and sexualized violence, whose release happened to precede "Psycho"s by a few months. However, due to "Peeping Tom"s critical drubbing at the time and short lifespan at the box office, "Psycho" was the more widely known and influential film.
"Psycho" has been referenced in other films numerous times: examples include the 1974 musical horror film "Phantom of the Paradise"; 1978 horror film "Halloween" (which starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh's daughter, and Donald Pleasence's character was named "Sam Loomis"); the 1977 Mel Brooks tribute to many of Hitchcock's thrillers, "High Anxiety"; the 1980 "Fade to Black"; the 1980 "Dressed to Kill"; and Wes Craven's 1996 horror satire "Scream". Bernard Herrmann's opening theme has been sampled by rapper Busta Rhymes on his song "Gimme Some More" (1998). Manuel Muñoz's 2011 novel "What You See in the Dark" includes a sub-plot that fictionalizes elements of the filming of "Psycho", referring to Hitchcock and Leigh only as "The Director" and "The Actress". In the comic book stories of Jonni Future, the house inherited by the title character is patterned after the Bates Motel.
The success of the film jump-started Perkins' career, but he soon began to suffer from typecasting. However, when Perkins was asked whether he would have still taken the role knowing that he would be typecast afterwards, he replied with a definite "yes". As Perkins was in New York working on a Broadway stage show when the shower sequence was filmed, actresses Anne Dore and Margo Epper stepped in as his body doubles for that scene. Until her death in 2004, Leigh received strange and sometimes threatening calls, letters, and even tapes detailing what the caller would like to do to Marion Crane. One letter was so "grotesque" that she passed it to the FBI. Two agents visited Leigh and told her the culprits had been located and that she should notify the FBI if she received any more letters of that type.
Three sequels were produced after Hitchcock died: "Psycho II" (1983), "Psycho III" (1986), and "" (1990), the last being a part-prequel television movie written by the original screenplay author, Joseph Stefano. Anthony Perkins returned to his role of Norman Bates in all three sequels, and also directed the third film. The voice of Norman Bates' mother was maintained by noted radio actress Virginia Gregg with the exception of "Psycho IV", where the role was played by Olivia Hussey. Vera Miles also reprised her role of Lila Crane in "Psycho II". The sequels received mixed reviews and were universally considered inferior to the original.
In 1998, Gus Van Sant made a nearly shot-for-shot remake (in color) starring Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, and Anne Heche. Van Sant said that his film was "a huge kind of experimental project," and that, though it did not do well commercially or critically, he may do it again, with more changes.
"Psycho" has been rated and re-rated several times over the years by the MPAA. Upon its initial release, the film received a certificate stating that it was "Approved" (certificate #19564) under the simple pass/fail system of the Production Code in use at that time. Later, when the MPAA switched to a voluntary letter ratings system in 1968, "Psycho" was one of a number of high-profile motion pictures to be retro-rated with an "M" (Mature Audiences). This remained the only rating the film would receive for 16 years, and according to the guidelines of the time "M" was the equivalent of a "PG" rating. Then, in 1984, amidst a controversy surrounding the levels of violence depicted in "PG"-rated films, the film was re-classified again to its current rating of "R".
The film has been released several times on VHS, LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray. MCA DiscoVision Incorporated (parent company, MCA Inc) first released "Psycho" on the LaserDisc format in "standard play" (5 sides) in 1979, and "extended play" (2 sides) in October 1981. MCA/Universal Home Video released a new LaserDisc version of "Psycho" in August 1988 (Catalog #: 11003). In May 1998, Universal Studios Home Video released a deluxe edition of "Psycho" as part of their Signature Collection. This THX-certified Widescreen (1.85:1) LaserDisc Deluxe Edition (Catalog #: 43105) is spread across 4 extended play sides and 1 standard play side, and includes a new documentary and isolated Bernard Herrmann score. A DVD edition was released at the same time as the LaserDisc.
A version with alternate footage of Norman cleaning up after the murder and additional footage of Marion undressing and Arbogast's death has been shown on German TV and released on VHS and Blu-ray in Germany. This footage was cut out of the film after it had been approved by the MPAA, at the insistence of the National Legion of Decency.
For the initial DVD release, Laurent Bouzereau produced a documentary looking at the film's production and reception. Universal released a 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2010, with Australia making the same edition (with a different cover) available on September 1, 2010. To mark the film's 50th anniversary, a Blu-ray in the US was released on October 19, 2010, featuring yet another cover. The film is also included on two different Alfred Hitchcock Blu-ray boxsets from Universal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23880 |
Protocol stack
The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the "suite" is the definition of the communication protocols, and the "stack" is the software implementation of them.
Individual protocols within a suite are often designed with a single purpose in mind. This modularization simplifies design and evaluation. Because each protocol module usually communicates with two others, they are commonly imagined as layers in a stack of protocols. The lowest protocol always deals with low-level interaction with the communications hardware. Each higher layer adds additional capabilities. User applications usually deal only with the topmost layers.
In practical implementation, protocol stacks are often divided into three major sections: media, transport, and applications. A particular operating system or platform will often have two well-defined software interfaces: one between the media and transport layers, and one between the transport layers and applications. The media-to-transport interface defines how transport protocol software makes use of particular media and hardware types and is associated with a device driver. For example, this interface level would define how TCP/IP transport software would talk to the network interface controller. Examples of these interfaces include ODI and NDIS in the Microsoft Windows and DOS environment. The application-to-transport interface defines how application programs make use of the transport layers. For example, this interface level would define how a web browser program would talk to TCP/IP transport software. Examples of these interfaces include Berkeley sockets and System V STREAMS in Unix-like environments, and Winsock for Microsoft Windows.
T ~ ~ ~ T
Imagine three computers: "A", "B", and "C". "A" and "B" both have radio equipment and can communicate via the airwaves using a suitable network protocol (such as IEEE 802.11). "B" and "C" are connected via a cable, using it to exchange data (again, with the help of a protocol, for example Point-to-Point Protocol). However, neither of these two protocols will be able to transport information from "A" to "C", because these computers are conceptually on different networks. An inter-network protocol is required to connect them.
One could combine the two protocols to form a powerful third, mastering both cable and wireless transmission, but a different super-protocol would be needed for each possible combination of protocols. It is easier to leave the base protocols alone, and design a protocol that can work on top of any of them (the Internet Protocol is an example). This will make two stacks of two protocols each. The inter-network protocol will communicate with each of the base protocol in their simpler language; the base protocols will not talk directly to each other.
A request on computer "A" to send a chunk of data to "C" is taken by the upper protocol, which (through whatever means) knows that "C" is reachable through "B". It, therefore, instructs the wireless protocol to transmit the data packet to "B". On this computer, the lower layer handlers will pass the packet up to the inter-network protocol, which, on recognizing that "B" is not the final destination, will again invoke lower-level functions. This time, the cable protocol is used to send the data to "C". There, the received packet is again passed to the upper protocol, which (with "C" being the destination) will pass it on to a higher protocol or application on "C".
An important feature of many communities of interoperability based on a common protocol stacks is a spanning layer, a term coined by David Clark
"Certain protocols are designed with the specific purpose of bridging differences at the lower layers, so that common agreements are not required there. Instead, the layer provides the definitions that permit translation to occur between a range of services or technologies used below. Thus, in somewhat abstract terms, at and above such a layer common standards contribute to interoperation, while below the layer translation is used. Such a layer is called a "spanning layer" in this paper. As a practical matter, real interoperation is achieved by the definition and use of effective spanning layers. But there are many different ways that a spanning layer can be crafted."
In the Internet protocol stack, the Internet Protocol Suite constitutes a spanning layer that defines a best effort service for global routing of datagrams at Layer 3. The Internet is the community of interoperation based on this spanning layer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23882 |
Pilsner
Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Czech city of Pilsen, where it was first produced in 1842 by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll. The world's first blond lager, the original Pilsner Urquell, is still produced there today.
The city of Pilsen began brewing in 1295, but until the mid-1840s, most Bohemian beers were top-fermented. The taste and standards of quality often varied widely, and in 1838, consumers dumped whole barrels to show their dissatisfaction. The officials of Pilsen founded a city-owned brewery in 1839, called (, – now Pilsner Urquell), which was to brew beer in the pioneering Bavarian style. Brewers had begun aging beer made with cool fermenting yeasts in caves (lager, i.e., [stored]), which improved the beer's clarity and shelf-life. Part of this research benefited from the knowledge already expounded on in a book (printed in German in 1794, in Czech in 1799), written by Czech brewer () (1753–1805) from Brno.
The Pilsen brewery recruited the Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who, using the specifics of local ingredients and paler malts, presented his first batch of pale lager on 5 October 1842. The combination of Pilsen's remarkably soft water, local Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec, brighter malt prepared by British technology, and Bavarian-style lagering (bottom-fermented beer termed at the time) produced a clear, golden beer. The recipe was regarded as a sensation and took hold very quickly.
Groll's contract with the brewery ended in 1845, he returned to Vilshofen and later inherited his father's brewery. The Groll brewery no longer exists. Parts of the brewery, however, were acquired by Wolferstetter, another brewery from Vilshofen, which still produces a Josef Groll Pils. Emergence of efficient glass manufacturing in Europe around the same time, lowered glass prices. This allowed the general population to purchase glass drinking vessels for the first time. These former luxury items showcased the visually pleasing golden clarity of the beer, further influencing the Pilsner's rapid dissemination.
In 1853, the beer was available in 35 pubs in Prague. In 1856, it came to Vienna and in 1862 to Paris. Improving transport and communications also meant that this new beer was soon available throughout Europe, and the "Pilsner" style of brewing was soon widely imitated. In 1859, was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Pilsen. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trademark was created to put emphasis on being the original brewery ("Urquell," meaning 'original well', the English equivalent would probably be 'prototype Pilsener beer').
Some beers are labeled "Urtyp Pilsener" (UP) meaning they are brewed according to the original process, although many breweries use this accolade for their top beer.
The introduction to Germany of modern refrigeration by Carl von Linde in the late 19th century eliminated the need for caves for beer storage, enabling the brewing of cool fermenting beer in many new locations. Until 1993 the Pilsner Urquell brewery fermented its beer using open barrels in the cellars beneath their brewery. This changed in 1993 with the use of large cylindrical tanks. Small samples are still brewed in a traditional way for taste comparisons.
A modern pale lager termed a "Pilsner" may have a very light, clear colour from pale to golden yellow, with varying levels of hop aroma and flavour. The alcohol strength of beers termed Pilsner vary but are typically around 4.5%–5% (by volume). There are categories such as "European-Style Pilsner" at beer competitions such as the World Beer Cup. Pilsen style lagers are marketed internationally by numerous small brewers and larger conglomerates.
A study utilizing blind taste-testing has found that several common mass-produced lagers have indistinguishable tastes to the average consumer.
In Iceland, due to the restriction of alcohol sales to government-owned liquor stores, a beverage is sold at grocery stores that is colloquially known as, and sometimes labelled, as "pilsner" but is a Low-alcohol beer, legally below the 2.5% allowed for sale outside of the government monopoly, restaurants, and bars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23884 |
Phlogiston theory
The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated that a fire-like element called phlogiston () is contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν "phlogistón" ("burning up"), from φλόξ "phlóx" ("flame"). It was first stated in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher and then put together more formally by Georg Ernst Stahl. The theory attempted to explain processes such as combustion and rusting, which are now collectively known as oxidation.
Phlogiston theory states that "phlogisticated" substances are substances that contain phlogiston and "dephlogisticate" when burned. Dephlogisticating is the process of releasing stored phlogiston, which is absorbed by the air. Growing plants then absorb this phlogiston, which is why air does not spontaneously combust and also why plant matter burns as well as it does.
Thus phlogiston accounted for combustion via a process that was opposite to that of the oxygen theory.
In general, substances that burned in air were said to be rich in phlogiston; the fact that combustion soon ceased in an enclosed space was taken as clear-cut evidence that air had the capacity to absorb only a finite amount of phlogiston. When air had become completely phlogisticated it would no longer serve to support combustion of any material, nor would a metal heated in it yield a calx; nor could phlogisticated air support life. Breathing was thought to take phlogiston out of the body.
Joseph Black's student Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772 and the pair used the theory to explain his results. The residue of air left after burning, in fact a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, was sometimes referred to as "phlogisticated air," having taken up all of the phlogiston. Conversely, when Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, he believed it to be "dephlogisticated air," capable of combining with more phlogiston and thus supporting combustion for longer than ordinary air.
Empedocles had formulated the classical theory that there were four elements: water, earth, fire and air and Aristotle reinforced this idea by characterising them as moist, dry, hot and cold. Fire was thus thought of as a substance and burning was seen as a process of decomposition which applied only to compounds. Experience had shown that burning was not always accompanied by a loss of material and a better theory was needed to account for this.
In 1667, Johann Joachim Becher published his book "Physica subterranea", which contained the first instance of what would become the phlogiston theory. In his book, Becher eliminated fire and air from the classical element model and replaced them with three forms of earth: "terra lapidea", "terra fluida", and "terra pinguis". "Terra pinguis" was the element that imparted oily, sulphurous, or combustible properties. Becher believed that "terra pinguis" was a key feature of combustion and was released when combustible substances were burned. Becher did not have much to do with phlogiston theory as we know it now, but he had a large influence on his student Stahl. Becher's main contribution was the start of the theory itself, however much it was changed after him. Becher's idea was that combustible substances contain an ignitable matter, the "terra pinguis."
In 1703 Georg Ernst Stahl, professor of medicine and chemistry at Halle, proposed a variant of the theory in which he renamed Becher's "terra pinguis" to "phlogiston", and it was in this form that the theory probably had its greatest influence. The term phlogiston itself was not something that Stahl invented. There is evidence that the word was used as early as 1606, and in a way that was very similar to what Stahl was using it for. The term was derived from a Greek word meaning to inflame. The following paragraph describes Stahl's view of phlogiston:To Stahl, metals were compounds containing phlogiston in combination with metallic oxides (calces); on ignition the phlogiston was freed from the metal leaving the oxide behind. When the oxide was heated with a substance rich in phlogiston, such as charcoal, the calx again took up phlogiston and regenerated the metal. Phlogiston was a definite substance, the same in all its combinations.Stahl's first definition of phlogiston first appeared in his "Zymotechnia fundamentalis", published in 1697. His most quoted definition was found in the treatise on chemistry entitled "Fundamenta chymiae" in 1723. According to Stahl, phlogiston was a substance that was not able to be put into a bottle, but could be transferred nonetheless. To him, wood was just a combination of ash and phlogiston, and making a metal was as simple as getting a metal calx and adding phlogiston. Soot was almost pure phlogiston, which is why heating it with a metallic calx transforms the calx into the metal and Stahl attempted to prove that the phlogiston in soot and sulphur were identical by converting sulphates to liver of sulphur using charcoal. He did not account for the increase in weight on combustion of tin and lead that were known at the time.
Johann Heinrich Pott, a student of one of Stahl's students, expanded the theory and attempted to make it much more understandable to a general audience. He compared phlogiston to light or fire, saying that all three were substances whose natures were widely understood but not easily defined. He thought that phlogiston should not be considered as a particle but as an essence that permeates substances, arguing that in a pound of any substance one could not simply pick out the particles of phlogiston. Pott also observed the fact that when certain substances are burned they increase in mass instead of losing the mass of the phlogiston as it escapes; according to him, phlogiston was the basic fire principle and could not be obtained by itself. Flames were considered to be a mix of phlogiston and water, while a phlogiston-and-earthy mixture could not burn properly. Phlogiston permeating everything in the universe, it could be released as heat when combined with acid. Pott proposed the following properties:
Pott's formulations proposed little new theory; he merely supplied further details and rendered existing theory more approachable to the common man.
Johann Juncker also created a very complete picture of phlogiston. When reading Stahl's work, he assumed that phlogiston was in fact very material. He therefore came to the conclusion that phlogiston has the property of levity, or that it makes the compound that it is in much lighter than it would be without the phlogiston. He also showed that air was needed for combustion by putting substances in a sealed flask and trying to burn them.
Guillaume-Francois Rouelle brought the theory of phlogiston to France, and he was a very influential scientist and teacher so it gained quite a strong foothold very quickly. Many of his students became very influential scientists in their own right, Lavoisier included. The French viewed phlogiston as a very subtle principle that vanishes in all analysis, yet it is in all bodies. Essentially they followed straight from Stahl's theory.
Giovanni Antonio Giobert introduced Lavoisier's work in Italy. Giobert won a prize competition from the Academy of Letters and Sciences of Mantua in 1792 for his work refuting phlogiston theory. He presented a paper at the Académie royale des Sciénces of Turin on March 18, 1792 entitled "Examen chimique de la doctrine du phlogistique et de la doctrine des pneumatistes par rapport à la nature de l 'eau" (translates roughly to Chemical examination of the doctrine of phlogiston and the doctrine of pneumatists in relation to the nature of water), which is considered the most original defense of Lavoisier's theory of water composition to appear in Italy.
Eventually, quantitative experiments revealed problems, including the fact that some metals gained mass when they burned, even though they were supposed to have lost phlogiston.
Some phlogiston proponents explained this by concluding that phlogiston had negative weight; others, such as Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, gave the more conventional argument that it was lighter than air. However, a more detailed analysis based on Archimedes' principle, the densities of magnesium and its combustion product showed that just being lighter than air could not account for the increase in mass. Stahl himself did not address the problem of the metals that burn gaining weight, but those who followed his ideas and did not question his ideas were the ones that worked on this problem.
During the eighteenth century, as it became clear that metals gained mass when they were oxidized, phlogiston was increasingly regarded as a "principle" rather than a material substance. By the end of the eighteenth century, for the few chemists who still used the term phlogiston, the concept was linked to hydrogen. Joseph Priestley, for example, in referring to the reaction of steam on iron, while fully acknowledging that the iron gains mass as it binds with oxygen to form a calx, iron oxide, iron also loses "the basis of inflammable air (hydrogen), and this is the substance or principle, to which we give the name phlogiston." Following Lavoisier’s description of oxygen as the "oxidizing principle" (hence its name, from Ancient Greek: oksús, “sharp;” génos, “birth,” referring to oxygen's supposed role in the formation of acids), Priestley described phlogiston as the "alkaline principle."
Phlogiston remained the dominant theory until the 1770s when Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier showed that combustion requires a gas that has mass (specifically, oxygen) and could be measured by means of weighing closed vessels.
The use of closed vessels by de Lavoisier and earlier, by Mikhail Lomonosov, also negated the buoyancy that had disguised the mass of the gases of combustion and culminated in the principle of mass conservation. These observations solved the mass paradox and set the stage for the new oxygen theory of combustion. Elizabeth Fulhame demonstrated through experiment that many oxidation reactions occur only in the presence of water, that they directly involve water, and that water is regenerated and is detectable at the end of the reaction. Based on her experiments, she disagreed with some of the conclusions of Lavoisier as well as with the phlogiston theorists that he critiqued. Her book on the subject appeared in print soon after Lavoisier's execution for Farm-General membership during the French Revolution.
Experienced chemists who supported Stahl's phlogiston theory attempted to respond to the challenges suggested by Lavoisier and the newer chemists. In doing so, phlogiston theory became more complicated and assumed too much, contributing to the overall demise of the theory.
Many people tried to remodel their theories on phlogiston in order to have the theory work with what Lavoisier was doing in his experiments. Pierre Macquer reworded his theory many times, and even though he is said to have thought the theory of phlogiston was doomed, he stood by phlogiston and tried to make the theory work. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23886 |
Poltergeist
In ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; German for "noisy ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. They are purportedly capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. Most accounts of poltergeists describe the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors.
They have traditionally been described as troublesome spirits who haunt a particular person instead of a specific location. Such alleged poltergeist manifestations have been reported in many cultures and countries including the United States, India‚ Japan, Brazil, Australia, and most European nations. Early claims of spirits that supposedly harass and torment their victims date back to the 1st century, but references to poltergeists became more common in the early 1600s.
The overwhelming consensus of science is that poltergeists do not exist and there is generally a rational explanation for people's experiences. Misinterpretation is most likely to occur when people believe a place is haunted and they are looking for evidence to confirm this. In this way, much poltergeist activity can actually be attributed to inaccurate perception of natural phenomenon.
The word "poltergeist" comes from the German language words "poltern" ("to make sound" and "to rumble") and "Geist" ("ghost" and "spirit"), and the term itself translates as "noisy ghost", "rumble-ghost" or a "loud spirit". A synonym coined by René Sudre is "thorybism", from Greek "thorybein" ("to make noise or uproar; throw into confusion").
Many claimed poltergeist events have proved on investigation to be hoaxes.
Psychical researcher Frank Podmore proposed the 'naughty little girl' theory for poltergeist cases (many of which have seemed to centre on an adolescent, usually a girl). He found that the centre of the disturbance was often a child who was throwing objects around to fool or scare people for attention. Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell says that claimed poltergeist incidents typically originate from "an individual who is motivated to cause mischief". According to Nickell:
"In the typical poltergeist outbreak, small objects are hurled through the air by unseen forces, furniture is overturned, or other disturbances occur—usually just what could be accomplished by a juvenile trickster determined to plague credulous adults."
Nickell writes that reports are often exaggerated by credulous witnesses.
"Time and again in other “poltergeist” outbreaks, witnesses have reported an object leaping from its resting place supposedly on its own, when it is likely that the perpetrator had secretly obtained the object sometime earlier and waited for an opportunity to fling it, even from outside the room—thus supposedly proving he or she was innocent."
According to research in anomalistic psychology, claims of poltergeist activity can be explained by psychological factors such as illusion, memory lapses, and wishful thinking. A study (Lange and Houran, 1998) wrote that poltergeist experiences are delusions "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli". Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written that almost all poltergeist cases that have been investigated turned out to be based on trickery, whilst the rest are attributable to psychological factors such as hallucinations.
Attempts have also been made to scientifically explain poltergeist disturbances that have not been traced to fraud or psychological factors. Skeptic and magician Milbourne Christopher found that some cases of poltergeist activity can be attributed to unusual air currents, such as a 1957 case on Cape Cod where downdrafts from an uncovered chimney became strong enough to blow a mirror off of a wall, overturn chairs and knock things off shelves.
In the 1950s, Guy William Lambert proposed that reported poltergeist phenomena could be explained by the movement of underground water causing stress on houses. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23888 |
Pulley
A pulley is a wheel on an axle or shaft that is designed to support movement and change of direction of a taut cable or belt, or transfer of power between the shaft and cable or belt. In the case of a pulley supported by a frame or shell that does not transfer power to a shaft, but is used to guide the cable or exert a force, the supporting shell is called a block, and the pulley may be called a sheave.
A pulley may have a groove or grooves between flanges around its circumference to locate the cable or belt. The drive element of a pulley system can be a rope, cable, belt, or chain.
The earliest evidence of pulleys date back to Ancient Egypt in the Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1802 BCE) and Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BCE. In Roman Egypt, Hero of Alexandria (c. 10-70 CE) identified the pulley as one of six simple machines used to lift weights. Pulleys are assembled to form a block and tackle in order to provide mechanical advantage to apply large forces. Pulleys are also assembled as part of belt and chain drives in order to transmit power from one rotating shaft to another. Plutarch's Lives recounts a scene where Archimedes proved the effectiveness of compound pulleys and the block-and-tackle system by using one to pull a fully laden ship towards him as if it was gliding through water.
A set of pulleys assembled so that they rotate independently on the same axle form a block. Two blocks with a rope attached to one of the blocks and threaded through the two sets of pulleys form a block and tackle.
A block and tackle is assembled so one block is attached to fixed mounting point and the other is attached to the moving load. The ideal mechanical advantage of the block and tackle is equal to the number of parts of the rope that support the moving block.
In the diagram on the right the ideal mechanical advantage of each of the block and tackle assemblies shown is as follows:
A rope and pulley system—that is, a block and tackle—is characterised by the use of a single continuous rope to transmit a tension force around one or more pulleys to lift or move a load—the rope may be a light line or a strong cable. This system is included in the list of simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists.
If the rope and pulley system does not dissipate or store energy, then its mechanical advantage is the number of parts of the rope that act on the load. This can be shown as follows.
Consider the set of pulleys that form the moving block and the parts of the rope that support this block. If there are "p" of these parts of the rope supporting the load "W," then a force balance on the moving block shows that the tension in each of the parts of the rope must be "W/p." This means the input force on the rope is "T"="W/p." Thus, the block and tackle reduces the input force by the factor "p."
The simplest theory of operation for a pulley system assumes that the pulleys and lines are weightless, and that there is no energy loss due to friction. It is also assumed that the lines do not stretch.
In equilibrium, the forces on the moving block must sum to zero. In addition the tension in the rope must be the same for each of its parts. This means that the two parts of the rope supporting the moving block must each support half the load.
These are different types of pulley systems:
The mechanical advantage of the gun tackle can be increased by interchanging the fixed and moving blocks so the rope is attached to the moving block and the rope is pulled in the direction of the lifted load. In this case the block and tackle is said to be "rove to advantage." Diagram 3 shows that now three rope parts support the load "W" which means the tension in the rope is "W/3". Thus, the mechanical advantage is three.
By adding a pulley to the fixed block of a gun tackle the direction of the pulling force is reversed though the mechanical advantage remains the same, Diagram 3a. This is an example of the Luff tackle.
The mechanical advantage of a pulley system can be analyzed using free body diagrams which balance the tension force in the rope with the force of gravity on the load. In an ideal system, the massless and frictionless pulleys do not dissipate energy and allow for a change of direction of a rope that does not stretch or wear. In this case, a force balance on a free body that includes the load, "W", and "n" supporting sections of a rope with tension "T", yields:
The ratio of the load to the input tension force is the mechanical advantage "MA" of the pulley system,
Thus, the mechanical advantage of the system is equal to the number of sections of rope supporting the load.
A belt and pulley system is characterized by two or more pulleys in common to a belt. This allows for mechanical power, torque, and speed to be transmitted across axles. If the pulleys are of differing diameters, a mechanical advantage is realized.
A belt drive is analogous to that of a chain drive; however, a belt sheave may be smooth (devoid of discrete interlocking members as would be found on a chain sprocket, spur gear, or timing belt) so that the mechanical advantage is approximately given by the ratio of the pitch diameter of the sheaves only, not fixed exactly by the ratio of teeth as with gears and sprockets.
In the case of a drum-style pulley, without a groove or flanges, the pulley often is slightly convex to keep the flat belt centered. It is sometimes referred to as a crowned pulley. Though once widely used on factory line shafts, this type of pulley is still found driving the rotating brush in upright vacuum cleaners, in belt sanders and bandsaws. Agricultural tractors built up to the early 1950s generally had a belt pulley for a flat belt (which is what "Belt Pulley" magazine was named after). It has been replaced by other mechanisms with more flexibility in methods of use, such as power take-off and hydraulics.
Just as the diameters of gears (and, correspondingly, their number of teeth) determine a gear ratio and thus the speed increases or reductions and the mechanical advantage that they can deliver, the diameters of pulleys determine those same factors. and step pulleys (which operate on the same principle, although the names tend to be applied to flat belt versions and V-belt versions, respectively) are a way to provide multiple drive ratios in a belt-and-pulley system that can be shifted as needed, just as a transmission provides this function with a gear train that can be shifted. V-belt step pulleys are the most common way that drill presses deliver a range of spindle speeds. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23889 |
Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty
The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, also known as the Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, or the Madrid Protocol, is part of the Antarctic Treaty System. It provides for comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems.
It was concluded in Madrid and opened for signature on October 4, 1991 and entered into force on January 14, 1998. The treaty will be open for review in 2048.
As of May 2013, the protocol has been ratified by 34 parties — Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay.
A further 11 states — Austria, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Guatemala, Hungary, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Turkey — have signed but not yet ratified it.
The treaty followed a lengthy campaign by Greenpeace, including the construction of an Antarctic base from 1987 to 1991. Greenpeace claims the protocol as a victory.
Madrid Dome in Aristotle Mountains, Antarctica is named in connection with the Protocol. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23890 |
Particle radiation
Particle radiation is the radiation of energy by means of fast-moving subatomic particles. Particle radiation is referred to as a particle beam if the particles are all moving in the same direction, similar to a light beam.
Due to the wave–particle duality, all moving particles also have wave character. Higher energy particles more easily exhibit particle characteristics, while lower energy particles more easily exhibit wave characteristics.
Particles can be electrically charged or uncharged:
Particle radiation can be emitted by an unstable atomic nucleus (via radioactive decay), or it can be the product from some other kind of nuclear reaction. Many types of particles may be emitted:
Mechanisms that produce particle radiation include:
Charged particles (electrons, mesons, protons, alpha particles, heavier HZE ions, etc.) can be produced by particle accelerators. Ion irradiation is widely used in the semiconductor industry to introduce dopants into
materials, a method known as ion implantation.
Particle accelerators can also produce neutrino beams. Neutron beams are mostly produced by nuclear reactors. For the production of electromagnetic radiation, there are many methods, depending upon the wave length (see electromagnetic spectrum).
In radiation protection, radiation is often separated into two categories, "ionizing" and "non-ionizing", to denote the level of danger posed to humans. Ionization is the process of removing electrons from atoms, leaving two electrically charged particles (an electron and a positively charged ion) behind. The negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions created by ionizing radiation may cause damage in living tissue. Basically, a particle is ionizing if its energy is higher than the ionization energy of a typical substance, i.e., a few eV, and interacts with electrons significantly.
According to the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, electromagnetic radiations from ultraviolet to infrared, to radiofrequency (including microwave) radiation, static and time-varying electric and magnetic fields, and ultrasound belong to the non-ionizing radiations.
The charged particles mentioned above all belong to the ionizing radiations. When passing through matter, they ionize and thus lose energy in many small steps. The distance to the point where the charged particle has lost all its energy is called the range of the particle. The range depends upon the type of particle, its initial energy, and the material it traverses. Similarly, the energy loss per unit path length, the 'stopping power', depends on the type and energy of the charged particle and upon the material. The stopping power and hence, the density of ionization, usually increases toward the end of range and reaches a maximum, the Bragg Peak, shortly before the energy drops to zero. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23891 |
Partizan Press
Partizan Press is a publisher of military history, especially about the English Civil War. They are the publishing division of Caliver Books — which is based in Leigh-on-Sea and Newthorpe. They also published Valkyrie Quarterly magazine and distribute miniature figurines for wargaming and role-playing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23896 |
Pastaza River
The Pastaza River (, formerly known as the Sumatara) is a large tributary to the Marañón River in the northwestern Amazon Basin of South America.
It has its headwaters in the Ecuadorian province of Cotapaxi, flowing off the northwestern slopes of the volcano Cotopaxi and known as the Patate River. The Patate flows south and in Tungurahua Province it is joined by the Chambo River just upstream from the town of Baños de Agua Santa just north of the volcano Mount Tungurahua and becomes the Pastaza. Seven kilometers east of Baños, it is dammed for the Agoyan hydroelectric project, which has created a silty lagoon by the village of La Cieniga. The Agoyan dam was placed in that location specifically to leave the famous Falls of Agoyan, about 5 km further downstream, intact. After the waterfall the river enters a gorge where there is very fast whitewater with class-4 rapids; it is often used for whitewater rafting although it is not considered to be of the same quality as the Tena River and is therefore less popular for the sport.
From the junction with the Chambo, the Pastaza flows almost due east for about where it then turns south-east, as it is joined by the Topo River. The Troncal Amazonas highway parallels the river from Baños to Puyo, passing through seven tunnels, and four major waterfalls that are touristic destinations for many Ecuadorians (Agoyan and Pailon del Diablo being the most popular.) Just past the town of Santa Inez, the Pastaza River crosses into the province of Pastaza, where it forms the boundary between that province and Morona-Santiago. At the town of Mera, shortly before reaching Puyo, the river exits the mountains and flows into a wide valley, becoming wider and shallower. After Shell Mera the river becomes braided and meanders, leaving oxbows and sloughs along its route across the Amazonian floodplain.
After cutting through Ecuador, the Pastaza passes into Peru at the village of Hito Zoilaluz on Isla Zoilaluz and flows south into the Marañón River near Puerto Industrial.
The Pastaza has numerous tributaries, both above and below the hydroelectric dam. These contribute to its rapid flow and to its tendency to flood. On the highway side of the Pastaza, a tributary river occurs about every 3–4 km for a stretch of about 50 km; on the opposite bank, the number of tributaries is slightly lower. The major tributaries are the Chambo, Bobonaza, and Huasaga, also important are the Ambato, the Pindo, and the Puyo.
There are no major fisheries on the Pastaza River - it is primarily used as a means of transport by canoe. Its rise and fall are rapid and uncertain, and it is shallow and full of sandbanks and snags. Flooding occurs seasonally.
In Ecuador, there are very few bridges across the Pastaza. The most significant ones are in Tungurahua province - namely a large span over the exact point of headwaters, just north of Baños, and the secondary span created by the Agoyan dam. After this, bridges tend to be of the suspension type, suitable for foot or small vehicle passage only. However, it is notable that the Pastaza can be forded during the dry season in a 4x4 truck, going across the floodplains below the town of Mera. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23899 |
Polytope compound
A polyhedral compound is a figure that is composed of several polyhedra sharing a common centre. They are the three-dimensional analogs of polygonal compounds such as the hexagram.
The outer vertices of a compound can be connected to form a convex polyhedron called the convex hull. The compound is a facetting of the convex hull.
Another convex polyhedron is formed by the small central space common to all members of the compound. This polyhedron can be used as the core for a set of stellations.
A regular polyhedron compound can be defined as a compound which, like a regular polyhedron, is vertex-transitive, edge-transitive, and face-transitive. There are five regular compounds of polyhedra.
Best known is the compound of two tetrahedra, often called the stella octangula, a name given to it by Kepler. The vertices of the two tetrahedra define a cube, and the intersection of the two: an octahedron, which shares the same face-planes as the compound. Thus the compound of two tetrahedra is a stellation of the octahedron, and in fact, the only finite stellation thereof.
The stella octangula can also be regarded as a dual-regular compound.
The compound of five tetrahedra comes in two enantiomorphic versions, which together make up the compound of 10 tetrahedra. Each of the tetrahedral compounds is self-dual or "chiral-twin-dual", and the compound of 5 cubes is dual to the compound of 5 octahedra.
The five octahedra defining any given icosahedron form a regular polyhedral compound.
Coxeter's notation for regular compounds is given in the table above, incorporating Schläfli symbols. The material inside the square brackets, ["d"{"p","q"}], denotes the components of the compound: "d" separate {"p","q"}'s. The material "before" the square brackets denotes the vertex arrangement of the compound: "c"{"m","n"}["d"{"p","q"}] is a compound of "d" {"p","q"}'s sharing the vertices of {"m","n"} counted "c" times. The material "after" the square brackets denotes the facet arrangement of the compound: ["d"{"p","q"}]"e"{"s","t"} is a compound of "d" {"p","q"}'s sharing the faces of {"s","t"} counted "e" times. These may be combined: thus "c"{"m","n"}["d"{"p","q"}]"e"{"s","t"} is a compound of "d" {"p","q"}'s sharing the vertices of {"m","n"} counted "c" times "and" the faces of {"s","t"} counted "e" times. This notation can be generalised to compounds in any number of dimensions.
A dual compound is composed of a polyhedron and its dual, arranged reciprocally about a common intersphere or midsphere, such that the edge of one polyhedron intersects the dual edge of the dual polyhedron. There are five dual compounds of the regular polyhedra.
The core is the rectification of both solids. The hull is the dual of this rectification, and its rhombic faces have the intersecting edges of the two solids as diagonals (and have their four alternate vertices). For the convex solids, this is the convex hull.
The tetrahedron is self-dual, so the dual compound of a tetrahedron with its dual is the regular stellated octahedron.
The octahedral and icosahedral dual compounds are the first stellations of the cuboctahedron and icosidodecahedron, respectively.
In 1976 John Skilling published "Uniform Compounds of Uniform Polyhedra" which enumerated 75 compounds (including 6 as infinite prismatic sets of compounds, #20-#25) made from uniform polyhedra with rotational symmetry. (Every vertex is vertex-transitive and every vertex is transitive with every other vertex.) This list includes the five regular compounds above.
The 75 uniform compounds are listed in the Table below. Most are shown singularly colored by each polyhedron element. Some chiral pairs of face groups are colored by symmetry of the faces within each polyhedron.
Two polyhedra that are compounds but have their elements rigidly locked into place are the small complex icosidodecahedron (compound of icosahedron and great dodecahedron) and the great complex icosidodecahedron (compound of small stellated dodecahedron and great icosahedron). If the definition of a uniform polyhedron is generalised they are uniform.
The section for entianomorphic pairs in Skilling's list does not contain the compound of two great snub dodecicosidodecahedra, as the pentagram faces would coincide. Removing the coincident faces results in the compound of twenty octahedra.
In 4-dimensions, there are a large number of regular compounds of regular polytopes. Coxeter lists a few of these in his book Regular Polytopes:
Self-duals:
Dual pairs:
Uniform compounds and duals with convex 4-polytopes:
Self-dual star compounds:
Dual pairs of compound stars:
Uniform compound stars and duals:
Dual positions:
Only the first two of these dual compounds are also regular.
In terms of group theory, if "G" is the symmetry group of a polyhedral compound, and the group acts transitively on the polyhedra (so that each polyhedron can be sent to any of the others, as in uniform compounds), then if "H" is the stabilizer of a single chosen polyhedron, the polyhedra can be identified with the orbit space "G"/"H" – the coset "gH" corresponds to which polyhedron "g" sends the chosen polyhedron to.
There are eighteen two-parameter families of regular compound tessellations of the Euclidean plane. In the hyperbolic plane, five one-parameter families and seventeen isolated cases are known, but the completeness of this listing has not been enumerated.
The Euclidean and hyperbolic compound families 2 {"p","p"} (4 ≤ "p" ≤ ∞, "p" an integer) are analogous to the spherical stella octangula, 2 {3,3}.
A known family of regular Euclidean compound honeycombs in five or more dimensions is an infinite family of compounds of hypercubic honeycombs, all sharing vertices and faces with another hypercubic honeycomb. This compound can have any number of hypercubic honeycombs.
There are also "dual-regular" tiling compounds. A simple example is the E2 compound of a hexagonal tiling and its dual triangular tiling, which shares its edges with the deltoidal trihexagonal tiling. The Euclidean compounds of two hypercubic honeycombs are both regular and dual-regular. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23901 |
Platonic solid
In three-dimensional space, a Platonic solid is a regular, convex polyhedron. It is constructed by congruent (identical in shape and size), regular (all angles equal and all sides equal), polygonal faces with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex. Five solids meet these criteria:
Geometers have studied the Platonic solids for thousands of years. They are named for the ancient Greek philosopher Plato who hypothesized in one of his dialogues, the "Timaeus", that the classical elements were made of these regular solids.
The Platonic solids have been known since antiquity.
It has been suggested that certain
carved stone balls created by the late Neolithic people of Scotland represent these shapes; however, these balls have rounded knobs rather than being polyhedral,
the numbers of knobs frequently differed from the numbers of vertices of the Platonic solids, there is no ball whose knobs match the 20 vertices of the dodecahedron, and the arrangement of the knobs was not always symmetric.
The ancient Greeks studied the Platonic solids extensively. Some sources (such as Proclus) credit Pythagoras with their discovery. Other evidence suggests that he may have only been familiar with the tetrahedron, cube, and dodecahedron and that the discovery of the octahedron and icosahedron belong to Theaetetus, a contemporary of Plato. In any case, Theaetetus gave a mathematical description of all five and may have been responsible for the first known proof that no other convex regular polyhedra exist.
The Platonic solids are prominent in the philosophy of Plato, their namesake. Plato wrote about them in the dialogue "Timaeus" 360 B.C. in which he associated each of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) with a regular solid. Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, and fire with the tetrahedron. There was intuitive justification for these associations: the heat of fire feels sharp and stabbing (like little tetrahedra). Air is made of the octahedron; its minuscule components are so smooth that one can barely feel it. Water, the icosahedron, flows out of one's hand when picked up, as if it is made of tiny little balls. By contrast, a highly nonspherical solid, the hexahedron (cube) represents "earth". These clumsy little solids cause dirt to crumble and break when picked up in stark difference to the smooth flow of water. Moreover, the cube's being the only regular solid that tessellates Euclidean space was believed to cause the solidity of the Earth.
Of the fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarked, "...the god used [it] for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven". Aristotle added a fifth element, aithēr (aether in Latin, "ether" in English) and postulated that the heavens were made of this element, but he had no interest in matching it with Plato's fifth solid.
Euclid completely mathematically described the Platonic solids in the "Elements", the last book (Book XIII) of which is devoted to their properties. Propositions 13–17 in Book XIII describe the construction of the tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, icosahedron, and dodecahedron in that order. For each solid Euclid finds the ratio of the diameter of the circumscribed sphere to the edge length. In Proposition 18 he argues that there are no further convex regular polyhedra.
Andreas Speiser has advocated the view that the construction of the 5 regular solids is the chief goal of the deductive system canonized in the "Elements". Much of the information in Book XIII is probably derived from the work of Theaetetus.
In the 16th century, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler attempted to relate the five extraterrestrial planets known at that time to the five Platonic solids. In "Mysterium Cosmographicum", published in 1596, Kepler proposed a model of the Solar System in which the five solids were set inside one another and separated by a series of inscribed and circumscribed spheres. Kepler proposed that the distance relationships between the six planets known at that time could be understood in terms of the five Platonic solids enclosed within a sphere that represented the orbit of Saturn. The six spheres each corresponded to one of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). The solids were ordered with the innermost being the octahedron, followed by the icosahedron, dodecahedron, tetrahedron, and finally the cube, thereby dictating the structure of the solar system and the distance relationships between the planets by the Platonic solids. In the end, Kepler's original idea had to be abandoned, but out of his research came his three laws of orbital dynamics, the first of which was that the orbits of planets are ellipses rather than circles, changing the course of physics and astronomy. He also discovered the Kepler solids.
In the 20th century, attempts to link Platonic solids to the physical world were expanded to the electron shell model in chemistry by Robert Moon in a theory known as the "Moon model".
For Platonic solids centered at the origin, simple Cartesian coordinates of the vertices are given below. The Greek letter "φ" is used to represent the golden ratio ≈ 1.6180.
The coordinates for the tetrahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron are given in two orientation sets, each containing half of the sign and position permutation of coordinates.
These coordinates reveal certain relationships between the Platonic solids: the vertices of the tetrahedron represent half of those of the cube, as {4,3} or , one of two sets of 4 vertices in dual positions, as h{4,3} or . Both tetrahedral positions make the compound stellated octahedron.
The coordinates of the icosahedron are related to two alternated sets of coordinates of a nonuniform truncated octahedron, t{3,4} or , also called a "snub octahedron", as s{3,4} or , and seen in the compound of two icosahedra.
Eight of the vertices of the dodecahedron are shared with the cube. Completing all orientations leads to the compound of five cubes.
A convex polyhedron is a Platonic solid if and only if
Each Platonic solid can therefore be denoted by a symbol {"p", "q"} where
The symbol {"p", "q"}, called the Schläfli symbol, gives a combinatorial description of the polyhedron. The Schläfli symbols of the five Platonic solids are given in the table below.
All other combinatorial information about these solids, such as total number of vertices ("V"), edges ("E"), and faces ("F"), can be determined from "p" and "q". Since any edge joins two vertices and has two adjacent faces we must have:
The other relationship between these values is given by Euler's formula:
This can be proved in many ways. Together these three relationships completely determine "V", "E", and "F":
Swapping "p" and "q" interchanges "F" and "V" while leaving "E" unchanged. For a geometric interpretation of this property, see § Dual polyhedra below.
The elements of a polyhedron can be expressed in a configuration matrix. The rows and columns correspond to vertices, edges, and faces. The diagonal numbers say how many of each element occur in the whole polyhedron. The nondiagonal numbers say how many of the column's element occur in or at the row's element. Dual pairs of polyhedra have their configuration matrices rotated 180 degrees from each other.
The classical result is that only five convex regular polyhedra exist. Two common arguments below demonstrate no more than five Platonic solids can exist, but positively demonstrating the existence of any given solid is a separate question—one that requires an explicit construction.
The following geometric argument is very similar to the one given by Euclid in the "Elements":
A purely topological proof can be made using only combinatorial information about the solids. The key is Euler's observation that "V" − "E" + "F" = 2, and the fact that "pF" = 2"E" = "qV", where "p" stands for the number of edges of each face and "q" for the number of edges meeting at each vertex. Combining these equations one obtains the equation
Simple algebraic manipulation then gives
Since "E" is strictly positive we must have
Using the fact that "p" and "q" must both be at least 3, one can easily see that there are only five possibilities for {"p", "q"}:
There are a number of angles associated with each Platonic solid. The dihedral angle is the interior angle between any two face planes. The dihedral angle, "θ", of the solid {"p","q"} is given by the formula
This is sometimes more conveniently expressed in terms of the tangent by
The quantity "h" (called the Coxeter number) is 4, 6, 6, 10, and 10 for the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron respectively.
The angular deficiency at the vertex of a polyhedron is the difference between the sum of the face-angles at that vertex and 2. The defect, "δ", at any vertex of the Platonic solids {"p","q"} is
By a theorem of Descartes, this is equal to 4 divided by the number of vertices (i.e. the total defect at all vertices is 4).
The 3-dimensional analog of a plane angle is a solid angle. The solid angle, "Ω", at the vertex of a Platonic solid is given in terms of the dihedral angle by
This follows from the spherical excess formula for a spherical polygon and the fact that the vertex figure of the polyhedron {"p","q"} is a regular "q"-gon.
The solid angle of a face subtended from the center of a platonic solid is equal to the solid angle of a full sphere (4 steradians) divided by the number of faces. This is equal to the angular deficiency of its dual.
The various angles associated with the Platonic solids are tabulated below. The numerical values of the solid angles are given in steradians. The constant "φ" = is the golden ratio.
Another virtue of regularity is that the Platonic solids all possess three concentric spheres:
The radii of these spheres are called the "circumradius", the "midradius", and the "inradius". These are the distances from the center of the polyhedron to the vertices, edge midpoints, and face centers respectively. The circumradius "R" and the inradius "r" of the solid {"p", "q"} with edge length "a" are given by
where "θ" is the dihedral angle. The midradius "ρ" is given by
where "h" is the quantity used above in the definition of the dihedral angle ("h" = 4, 6, 6, 10, or 10). The ratio of the circumradius to the inradius is symmetric in "p" and "q":
The surface area, "A", of a Platonic solid {"p", "q"} is easily computed as area of a regular "p"-gon times the number of faces "F". This is:
The volume is computed as "F" times the volume of the pyramid whose base is a regular "p"-gon and whose height is the inradius "r". That is,
The following table lists the various radii of the Platonic solids together with their surface area and volume. The overall size is fixed by taking the edge length, "a", to be equal to 2.
The constants "φ" and "ξ" in the above are given by
Among the Platonic solids, either the dodecahedron or the icosahedron may be seen as the best approximation to the sphere. The icosahedron has the largest number of faces and the largest dihedral angle, it hugs its inscribed sphere the most tightly, and its surface area to volume ratio is closest to that of a sphere of the same size (i.e. either the same surface area or the same volume.) The dodecahedron, on the other hand, has the smallest angular defect, the largest vertex solid angle, and it fills out its circumscribed sphere the most.
A polyhedron "P" is said to have the "Rupert" property if a polyhedron of the same or larger size and the same shape as "P" can pass through a hole in "P".
All five Platonic solids have this property.
Every polyhedron has a dual (or "polar") polyhedron with faces and vertices interchanged. The dual of every Platonic solid is another Platonic solid, so that we can arrange the five solids into dual pairs.
If a polyhedron has Schläfli symbol {"p", "q"}, then its dual has the symbol {"q", "p"}. Indeed, every combinatorial property of one Platonic solid can be interpreted as another combinatorial property of the dual.
One can construct the dual polyhedron by taking the vertices of the dual to be the centers of the faces of the original figure. Connecting the centers of adjacent faces in the original forms the edges of the dual and thereby interchanges the number of faces and vertices while maintaining the number of edges.
More generally, one can dualize a Platonic solid with respect to a sphere of radius "d" concentric with the solid. The radii ("R", "ρ", "r") of a solid and those of its dual ("R"*, "ρ"*, "r"*) are related by
Dualizing with respect to the midsphere ("d" = "ρ") is often convenient because the midsphere has the same relationship to both polyhedra. Taking "d"2 = "Rr" yields a dual solid with the same circumradius and inradius (i.e. "R"* = "R" and "r"* = "r").
In mathematics, the concept of symmetry is studied with the notion of a mathematical group. Every polyhedron has an associated symmetry group, which is the set of all transformations (Euclidean isometries) which leave the polyhedron invariant. The order of the symmetry group is the number of symmetries of the polyhedron. One often distinguishes between the "full symmetry group", which includes reflections, and the "proper symmetry group", which includes only rotations.
The symmetry groups of the Platonic solids are a special class of three-dimensional point groups known as polyhedral groups. The high degree of symmetry of the Platonic solids can be interpreted in a number of ways. Most importantly, the vertices of each solid are all equivalent under the action of the symmetry group, as are the edges and faces. One says the action of the symmetry group is transitive on the vertices, edges, and faces. In fact, this is another way of defining regularity of a polyhedron: a polyhedron is "regular" if and only if it is vertex-uniform, edge-uniform, and face-uniform.
There are only three symmetry groups associated with the Platonic solids rather than five, since the symmetry group of any polyhedron coincides with that of its dual. This is easily seen by examining the construction of the dual polyhedron. Any symmetry of the original must be a symmetry of the dual and vice versa. The three polyhedral groups are:
The orders of the proper (rotation) groups are 12, 24, and 60 respectively – precisely twice the number of edges in the respective polyhedra. The orders of the full symmetry groups are twice as much again (24, 48, and 120). See (Coxeter 1973) for a derivation of these facts. All Platonic solids except the tetrahedron are "centrally symmetric," meaning they are preserved under reflection through the origin.
The following table lists the various symmetry properties of the Platonic solids. The symmetry groups listed are the full groups with the rotation subgroups given in parenthesis (likewise for the number of symmetries). Wythoff's kaleidoscope construction is a method for constructing polyhedra directly from their symmetry groups. They are listed for reference Wythoff's symbol for each of the Platonic solids.
The tetrahedron, cube, and octahedron all occur naturally in crystal structures. These by no means exhaust the numbers of possible forms of crystals. However, neither the regular icosahedron nor the regular dodecahedron are amongst them. One of the forms, called the pyritohedron (named for the group of minerals of which it is typical) has twelve pentagonal faces, arranged in the same pattern as the faces of the regular dodecahedron. The faces of the pyritohedron are, however, not regular, so the pyritohedron is also not regular. Allotropes of boron and many boron compounds, such as boron carbide, include discrete B12 icosahedra within their crystal structures. Carborane acids also have molecular structures approximating regular icosahedra.
In the early 20th century, Ernst Haeckel described (Haeckel, 1904) a number of species of Radiolaria, some of whose skeletons are shaped like various regular polyhedra. Examples include "Circoporus octahedrus", "Circogonia icosahedra", "Lithocubus geometricus" and "Circorrhegma dodecahedra". The shapes of these creatures should be obvious from their names.
Many viruses, such as the herpes virus, have the shape of a regular icosahedron. Viral structures are built of repeated identical protein subunits and the icosahedron is the easiest shape to assemble using these subunits. A regular polyhedron is used because it can be built from a single basic unit protein used over and over again; this saves space in the viral genome.
In meteorology and climatology, global numerical models of atmospheric flow are of increasing interest which employ geodesic grids that are based on an icosahedron (refined by triangulation) instead of the more commonly used longitude/latitude grid. This has the advantage of evenly distributed spatial resolution without singularities (i.e. the poles) at the expense of somewhat greater numerical difficulty.
Geometry of space frames is often based on platonic solids. In the MERO system, Platonic solids are used for naming convention of various space frame configurations. For example, O+T refers to a configuration made of one half of octahedron and a tetrahedron.
Several Platonic hydrocarbons have been synthesised, including cubane and dodecahedrane.
Platonic solids are often used to make dice, because dice of these shapes can be made fair. 6-sided dice are very common, but the other numbers are commonly used in role-playing games. Such dice are commonly referred to as d"n" where "n" is the number of faces (d8, d20, etc.); see dice notation for more details.
These shapes frequently show up in other games or puzzles. Puzzles similar to a Rubik's Cube come in all five shapes – see magic polyhedra.
For the intermediate material phase called liquid crystals, the existence of such symmetries was first proposed in 1981 by H. Kleinert and K. Maki.
In aluminum the icosahedral structure was discovered three years after this by Dan Shechtman, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011.
There exist four regular polyhedra that are not convex, called Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. These all have icosahedral symmetry and may be obtained as stellations of the dodecahedron and the icosahedron.
The next most regular convex polyhedra after the Platonic solids are the cuboctahedron, which is a rectification of the cube and the octahedron, and the icosidodecahedron, which is a rectification of the dodecahedron and the icosahedron (the rectification of the self-dual tetrahedron is a regular octahedron). These are both "quasi-regular", meaning that they are vertex- and edge-uniform and have regular faces, but the faces are not all congruent (coming in two different classes). They form two of the thirteen Archimedean solids, which are the convex uniform polyhedra with polyhedral symmetry. Their duals, the rhombic dodecahedron and rhombic triacontahedron, are edge- and face-transitive, but their faces are not regular and their vertices come in two types each; they are two of the thirteen Catalan solids.
The uniform polyhedra form a much broader class of polyhedra. These figures are vertex-uniform and have one or more types of regular or star polygons for faces. These include all the polyhedra mentioned above together with an infinite set of prisms, an infinite set of antiprisms, and 53 other non-convex forms.
The Johnson solids are convex polyhedra which have regular faces but are not uniform. Among them are five of the eight convex deltahedra, which have identical, regular faces (all equilateral triangles) but are not uniform. (The other three convex deltahedra are the Platonic tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron.)
The three regular tessellations of the plane are closely related to the Platonic solids. Indeed, one can view the Platonic solids as regular tessellations of the sphere. This is done by projecting each solid onto a concentric sphere. The faces project onto regular spherical polygons which exactly cover the sphere. Spherical tilings provide two infinite additional sets of regular tilings, the hosohedra, {2,"n"} with 2 vertices at the poles, and lune faces, and the dual dihedra, {"n",2} with 2 hemispherical faces and regularly spaced vertices on the equator. Such tesselations would be degenerate in true 3D space as polyhedra.
One can show that every regular tessellation of the sphere is characterized by a pair of integers {"p", "q"} with + > . Likewise, a regular tessellation of the plane is characterized by the condition + = . There are three possibilities:
In a similar manner, one can consider regular tessellations of the hyperbolic plane. These are characterized by the condition +
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 202,110 in 2017. Historically part of Northamptonshire, it is north of London, on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea to the north-east. The railway station is an important stop on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh. Peterborough is also the largest city and borough in Cambridgeshire and the East Anglia area of England.
The local topography is flat, and in some places the land lies below sea level, for example in parts of the Fens to the east of Peterborough. Human settlement in the area began before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre, also with evidence of Roman occupation. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the establishment of a monastery, Medeshamstede, which later became Peterborough Cathedral.
The population grew rapidly after the railways arrived in the 19th century, and Peterborough became an industrial centre, particularly known for its brick manufacture. After the Second World War, growth was limited until designation as a New Town in the 1960s. Housing and population are expanding and a £1 billion regeneration of the city centre and immediately surrounding area is under way. Industrial employment has fallen since then, a significant proportion of new jobs being in financial services and distribution.
The original name of the town was Medeshamstede. The town's name changed to "Burgh" from the late tenth century, possibly after Abbot Kenulf had built a defensive wall around the abbey, and eventually developed into the form Peterborough; the town does not appear to have been a borough until the 12th century. The contrasting form "Gildenburgh" is also found in the 12th century history of the abbey, the Peterborough version of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (see Peterborough Chronicle below) and in a history of the abbey by the monk Hugh Candidus.
Present-day Peterborough is the latest in a series of settlements which have at one time or other benefited from its site where the Nene leaves large areas of permanently drained land for the fens. Remains of Bronze Age settlement and what is thought to be religious activity can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the city centre. The Romans established a fortified garrison town at Durobrivae on Ermine Street, five miles (8 km) to the west in Water Newton, around the middle of the 1st century AD. Durobrivae's earliest appearance among surviving records is in the Antonine Itinerary of the late 2nd century. There was also a large 1st century Roman fort at Longthorpe, designed to house half a legion, or about 3,000 soldiers; it may have been established as early as around AD 44–48. Peterborough was an important area of ceramic production in the Roman period, providing Nene Valley Ware that was traded as far away as Cornwall and the Antonine Wall, Caledonia.
Peterborough is shown by its original name Medeshamstede to have possibly been an Anglian settlement before AD 655, when Sexwulf founded a monastery on land granted to him for that purpose by Peada of Mercia, who converted to Christianity and was briefly ruler of the smaller Middle Angles sub-group. His brother Wulfhere murdered his own sons, similarly converted and then finished the monastery by way of atonement.
Hereward the Wake rampaged through the town in 1069 or 1070. Outraged, Abbot Turold erected a fort or castle, which, from his name, was called Mont Turold: this mound, or hill, is on the outside of the deanery garden, now called Tout Hill, although in 1848 Tot-hill or Toot Hill. The abbey church was rebuilt and greatly enlarged in the 12th century. The Peterborough Chronicle, a version of the Anglo-Saxon one, contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman conquest, written here by monks in the 12th century. This is the only known prose history in English between the conquest and the later 14th century. The burgesses received their first charter from "Abbot Robert" – probably Robert of Sutton (1262–1273). The place suffered materially in the war between King John and the confederate barons, many of whom took refuge in the monastery here and in Crowland Abbey, from which sanctuaries they were forced by the king's soldiers, who plundered the religious houses and carried off great treasures. The abbey church became one of Henry VIII's retained, more secular, cathedrals in 1541, having been assessed at the Dissolution (in the King's Books) as having revenue of £1,972.7s.0¾d per annum.
When civil war broke out, Peterborough was divided between supporters of King Charles I and the Long Parliament. The city lay on the border of the Eastern Association of counties which sided with Parliament, and the war reached Peterborough in 1643 when soldiers arrived in the city to attack Royalist strongholds at Stamford and Crowland. The Royalist forces were defeated within a few weeks and retreated to Burghley House, where they were captured and sent to Cambridge. While the Parliamentary soldiers were in Peterborough, however, they ransacked the cathedral, destroying the Lady Chapel, chapter house, cloister, high altar and choir stalls, as well as mediaeval decoration and records.
Housing and sanitary improvements were effected under the provisions of an Act of Parliament passed in 1790; and an Act was passed in 1839 to build a gaol to replace the two that previously stood. After the dissolution the dean and chapter, who succeeded the abbot as lords of the manor, appointed a high bailiff and the constables and other borough officers were elected at their court leet; but this ended when the municipal borough was incorporated in 1874 under the government of a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Among the privileges claimed by the abbot as early as the 13th century was that of having a prison for felons taken in the Soke of Peterborough. In 1576 Bishop Edmund Scambler sold the lordship of the hundred of "Nassaburgh", which was coextensive with the Soke, to Queen Elizabeth I, who gave it to Lord Burghley, and from that time until the 19th century he and his descendants, the Earls and Marquesses of Exeter, had a separate gaol for prisoners arrested in the Soke. The abbot formerly held four fairs, of which two, St. Peter's Fair, granted in 1189 and later held on the second Tuesday and Wednesday in July, and the Brigge Fair, granted in 1439 and later held on the first Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in October, were purchased by the corporation from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1876. The Bridge Fair, as it is now known, granted to the abbey by King Henry VI, survives. Prayers for the opening of the fair were once said at the morning service in the cathedral, followed by a civic proclamation and a sausage lunch at the town hall which still takes place. The mayor traditionally leads a procession from the town hall to the fair where the proclamation is read, asking all persons to "behave soberly and civilly, and to pay their just dues and demands according to the laws of the realm and the rights of the City of Peterborough".
Railway lines began operating locally during the 1840s, but it was the 1850 opening of the Great Northern Railway's line from London to York that transformed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre. Lord Exeter had opposed the railway passing through Stamford, so Peterborough, situated between two main terminals at London and Doncaster, increasingly developed as a regional hub.
Coupled with vast local clay deposits, the railway enabled large-scale brick-making and distribution to take place. The area was the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the twentieth century. Brick-making had been a small seasonal craft since the early nineteenth century, but during the 1890s successful experiments at Fletton using the harder clays from a lower level had resulted in a much more efficient process. The market dominance during this period of the London Brick Company, founded by the prolific Scottish builder and architect John Cathles Hill, gave rise to some of the country's most well-known landmarks, all built using the ubiquitous Fletton Brick. Perkins Engines was established in Peterborough in 1932 by Frank Perkins, creator of the Perkins diesel engine. Thirty years later it employed more than a tenth of the population of Peterborough, mainly at Eastfield. Baker Perkins had relocated from London to Westwood, now the site of HM Prison Peterborough, in 1903, followed by Peter Brotherhood to Walton in 1906; both manufacturers of industrial machinery, they too became major employers in the city. British Sugar remains headquartered in Woodston, although the beet sugar factory, which opened there in 1926, was closed in 1991.
The Norwich and Peterborough (N&P) was formed by the merger of the Norwich Building Society and the Peterborough Building Society in 1986. It was the ninth largest building society at the time of its merger into the Yorkshire Group in 2011. N&P continued to operate under its own brand administered at Lynch Wood until 2018. Prior to merger with the Midlands Co-op in 2013, Anglia Regional, the UK's fifth largest co-operative society, was also based in Peterborough, where it was established in 1876. The combined society began trading as Central England Co-operative in 2014.
Designated a New Town in 1967, Peterborough Development Corporation was formed in partnership with the city and county councils to house London's overspill population in new townships sited around the existing urban area. There were to be four townships, one each at Bretton (originally to be called Milton, a hamlet in the Middle Ages), Orton, Paston/ Werrington and Castor. The last of these was never built, but a fourth, called Hampton, is now taking shape south of the city. It was decided that the city should have a major indoor shopping centre at its heart. Planning permission was received in late summer 1976 and Queensgate, containing over 90 stores and including parking for 2,300 cars, was opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1982. 34 miles (55 km) of urban roads were planned and a network of high-speed landscaped thoroughfares, known as parkways, was constructed.
Peterborough's population grew by 45.4% between 1971 and 1991. New service-sector companies like Thomas Cook and Pearl Assurance were attracted to the city, ending the dominance of the manufacturing industry as employers. An urban regeneration company named Opportunity Peterborough, under the chairmanship of Lord Mawhinney, was set up by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2005 to oversee Peterborough's future development. Between 2006 and 2012 a £1 billion redevelopment of the city centre and surrounding areas was planned. The master plan provided guidelines on the physical shaping of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. Proposals are still progressing for the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter, where Network Rail is preparing a major mixed use development. Whilst recognising that the reconfiguration of the relationship between the city and station was critical, English Heritage found the current plans for Westgate unconvincing and felt more thought should be given to the vitality of the historic core.
With the city expanding, in July 2005 the council adopted a new statutory development plan. Its aim is to accommodate an additional 22,000 homes, 18,000 jobs and over 40,000 people living in Peterborough by 2020. The newly developing Hampton township will be completed, there will be a 1,500-home development at Stanground and a further 1,200-home development at Paston.
The city formed a parliamentary borough returning two members from 1541, with the rest of the Soke being part of Northamptonshire parliamentary county. The Great Reform Act did not affect the borough, although the remaining, rural portion of the Soke was transferred to the northern division of Northamptonshire. In 1885, the borough's representation was reduced to one member, and in 1918, the boundaries were adjusted to include the whole Soke. Recent Members of Parliament for Peterborough have included the Conservative Sir Harmar Nicholls (1950–1974), Labour's Michael Ward (1974–1979), Conservative Brian Mawhinney (1979–1997), Labour's Helen Clark (1997–2005) and Conservative Stewart Jackson, from 2005. Fiona Onasanya won the 2017 general election for Labour; Onasanya was then expelled from the Labour party in December 2018, but kept her seat as an independent until being ejected on 1 May 2019 after a recall petition, triggering a by-election, which won by Labour's Lisa Forbes (June - November 2019). The current incumbent is Conservative Paul Bristow, who won the seat in the 2019 general election.
In 1997, the North West Cambridgeshire constituency was formed, incorporating parts of the city and neighbouring Huntingdonshire. The sitting member is the Conservative Shailesh Vara, who succeeded Sir Brian Mawhinney, former Secretary of State for Transport and Chairman of the Conservative Party, in 2005. Mawhinney, who had previously served as Member of Parliament for Peterborough from 1979, was created Baron Mawhinney of Peterborough in the county of Cambridgeshire later that year.
From 1889, the ancient Soke of Peterborough formed an administrative county in its own right with boundaries similar, although not identical, to the current unitary authority. The area however remained geographically part of Northamptonshire until 1965, when the Soke was merged with Huntingdonshire to form the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough. Following a review of local government in 1974, Huntingdon and Peterborough was abolished and the current district created by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Peterborough with Peterborough Rural District, Barnack Rural District, Thorney Rural District, Old Fletton Urban District and part of the Norman Cross Rural District, which had each existed since 1894. This became part of the non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire. Letters patent were granted continuing the status of city over the greater area. In 1998, the city became autonomous of Cambridgeshire county council as a unitary authority, but it continues to form part of that county for ceremonial purposes. The leader and cabinet model of decision-making, first adopted by the city council in 2001, is similar to national government.
Policing in the city remains the responsibility of Cambridgeshire Constabulary; and firefighting, the responsibility of Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service. Nowadays the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Brigade, one of few of its kind, effectively functions as a retained fire station. The Royal Anglian Regiment serves as the county regiment for Cambridgeshire. Peterborough formed its first territorial army unit, the 6th Northamptonshire Rifle Volunteer Corps, in 1860.
Following the Health and Social Care Act 2012, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group became the main commissioner of health services in the city. Adult social care functions of NHS Peterborough transferred back to the city council in 2012 and public health transferred in 2013. The responsibility of guided primary care services (general practitioners, dentists, opticians and pharmacists) transferred to NHS England. In 2017 the responsibility for commissioning Primary Care Services transferred back to the CCG. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is one of the largest CCGs in the England with over 984,000 registered patients, 91 GP practices and a budget of £1.16bn in 2017/18. Although predominately providing health services in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough the CCG also has practices in both Hertfordshire and Northamptonshire.
Previously, NHS Peterborough (the public-facing name of Peterborough Primary Care Trust) guided primary care services in the city, directly provided adult social care and services in the community such as health visiting and physiotherapy and also funded hospital care and other specialist treatments. Prior to the formation of the PCT, the North West Anglia Healthcare NHS Trust provided health functions within the city and before that, Peterborough Health Authority.
Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust became one of the first ten English NHS foundation trusts in 2004 and in 2017, merged with Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust to form North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust. Although a £300 million health investment plan has seen the transfer of the city's two hospitals into a single site, the Trust has been plagued by financial problems since the move. The full planning application for the redevelopment of the former Edith Cavell Hospital was approved by the council in 2006. Planning permission for the development of an integrated care centre on the site of the former Fenland Wing at Peterborough District Hospital was granted in 2003. The City Care Centre finally opened in 2009 and the first patients were treated at the new Peterborough City Hospital in 2010. The private Fitzwilliam Hospital run by Ramsay Health Care UK is situated in the landscaped grounds of the Milton Estate. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, a designated University of Cambridge teaching trust, provides services to those who suffer from mental health problems. Following merger of the Cambridgeshire Ambulance Service in 1994, then the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust in 2006, the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust is responsible for the provision of statutory emergency medical services (EMS) in Peterborough. The East Anglian Air Ambulance provides helicopter EMS across the region.
The council's budget for the financial year 2018/19 is £418.7 million. The main source of non-school funding is the formula grant, which is paid by central government to local authorities based on the services they provide. This was reduced by nearly 40% during the course of the 2010-15 parliament. The remainder, to which the police and fire authorities (and parish council where this exists) set a precept, is raised from council tax and business rates. This amounts to £59.5 million in 2015/16. Mains water and sewerage services are provided by Anglian Water, a former nationalised industry and natural monopoly, privatised in 1989 and now regulated by OFWAT.
Following deregulation, the consumer has a choice of energy supplier. Electricity was formerly provided by Eastern Electricity, which was privatised in 1990. In 2002, the supply business was sold to Powergen (now E.ON UK) and the distribution rights to EDF Energy who sold them to UK Power Networks in 2010. Natural gas was (and still is) supplied by British Gas, which was privatised in 1986; distribution (and gas and electricity transmission) is the responsibility of the National Grid, having been demerged as Transco in 1997. These industries are regulated by OFGEM. Peterborough Power Station is a 367 MWe gas-fired plant in Fengate operated by Centrica Energy.
British Telecommunications, privatised in 1984, provides fixed ADSL enabled (8 Mbit/s) telephone lines. Local loop unbundling, giving other internet service providers direct access, is completed at four out of 12 exchanges. The city is cabled by Virgin Media (previously Peterborough Cablevision, Cable & Wireless and NTL). These businesses are regulated by OFCOM. Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council are embarking on a superfast broadband project to deliver access to improved connectivity to areas where it is acknowledged that the market is unlikely to deliver.
Peterborough has a history of successful economic growth and continues to act as an attractor for investment and an engine of growth. The overarching ambition is to achieve sustainable growth, which can be maintained without creating significant economic problems.
The city has experienced an economic boom compared to the rest of the country, believed in part to be due to the regeneration plan which ran to 2012. In 2005, growth was on average 5.5%, whilst in Peterborough it was 6.9%, the highest in the UK. The city has also led in business population growth, with a 3.78% increase between April and September 2006, according to Royal Mail's Business Barometer.
Figures plotting growth from 1995 to 2004, revealed that Peterborough had become the most successful economy among unitary authorities in the East of England. They also revealed that the city's economy had grown faster than the regional average and any other economy in the region. It has a strong economy in the environmental goods and services sector and has the largest cluster of environmental businesses in the UK.
In 1994, Peterborough was designated one of four environment cities in the UK and began working to become the country's acknowledged environment capital. Peterborough Environment City Trust, an independent charity, was set up at the same time to work towards this goal, delivering projects promoting healthier and sustainable living in the city. The council and regional development agency have taken advice on regeneration issues from a number of internationally recognised experts, including Benjamin Barber (formerly an adviser to President Bill Clinton), Jan Gustav Strandenaes (United Nations adviser on environmental issues) and Patama Roorakwit (a Thai "community architect").
According to the 2001 census, the workplace population of 90,656 is divided into 60,118 people who live in Peterborough and 30,358 people who commute in. A further 13,161 residents commute out of the city to work. Earnings in Peterborough are lower than average. Median earnings for full-time workers were £11.93 per hour in 2014, less than the regional median for the East of England of £13.62 and the median hourly rate of £13.15 for Great Britain as a whole. As part of the government's M11 corridor, Peterborough is committed to creating 17,500 jobs with the population growing to 200,000 by 2020.
Future employment will also be created through the plan for the city centre launched by the council in 2003. Predictions of the levels and types of employment created were published in 2005. These include 1,421 jobs created in retail; 1,067 created in a variety of leisure and cultural developments; 338 in three hotels; and a further 4,847 jobs created in offices and other workspaces. Recent relocations of large employers include both Tesco (1,070 employees) and Debenhams (850 employees) distribution centres. A further 2,500 jobs were to be created in the £140 million Gateway warehouse and distribution park. This was expected to compensate for the 6,000 job losses as a result of the decline in manufacturing, anticipated in a report cited by the cabinet member for economic growth and regeneration in 2006.
With traditionally low levels of unemployment, Peterborough is a popular destination for workers and has seen significant growth through migration since the post-war period. The leader of the council said in August 2006 that he believed that 80% of the 65,000 people who had arrived in East Anglia from the states that joined the European Union in 2004 were living in Peterborough. To help cope with this influx, the council put forward plans to construct an average of 1,300 homes each year until 2021. Demand for short term employees remains high and the market supports up to 20 high street recruitment agencies at any given time. Peterborough Trades Council, formed in 1898, is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress.
Peterborough is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line, 45–50 minutes' journey time from central London, with high-speed intercity services from King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley operated by the London North Eastern Railway at around a 20-minute frequency, and slower commuter services terminating at Peterborough operated by Great Northern. It is a major railway junction where a number of cross-country routes converge. East Midlands Railway operates the Peterborough to Lincoln Line and a route from Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street via the main line north of Peterborough, CrossCountry operates the Birmingham to Peterborough Line through to Cambridge and Stansted Airport while Greater Anglia operates the Ely to Peterborough Line with a service to Ipswich. Peterborough has a business airport with a paved runway at Holme and a recreational airfield hosting a parachute school at Sibson.
The River Nene, made navigable from the port at Wisbech to Northampton by 1761, passes through the city centre. The Nene Viaduct carries the railway over the river. It was built in 1847 by Sir William and Joseph Cubitt. William Cubitt was the chief engineer of Crystal Palace erected at Hyde Park in 1851. Apart from some minor repairs in 1910 and 1914 (the steel bands and cross braces around the fluted legs) the bridge remains as Cubitts built it. Now a Grade II* listed structure, it is the oldest surviving cast iron railway bridge in the UK. By the Town Bridge, the Customs House, built in the early eighteenth century, is a visible reminder of the city's past function as an inland port. The Environment Agency navigation starts at the junction with the Northampton arm of the Grand Union Canal and extends for 91 miles (147 km) ending at Bevis Hall just upstream of Wisbech. The tidal limit used to be Woodston Wharf until the Dog-in-a-Doublet lock was built five miles (8 km) downstream in 1937.
The A1/A1(M) primary route (part of European route E15) broadly follows the path of the historic Great North Road from St Paul's Cathedral in the heart of London, through Peterborough (Junction 17), continuing north a further 335 miles (539 km) to central Edinburgh. In 1899 the British Electric Traction Company sought permission for a tramway joining the northern suburbs with the city centre. The system, which operated under the name Peterborough Electric Traction Company, opened in 1903 and was abandoned in favour of motor buses in 1930, when it was merged into the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company. Today, bus services in the city are operated by several companies including Stagecoach (formerly Cambus and Viscount) and Delaine Buses. Despite its large-scale growth, Peterborough has the fastest peak and off-peak travel times for a city of its size in the UK, due to the construction of the parkways. The Local Transport Plan anticipated expenditure totalling around £180 million for the period up to 2010 on major road schemes to accommodate development.
The combination of rail connections to the Port of Felixstowe and to the East Coast Main Line as well as a road connection via the A1(M) has led to Peterborough being proposed as the site of a rail-road logistics and distribution centre to be known as "Magna Park".
The Peterborough Millennium Green Wheel is a 50-mile (80 km) network of cycleways, footpaths and bridleways which provide safe, continuous routes around the city with radiating spokes connecting to the city centre. The project has also created a sculpture trail, which provides functional, landscape artworks along the Green Wheel route and a Living Landmarks project involving the local community in the creation of local landscape features such as mini woodlands, ponds and hedgerows. Another long-distance footpath, the Hereward Way, runs from Oakham in Rutland, through Peterborough, to East Harling in Norfolk.
Peterborough has a population of (). It is forecast to reach 200,000 in 2018/9 and 220,000 by around 2031.
Peterborough's population growth was reportedly the second fastest of any British city over the ten years from 2004 to 2013, driven partly by immigration.
According to the 2011 Census, 82.5% of Peterborough's residents categorised themselves as white, 2.8% of mixed ethnic groups, 11.7% Asian, 2.3 per cent black and 0.8% other. Amongst the white population, the largest categories were English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British (70.9%) and other white (10.6%). Those of Pakistani ethnicity accounted for 6.6% of the population and those of Indian ethnicity 2.5.%. The largest black group were those of African ethnicity (1.4%).
Peterborough is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian immigrants in the UK. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Apulia and Campania. By 1960, approximately 3,000 Italian men were employed by London Brick, mostly at the Fletton works. In 1962, the Scalabrini Fathers, who first arrived in 1956, purchased an old school and converted it into a mission church named after the patron saint of workers Saint Joseph (San Giuseppe). By 1991, over 3,000 christenings of second-generation Italians had been carried out there. In 1996, it was estimated that the Italian community of Peterborough numbered 7,000, making it the third largest in the UK after London and Bedford. The 2011 Census recorded 1,179 residents born in Italy.
In the late twentieth century the main source of immigration was from new Commonwealth countries. The 2011 Census showed that a total of 24,166 migrants moved to Peterborough between 2001 and 2011. The city has experienced significant immigration from the A8 countries that joined the European Union in 2004, and in 2011, 14,134 residents of the city were people born in Central and Eastern Europe.
According to a report published by the police in 2007, recent migration had resulted in increased translation costs and a change in the nature of crime in the county, with an increase in drink-driving offences, knife crime and an international dimension added to activities such as running cannabis factories and human trafficking. The number of foreign nationals arrested in the north of the county rose from 894 in 2003, to 2,435 in 2006, but the report also said that "inappropriately negative" community perceptions about migrant workers often complicate routine incidents, raising tensions and turning them "critical". It also noted there was "little evidence that the increased numbers of migrant workers have caused significant or systematic problems in respect of community safety or cohesion". In 2007, Julie Spence, the then Chief Constable emphasised that the fact that the demographic profile of Cambridgeshire had changed dramatically from one where 95% of teenagers were white four years previously to one of the country's fastest growing diverse populations, had had a positive impact on jobs and economic development. In 2008, the BBC broadcast "The Poles are Coming!", a controversial documentary on the impact of Polish migration to Peterborough by Tim Samuels, as part of its "White Season".
The number of languages in use is growing where previously few languages other than English were spoken. , Peterborough offered classes in Italian, Urdu and Punjabi in its primary schools.
Christianity has the largest following in Peterborough, in particular the Church of England, with a significant number of parish churches and a cathedral. 56.7% of Peterborough's residents classified themselves as Christian in the 2011 Census. Recent immigration to the city has also seen the Roman Catholic population increase substantially. Other denominations are also in evidence; the latest church to be constructed is a £7 million "superchurch," KingsGate, formerly Peterborough Community Church, which can seat up to 1,800 worshippers. In comparison with the rest of England, Peterborough has a lower proportion of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Sikhs. The city has a higher percentage of Muslims than England as a whole (9.4% compared to 5% nationally). The majority of Muslims reside in the Millfield, West Town and New England areas of the city, where two large mosques (including the Faidhan-e-Madina Mosque) are based. Peterborough also has both Hindu (Bharat Hindu Samaj) and Sikh (Singh Sabha Gurdwara) temples in these areas.
The Anglican Diocese of Peterborough covers roughly 1,200 square miles (3,100 km²), including the whole of Northamptonshire, Rutland and the Soke of Peterborough. The parts of the city that lie south of the river, which were historically in Huntingdonshire, fall within the Diocese of Ely, which covers the remainder of Cambridgeshire and western Norfolk. The current Bishop of Peterborough has been appointed Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely, with pastoral care for these parishes delegated to him by the Bishop of Ely. The city falls wholly within the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia (which has its seat at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Baptist, Norwich) and is served by Saint Peter and All Souls Church, built in 1896 and decorated in the Gothic style. The Greek Orthodox Community of Saint Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem was established in 1991 under the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.
Peterborough has one independent boarding school: The Peterborough School at Westwood House, founded in 1895. The school caters for girls and now boys up to the age of 18. Peterborough's state schools have recently undergone immense change. Five of the city's 15 secondary schools were closed in July 2007, to be demolished over the coming years. John Mansfield (now an adult learning centre), Hereward (formerly Eastholm, now City of Peterborough Academy, sponsored by the Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust) and Deacon's were replaced with the flagship Thomas Deacon Academy, designed by Lord Foster of Thames Bank which opened in September 2007.
The Voyager School, which has specialist media arts status, replaced Bretton Woods and Walton comprehensive. In September 2017 the school reopened as Queen Katharine Academy, part of the Thomas Deacon Education Trust. The schools that remain have been extended and enlarged. Over £200 million was spent and the changes on-going to 2010. The King's School is one of seven schools established, or in some cases re-endowed and renamed, by King Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries to pray for his soul. In 2006, 39.4% of Peterborough local education authority pupils attained five grades A* to C, including English and Mathematics, in the General Certificate of Secondary Education, lower than the national average of 45.8%.
The city has two colleges of further and higher education, Peterborough Regional College (established in 1946 as Peterborough Technical College) and City College Peterborough (known as Peterborough College of Adult Education until 2010). By 2004, Peterborough Regional College attracted over 15,000 students each year from the UK and abroad and was ranked in the top five per cent of colleges in the UK. Greater Peterborough University Technical College is a new education facility set to open in September 2015.
The city is currently without a university, after Loughborough University closed its Peterborough campus in 2003. Consequently, it became the second largest centre of population in the UK (after Swindon) without its own higher education institution. In 2006, however, Peterborough Regional College began talks with Anglia Ruskin University to develop a new university campus for the city. The college and the university completed the legal contracts for the creation of a new joint venture company in 2007, marking the culmination of legal negotiations and securing of funds required in order to build the new higher education centre. University Centre Peterborough opened to the first 850 students in 2009.
The former public library on Broadway was funded by Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1906; Carnegie was made first freeman of the city on the day of the opening ceremony.
Peterborough enjoys a wide range of events including the annual East of England Show, Peterborough Festival and CAMRA beer festival, which takes place on the river embankment in late August.
The Key Theatre, built in 1973, is situated on the embankment, next to the River Nene. The theatre aims to provide entertainment, enlightenment and education by reflecting the rich culture Peterborough has to offer. The programme is made up of home-grown productions, national touring shows, local community productions and one-off concerts. There is disabled access, an infrared hearing system for the deaf and hard of hearing and there are also regular signed performances.
In 1937, the Odeon Cinema opened on Broadway, where it operated successfully for more than half a century. In 1991, the Odeon showed its last film to the public and was left to fall into a state of disrepair, until 1997, when a local entrepreneur purchased the building as part of a larger project, including a restaurant and art gallery. The Broadway, designed by Tim Foster Architects, was one of the largest theatres in the region and offered a selection of live entertainment, including music, comedy and films. In 2009, it was severely damaged by arsonists, resulting in closure when its insurers refused to pay the claim due to faulty fire detection systems. The Embassy Theatre, a large Art Deco building designed by David Evelyn Nye, also opened on Broadway in 1937. Nye was usually a cinema architect, and this was his only theatre. The Embassy was converted into a cinema in 1953, becoming the ABC and later the Cannon Cinema, before it was closed in 1989. Since 1996, the premises have been occupied by the Edwards bar chain.
The John Clare Theatre within the new central library, again on Broadway, is home to the Peterborough Film Society. One of the region's leading venues, the Cresset in Bretton, provides a wide range of events for the residents of the city and beyond, including theatre, comedy, music and dance. Peterborough has a 13-screen Showcase Cinema, an ice rink and two indoor swimming pools open to the general public. A diverse range of restaurants can be found throughout the city, including Chinese & Cantonese, Indian & Nepalese, Thai and many Italian restaurants. Peterborough has recently been used as the setting in popular literature: "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka, "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon and, the first in a projected series, "Long Way Home", a debut novel by Eva Doran.
Peterborough United Football Club, known as "The Posh", has been the local football team since 1934. The ground is situated at London Road on the south bank of the River Nene. Peterborough United have a history of cup giant-killings. They set the record for the highest number of league goals (134, Terry Bly alone scoring 52) in the 1960-61 season, which was their first season in the Football League, in which they won the Fourth Division title. The club's highest finish position to date was tenth place in Division One, then the second tier of English football, in the 1992-93 season. Irish property developer Darragh MacAnthony was appointed chairman in 2006 and is now owner, having undertaken a lengthy purchase from Barry Fry who remains director of football, having also been manager of the club from 1996 to 2005. Peterborough also has two non-league football teams. Peterborough Northern Star FC, play at Chestnut Avenue, Dogsthorpe and compete in the United Counties League. Peterborough Sports FC play at Lincoln Road and compete one division above Peterborough Northern Star in the Northern Premier League.
As well as football, Peterborough has teams competing in rugby, cricket, hockey, ice hockey, rowing, athletics, American and Australian rules football. Although Cambridgeshire is not a first-class cricket county, Northamptonshire staged some home matches in the city between 1906 and 1974. Peterborough Town Cricket Club and the City of Peterborough Hockey Club compete at their shared ground in Westwood.
After reforming in 2005, rugby union club Peterborough Lions RFC now compete in National League 3 Midlands. Meanwhile, the city's oldest rugby team, Peterborough RUFC, play at Second Drove (otherwise known as "Fortress Fengate"), and have struggled in recent seasons. Relegation in 2013/14 season, from Midlands 1 East, has been followed by a season in the lower-mid table of the Midlands 2 East (South).
Peterborough City Rowing Club moved from its riverside setting to the current Thorpe Meadows location in 1983. The spring and summer regattas held there attract rowers and scullers from competing clubs all over the country. Every February the adjacent River Nene is host to the head of the river race, which again attracts hundreds of entries. Peterborough Athletic Club train and compete at the embankment athletics arena. In 2006, after 10 years, the Great Eastern Run returned to the racing calendar. Around 3,000 runners raced through the flat streets of Peterborough for the half-marathon, supported by thousands of spectators along the course.
Peterborough Phantoms are the city's ice hockey team, playing in the NIHL at Planet Ice Peterborough, located on Mallard Way in Bretton. Motorcycle speedway is also a popular sport in Peterborough, with race meetings held at the East of England Showground. The team, known as the Peterborough Panthers, have operated regularly in the Elite League. The Showground hosts the annual British Motorcycle Federation Rally each May. In 2009, Peterborough hosted one of the first rounds of the Tour Series, a new series of televised town and city centre cycling races. , the city has hosted a round of the Tour Series each year since, with the exception of 2013.
In March 2017 the first bandy session in England for over a century was held in Peterborough, in the form of rink bandy.
In 2018 Peterborough Bandy Club was founded.
There is a major radio transmitter at Morborne, approximately eight miles (13 km) west of Peterborough, for national FM radio (BBC Radios 1–4 and Classic FM) and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. This facility includes a 154-metre (505 ft) high guyed radio mast which collapsed in 2004 after a fire and has since been re-built. Another transmission site at Gunthorpe in the north east of the city transmits AM/MW and local FM radio. The site is only 3 metres (10 ft) above sea level and has an 83-metre (270 ft) high active insulated guyed mast situated on it.
Peterborough is covered by six local radio stations and one regional station, though only two community stations broadcast from the city. These are Salaam FM, catering for the local Muslim population, which started broadcasting on 106.2 MHz in 2016 and Peterborough Community Radio (PCR FM), a station formed as a result of a merger between former Internet stations Peterborough FM and Radio Peterborough, which started broadcasting on 103.2 MHz in 2017.
Heart Cambridgeshire, the original independent local radio station launched as Hereward Radio in 1980 and becoming Heart Peterborough in 2009, still holds a large section of the market on 102.7 MHz but relocated to Cambridge in 2012, where it began sharing the localised programming (of mainly national output) with Heart Cambridge. Hereward's sister station, WGMS, was launched on the old 1332 kHz (225 meters) frequency in 1992; known as Classic Gold from 1994 to 2007, it is now part of Heart's sister Gold Radio network, but has no programming made in Peterborough. Connect Radio (from 1999 to 2010, known as Lite FM), was the city's second commercial station on 106.8;MHz, but is now broadcast partly from Kettering and partly from Southend. Connect Radio was again sold and rebranded as Smooth East Midlands on 1 October 2019.
Radio Cambridgeshire, the BBC local radio station, began broadcasting on 1 May 1982 on 95.7 MHz (and, originally, 1449 kHz) in the north of the county; it maintains a studio in Priestgate, having moved from Broadway in 2012. Kiss 105-108 is the regional station for the East of England, broadcasting, since 2006, on 107.7 MHz in Peterborough. NOW Peterborough is the local DAB multiplex; BBC National DAB and the national commercial multiplex, Digital One, are also available in the city. Peterborough is in the Anglia Television transmission area for Independent Television, with a small studio in the city (although it borders ITV Central). This is broadcast with BBC One and Two (East), Channel 4 and Channel 5 from Sandy Heath. The digital switchover in the East of England took place in 2011. Shopping channel Ideal World is broadcast nationwide on Freeview from studios in Newark Road, Fengate.
The "Peterborough Telegraph" (established 1948) is the city's newspaper, published on Thursdays and, until 2012, six days a week as the Evening Telegraph, with jobs, property, motors and entertainment supplements. The Telegraph is now owned by East Midlands Newspapers, part of Johnston Press of Edinburgh. Its website, Peterborough Today, is updated six days a week. The "PT's" sister paper, the "Peterborough Citizen" (1898), is a weekly paper delivered free to many homes in the city. The "Peterborough Herald and Post" (1989, a replacement for the "Peterborough Standard", established 1872) ceased publication in 2008. The publisher Emap, which specialises in the production of magazines and the organisation of business events and conferences, traces its origins back to Peterborough in 1854. The 33rd Mayor of Peterborough, Sir Richard Winfrey JP, founder of what would become the East Midland Allied Press, was perhaps the last person to read the Riot Act in 1914.
Peterborough has been used as a location for various television programmes and films. The 1982 BBC production of "The Barchester Chronicles" was filmed largely in and around Peterborough. In 1983 opening scenes for the 13th James Bond film, "Octopussy", starring Sir Roger Moore, were filmed at Orton Mere. A music video for the song "BreakThru" by the band Queen was also shot on the preserved Nene Valley Railway in 1989. In 1995 Pierce Brosnan filmed train crash sequences for the 17th Bond film, "GoldenEye", at the former sugar beet factory. A scene for the film "The Da Vinci Code" was filmed at Burghley House during five weeks secret filming in 2006; and actor, Lee Marvin, found himself camping in Ferry Meadows during the filming of "" in 1985. In October 2008 Hollywood returned to Wansford for the filming of the musical "Nine", starring Penélope Cruz and Daniel Day-Lewis.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the West Front, was founded as a monastery in AD 655 and re-built in its present form between 1118 and 1238. It has been the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough since the diocese was created in 1541, when the last abbot was made the first bishop and the abbot's house was converted into the episcopal palace. Peterborough Cathedral is one of the most intact large Norman buildings in England and is renowned for its imposing early English Gothic West Front which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The cathedral has the distinction of having had two queens buried beneath its paving: Katherine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots. The remains of Queen Mary were removed to Westminster Abbey by her son James I when he became King of England.
The general layout of Peterborough is attributed to Martin de Vecti who, as abbot from 1133 to 1155, rebuilt the settlement on dry limestone to the west of the monastery, rather than the often-flooded marshlands to the east. Abbot Martin was responsible for laying out the market place and the wharf beside the river. Peterborough's 17th-century Guildhall was built in 1671 by John Lovin, who also restored the bishop's palace shortly after the restoration of King Charles II. It stands on columns, providing an open ground floor for the butter and poultry markets which used to be held there. The Market Place was renamed Cathedral Square and the adjacent Gates Memorial Fountain moved to Bishop's Road Gardens in 1963, when the (then weekly) market was transferred to the site of the old cattle market.
Peterscourt on City Road was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1864, housing St. Peter's Teacher Training College for men until 1938. The building is mainly listed for the 18th century doorway, brought from the London Guildhall following war damage. Nearby Tout Hill, the site of a castle bailey, is a scheduled monument. The city has a large Victorian park containing formal gardens, children's play areas, an aviary, bowling green, tennis courts, pitch and putt course and tea rooms. The Park has been awarded the Green Flag Award, the national standard for parks and green spaces, by the Civic Trust. A Cross of Sacrifice was erected in Broadway cemetery by the Imperial War Graves Commission in the early 1920s. The Lido, a striking building with elements of art deco design, was opened in 1936 and is one of the few survivors of its type still in use.
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, built in 1816, housed the city's first infirmary from 1857 to 1928. The museum has a collection of some 227,000 objects, including local archaeology and social history, from the products of the Roman pottery industry to Britain's oldest known murder victim; a collection of marine fossil remains from the Jurassic period of international importance; the manuscripts of John Clare, the "Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" as he was commonly known in his own time; and the Norman Cross collection of items made by French prisoners of war. These prisoners were kept at Norman Cross on the outskirts of Peterborough from 1797 to 1814, in what is believed to be the world's first purpose built prisoner of war camp. The art collection contains an impressive variety of paintings, prints and drawings dating from the 1600s to the present day. Peterborough Museum also holds regular temporary exhibitions, weekend events and guided tours.
Burghley House to the north of Peterborough, near Stamford, was built and mostly designed by Sir William Cecil, later 1st Baron Burghley, who was Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign. The country house, with a park laid out by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown in the 18th century, is one of the principal examples of 16th-century English architecture. The estate, still home to his descendants, hosts the Burghley Horse Trials, an annual three-day event. Another Grade I listed building, Milton Hall near Castor, ancestral home of the Barons and later Earls Fitzwilliam, also dates from the same period. For two centuries following the restoration the city was a pocket borough of this family.
The John Clare Cottage in the village of Helpston was purchased by the John Clare Trust in 2005. The cottage, home of John Clare from his birth in 1793 until 1832, has been restored using traditional building methods to create a resource where visitors can learn about the poet, his works and how rural people lived in the early 19th century. The John Clare Cottage and Thorney Heritage Museum form part of the Greater Fens Museum Partnership, along with Peterborough Museum and Flag Fen.
Longthorpe Tower, a 14th-century three-storey tower and fortified manor house in the care of English Heritage, is situated about west of the city centre. It is a scheduled monument, and contains the finest and most complete set of domestic paintings of their period in northern Europe. Nearby Thorpe Hall is one of the few mansions built in the Commonwealth period. A maternity hospital from 1943 to 1970, it was acquired by the Sue Ryder Foundation in 1986 and is currently in use as a hospice.
Flag Fen, the Bronze Age archaeological site, was discovered in 1982, when a team led by Dr Francis Pryor carried out a survey of dykes in the area. Probably religious, it comprises a large number of poles arranged in five long rows, connecting Whittlesey with Peterborough across the wet fenland. The museum exhibits many of the artefacts found, including what is believed to be the oldest wheel in Britain. An exposed section of the Roman road known as the Fen Causeway also crosses the site.
The Nene Valley Railway, which is now a 7.5-mile (12 km) heritage railway, was one of the last passenger lines to fall under the Beeching Axe in 1966, although it remained open for freight traffic until 1972. In 1974, the former development corporation bought the line, which runs from the city centre to Yarwell Junction just west of Wansford via Orton Mere and the 500 acre (202 ha) Ferry Meadows country park, and leased it to the Peterborough Railway Society. Railworld is a railway museum located beside Peterborough Nene Valley railway station.
The Nene Park, which opened in 1978, covers a site long, from slightly west of Castor to the centre of Peterborough. The park has three lakes, one of which houses a watersports centre. Ferry Meadows, one of the major destinations and attractions signposted on the Green Wheel, occupies a large portion of Nene Park. Orton Mere provides access to the east of the park.
Southey Wood, once included in the Royal Forest of Rockingham, is a mixed woodland maintained by the Forestry Commission between the villages of Upton and Ufford. Nearby, Castor Hanglands, Barnack Hills and Holes and Bedford Purlieus national nature reserves are each sites of special scientific interest. In 2002, the Hills and Holes, one of Natural England's 35 spotlight reserves, was designated a special area of conservation as part of the Natura 2000 network of sites throughout the European Union.
Peterborough is the birthplace of many notable people, the astronomer George Alcock, one of the most successful visual discoverers of novas and comets; John Clare, from Helpston, the nineteenth century poet; artist, Christopher Perkins – brother of Frank; and Sir Henry Royce, 1st Baronet of Seaton, engineer and co-founder of Rolls-Royce. Physician, actor and author, "Sir" John Hill, credited with 76 separate works in the "Dictionary of National Biography", the most valuable of which dealing with botany, is also said to have been born here. The socialist writer and illustrator, Frank Horrabin, who was born in the city, and was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament in 1929.
The utilitarian philosopher, Dr Richard Cumberland, was 14th Lord Bishop of Peterborough from 1691 until his death in 1718; and Norfolk-born nurse and humanitarian, Edith Cavell, who received part of her education at Laurel Court in the Minster Precinct, is commemorated by a plaque in the Cathedral and by the name of the hospital. Two prominent historical figures were born locally, Hereward the Wake, an outlaw who led resistance to the Norman Conquest and now lends his name to several places and businesses in the city; and St. John Payne, one of the group of prominent Catholics martyred between 1535 and 1679 and later designated the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, who was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised with the other 39 by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Musicians include Sir Thomas Armstrong, organist, conductor and former principal of the Royal Academy of Music; Andy Bell, lead vocalist of the electronic pop duo Erasure; Barrie Forgie, leader of the BBC Big Band; Don Lusher, trombonist and former professor of the Royal College of Music and the Royal Marines School of Music; Paul Nicholas, actor and singer; Maxim Reality and Gizz Butt of dance act The Prodigy and Aston Merrygold of Brit Award-winning pop group JLS. Comedian Ernie Wise lived on Thorpe Avenue for many years, next door to Canadian baritone and actor Edmund Hockridge. Jimmy Savile also lived in the city in the early 1990s.
Other media personalities include actors Simon Bamford, known for the 'Hellraiser' franchise, Adrian Lyne, director of "Fatal Attraction", Oscar Jacques, known for playing Tom Tupper in the CBBC Series "M.I. High", Luke Pasqualino, known for his roles in "Skins" and "The Musketeers"; television presenter, Sarah Cawood, who grew up in Maxey; BBC Formula One presenter, Jake Humphrey; football journalist and Talksport radio presenter, Adrian Durham; and the biologist, author and broadcaster, Prof. Brian J. Ford, who attended the King's School and still lives in Eastrea near Whittlesey. Local businessman, Peter Boizot, founder of the Pizza Express restaurant chain and Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, has supported the cultural and sporting life of Peterborough and received its highest accolade, the freedom of the city. The thalidomide victim Terry Wiles, subject of the 1979 film "On Giant's Shoulders", was born in the city.
In the sporting world, Tottenham Hotspur and England footballer, David Bentley, was born in the city., as was Louis Smith, who at the 2008 games became Great Britain's first gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal in a century. Chelsea Football player, currently on loan at Luton Town footballer Isaiah Brown, was born in Peterborough, before joining Leicester City and later West Bromwich Albion, becoming the second youngest player to play in the Premier League.
According to the Köppen classification the British Isles experience a maritime climate characterised by relatively cool summers and mild winters. Compared with other parts of the country, East Anglia is slightly warmer and sunnier in the summer and colder and frostier in the winter. Owing to its inland position, furthest from the landfall of most Atlantic depressions, Cambridgeshire is one of the driest counties in the UK, receiving, on average, around 600 mm (2 ft) of rain per year. The Met Office weather station at Wittering, within the unitary authority of Peterborough, recorded a maximum temperature of on 25 July 2019. The lowest temperature in recent years was during February 2012.
East Anglia is most notable for being almost flat. During the Ice Age much of the region was covered by ice sheets and this has influenced the topography and nature of the soils. Much of Cambridgeshire is low-lying, in some places below present-day mean sea level. The lowest point on land is supposedly just to the south of the city at Holme Fen, which is 2.75 metres (9 ft) below sea level. The largest of the many settlements along the Fen edge, Peterborough has been called the "Gateway to the Fens". Before they were drained the Fens were liable to periodic flooding so arable farming was limited to the higher areas of the Fen edge, with the rest of the Fenland dedicated to pastoral farming. In this way, the mediaeval and early modern Fens stood in contrast to the rest of southern England, which was primarily arable. Since the advent of modern drainage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Fens have been radically transformed such that arable farming has almost entirely replaced pastoral. The unitary authority extends north west to the settlements of Wothorpe and Wittering and east beyond Thorney into the historic Isle of Ely and includes the Ortons, south of the River Nene. It borders Northamptonshire to the west, Lincolnshire to the north, and the Cambridgeshire districts of Fenland and Huntingdonshire to the south and east. The city centre is located at 52°35'N latitude 0°15'W longitude or Ordnance Survey national grid reference TL 185 998.
Urban areas
"Townships are in bold type. In addition to the surrounding villages, Bretton, Orton Longueville and Orton Waterville are parished. The city council also works closely with Werrington neighbourhood association which operates on a similar basis to a parish council."
Bretton – Dogsthorpe – Eastfield – Eastgate – Fengate – Fletton – Gunthorpe – The Hamptons – Longthorpe – Millfield – Netherton – Newark – New England – The Ortons – Parnwell – Paston – Ravensthorpe – Stanground – Walton – Werrington – West Town – Westwood – Woodston
Rural areas
"Civil parishes do not cover the whole of England and mostly exist in rural hinterland. They are usually administered by parish councils which have various local responsibilities."
Ailsworth – Bainton – Barnack – Borough Fen – Castor – Deeping Gate – Etton – Eye – Eye Green – Glinton – Helpston – Marholm – Maxey – Newborough – Northborough – Peakirk – Southorpe – St. Martin's Without – Sutton – Thorney – Thornhaugh – Ufford – Upton – Wansford – Wittering – Wothorpe
These are further arranged into 24 electoral wards for the purposes of local government. 15 wards comprise the Peterborough constituency for elections to the House of Commons, while the remaining nine fall within the North West Cambridgeshire constituency.
Peterborough lies in the middle of several distinct regional accent groups and as such has a hybrid of Fenland East Anglian, East Midland and London Estuary English features. The city falls just north of the A vowel isogloss and as such most native speakers will use the flat A, as found in "cat", in words such as "last". "Yod"-dropping is often heard from Peterborians, as in the rest of East Anglia, for example "new" as . However, the large number of newcomers has impacted greatly on the English spoken by the younger generation. Common so-called Estuary English features such as "L"-vocalisation, T glottalisation and "Th"-fronting give today's Peterborough accent a definite south-eastern sound.
Town twinning started in Europe after the Second World War. Its purpose was to promote friendship and greater understanding between the people of different European cities. A twinning link is a formal, long-term friendship agreement involving co-operation between two communities in different countries and endorsed by both local authorities. The two communities organise projects and activities addressing a range of issues and develop an understanding of historical, cultural, lifestyle similarities and differences. Peterborough is twinned with the following municipalities:
Bourges and Forlì are also twinned with each other. The city also has more informal friendship links with Foggia, Italy; Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe; Pécs, Hungary; and all Peterboroughs around the world. The county of Cambridgeshire has been twinned with Kreis Viersen, Germany since 1983.
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the City of Peterborough.
PRC (disambiguation)
PRC is the People's Republic of China, the formal name of China.
PRC may also refer to:
Polyphemus
Polyphemus (; "Polyphēmos") is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's "Odyssey". His name means "abounding in songs and legends". Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the "Odyssey". The satyr play of Euripides is dependent on this episode apart from one detail; for comic effect, Polyphemus is made a pederast in the play. Later Classical writers presented him in their poems as heterosexual and linked his name with the nymph Galatea. Often he was portrayed as unsuccessful in these, and as unaware of his disproportionate size and musical failings. In the work of even later authors, however, he is presented as both a successful lover and skilled musician. From the Renaissance on, art and literature reflect all of these interpretations of the giant.
In Homer's epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclopes during his journey home from the Trojan War and, together with some of his men, enters a cave filled with provisions. When the giant Polyphemus returns home with his flocks, he blocks the entrance with a great stone and, scoffing at the usual custom of hospitality, eats two of the men. Next morning, the giant kills and eats two more and leaves the cave to graze his sheep.
After the giant returns in the evening and eats two more of the men, Odysseus offers Polyphemus some strong and undiluted wine given to him earlier on his journey. Drunk and unwary, the giant asks Odysseus his name, promising him a guest-gift if he answers. Odysseus tells him "Οὖτις", which means "nobody" and Polyphemus promises to eat this "Nobody" last of all. With that, he falls into a drunken sleep. Odysseus had meanwhile hardened a wooden stake in the fire and drives it into Polyphemus' eye. When Polyphemus shouts for help from his fellow giants, saying that "Nobody" has hurt him, they think Polyphemus is being afflicted by divine power and recommend prayer as the answer.
In the morning, the blind Cyclops lets the sheep out to graze, feeling their backs to ensure that the men are not escaping. However, Odysseus and his men have tied themselves to the undersides of the animals and so get away. As he sails off with his men, Odysseus boastfully reveals his real name, an act of hubris that was to cause problems for him later. Polyphemus prays to his father, Poseidon, for revenge and casts huge rocks towards the ship, which Odysseus barely escapes.
The story reappears in later Classical literature. In "Cyclops", the 5th-century BC play by Euripides, a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief from the grisly story of how Polyphemus is punished for his impious behaviour in not respecting the rites of hospitality. In his Latin epic, Virgil describes how Aeneas observes blind Polyphemus as he leads his flocks down to the sea. They have encountered Achaemenides, who re-tells the story of how Odysseus and his men escaped, leaving him behind. The giant is described as descending to the shore, using a "lopped pine tree" as a walking staff. Once Polyphemus reaches the sea, he washes his oozing, bloody eye socket and groans painfully. Achaemenides is taken aboard Aeneas’ vessel and they cast off with Polyphemus in chase. His great roar of frustration brings the rest of the Cyclopes down to the shore as Aeneas draws away in fear.
The vivid nature of the Polyphemus episode made it a favorite theme of ancient Greek painted pottery, on which the scenes most often illustrated are the blinding of the Cyclops and the ruse by which Odysseus and his men escape. One such episode, on a vase featuring the hero carried beneath a sheep, was used on a 27 drachma Greek postage stamp in 1983.
The blinding was depicted in life-size sculpture, including a giant Polyphemus, in the Sperlonga sculptures probably made for the Emperor Tiberius. This may be an interpretation of an existing composition, and was apparently repeated in variations in later Imperial palaces by Claudius, Nero and at Hadrian's Villa.
Of the European painters of the subject, the Flemish Jacob Jordaens depicted Odysseus escaping from the cave of Polyphemus in 1635 (see gallery below) and others chose the dramatic scene of the giant casting boulders at the escaping ship. In Guido Reni's painting of 1639/40 (see below), the furious giant is tugging a boulder from the cliff as Odysseus and his men row out to the ship far below. Polyphemus is portrayed, as it often happens, with two empty eye sockets and his damaged eye located in the middle on his forehead. This convention goes back to Greek statuary and painting, and is reproduced in Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein's 1802 head and shoulders portrait of the giant (see below).
Arnold Bocklin pictures the giant as standing on rocks onshore and swinging one of them back as the men row desperately over a surging wave (see below), while Polyphemus is standing at the top of a cliff in Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting of 1902. He stands poised, having already thrown one stone, which barely misses the ship. The reason for his rage is depicted in J. M. W. Turner's painting, "Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" (1829). Here the ship sails forward as the sun breaks free of clouds low on the horizon. The giant himself is an indistinct shape barely distinguished from the woods and smoky atmosphere high above.
Folktales similar to that of Homer's Polyphemus are a widespread phenomenon throughout the ancient world. In 1857, Wilhelm Grimm collected versions in Serbian, Romanian, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, German, and others; versions in Basque, Lappish, Lithuanian, Gascon, Syrian, and Celtic are also known. More than two hundred different versions have been identified, from around twenty five nations, covering a geographic region extending from Iceland, Ireland, England, Portugal and Africa to Arabia, Turkey, Russia, and Korea. The consensus of current modern scholarship is that these "Polyphemus legends" preserve traditions predating Homer.
An example of a such a story is one from Georgia, in the Caucasus, which describes several brothers held prisoner by a giant one-eyed shepherd called "One-eye". After all but two of the brothers are roasted on a spit and eaten, the remaining two take the spit, heat it red hot, and stab it into the giant's eye. As One-eye let his flock out of their pen, he felt each sheep as it passed between his legs, but the two brothers were able to escape by covering themselves with a sheepskin.
Writing more than three centuries after the Odyssey is thought to have been composed, Philoxenus of Cythera took up the myth of Polyphemus in his poem "Cyclops" or "Galatea". The poem was written to be performed as a dithyramb, of which only fragments have survived, and was perhaps the first to provide a female love interest for the Cyclops. The object of Polyphemus’ romantic desire is a sea nymph named Galatea. In the poem, Polyphemus is not a cave dwelling, monstrous brute, as in the "Odyssey", but instead he is rather like Odysseus himself in his vision of the world: He has weaknesses, he is adept at literary criticism, and he understands people.
The date of composition for the "Cyclops" is not precisely known, but it must be prior to 388 BC, when Aristophanes parodied it in his comedy "Plutus" ("Wealth"); and probably after 406 BC, when Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse. Philoxenus lived in that city and was the court poet of Dionysius I. According to ancient commentators, either because of his frankness regarding Dionysius' poetry, or because of a conflict with the tyrant over a female aulos player named Galatea, Philoxenus was imprisoned in the quarries and had there composed his "Cyclops" in the manner of a "Roman à clef", where the poem's characters, Polyphemus, Odysseus and Galatea, were meant to represent Dionysius, Philoxenus, and the aulos-player. Philoxenus had his Polyphemus perform on the cithara, a professional lyre requiring great skill. The Cyclops playing such a sophisticated and fashionable instrument would have been quite a surprising juxtaposition for Philoxenus' audience.
Philoxenus' "Cyclops" is also referred to in Aristotle’s "Poetics" in a section that discusses representations of people in tragedy and comedy, citing as comedic examples the "Cyclops" of both Timotheus and Philoxenus.
The text of Aristophanes' last extant play "Plutus" ("Wealth") has survived with almost all of its choral odes missing. What remains shows Aristophanes (as he does to some extent in all his plays) parodying a contemporary literary work — in this case Philoxenus’ "Cyclops". While making fun of literary aspects of Philoxenus' dithyramb, Aristophanes is at the same time commenting on musical developments occurring in the fourth century BC, developing themes that run through the whole play. It also contains lines and phrases taken directly from the "Cyclops".
The slave Cario, tells the chorus that his master has brought home with him the god Wealth, and because of this they will all now be rich. The chorus wants to dance for joy, so Cario takes the lead by parodying Philoxenus' "Cyclops". As a solo performer leading a chorus that sings and dances, Cario recreates the form of a dithyramb. He first casts himself in the role of Polyphemus while assigning to the chorus the roles of sheep and goats, at the same time imitating the sound of a lyre: "And now I wish — threttanello! — to imitate the Cyclops and, swinging my feet to and fro like this, to lead you in the dance. But come on, children, shout and shout again the songs of bleating sheep and smelly goats." The chorus, however, does not want to play sheep and goats, they would rather be Odysseus and his men, and they threaten to blind Cario (as had Odysseus the drunken Cyclops) with a wooden stake.
The romantic element, originated by Philoxenus, was revived by later Hellenistic poets, including Theocritus, Callimachus, Hermesianax, and Bion of Smyrna.
Theocritus is credited with creating the genre of pastoral poetry. His works are titled "Idylls" and of these Idyll XI tells the story of the Cyclops' love for Galatea. Though the character of Polyphemus derives from Homer, there are notable differences. Where Homer's Cyclops was beastly and wicked, Theocritus' is absurd, lovesick and comic. Polyphemus loves the sea nymph Galatea, but she rejects him because of his ugliness. However, in a borrowing from Philoxenus’ poem, Polyphemus has discovered that music will heal lovesickness, and so he plays the panpipes and sings of his woes, for "I am skilled in piping as no other Cyclops here”. His longing is to overcome the antithetic elements that divide them, he of earth and she of water:
The love of the mismatched pair was later taken up by other pastoral poets. The same trope of music being the cure for love was introduced by Callimachus in his Epigram 47: "How excellent was the charm that Polyphemus discovered for the lover. By Earth, the Cyclops was no fool!" A fragment of a lost idyll by Bion also portrays Polyphemus declaring his undying love for Galatea. Referring back to this, an elegy on Bion's death that was once attributed to Moschus takes the theme further in a piece of hyperbole. Where Polyphemus had failed, the poet declares, Bion's greater artistry had won Galatea's heart, drawing her from the sea to tend his herds. This reflected the situation in Idyll VI of Theocritus. There two herdsmen engage in a musical competition, one of them playing the part of Polyphemus, who asserts that since he has adopted the ruse of ignoring Galatea, she has now become the one who pursues him.
The successful outcome of Polyphemus' love was also alluded to in the course of a 1st-century BC love elegy on the power of music by the Latin poet Propertius. Listed among the examples he mentions is that "Even Galatea, it’s true, below wild Etna, wheeled her brine-wet horses, Polyphemus, to your songs." The division of contrary elements between the land-based monster and the sea nymph, lamented in Theocritus’ Idyll 11, is brought into harmony by this means.
While Ovid’s treatment of the story that he introduced into the "Metamorphoses" is reliant on the idylls of Theocritus, it is complicated by the introduction of Acis, who has now become the focus of Galatea’s love.
There is also a reversion to the Homeric vision of the hulking monster, whose attempt to play the tender shepherd singing love songs is made a source of humour by Galatea:
In his own character, too, Polyphemus mentions the transgression of heavenly laws that once characterised his actions and is now overcome by Galatea: "I, who scorn Jove and his heaven and his piercing lightning bolt, submit to you alone."
Galatea listens to the love song of Polyphemus while she and Acis lie hidden by a rock. In his song, Polyphemus scolds her for not loving him in return, offers her rustic gifts and points out what he considers his best feature — the single eye that is, he boasts, the size of a great shield. But when Polyphemus discovers the hiding place of the lovers, he becomes enraged with jealousy. Galatea, terrified, dives into the ocean, while the Cyclops wrenches off a piece of the mountain and crushes Acis with it. But on her return, Galatea changes her dead lover into the spirit of the Sicilian river Acis.
That the story sometimes had a more successful outcome for Polyphemus is also attested in the arts. In one of the murals rescued from the site of Pompeii, Polyphemus is pictured seated on a rock with a cithara (rather than a syrinx) by his side, holding out a hand to receive a love letter from Galatea, which is carried by a winged Cupid riding on a dolphin.
In another fresco, also dating from the 1st century AD, the two stand locked in a naked embrace (see below). From their union came the ancestors of various wild and war-like races. According to some accounts, the Celts (Galati in Latin, Γάλλοi in Greek) were descended from their son Galatos, while Appian credited them with three children, Celtus, Illyrius and Galas, from whom descend the Celts, the Illyrians and the Gauls respectively.
There are indications that Polyphemus’ courtship also had a more successful outcome in one of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata. There Doris, one of Galatea's sisters, spitefully congratulates her on her love conquest and she defends Polyphemus. From the conversation, one understands that Doris is chiefly jealous that her sister has a lover. Galatea admits that she does not love Polyphemus but is pleased to have been chosen by him in preference to all her companions.
That their conjunction was fruitful is also implied in a later Greek epic from the turn of the 5th century AD. In the course of his "Dionysiaca", Nonnus gives an account of the wedding of Poseidon and Beroe, at which the Nereid "Galatea twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses, for she had learnt well how to sing, being taught by Polyphemos with a shepherd’s syrinx."
During Renaissance and Baroque times Ovid's story emerged again as a popular theme. In Spain Luis de Góngora y Argote wrote the much admired narrative poem, "Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea", published in 1627. It is particularly noted for its depiction of landscape and for the sensual description of the love of Acis and Galatea. It was written in homage to an earlier and rather shorter narrative with the same title by Luis Carillo y Sotomayor (1611). The story was also given operatic treatment in the very popular zarzuela of Antoni Lliteres Carrió (1708). The atmosphere here is lighter and enlivened by the inclusion of the clowns Momo and Tisbe.
In France the story was condensed to the fourteen lines of Tristan L'Hermite's sonnet "Polyphème en furie" (1641). In it the giant expresses his fury upon viewing the loving couple, ultimately throwing the huge rock that kills Acis and even injures Galatea. Later in the century, Jean-Baptiste Lully composed his opera Acis et Galatée (1686) on the theme.
In Italy Giovanni Bononcini composed the one-act opera "Polifemo" (1703). Shortly afterwards George Frideric Handel worked in that country and composed the cantata "Aci, Galatea e Polifemo" (1708), laying as much emphasis on the part of Polifemo as on the lovers. Written in Italian, Polifemo's deep bass solo "Fra l'ombre e gl'orrori" (From horrid shades) establishes his character from the start. After Handel's move to England, he gave the story a new treatment in his pastoral opera "Acis and Galatea" with an English libretto provided by John Gay. Initially composed in 1718, the work went through many revisions and was later to be given updated orchestrations by both Mozart and Mendelssohn.* As a pastoral work it is suffused with Theocritan atmosphere but largely centres on the two lovers. When Polyphemus declares his love in the lyric “O ruddier than the cherry”, the effect is almost comic. Handel's rival for a while on the London scene, Nicola Porpora, also made the story the subject of his opera "Polifemo" (1735).
Later in the century Joseph Haydn composed "Acide e Galatea" (1763) as his first opera while in Vienna. Designed for an imperial wedding, it was given a happy ending centred on the transformation scene after the murder of Acis as the pair declare their undying love. Johann Gottlieb Naumann was to turn the story into a comic opera, "Aci e Galatea", with the subtitle "i ciclopi amanti" (the amorous cyclops). The work was first performed in Dresden in 1801 and its plot was made more complicated by giving Polifemo a companion, Orgonte. There were also two other lovers, Dorinda and Lisia, with Orgonte Lisia's rival for Dorinda's love.
After John Gay's libretto in Britain, it was not until the 19th century that the subject was given further poetical treatment. In 1819 appeared "The Death of Acis" by Bryan Procter, writing under the name of Barry Cornwall. A blank verse narrative with lyric episodes, it celebrates the musicianship of Polyphemus, which draws the lovers to expose themselves from their hiding place in a cave and thus brings about the death of Acis. At the other end of the century, there was Alfred Austin's dramatic poem "Polyphemus", which is set after the murder and transformation of the herdsman. The giant is tortured by hearing the happy voices of Galatea and Acis as they pursue their love duet. Shortly afterwards Albert Samain wrote the 2-act verse drama "Polyphème" with the additional character of Lycas, Galatea's younger brother. In this the giant is humanised; sparing the lovers when he discovers them, he blinds himself and wades to his death in the sea. The play was first performed posthumously in 1904 with incidental music by Raymond Bonheur. On this the French composer Jean Cras based his operatic ‘lyric tragedy’, composed in 1914 and first performed in 1922. Cras took Samain's text almost unchanged, subdividing the play's two acts into four and cutting a few lines from Polyphemus' final speech.
There have also been two Spanish musical items that reference Polyphemus' name. Reginald Smith Brindle's four fragments for guitar, "El Polifemo de Oro" (1956), takes its title from Federico García Lorca's poem, “The riddle of the guitar”. That speaks of six dancing maidens (the guitar strings) entranced by ‘a golden Polyphemus’ (the one-eyed sound-hole). The Spanish composer Andres Valero Castells takes the inspiration for his "Polifemo i Galatea" from Gongora's work. Originally written for brass band in 2001, he rescored it for orchestra in 2006.
Paintings that include Polyphemus in the story of Acis and Galatea can be grouped according to their themes. Most notably the story takes place within a pastoral landscape in which the figures are almost incidental. This is particularly so in Nicholas Poussin's 1649 "Landscape with Polyphemus" (see gallery below) in which the lovers play a minor part in the foreground. To the right, Polyphemus merges with a distant mountain top on which he plays his pipes. In an earlier painting by Poussin from 1630 (now housed at the Dublin National Gallery) the couple are among several embracing figures in the foreground, shielded from view of Polyphemus, who is playing his flute higher up the slope. Another variation on the theme was painted by Pietro Dandini during this period.
An earlier fresco by Giulio Romano from 1528 seats Polyphemus against a rocky foreground with a lyre in his raised right hand. The lovers can just be viewed through a gap in the rock that gives onto the sea at the lower right. (1681) represents a seated Polyphemus in his sculpture, except that in his version it is pipes that the giant holds in his lowered hand. Otherwise he has a massive club held across his body and turns to the left to look over his shoulder.
Other paintings take up the Theocritan theme of the pair divided by the elements with which they are identified, land and water. There are a series of paintings, often titled "The Triumph of Galatea", in which the nymph is carried through the sea by her Nereid sisters, while a minor figure of Polyphemus serenades her from the land. Typical examples of this were painted by François Perrier, Giovanni Lanfranco and Jean-Baptiste van Loo.
A whole series of paintings by Gustave Moreau make the same point in a variety of subtle ways. The giant spies on Galatea through the wall of a sea grotto or emerges from a cliff to adore her sleeping figure (see below). Again, Polyphemus merges with the cliff where he meditates in the same way that Galatea merges with her element within the grotto in the painting at Musée d'Orsay. The visionary interpretation of the story also finds its echo in Odilon Redon's 1913 painting "The Cyclops" in which the giant towers over the slope on which Galatea sleeps.
French sculptors have also been responsible for some memorable versions. Auguste Ottin's separate figures are brought together in an 1866 fountain in the Luxembourg Garden. Above is crouched the figure of Polyphemus in weathered bronze, peering down at the white marble group of Acis and Galatea embracing below (see above). A little later Auguste Rodin made a series of statues, centred on Polyphemus. Originally modelled in clay around 1888 and later cast in bronze, they may have been inspired by Ottin's work.
A final theme is the rage that succeeds the moment of discovery. That is portrayed in earlier paintings of Polyphemus casting a rock at the fleeing lovers, such as those by Annibale Carracci, Lucas Auger and Carle van Loo. Jean-Francois de Troy's 18th-century version combines discovery with aftermath as the giant perched above the lovers turns to wrench up a rock.
Polyphemus and Odysseus
Polyphemus as lover
Polyphemus is mentioned in the "Apprentice" chapter of Albert Pike's "Morals and Dogma" (1871), as, within Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Polyphemus is regarded as a symbol for a civilization that harms itself using ill directed blind force.
The Polyphemus moth is so named because of the large eyespots in the middle of the hind wings.
A species of burrowing tortoise, "Gopherus polyphemus", is named after Polyphemus because of their both using subterranean retreats.
A number of ships and English steam locomotives have also been named after the giant.
The Polyphemus episode was featured in the 1905 short film "Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus" by Georges Méliès. This combines with the Calypso episode and employs special effects. Other films that include it have been the 1911 "Odissea" and the 1955 "Ulysses" (see external links below).
Specific artworks discussed above
Specific opera and filmworks discussed above
Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula. It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone" ("Lusófono"). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers are also found around the world (e.g., Cape Verdean Creole, and Papiamento the most widely spoken of these).
Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon. With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 270 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the sixth most natively spoken language in the world, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers. Being the most widely spoken language in South America and all of the Southern Hemisphere, it's also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, OAS, ECOWAS and the African Union. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations.
When the Romans arrived at the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason, the language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture and Celtic culture, part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages.
Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period. The occupiers, mainly Suebi, Visigoths and Buri who originally spoke Germanic languages, quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. After the Moorish invasion beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak a form of Romance commonly known as Mozarabic, which lasted three centuries longer in Spain. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek, mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia and County of Portugal.It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, which had by then assumed reign over Galicia.
In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania, much as Occitan was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs "lh" and "nh", used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese, presumably by Gerald of Braga, a monk from Moissac, who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal. In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created the first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the "Estudos Gerais", which later moved to Coimbra) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially.
In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. By the mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a "lingua franca" in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities.
Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to the formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word "cristão", "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal.
The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the "Cancioneiro Geral" by Garcia de Resende, in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing – and eventually speech – in Portuguese.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as ("the last flower of Latium, naive and beautiful. Portuguese is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem "The Lusiads".
In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in the world. The museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire, but restored and reopened in 2020.
Portuguese is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal, Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%). Perhaps 75% of the population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively, while approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside. Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census. Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole. Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board was charged with promoting and ensuring respect.
There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra (15.4%), Bermuda, Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census), France (900,000 people), Japan (400,000 people), Jersey, Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in the north of the country), Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people), Macau (0.6% or 12,000 people), Switzerland (196,000 nationals in 2008), Venezuela (554,000). and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey).
In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa.
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries
(in Portuguese "Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa", with the Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the eight independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language. In 2011, Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French) and, in July 2014, the country was accepted as a member of the CPLP.
Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese) and of several international organizations, including Mercosur, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of American States, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Southern African Development Community and the European Union.
According to The World Factbook country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order):
Notes:
The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 279 million in July 2017. This number does not include the Lusophone diaspora, estimated at approximately 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, and half a million Cape Verdeans, among others), although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally, a large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil.
The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from the only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese.
Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay. Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela, Zambia, the Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Namibia, Eswatini (Swaziland), South Africa, Ivory Coast, and Mauritius. In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe. Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020. In the countries listed below, Portuguese is spoken either as anative language by minorities due to the Portuguese colonial past or as a "lingua franca" in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the border between Brazil and Uruguay, as well as Angola and Namibia.
According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to the newspaper "The Portugal News" publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America. Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide.
Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Portuguese is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries.
Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and Brazilian immigration to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, etc.) in the world.
, a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs followed by second person verbs, formal language retains the formal , followed by the third person conjugation.
Conjugation of verbs in has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": , in the traditional second person, , in the third person, and , in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person, the kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools.
The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of has been expanding ever since the end of the 20th century, being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects.
Modern Standard European Portuguese ( or ) is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon, in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with the Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa.
Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation.
Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary, but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are independent languages.
Portuguese, like Catalan, preserved the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. "pedra" ; Fr. ', Sp. ', It. ', Ro. ', from Lat. ' ("stone"); or Port. ', Cat. ', Sard. '; Sp. ', It. ', Fr. ', Ro. ', from Lat. ' ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese was the loss of intervocalic "l" and "n", sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. ' ("to jump"), ' ("to hold"), ' ("chain"), Port. ', ', "".
When the elided consonant was "n", it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. ' ("hand"), ' ("frog"), ' ("good"), Old Portuguese ', ', ' (Portuguese: ', ', '). This process was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings "-anem", ' and ' became ' in most cases, cf. Lat. ' ("dog"), ' ("brother"), ' ("reason") with Modern Port. ', ', ', and their plurals "-anes", "-anos", "-ones" normally became "-ães", "-ãos", "-ões", cf. "cães", "irmãos", "razões".
The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that has preserved the clitic case mesoclisis: cf. (I'll give thee), (I'll love you), (I'll contact them). Like Galician, it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: (I had been), (I had lived), (you had lived). Romanian also has this tense, but uses the -s- form.
Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world.
A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes. Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish. Altogether these are over 2,000 words, some verbs and toponymic names of towns, rivers, utensils and plants.
In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) was conquered by the Germanic Suebi and Visigoths. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500
Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to warfare – such as 'spur', 'stake', and 'war', from Gothic "*spaúra", "*stakka", and "*wirro" respectively; the natural world i.e. 'swine' from "*sweina", 'hawk' from "*gabilans", 'wave' from "*vigan"' human emotions such as or ('pride', 'proud') from Old Germanic "*urguol" or verbs like 'to craft, record, graft' from "*graba" or 'to squeeze, quash, grind' from Suebian "*magōn" or 'to shred' from "*harpō". The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde, Esposende and Resende where "sinde" and "sende" are derived from the Germanic "sinths" (military expedition) and in the case of Resende, the prefix "re" comes from Germanic "reths" 'council'. Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques, Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia.
Between the 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article "a(l)-", and include common words such as 'village' from الضيعة "alḍai`a" 'lettuce' from الخس "alkhass", 'warehouse' from المخزن "almakhzan", and 'olive oil' from الزيت "azzait".
Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, 'cutlass' from Japanese "katana", 'tea' from Chinese "chá", and 'chicken-soup, piece of cake' from Malay.
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu, for example, came "kifumate" > 'head caress' (Brazil), "kusula" > 'youngest child' (Brazil), 'tropical wasp' (Brazil), and "kubungula" > 'to dance like a wizard' (Angola). From South America came 'potato', from Taino; and , from Tupi–Guarani "naná" and Tupi "ibá cati", respectively (two species of pineapple), and 'popcorn' from Tupi and 'toucan' from Guarani "tucan".
Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English. These are by far the most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: / 'bracket'/'crochet', 'jacket', 'lipstick', and / 'steak'/'slice', 'street' respectively, from French , , , , ; and 'steak', , , /, , from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore".
Examples from other European languages: 'pasta', 'pilot', 'carriage', and 'barrack', from Italian , , , and ; 'hair lock', 'wet-cured ham' (in Portugal, in contrast with "presunto" 'dry-cured ham' from Latin "prae-exsuctus" 'dehydrated') or 'canned ham' (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured "presunto cozido" and dry-cured "presunto cru"), or "castelhano" 'Castilian', from Spanish "melena" 'mane', "fiambre" and "castellano."
Portuguese belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages, and it has special ties with the following members of this group:
Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian) are moderately mutually intelligible, and share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible, and Spanish is asymmetrically comprehensible to Portuguese speakers. Given that Portuguese has a larger phonemic inventory than Spanish, Portuguese is still considerably intelligible (if spoken slowly and without jargon) to most Spanish speakers, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian (Ibero-Romance languages), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them.
Portuñol/Portunhol, a form of code-switching, has a more lively use and is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay () and Paraguay (), and of Portugal with Spain (), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish.
Portuguese and Spanish are the only Ibero-Romance languages, and perhaps the only Romance languages with such thriving inter-language forms, in which visible and lively bilingual contact dialects and code-switching have formed, in which functional bilingual communication is achieved through attempting an approximation to the target foreign language (known as 'Portuñol') without a learned acquisition process, but nevertheless facilitates communication. There is an emerging literature focused on such phenomena (including informal attempts of standardization of the linguistic continua and their usage).
The closest relative of Portuguese is Galician, which is spoken in the autonomous community (region) and historical nationality of Galicia (northwestern Spain). The two were at one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but they have diverged especially in pronunciation and vocabulary due to the political separation of Portugal from Galicia. There is, however, still a linguistic continuity consisting of the variant of Galician referred to as "galego-português baixo-limiao", which is spoken in several Galician villages between the municipalities of Entrimo and Lobios and the transborder region of the natural park of Peneda-Gerês/Xurês. It is "considered a rarity, a living vestige of the medieval language that ranged from Cantabria to Mondego [...]".
As reported by UNESCO, due to the pressure of the Spanish language on the standard official version of the Galician language, the Galician language was on the verge of disappearing. According to the UNESCO philologist Tapani Salminen, the proximity to Portuguese protects Galician.
Nevertheless, the core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are still noticeably closer to Portuguese than to those of Spanish. In particular, like Portuguese, it uses the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic pluperfect. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 90% by R. A. Hall, Jr., 1989) is excellent between Galicians and northern Portuguese. Many linguists consider Galician to be a co-dialect of the Portuguese language.
Another member of the Galician-Portuguese group, most commonly thought of as a Galician dialect, is spoken in the Eonavian region in a western strip in Asturias and the westernmost parts of the provinces of León and Zamora, along the frontier with Galicia, between the Eo and Navia rivers (or more exactly Eo and Frexulfe rivers). It is called "eonaviego" or "gallego-asturiano" by its speakers.
The Fala language, known by its speakers as "xalimés", "mañegu", "a fala de Xálima" and "chapurráu" and in Portuguese as "a fala de Xálima", "a fala da Estremadura", "o galego da Estremadura", "valego" or "galaico-estremenho", is another descendant of Galician-Portuguese, spoken by a small number of people in the Spanish towns of Valverde del Fresno ("Valverdi du Fresnu"), Eljas ("As Ellas") and San Martín de Trevejo ("Sa Martín de Trevellu") in the autonomous community of Extremadura, near the border with Portugal.
There are a number of other places in Spain in which the native language of the common people is a descendant of the Galician-Portuguese group, such as La Alamedilla, Cedillo ("Cedilho"), Herrera de Alcántara ("Ferreira d'Alcântara") and Olivenza ("Olivença"), but in these municipalities, what is spoken is actually Portuguese, not disputed as such in the mainstream.
It should be noticed that the diversity of dialects of the Portuguese language is known since the time of medieval Portuguese-Galician language when it coexisted with the Lusitanian-Mozarabic dialect, spoken in the south of Portugal. The dialectal diversity becomes more evident in the work of Fernão d'Oliveira, in the "Grammatica da Lingoagem Portuguesa", (1536), where he remarks that the people of Portuguese regions of Beira, Alentejo, Estremadura, and Entre Douro e Minho, all speak differently from each other. Also Contador d'Argote (1725) distinguishes three main varieties of dialects: the local dialects, the dialects of time, and of profession (work jargon). Of local dialects he highlights five main dialects: the dialect of Estremadura, of Entre-Douro e Minho, of Beira, of Algarve and of Trás-os-Montes. He also makes reference to the overseas dialects, the rustic dialects, the poetic dialect and that of prose.
In the kingdom of Portugal, "Ladinho" (or "Lingoagem Ladinha") was the name given to the pure Portuguese language romance, without any mixture of Aravia or Gerigonça Judenga. While the term "língua vulgar" was used to name the language before D. Dinis decided to call it "Portuguese language", the erudite version used and known as Galician-Portuguese (the language of the Portuguese court) and all other Portuguese dialects were spoken at the same time. In a historical perspective the Portuguese language was never just one dialect. Just like today there is a standard Portuguese (actually two) among the several dialects of Portuguese, in the past there was Galician-Portuguese as the "standard", coexisting with other dialects.
Portuguese has provided loanwords to many languages, such as Indonesian, Manado Malay, Malayalam, Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala, Malay, Bengali, English, Hindi, Swahili, Afrikaans, Konkani, Marathi, Punjabi, Tetum, Xitsonga, Japanese, Lanc-Patuá, Esan, Bandari (spoken in Iran) and Sranan Tongo (spoken in Suriname). It left a strong influence on the "língua brasílica", a Tupi–Guarani language, which was the most widely spoken in Brazil until the 18th century, and on the language spoken around Sikka in Flores Island, Indonesia. In nearby Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers in Holy Week rituals.
The Japanese–Portuguese dictionary "Nippo Jisho" (1603) was the first dictionary of Japanese in a European language, a product of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan. Building on the work of earlier Portuguese missionaries, the "Dictionarium Anamiticum, Lusitanum et Latinum" (Annamite–Portuguese–Latin dictionary) of Alexandre de Rhodes (1651) introduced the modern orthography of Vietnamese, which is based on the orthography of 17th-century Portuguese. The Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the Portuguese language (among others), particularly regarding Chinese surnames; one example is "Mei". During 1583–88 Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci created a Portuguese–Chinese dictionary – the first ever European–Chinese dictionary.
For instance, as Portuguese merchants were presumably the first to introduce the sweet orange in Europe, in several modern Indo-European languages the fruit has been named after them. Some examples are Albanian "portokall", Bosnian (archaic) "portokal", "prtokal", Bulgarian портокал ("portokal"), Greek πορτοκάλι ("portokáli"), Macedonian "", Persian پرتقال ("porteghal"), and Romanian "portocală". Related names can be found in other languages, such as Arabic البرتقال ("burtuqāl"), Georgian ფორთოხალი ("p'ort'oxali"), Turkish "portakal" and Amharic "birtukan". Also, in southern Italian dialects (e.g. Neapolitan), an orange is "portogallo" or "purtuallo", literally "(the) Portuguese (one)", in contrast to standard Italian "arancia".
Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African and Asian slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts of Portuguese influence. As each of these pidgins became the mother tongue of succeeding generations, they evolved into fully fledged creole languages, which remained in use in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America until the 18th century. Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles are still spoken today, by over 3 million people worldwide, especially people of partial Portuguese ancestry.
Portuguese phonology is similar to those of languages such as French (especially that of Quebec), the Gallo-Italic languages, Occitan, Catalan and Franco-Provençal, unlike that of Spanish, which is similar to those of Sardinian and the Southern Italian dialects. Some would describe the phonology of Portuguese as a blend of Spanish, Gallo-Romance (e.g. French) and the languages of northern Italy (especially Genoese), but with a deeper Celtic substratum.
There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels, 2 semivowels and 21 consonants; though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes. There are also five nasal vowels, which some linguists regard as allophones of the oral vowels.
Like Catalan and German, Portuguese uses vowel quality to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables. Unstressed isolated vowels tend to be raised and sometimes centralized.
Phonetic notes
A notable aspect of the grammar of Portuguese is the verb. Morphologically, more verbal inflections from classical Latin have been preserved by Portuguese than by any other major Romance language. Portuguese and Spanish share very similar grammar. Portuguese also has some grammatical innovations not found in other Romance languages (except Galician and Fala):
Portuguese is written with 26 letters of the Latin script, making use of five diacritics to denote stress, vowel height, contraction, nasalization, and etymological assibilation (acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, tilde, and cedilla). The trema was also formerly used in Brazilian Portuguese, and can still be encountered in words derived from proper names in other languages, such as Anhangüera and mülleriano., though 'Anhangüera' and 'mülleriano' are a classical example of Estrangeirismo (), a systematical usage of foreign Loanwords; in this case from Guarani and German origin, respectively. Accented characters and digraphs are not counted as separate letters for collation purposes.
Paul Reubens
Paul Reubens (; né Rubenfeld; born August 27, 1952) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for his character Pee-wee Herman. Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s, and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. In 1982, Reubens began appearing in a show about a character he had been developing for years. The show was called "The Pee-wee Herman Show", and ran for five sold-out months; HBO also produced a successful special about it. Pee-wee became an instant cult figure and, for the next decade, Reubens was completely committed to his character, doing all of his public appearances and interviews as Pee-wee. His feature film, "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985), directed by Tim Burton, was a financial and critical success, and soon developed into a cult film. Its sequel, "Big Top Pee-wee" (1988), was less successful. Between 1986 and 1990, Reubens starred as Pee-wee in the CBS Saturday-morning children's program "Pee-wee's Playhouse".
Thereafter, Reubens decided to take a sabbatical from Pee-wee. In July 1991, Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida. The arrest set off a chain reaction of national media attention that changed the general public's view of Reubens and Pee-wee. The arrest postponed Reubens' involvement in major projects until 1999, when he appeared in several big-budget projects including "Mystery Men" (1999) and "Blow" (2001), and Reubens started giving interviews as himself rather than as Pee-wee.
Since 2006, Reubens has been making cameos and appearances in numerous projects, such as "Reno 911!" (2006), "30 Rock" (2007), "Pushing Daisies" (2007), "The Blacklist" (2014–2015), "Accidental Love" (2015) and "Mosiac" (2018). He also played the voice role of Pavel in the Disney XD television series "" (2012–2013). Since the 1990s, Reubens has worked on two possible Pee-wee films: one dark and adult, dubbed "The Pee-wee Herman Story", the other a family-friendly epic adventure called "Pee-wee’s Playhouse: The Movie". In 2010, he starred on Broadway in "The Pee-wee Herman Show". In 2016, Reubens co-wrote and starred in the Netflix original film "Pee-wee's Big Holiday", reprising his role as Pee-wee Herman.
Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy (Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. His mother was a teacher. His father was an automobile salesperson who had flown for Britain's Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and later became one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Reubens' two younger siblings are Luke (born 1958), who is a dog trainer, and Abby (born 1953), who is an attorney and a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
Reubens spent a significant amount of his childhood in Oneonta, New York. As a child, Reubens frequented the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose winter headquarters was in Sarasota. The circus' atmosphere sparked Reubens' interest in entertainment and influenced his later work. Reubens also loved to watch reruns of "I Love Lucy", which made him want to make people laugh. At age 5, Reubens asked his father to build him a stage, where he and his siblings would put on plays.
Reubens attended Sarasota High School, where he was named president of the National Thespian Society. He was accepted into Northwestern University's summer program for gifted high-school students, joined the local Asolo Theater and Players of Sarasota Theater, and appeared in several plays. After graduation, he attended Boston University and began auditioning for acting schools. He was turned down by several schools, including Juilliard, and twice by Carnegie-Mellon, before being accepted at the California Institute of the Arts and moving to California, where he worked in restaurant kitchens and as a Fuller Brush salesman.
In the 1970s, Reubens performed at local comedy clubs and made four guest appearances on "The Gong Show" as part of a boy–girl act he had developed with Charlotte McGinnis, called "The Hilarious Betty and Eddie". He soon joined the Los Angeles–based improvisational comedy team The Groundlings and remained a member for six years, working with Bob McClurg, John Paragon, Susan Barnes, and Phil Hartman. Hartman and Reubens became friends, and often wrote and worked on material together. In 1980, Reubens had a small part as a waiter in "The Blues Brothers".
The character of "Pee-wee Herman" originated during a 1978 improvisation exercise with The Groundlings, where Reubens came up with the idea of a man who wanted to be a comic but was so inept at telling jokes that it was obvious to the audience that he would never make it. Fellow Groundling Phil Hartman would afterwards help Reubens develop the character while another Groundling, John Paragon, would help write the show. Despite having been compared to other famous characters, such as Hergé's Tintin and Collodi's Pinocchio, Reubens says that there is no specific source for "Pee-wee" but rather a collection of ideas. Pee-wee's voice originated in 1970 when Reubens appeared in a production of "Life with Father", where he was cast as one of the most obnoxious characters in the play, for which Reubens adopted a cartoon-like way of speaking that would become Pee-wee's. Pee-wee's name resulted from a one-inch Pee Wee brand harmonica Reubens had as a child, and Herman was the surname of an energetic boy Reubens knew from his youth. The first small gray suit Pee-wee ever wore had been handmade for director and founder of the Groundlings Gary Austin, who passed it on to Reubens, while "someone" handed him the "little kid bow tie" before a show.
Reubens auditioned for "Saturday Night Live" for the 1980–1981 season, but Gilbert Gottfried, who was a close friend of the show's producer and had the same acting style as Reubens, got the job. (In 1991, while presenting at the Emmy Awards, Gottfried ironically got in trouble for joking about Reubens' indecent exposure arrest.) Reubens was so angry and bitter that he decided he would borrow money and start his own show in Los Angeles using the character he had been developing during the last few years, "Pee-wee Herman".
With the help of other Groundlings like John Paragon, Phil Hartman and Lynne Marie Stewart, Pee-wee acquired a small group of followers and Reubens took his show to The Roxy Theatre where ""The Pee-wee Herman Show"" ran for five sellout months, doing midnight shows for adults and weekly matinees for children, moving into the mainstream when HBO aired "The Pee-wee Herman Show" in 1981 as part of their series "On Location". Reubens also appeared as Pee-wee in the 1980 film "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie". Although it was Reubens in the role of Pee-Wee, the end credits of the movie billed him as "Hamburger Dude". Reubens' act had mainly positive reactions and quickly acquired a group of fans, despite being described as "bizarre", and Reubens being described as "the weirdest comedian around". Pee-wee was both "corny" and "hip", "retrograde" and "avant-garde".
When Pee-wee's fame started growing, Reubens started to move away from the spotlight, keeping his name under wraps and making all his public appearance and interviews in character while billing Pee-wee as playing himself; Reubens was trying to "get the public to think that that was a real person". Later on he would even prefer his parents be known only as Honey Herman and Herman Herman. In the early and mid-1980s, Reubens made several guest appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman" as Pee-wee Herman which gave Pee-wee an even bigger following. During the mid-1980s, Reubens traveled the United States with a whole new "The Pee-wee Herman Show", playing notably at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Caroline's in New York City and, in 1984, in front of a full Carnegie Hall.
The success of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" prompted Warner Bros. to hire Reubens to write a script for a full-length Pee-wee Herman film. Reubens' original idea was to do a remake of "Pollyanna", which Reubens claims is his favorite film. Halfway through writing the script, Reubens noticed everyone at Warner Bros. had a bike with them, which inspired Reubens to start on a new script with Phil Hartman. When Reubens and the producers of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" saw Tim Burton's work on "Vincent" and "Frankenweenie", they chose Burton to be the film's director. The film tells the story of Pee-wee Herman embarking on nationwide adventure in search of his stolen bicycle. The movie went on to gross $40,940,662 domestically, recouping almost six times its $7 million budget. At the time of release in 1985, the film received mixed reviews, but "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" developed into a cult film.
After seeing the success of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure", the CBS network approached Reubens with an ill-received cartoon series proposal. In 1986, CBS agreed to sign Reubens to act, produce, and direct his live-action children's program, "Pee-wee's Playhouse", with a budget of $325,000 per episode, the same price as a prime-time sitcom, and no creative interference from CBS; although CBS did request a few minor changes throughout the years. After casting actors like Laurence Fishburne and S. Epatha Merkerson, production began in New York City. The opening credits of the show were sung by Cyndi Lauper.
"Playhouse" was designed as an educational yet entertaining and artistic show for children and, despite being greatly influenced by 1950s shows Reubens watched as a child like "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", "The Mickey Mouse Club", "Captain Kangaroo" and "Howdy Doody", it quickly acquired a dual audience of kids and grownups. Reubens, always trying to make Pee-wee a positive role model, created a consciously moral show, one that would teach children the ethics of reciprocity. Reubens believed that children liked the "Playhouse" because it was fast-paced, colorful and "never talked them down"; while parents liked the "Playhouse" because it reminded them of the past.
In 1986, Reubens (billed as Paul Mall) was the voice of the ship's computer in "Flight of the Navigator". In 1987, Reubens provided the voice of REX, the main robot in the George Lucas produced Disneyland attraction, Star Tours, and reprised the role of Pee-wee Herman in cameo appearances in the film "Back to the Beach" and TV show "Sesame Street", the latter of which made a cameo in "Playhouse".
Right after the success of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure", Reubens began working with Paramount Pictures on a sequel entitled "Big Top Pee-wee". Reubens and George McGrath's script was directed by "Grease" director Randal Kleiser. The film was not as successful as its predecessor, receiving mild reviews and doing just over one third as well in the box office, earning only $15 million.
Reubens attended 1988 Academy Awards with "Top" co-star Valeria Golino, which stirred rumors that the two were dating. The following year Reubens exchanged vows with Doris Duke's adopted daughter, Chandi Heffner, at a mock wedding over which Imelda Marcos presided, in Shangri-La, Doris Duke's mansion in Honolulu, Hawaii.
"Pee-wee's Playhouse" aired from September 13, 1986, until November 10, 1990. Reubens had originally agreed to do two more seasons after the third, and when CBS asked Reubens about the possibility of a sixth season he declined, wanting to take a sabbatical. Reubens had been suffering from burnout from playing Pee-wee full-time and had been warning that Pee-wee was temporary and that he had other ideas he would like to work on. The parties agreed to end the show after five seasons, which included 45 episodes and a Christmas Special. "Playhouse" garnered 15 Emmy Awards, all of them in the Creative Arts Emmy Award category.
Reubens had not always thought of his character as one for children, but sometime during the mid-1980s, he started forming Pee-wee into the best role model he possibly could, making of his show a morally positive show that cared about issues like racial diversity. Reubens was also careful of what should and should not be associated with Pee-wee. Being a heavy smoker, he went to great lengths never to be photographed with a cigarette in his mouth, even refusing to endorse candy bars and other kinds of junk food, all the while trying to release his own sugar-free cereal "Ralston Purina Pee-wee Chow cereal", a project that died after a blind test.
With his positive attitude and quirkiness, Pee-wee became an instant cult figure, earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by 1989, and successfully building a Pee-wee franchise, with toys, clothes and other items generating more than $25 million at its peak in 1988. Reubens also published a book as Pee-wee in 1989 called "Travels with Pee-Wee". CBS aired reruns of "Playhouse" until July 1991, when Reubens was arrested, pulling from their schedule the last two remaining reruns. Fox Family Channel briefly aired reruns of the "Playhouse" in 1998. In early July 2006, Cartoon Network began running a teaser promo during its Adult Swim lineup. A later press release and many other promos confirmed that the show's 45 original episodes would nightly air from Monday to Thursday starting on that date. "Playhouse" attracted 1.5 million viewers nightly. In 2007, "TV Guide" named "Playhouse" one of the top 10 TV cult classics of all time. Several children's television personas cite Pee-wee Herman as an inspiration, including Blue's Clues' Steve Burns and SpongeBob SquarePants' Stephen Hillenburg.
In November 2004, all 45 episodes of the "Playhouse", plus six episodes that had never before been released on home video, were released on DVD split between two box set collections. On July 3, 2013, Shout! Factory announced that they had acquired the rights to the entire series from Reubens, which was released on Blu-ray on October 21, 2014. In addition, the entire series was digitally remastered from the original 35mm film elements and original audio tracks.
Pee-wee's small glen plaid suits seemed ridiculous during the 1980s, but since the late 1990s have made him a "style icon", with fashion houses and designers like Christopher Bailey, Ennio Capasa, Miuccia Prada, Viktor & Rolf, and Thom Browne creating tightly cut suits with high armholes and short trousers that have been compared to Pee-wee's. In early 2007 Nike released a collection of Nike SB sneakers called "Fallen Heroes". The collection was loosely inspired by Milli Vanilli, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, and Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee's sneakers use a gray and white color scheme with red detail, with an illustration on the insole of a man in a suit sitting alone in a theatre with his hand on his lap suggesting Reubens' 1991 theatre arrest.
Reubens has mentioned he has plans for a museum, which would contain many of the "Playhouse" sets and props he still owns.
In July 1991, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida, for masturbating during a film at an adult movie theater. During a random police inspection, a detective who had observed Reubens detained him as he was readying to leave. (This sweep also resulted in three other arrests). When detectives examined his driver's license, Reubens told them, "I'm Pee-wee Herman", and offered to do a children's benefit for the sheriff's office, "to take care of this". The next day, after a local reporter recognized Reubens' name, Reubens' attorney made the same offer to the "Sarasota Herald-Tribune" in exchange for withholding the story. In 1971, Reubens had been arrested in the same county for loitering and prowling near an adult theater, though charges were dropped. His second arrest was in 1983 when Reubens was placed on two years' probation for possession of marijuana, although adjudication was withheld. On the night of the arrest, Reubens went to Nashville, where his sister and lawyer lived, and then to New Jersey, where he would stay for the following months at his friend Doris Duke's estate.
The 1991 arrest was widely covered, and Reubens and his character both became the subject of ridicule. Disney-MGM Studios suspended a video that showed Pee-wee explaining how voice-over tracks were made from its studio tour. Toys "R" Us removed Pee-wee toys from its stores. It was commonly thought that "Pee-wee's Playhouse" got cancelled due to the arrest; in reality the show was already retired as Reubens, claiming an overworked crew and fear of decline of quantity and quality in material, had decided against a sixth season. However, the popularity of the show had put it into syndication, which CBS revoked on July 29, 1991. Reubens released a statement denying the charges.
On November 7, 1991, Reubens pleaded no contest. The plea kept the charge off Reubens' record and obligated him to spend 75 hours performing community service, where he made two anti-drug public service announcements that were self-produced and financed. One PSA had Pee-Wee explaining the dangers of crack cocaine, and a lesser-known one featured a claymation character called "Penny" who had been a staple of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse". Both PSAs were praised for showing the dangers of drugs in a manner kids could understand.
Despite the negative publicity, many artists who knew Reubens, such as Cyndi Lauper, Annette Funicello, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Valeria Golino, spoke out in his support. Bill Cosby defended Reubens, saying, "Whatever [Reubens has] done, this is being blown all out of proportion." Other people who knew Reubens, such as "Playhouse" production designer Gary Panter, S. Epatha Merkerson, and "Big Top Pee-wee" director Randal Kleiser, also spoke in support. Reubens' fans organized support rallies after CBS canceled the reruns, picketing in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The TV news magazine "A Current Affair" received "tens of thousands" of responses to a Pee-wee telephone survey, in which callers supported Reubens by nine-to-one.
Reubens, who for years would not give interviews or appear on talk shows, did make a subsequent public appearance as Pee-wee at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards on September 5, where he asked the audience, "Heard any good jokes lately?" He received a standing ovation. Reubens then appeared as Pee-wee once in 1992, when he participated in a Grand Ole Opry tribute to Minnie Pearl.
During the 1990s, Reubens kept a low profile, dedicating himself to writing and collecting a variety of things, "everything from fake food, to lamps", although he did do some dubbing and took small parts in films such as 1992's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" (Reubens portrayed the Penguin's father) and 1996's "Matilda" and "Dunston Checks In". In 1993, he voiced for a character in another one of Burton's productions, "The Nightmare Before Christmas". (Reubens would later voice Lock for the video game "" in 2004.)
Reubens dated actress Debi Mazar in 1993 after he started attending film premieres with her. Reubens has since credited Mazar with ending his depression from his arrest.
During the mid-1990s, Reubens played a recurring role on the TV series "Murphy Brown". The role earned him positive reviews and his first and only non-Pee-wee Emmy nomination, for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He appeared six times on the show between 1995 and 1997. Afterward, Reubens began working on an NBC pilot entitled "Meet the Muckles", a show that would be based on "You Can't Take It with You". The project got stuck in development hell, and was later dropped when Reubens' ideas grew too elaborate and expensive, although Philip Rosenthal blamed NBC's negative response on Reubens being on a "blacklist".
By 1999, Reubens had given several interviews as himself and made public appearances while promoting the movie "Mystery Men", the first being on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in 1999. He also starred in Dwight Yoakam's Western "South of Heaven, West of Hell", playing as a rapist and killer. In 2001, Reubens had his first extended television role since "Playhouse", as the host of the short-lived ABC game show "You Don't Know Jack", based on the game of the same name. It was cancelled after six episodes due to low ratings.
Reubens played a flamboyant hairdresser turned drug dealer in Ted Demme's 2001 drama "Blow", which starred Penélope Cruz and Johnny Depp. His performance was praised and he began receiving scripts for potential movie projects.
In November 2002, while filming David LaChapelle's video for Elton John's "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore", Reubens learned that police were at his home with a search warrant, acting on a tip from a witness in the pornography case against actor Jeffrey Jones, finding among over 70,000 items of kitsch memorabilia, two grainy videotapes and dozens of photographs that the city attorney's office characterized as a collection of child pornography. Kelly Bush, Reubens' personal representative at the time, said the description of the items was inaccurate and claimed the objects were "Rob Lowe's sex videotape, and a few 30- to 100-year-old kitsch collectible images." Reubens turned himself in to the Hollywood division of the LAPD and was charged with possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The district attorney looked at Reubens' collection and computer and found no grounds for bringing any felony charges against him, while the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo brought misdemeanor charges against Reubens on the last day allowed by the statute. Reubens was represented by Hollywood criminal defense lawyer Blair Berk. In December he pleaded not guilty through Berk, who also complained that the city attorney failed to turn over evidence to the defense, which City Attorney Richard Katz countered that prosecutors were not required to do until after arraignment, after which they did; neither side disclosed the contents.
In March 2004, child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for Reubens' guilty plea to a lesser charge. For the next three years, he was required to register his address with the sheriff's office and he could not be in the company of minors without the permission of a parent or legal guardian. Reubens later stated that he was a collector of erotica, including films, muscle magazines and a sizable collection of mostly homosexual vintage erotica, such as photographic studies of teen nudes. Reubens said that what the city attorney's office viewed as pornography, he considered to be innocent art and that what they described as people underage engaged in masturbation or oral copulation was, in fact, a judgmental point of view of the nudes that Reubens described as people "one hundred percent not" performing sexual acts. Being an avid collector, Reubens had often purchased bulk lots, and one of his vintage magazine dealers declared that "there's no way" he could have known the content of each page in the publications he bought and that he recalled Reubens asking for "physique magazines, vintage 1960s material, but not things featuring kids".
He spent the next two years in Florida caring for his terminally ill father, who died in February 2004 of cancer.
Reubens has made cameos and guest appearances in numerous projects. He played Rick of the citizen's patrol on the popular Comedy Central series "Reno 911!", which gained him a small role in the 2007 film "". That same year he appeared in the second music video version of The Raconteurs song "Steady, As She Goes". The video has the band engaging in a comical soapbox car race, with Reubens playing the bad guy who sabotages the race.
In 2007, Reubens attended his own tribute at the SF Sketchfest, where he talked about his career with Ben Fong-Torres. He also signed with NBC to make a pilot on a show called "Area 57", a sitcom about a passive-aggressive alien, but it was not picked up for the 2007–2008 season. Reubens did, however, appear on the hit NBC series "30 Rock" as an inbred Austrian prince, a character Tina Fey created for him. He also made three guest appearances on FX's series "Dirt". This time he was recommended for the role by "Dirt" star and close friend Courteney Cox. Cox's husband, David Arquette, would then cast Reubens for his directorial debut, the 2007 film "The Tripper".
Reubens has also had small parts dubbing or making cameos in a series of Cartoon Network projects such as the 2006 television film "Re-Animated", the animated cartoon series "Chowder", "Tom Goes to the Mayor", and "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!".
In 2008, Reubens was slated to appear as homeopathic antidepressant salesman Alfredo Aldarisio in the third episode of "Pushing Daisies", but the role was recast with Raúl Esparza. Reubens instead appeared in the role of Oscar Vibenius in the series' 7th and 9th episodes.
Also during 2008, Reubens did a PSA for Unscrew America, a website that aims to get people to change regular light bulbs for more energy-efficient ones in the form of CFLs and LED. He also appeared in Todd Solondz's "Life During Wartime".
In 2009, Reubens voiced Bat-Mite in the "" episode "Legends of the Dark Mite".
In January 2009, Reubens hinted that negotiations were under way for his stage show to come back, and in August the return of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" was announced. Reubens said he felt Pee-wee calling, "I just got up one day and felt like I'm gonna come back, that was it." The show is also a way to "introduce Pee-wee to the new generation that didn't know about it", preparing the way for Reubens' main project, the "Playhouse" movie. Before this comeback, Reubens' present age and shape had been pointed out as a possible issue, since Pee-wee's slim figure and clean skin have been one of his trademarks. But after appearing for the first time since 1992 as Pee-wee at Spike TV's 2007 Guys' Choice Awards, Reubens had remained optimistic and had jokingly said he's no longer nervous about being young Pee-wee again thanks to digital retouching.
The show was originally scheduled to begin November 8 and continue until the 29th at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood. Due to high demand, the show moved to Club Nokia @ LA Live and was scheduled to run between January 12, 2010, and February 7. To promote the show Reubens once again gave interviews in character, appearing as a guest on "The Jay Leno Show", "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" (as well as O'Brien's subsequent Legally Prohibited Tour) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" among others. A Twitter account, a Facebook account and a new website were made for Pee-wee after the show changed venues.
On November 1, 2010, Reubens was a special guest star on a "WWE Raw" episode as Pee-wee.
On November 11, 2010, the show relocated to New York for a limited run at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, selling over $3 million in advance tickets. An extra performance was taped for the HBO network on January 6, 2011, and debuted March 19.
On January 15, 2011, Reubens appeared on "Saturday Night Live" as Pee-Wee in an extended and well received segment depicting Andy Samberg and Pee-wee getting drunk, taking a ride on a mechanical bull, doing the tequila dance and ambushing Anderson Cooper in an alley way with a chair.
From 2012 to 2013 Reubens contributed his voice talents to the animated series "" as Pavel.
In 2014, Reubens appeared in TV on the Radio's music video for Happy Idiot.
Ever since Reubens started giving interviews again after his 2002 arrest, he has talked about the two scripts he has written for future Pee-wee Herman films.
Reubens once called his first script "The Pee-wee Herman Story", describing it as a black comedy. He has also referred to the script as "dark Pee-wee" or "adult Pee-wee", with the plot involving Pee-wee becoming famous as a singer after making a hit single and moving to Hollywood, where "he does everything wrong and becomes a big jerk". Reubens further explained the film has many ""Valley of the Dolls" moments". Reubens thought this script would be the first one to start production, but in 2006 Reubens announced he was to start filming his second script in 2007.
The second film, a family-friendly adventure, is called "Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Movie" by Reubens, and follows Pee-wee and his "Playhouse" friends on a road-trip adventure, meaning that they would leave the house for the first time and go out into "Puppetland". All of the original characters of the show, live-action and puppets are included in Reubens' script. The story happens in a fantasy land that would be reminiscent of "H.R. Pufnstuf" and "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". In January 2009, Reubens told Gary Panter that the rejected first script of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (which they co-wrote) could have a movie deal very soon and that it would be "90 minutes of incredible beauty". In December 2009, while in character, Reubens said this film is "already done, the script is already fully written; It's ready to shoot." Most of the film will take place in Puppetland and claymation might be used.
Although he hasn't revealed much about the scripts, he has said that one of the two films opens in prison. He has also said that using CGI for "updating" the puppets' looks could be an option, but it all depended on the budget the films would have. Reubens once mentioned the possibility of doing one of the two as an animated film along the lines of "The Polar Express", which uses performance capture technology, incorporating the movements of live actors into animated characters.
Reubens approached "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" director Tim Burton with one of the scripts and talked to Johnny Depp about the possibility of having him portray Pee-wee, but Burton was too busy, and Depp said he would have to think about it.
In January 2010, Reubens reprised his role as Pee-wee and reused the set of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" (albeit slightly modified) for a short sketch on Funny or Die. In the sketch, Pee-wee comes home and shows off a brand-new iPad given to him by Steve Jobs. This leads to a long argument between him and his puppet friends, who point out all of the iPad's disadvantages – even Conky himself points out its flaws by stating that "it looks like a giant iPhone". In the end, Pee-wee uses the iPad as a serving tray to hold glasses of milk and lemonade during a party being held at the Playhouse hours later. All the voices of the puppet characters are dubbed in by different actors than the TV series, except for Globey whose voice is still done by George McGrath.
In June 2010, various film news sites reported that Paul Reubens was working with Judd Apatow on a new Pee-wee Herman feature film.
In February 2015, Netflix acquired the rights to produce a new Pee-wee film entitled "Pee-wee's Big Holiday" with Apatow and Reubens producing the film, John Lee directing, and Reubens and Paul Rust writing the screenplay. The film released on March 18, 2016 on Netflix to positive reception.
Reubens will reportedly reprise his role as RX-24 in , a "Star Wars"-themed land set to open at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios in 2019. Reubens previously portrayed the character in the original Star Tours attraction in 1987, and "Star Wars Rebels" in 2014. In Galaxy's Edge, the character will be featured as the house DJ of a bar and restaurant called Oga's Cantina.
Prismatoid
In geometry, a prismatoid is a polyhedron whose vertices all lie in two parallel planes. Its lateral faces can be trapezoids or triangles. If both planes have the same number of vertices, and the lateral faces are either parallelograms or trapezoids, it is called a prismoid.
If the areas of the two parallel faces are A1 and A3, the cross-sectional area of the intersection of the prismatoid with a plane midway between the two parallel faces is A2, and the height (the distance between the two parallel faces) is h, then the volume of the prismatoid is given by formula_1 or formula_2(This formula follows immediately by integrating the area parallel to the two planes of vertices by Simpson's rule, since that rule is exact for integration of polynomials of degree up to 3, and in this case the area is at most a quadratic function in the height.)
Families of prismatoids include:
In general, a polytope is prismatoidal if its vertices exist in two hyperplanes. For example, in four dimensions, two polyhedra can be placed in two parallel 3-spaces, and connected with polyhedral sides.
A tetrahedral-cuboctahedral cupola.
Phantom kangaroo
A phantom kangaroo is a report of kangaroos, wallabies, or their accompanying footprints in areas where there is no native population. Some explanations put forth are escaped zoo or circus animals (as in the UK), or publicity stunts by local businesses using photographs from Australia. Others suggest outbreaks of such sightings are a form of mass hysteria.
It is sometimes said there is a population of kangaroos living in the wild in the township of Émancé, about southwest of Paris. In fact, they are red-necked wallabies. These wallabies are descended from a breeding population which escaped a zoological reserve in the 1970s.
Between 2003 and 2010, there was a series of phantom kangaroo sightings in the Mayama mountain district of Ōsaki, Miyagi city in Miyagi Prefecture.
In 1831, two men off the Sydney Packet reported to the Collector of Customers in Australia that they had seen a giant kangaroo (nine meters in standing) at a small cove in Dusky Sound. They observed it on the bushline from a small boat and when they came too close it leapt into the water and ploughed through the water, leaving a wake extending from one end of the sound to the other.
Kawau Island in the Hauraki Gulf has a colony of three species of wallabies descending from a deliberate introduction by Sir George Grey, a 19th century Governor.
New Zealand also has a wild population of Wallabies in the Waimate District of South Island that were introduced for hunting in the late 19th century.
Documented colonies of red-necked wallabies exist in the United Kingdom. In Staffordshire, a breeding colony established itself after breaking loose from a private zoo in Leek, Staffordshire in the 1930s. Their population seems to have peaked in the 1970s, reaching numbers between 60 and 70. There were no confirmed sightings of the wallabies between 2000 and 2007, with some locals believing they must have died out. In 2009, newspapers reported wallaby sightings (including clear pictures) that made reference to sightings in 2008. Other wallaby colonies exist in the UK, including reliable reports from the Fenland on the Norfolk/Lincolnshire border; and there are a few in Ashdown Forest, Sussex.
Subsequent sightings have been made including a report of a Bennett’s wallaby filmed by zoologist Maurice Melzak in Highgate Cemetery, Hampstead, London in October 2013, and an albino wallaby in Northamptonshire in 2015.
In Scotland, Inchconnachan, an island in Loch Lomond has a population of wallabies as well. Lady Arran Colquhoun introduced them in the 1920s.
In 1934 near South Pittsburg, Tennessee, an atypical kangaroo or "kangaroo-like beast" was reported by several witnesses over a five-day period, and to have killed and partially devoured several animals, including ducks, geese, a German Shepherd police dog and other dogs. Kangaroos are typically unaggressive and vegetarian. A witness described the animal as looking "like a large kangaroo, running and leaping across a field." A search party followed the animal's tracks to a mountainside cave where they stopped. The animal was never found, and national news coverage drew widespread ridicule.
In 1974 in Chicago, Illinois, two Chicago police officers were called to investigate a report that a kangaroo was standing in someone's porch. After a brief search, the officers located the animal in an alleyway, but were unable to capture it. Over the next month, numerous kangaroo sightings were reported in Illinois and the neighboring states of Indiana and Wisconsin, with timing suggesting more than one animal if reports were accurate. A kangaroo was seen the next day by a paperboy, the next week in , Illinois, and the week after that just outside Plano, Illinois, reported by a police officer who said it jumped eight feet from a field into the road. Thirty minutes later, a kangaroo was reported back in Chicago, then reported on the following three days in the surrounding countryside. A few days later, there were a rash of sightings in Indiana. Reports ceased about a month after the original story.
In 1978 in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, two men photographed a large kangaroo beside the highway. Author Loren Coleman, described as the "leading authority on North American kangaroo sightings", suggested the animal looked like a Bennett's wallaby.
In 2013 in Oklahoma, a kangaroo was reportedly recorded by hunters in a field. The video was published on the website YouTube, and prompted speculation that the animal may be a pet kangaroo who went missing in the state just over a year earlier.
Also in 2013, "The Ridgefield Press" reported that a motorist in North Salem, New York captured on video what he thought was a kangaroo, and published the video on their website. The newspaper noted that escaped wallabies, smaller than kangaroos, were known in Westchester County, which encompasses North Salem. Several people in the county had kept wallabies as pets.
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later. It was renamed to Princeton University in 1896.
Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. It offers professional degrees through the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Architecture and the Bendheim Center for Finance. The university also manages the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Princeton has the largest endowment per student in the United States.
As of March 2020, 68 Nobel laureates, 15 Fields Medalists and 14 Turing Award laureates have been affiliated with Princeton University as alumni, faculty members or researchers. In addition, Princeton has been associated with 21 National Medal of Science winners, 5 Abel Prize winners, 5 National Humanities Medal recipients, 209 Rhodes Scholars, 139 Gates Cambridge Scholars and 126 Marshall Scholars. Two U.S. Presidents, twelve U.S. Supreme Court Justices (three of whom currently serve on the court) and numerous living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princeton's alumni body. Princeton has also graduated many prominent members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Cabinet, including eight Secretaries of State, three Secretaries of Defense and the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
New Light Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Its purpose was to train ministers. The college was the educational and religious capital of Scottish Presbyterian America. In 1754, trustees of the College of New Jersey suggested that, in recognition of Governor Jonathan Belcher's interest, Princeton should be named as Belcher College. Belcher replied: "What a name that would be!" In 1756, the college moved its campus to Princeton, New Jersey. Its home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal House of Orange-Nassau of William III of England.
Following the untimely deaths of Princeton's first five presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that post until his death in 1794. During his presidency, Witherspoon shifted the college's focus from training ministers to preparing a new generation for secular leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards and solicited investment in the college. Witherspoon's presidency constituted a long period of stability for the college, interrupted by the American Revolution and particularly the Battle of Princeton, during which British soldiers briefly occupied Nassau Hall; American forces, led by George Washington, fired cannon on the building to rout them from it.
In 1812, the eighth president of the College of New Jersey, Ashbel Green (1812–23), helped establish the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. The plan to extend the theological curriculum met with "enthusiastic approval on the part of the authorities at the College of New Jersey." Today, Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary maintain separate institutions with ties that include services such as cross-registration and mutual library access.
Before the construction of Stanhope Hall in 1803, Nassau Hall was the college's sole building. The cornerstone of the building was laid on September 17, 1754. During the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the country's capital for four months. Over the centuries and through two redesigns following major fires (1802 and 1855), Nassau Hall's role shifted from an all-purpose building, comprising office, dormitory, library, and classroom space; to classroom space exclusively; to its present role as the administrative center of the University. The class of 1879 donated twin lion sculptures that flanked the entrance until 1911, when that same class replaced them with tigers. Nassau Hall's bell rang after the hall's construction; however, the fire of 1802 melted it. The bell was then recast and melted again in the fire of 1855.
James McCosh became the college's president in 1868 and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the American Civil War. During his two decades of service, he overhauled the curriculum, oversaw an expansion of inquiry into the sciences, and supervised the addition of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic style to the campus. McCosh Hall is named in his honor.
In 1879, the first thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) was submitted by James F. Williamson, Class of 1877.
In 1896, the college officially changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University to honor the town in which it resides. During this year, the college also underwent large expansion and officially became a university. In 1900, the Graduate School was established.
In 1902, Woodrow Wilson, graduate of the Class of 1879, was elected the 13th president of the university. Under Wilson, Princeton introduced the preceptorial system in 1905, a then-unique concept in the United States that augmented the standard lecture method of teaching with a more personal form in which small groups of students, or precepts, could interact with a single instructor, or preceptor, in their field of interest.
In 1906, the reservoir Lake Carnegie was created by Andrew Carnegie. A collection of historical photographs of the building of the lake is housed at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library on Princeton's campus. On October 2, 1913, the Princeton University Graduate College was dedicated. In 1919 the School of Architecture was established. In 1933, Albert Einstein became a lifetime member of the Institute for Advanced Study with an office on the Princeton campus. While always independent of the university, the Institute for Advanced Study occupied offices in Jones Hall for 6 years, from its opening in 1933, until its own campus was finished and opened in 1939. This helped start an incorrect impression that it was part of the university, one that has never been completely eradicated.
In 1969, Princeton University first admitted women as undergraduates. In 1887, the university actually maintained and staffed a sister college, Evelyn College for Women, in the town of Princeton on Evelyn and Nassau streets. It was closed after roughly a decade of operation. After abortive discussions with Sarah Lawrence College to relocate the women's college to Princeton and merge it with the University in 1967, the administration decided to admit women and turned to the issue of transforming the school's operations and facilities into a female-friendly campus. The administration had barely finished these plans in April 1969 when the admissions office began mailing out its acceptance letters. Its five-year coeducation plan provided $7.8 million for the development of new facilities that would eventually house and educate 650 women students at Princeton by 1974. Ultimately, 148 women, consisting of 100 freshmen and transfer students of other years, entered Princeton on September 6, 1969 amidst much media attention. Princeton enrolled its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meservey, as a PhD candidate in Turkish history in 1961. A handful of undergraduate women had studied at Princeton from 1963 on, spending their junior year there to study "critical languages" in which Princeton's offerings surpassed those of their home institutions. They were considered regular students for their year on campus, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree.
As a result of a 1979 lawsuit by Sally Frank, Princeton's eating clubs were required to go coeducational in 1991, after Tiger Inn's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied. In 1987, the university changed the gendered lyrics of "Old Nassau" to reflect the school's co-educational student body. From 2009–2011, Princeton professor Nannerl O. Keohane chaired a committee on undergraduate women's leadership at the university, appointed by President Shirley M. Tilghman.
In 2017, Princeton University unveiled a large-scale public history and digital humanities investigation into its historical involvement with slavery, following slavery studies produced by other institutions of higher education such as Brown University and Georgetown University. The Princeton & Slavery Project began in 2013, when history professor Martha A. Sandweiss and a team of undergraduate and graduate students started researching topics such as the slaveholding practices of Princeton's early presidents and trustees, the southern origins of a large proportion of Princeton students during the 18th and 19th centuries, and racial violence in Princeton during the antebellum period.
The Princeton & Slavery Project published its findings online in November 2017, on a website that included more than 80 scholarly essays and a digital archive of hundreds of primary sources. The website launched in conjunction with a scholarly conference, the premiere of seven short plays based on project findings and commissioned by the McCarter Theatre, and a public art installation by American artist Titus Kaphar commemorating a slave sale that took place at the historic President's House in 1766.
In April 2018, university trustees announced that they would name two public spaces for James Collins Johnson and Betsey Stockton, enslaved people who lived and worked on Princeton's campus and whose stories were publicized by the Princeton & Slavery Project. The project has also served as a model for institutional slavery studies at the Princeton Theological Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The main campus sits on about in Princeton. In 2011, the main campus was named by Travel+Leisure as one of the most beautiful in the United States. The James Forrestal Campus is split between nearby Plainsboro and South Brunswick. The University also owns some property in West Windsor Township. The campuses are situated about one hour from both New York City and Philadelphia.
The first building on campus was Nassau Hall, completed in 1756 and situated on the northern edge of campus facing Nassau Street. The campus expanded steadily around Nassau Hall during the early and middle 19th century. The McCosh presidency (1868–88) saw the construction of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles; many of them are now gone, leaving the remaining few to appear out of place. At the end of the 19th century much of Princeton's architecture was designed by the Cope and Stewardson firm (same architects who designed a large part of Washington University in St. Louis and University of Pennsylvania) resulting in the Collegiate Gothic style for which it is known today. Implemented initially by William Appleton Potter and later enforced by the University's supervising architect, Ralph Adams Cram, the Collegiate Gothic style remained the standard for all new building on the Princeton campus through 1960. A flurry of construction in the 1960s produced a number of new buildings on the south side of the main campus, many of which have been poorly received. Several prominent architects have contributed some more recent additions, including Frank Gehry (Lewis Library), I. M. Pei (Spelman Halls), Demetri Porphyrios (Whitman College, a Collegiate Gothic project), Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (Frist Campus Center, among several others), and Rafael Viñoly (Carl Icahn Laboratory).
A group of 20th-century sculptures scattered throughout the campus forms the Putnam Collection of Sculpture. It includes works by Alexander Calder ("Five Disks: One Empty"), Jacob Epstein ("Albert Einstein"), Henry Moore ("Oval with Points"), Isamu Noguchi ("White Sun"), and Pablo Picasso ("Head of a Woman"). Richard Serra's "The Hedgehog and The Fox" is located between Peyton and Fine halls next to Princeton Stadium and the Lewis Library.
At the southern edge of the campus is Lake Carnegie, an artificial lake named for Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie financed the lake's construction in 1906 at the behest of a friend who was a Princeton alumnus. Carnegie hoped the opportunity to take up rowing would inspire Princeton students to forsake football, which he considered "not gentlemanly." The Shea Rowing Center on the lake's shore continues to serve as the headquarters for Princeton rowing.
Buried in the ground at the center of the lawn south of Nassau Hall is the "Big Cannon," which was left in Princeton by British troops as they fled following the Battle of Princeton. It remained in Princeton until the War of 1812, when it was taken to New Brunswick. In 1836 the cannon was returned to Princeton and placed at the eastern end of town. It was removed to the campus under cover of night by Princeton students in 1838 and buried in its current location in 1840.
A second "Little Cannon" is buried in the lawn in front of nearby Whig Hall. This cannon, which may also have been captured in the Battle of Princeton, was stolen by students of Rutgers University in 1875. The theft ignited the Rutgers-Princeton Cannon War. A compromise between the presidents of Princeton and Rutgers ended the war and forced the return of the Little Cannon to Princeton. The protruding cannons are occasionally painted scarlet by Rutgers students who continue the traditional dispute.
In years when the Princeton football team beats the teams of both Harvard University and Yale University in the same season, Princeton celebrates with a bonfire on Cannon Green. This occurred in 2012, ending a five-year drought. The next bonfire happened on November 24, 2013, and was broadcast live over the Internet.
Princeton's grounds were designed by Beatrix Farrand between 1912 and 1943. Her contributions were most recently recognized with the naming of a courtyard for her. Subsequent changes to the landscape were introduced by Quennell Rothschild & Partners in 2000.
In 2005, Michael Van Valkenburgh was hired as the new consulting landscape architect for the campus. Lynden B. Miller was invited to work with him as Princeton's consulting gardening architect, focusing on the 17 gardens that are distributed throughout the campus.
Nassau Hall is the oldest building on campus. Begun in 1754 and completed in 1756, it was the first seat of the New Jersey Legislature in 1776, was involved in the battle of Princeton in 1777, and was the seat of the Congress of the Confederation (and thus capitol of the United States) from June 30, 1783, to November 4, 1783. It now houses the office of the university president and other administrative offices, and remains the symbolic center of the campus. The front entrance is flanked by two bronze tigers, a gift of the Princeton Class of 1879. Commencement is held on the front lawn of Nassau Hall in good weather. In 1966, Nassau Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Princeton has six undergraduate residential colleges, each housing approximately 500 freshmen, sophomores, some juniors and seniors, and a handful of junior and senior resident advisers. Each college consists of a set of dormitories, a dining hall, a variety of other amenities—such as study spaces, libraries, performance spaces, and darkrooms—and a collection of administrators and associated faculty. Two colleges, First College and Forbes College (formerly Woodrow Wilson College and Princeton Inn College, respectively), date to the 1970s; three others, Rockefeller, Mathey, and Butler Colleges, were created in 1983 following the Committee on Undergraduate Residential Life (CURL) report, which suggested the institution of residential colleges as a solution to an allegedly fragmented campus social life. The construction of Whitman College, the university's sixth residential college, was completed in 2007.
Rockefeller and Mathey are located in the northwest corner of the campus; Princeton brochures often feature their Collegiate Gothic architecture. Like most of Princeton's Gothic buildings, they predate the residential college system and were fashioned into colleges from individual dormitories.
Wilson and Butler, located south of the center of the campus, were built in the 1960s. Wilson served as an early experiment in the establishment of the residential college system. Butler, like Rockefeller and Mathey, consisted of a collection of ordinary dorms (called the "New New Quad") before the addition of a dining hall made it a residential college. Widely disliked for their edgy modernist design, including "waffle ceilings," the dormitories on the Butler Quad were demolished in 2007. Butler is now reopened as a four-year residential college, housing both under- and upperclassmen.
Forbes is located on the site of the historic Princeton Inn, a gracious hotel overlooking the Princeton golf course. The Princeton Inn, originally constructed in 1924, played regular host to important symposia and gatherings of renowned scholars from both the university and the nearby Institute for Advanced Study for many years. Forbes currently houses nearly 500 undergraduates in its residential halls.
In 2003, Princeton broke ground for a sixth college named Whitman College after its principal sponsor, Meg Whitman, who graduated from Princeton in 1977. The new dormitories were constructed in the Collegiate Gothic architectural style and were designed by architect Demetri Porphyrios. Construction finished in 2007, and Whitman College was inaugurated as Princeton's sixth residential college that same year.
The precursor of the present college system in America was originally proposed by university president Woodrow Wilson in the early 20th century. For over 800 years, however, the collegiate system had already existed in Britain at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Wilson's model was much closer to Yale's present system, which features four-year colleges. Lacking the support of the trustees, the plan languished until 1968. That year, Wilson College was established to cap a series of alternatives to the eating clubs. Fierce debates raged before the present residential college system emerged. The plan was first attempted at Yale, but the administration was initially uninterested; an exasperated alumnus, Edward Harkness, finally paid to have the college system implemented at Harvard in the 1920s, leading to the oft-quoted aphorism that the college system is a Princeton idea that was executed at Harvard with funding from Yale.
Princeton has one graduate residential college, known simply as the Graduate College, located beyond Forbes College at the outskirts of campus. The far-flung location of the GC was the spoil of a squabble between Woodrow Wilson and then-Graduate School Dean Andrew Fleming West. Wilson preferred a central location for the College; West wanted the graduate students as far as possible from the campus. Ultimately, West prevailed. The Graduate College is composed of a large Collegiate Gothic section crowned by Cleveland Tower, a local landmark that also houses a world-class carillon. The attached New Graduate College provides a modern contrast in architectural style.
The Tony-award-winning McCarter Theatre was built by the Princeton Triangle Club, a student performance group, using club profits and a gift from Princeton University alumnus Thomas McCarter. Today, the Triangle Club performs its annual freshmen revue, fall show, and Reunions performances in McCarter. McCarter is also recognized as one of the leading regional theaters in the United States.
The Princeton University Art Museum was established in 1882 to give students direct, intimate, and sustained access to original works of art that complement and enrich instruction and research at the university. This continues to be a primary function, along with serving as a community resource and a destination for national and international visitors.
Numbering over 92,000 objects, the collections range from ancient to contemporary art and concentrate geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, the United States, and Latin America. There is a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, including ceramics, marbles, bronzes, and Roman mosaics from faculty excavations in Antioch. Medieval Europe is represented by sculpture, metalwork, and stained glass. The collection of Western European paintings includes examples from the early Renaissance through the 19th century, with masterpieces by Monet, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, and features a growing collection of 20th-century and contemporary art, including iconic paintings such as Andy Warhol's Blue Marilyn.
One of the best features of the museums is its collection of Chinese art, with important holdings in bronzes, tomb figurines, painting, and calligraphy. Its collection of pre-Columbian art includes examples of Mayan art, and is commonly considered to be the most important collection of pre-Columbian art outside of Latin America. The museum has collections of old master prints and drawings and a comprehensive collection of over 27,000 original photographs. African art and Northwest Coast Indian art are also represented. The Museum also oversees the outdoor Putnam Collection of Sculpture.
The Princeton University Chapel is located on the north side of campus, near Nassau Street. It was built between 1924 and 1928, at a cost of $2.3 million, approximately $ million in 2019 dollars. Ralph Adams Cram, the University's supervising architect, designed the Chapel, which he viewed as the crown jewel for the Collegiate Gothic motif he had championed for the campus. At the time of its construction, it was the second largest university chapel in the world, after King's College Chapel, Cambridge. It underwent a two-year, $10 million restoration campaign between 2000 and 2002.
Measured on the exterior, the Chapel is long, wide at its transepts, and high. The exterior is Pennsylvania sandstone, with Indiana limestone used for the trim. The interior is mostly limestone and Aquia Creek sandstone. The design evokes an English church of the Middle Ages. The extensive iconography, in stained glass, stonework, and wood carvings, has the common theme of connecting religion and scholarship.
The Chapel seats almost 2,000. It hosts weekly ecumenical Christian services, daily Roman Catholic mass, and several annual special events.
Murray-Dodge Hall houses the Office of Religious Life (ORL), the Murray Dodge Theater, the Murray-Dodge Café, the Muslim Prayer Room and the Interfaith Prayer Room. The ORL houses the office of the Dean of Religious Life, Alison Boden, and a number of university chaplains, including the country's first Hindu chaplain, Vineet Chander; and one of the country's first Muslim chaplains, Sohaib Sultan.
Princeton university has several apartment facilities for graduate students and their dependents. They are Lakeside Apartments, Lawrence Apartments, and Stanworth Apartments.
Published in 2008, Princeton's Sustainability Plan highlights three priority areas for the University's Office of Sustainability: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; conservation of resources; and research, education, and civic engagement. Princeton has committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, without the purchase of offsets. The University published its first Sustainability Progress Report in November 2009. The University has adopted a green purchasing policy and recycling program that focuses on paper products, construction materials, lightbulbs, furniture, and electronics. Its dining halls have set a goal to purchase 75% sustainable food products by 2015. The student organization "Greening Princeton" seeks to encourage the University administration to adopt environmentally friendly policies on campus.
The Trustees of Princeton University, a 40-member board, is responsible for the overall direction of the University. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the University's endowment and oversees campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies, such as those in instructional programs and admission, as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members.
With an endowment of $26.1 billion, Princeton University is among the wealthiest universities in the world. Ranked in 2010 as the third largest endowment in the United States, the university had the greatest per-student endowment in the world (over $2 million for undergraduates) in 2011. Such a significant endowment is sustained through the continued donations of its alumni and is maintained by investment advisers. Some of Princeton's wealth is invested in its art museum, which features works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol among other prominent artists.
Undergraduates fulfill general education requirements, choose among a wide variety of elective courses, and pursue departmental concentrations and interdisciplinary certificate programs. Required independent work is a hallmark of undergraduate education at Princeton. Students graduate with either the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) or the Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.).
The graduate school offers advanced degrees spanning the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Doctoral education is available in most disciplines. It emphasizes original and independent scholarship whereas master's degree programs in architecture, engineering, finance, and public affairs and public policy prepare candidates for careers in public life and professional practice.
The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University.
Undergraduate courses in the humanities are traditionally either seminars or lectures held 2 or 3 times a week with an additional discussion seminar that is called a "precept." To graduate, all A.B. candidates must complete a senior thesis and, in most departments, one or two extensive pieces of independent research that are known as "junior papers." Juniors in some departments, including architecture and the creative arts, complete independent projects that differ from written research papers. A.B. candidates must also fulfill a three or four semester foreign language requirement and distribution requirements (which include, for example, classes in ethics, literature and the arts, and historical analysis) with a total of 31 classes. B.S.E. candidates follow a parallel track with an emphasis on a rigorous science and math curriculum, a computer science requirement, and at least two semesters of independent research including an optional senior thesis. All B.S.E. students must complete at least 36 classes. A.B. candidates typically have more freedom in course selection than B.S.E. candidates because of the fewer number of required classes. Nonetheless, in the spirit of a liberal arts education, both enjoy a comparatively high degree of latitude in creating a self-structured curriculum.
Undergraduates agree to adhere to an academic integrity policy called the Honor Code, established in 1893. Under the Honor Code, faculty do not proctor examinations; instead, the students proctor one another and must report any suspected violation to an Honor Committee made up of undergraduates. The Committee investigates reported violations and holds a hearing if it is warranted. An acquittal at such a hearing results in the destruction of all records of the hearing; a conviction results in the student's suspension or expulsion. The signed pledge required by the Honor Code is so integral to students' academic experience that the Princeton Triangle Club performs a song about it each fall. Out-of-class exercises fall under the jurisdiction of the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline. Undergraduates are expected to sign a pledge on their written work affirming that they have not plagiarized the work.
Princeton's undergraduate program is highly selective, admitting 6.4% of undergraduate applicants in the 2016–2017 admissions cycle (for the Class of 2021). The middle 50% range of SAT scores was 1430–1570 and the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 31–35.
In September 2006, the university announced that all applicants for the Class of 2012 would be considered in a single pool, effectively ending the school's early decision program. In February 2011, following decisions by the University of Virginia and Harvard University to reinstate their early admissions programs, Princeton announced it would institute an early action program, starting with applicants for the Class of 2016. In 2011, "The Business Journal" rated Princeton as the most selective college in the Eastern United States.
In 2001, expanding on earlier reforms, Princeton became the first university to eliminate the use of loans in financial aid, replacing them with grants. In addition, all admissions are need-blind. "Kiplinger" magazine in 2016 ranked Princeton as the best value among private universities, noting that the average graduating debt is $8,557.
In 2004, Nancy Weiss Malkiel, the Dean of the College, implemented a grade deflation policy to curb the number of A-range grades undergraduates received. Malkiel's argument was that an A was beginning to lose its meaning as a larger percentage of the student body received them. While the number of A's has indeed decreased under the policy, many argue that this is hurting Princeton students when they apply to jobs or graduate school. Malkiel has said that she sent pamphlets to inform institutions about the policy so that they consider Princeton students equally, but students argue that Princeton graduates can apply to other institutions that know nothing about it. They argue further that as other schools purposefully inflate their grades, Princeton students' GPAs will look low by comparison. Further, studies have shown that employers prefer high grades even when they are inflated. The policy remained in place even after Malkiel stepped down at the end of the 2010–2011 academic term. The policy deflates grades only relative to their previous levels; indeed, as of 2009, or five years after the policy was instituted, the average graduating GPA saw a marginal decrease, from 3.46 to 3.39.
In August 2014, a faculty committee tasked by Dean of the College Valerie Smith to review the effectiveness of grade deflation found not only that the 35% target was both often misinterpreted as a hard quota and applied inconsistently across departments, but also that grades had begun to decline in 2003, the year before the policy was implemented. The committee concluded that the observed lower grades since 2003 were the result of discussions and increased awareness during and since the implementation of the deflation policy, and not the deflation targets themselves, so recommended removing the numerical targets while charging individual departments with developing consistent standards for grading. In October 2014, following a faculty vote, the numerical targets were removed as recommended by the committee.
The Graduate School has about 2,600 students in 42 academic departments and programs in social sciences, engineering, natural sciences, and humanities. These departments include the Department of Psychology, Department of History, and Department of Economics.
In 2017–2018, it received nearly 11,000 applications for admission and accepted around 1,000 applicants. The University also awarded 319 Ph.D. degrees and 170 final master's degrees. Princeton has no medical school, law school, business school, or school of education. (A short-lived Princeton Law School folded in 1852.) It offers professional graduate degrees in architecture, engineering, finance, and public policy, the last through the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, founded in 1930 as the School of Public and International Affairs, renamed in 1948 after university president (and U.S. President) Woodrow Wilson, and most recently renamed in 2020.
The Princeton University Library system houses over eleven million holdings including seven million bound volumes. The main university library, Firestone Library, which houses almost four million volumes, is one of the largest university libraries in the world. Additionally, it is among the largest "open stack" libraries in existence. Its collections include the autographed manuscript of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" and George F. Kennan's Long Telegram. In addition to Firestone library, specialized libraries exist for architecture, art and archaeology, East Asian studies, engineering, music, public and international affairs, public policy and university archives, and the sciences. In an effort to expand access, these libraries also subscribe to thousands of electronic resources. In February 2007, Princeton became the 12th major library system to join Google's ambitious project to scan the world's great literary works and make them searchable over the Web.
From 2001 through 2019, Princeton University was ranked either first or second among national universities by "U.S. News & World Report", holding the top spot for 17 of those 19 years (sole #1 twelve times, tied with Harvard for #1 five times). Princeton was ranked first in the 2019 "U.S. News" rankings. Princeton also was ranked #1 in the 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 rankings for "best undergraduate teaching." In the 2020 "Times Higher Education" assessment of the world's greatest universities, Princeton was ranked 6th. In the 2020 "QS World University Rankings", it was ranked 13th overall in the world.
In the 2015 "U.S. News & World Report" "Graduate School Rankings," all thirteen of Princeton's doctoral programs evaluated were ranked in their respective top 20, 8 of them in the top 5, and 4 of them in the top spot (Economics, History, Mathematics, Sociology).
Princeton was ranked 6th among 300 Best World Universities in 2018 compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR).
Princeton University has an IBM BlueGeneL supercomputer, called "Orangena", which was ranked as the 89th fastest computer in the world in 2005 (LINPACK performance of 4713 compared to 12250 for other U.S. universities and 280600 for the top-ranked supercomputer, belonging to the U.S. Department of Energy).
The Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) is an "interdisciplinary center of environmental research, education, and outreach" at the university. PEI was started in 1994. About 90 faculty members at Princeton University are affiliated with it.
The Princeton Environmental Institute has the following research centers:
University housing is guaranteed to all undergraduates for all four years. More than 98% of students live on campus in dormitories. Freshmen and sophomores must live in residential colleges, while juniors and seniors typically live in designated upperclassman dormitories. The actual dormitories are comparable, but only residential colleges have dining halls. Nonetheless, any undergraduate may purchase a meal plan and eat in a residential college dining hall. Recently, upperclassmen have been given the option of remaining in their college for all four years. Juniors and seniors also have the option of living off-campus, but high rent in the Princeton area encourages almost all students to live in university housing. Undergraduate social life revolves around the residential colleges and a number of coeducational eating clubs, which students may choose to join in the spring of their sophomore year. Eating clubs, which are not officially affiliated with the university, serve as dining halls and communal spaces for their members and also host social events throughout the academic year.
Princeton's six residential colleges host a variety of social events and activities, guest speakers, and trips. The residential colleges also sponsor trips to New York for undergraduates to see ballets, operas, Broadway shows, sports events, and other activities.
The eating clubs, located on Prospect Avenue, are co-ed organizations for upperclassmen. Most upperclassmen eat their meals at one of the eleven eating clubs. Additionally, the clubs serve as evening and weekend social venues for members and guests. The eleven clubs are Cannon, Cap and Gown, Charter, Cloister, Colonial, Cottage, Ivy, Quadrangle, Terrace, Tiger, and Tower.
Princeton hosts two Model United Nations conferences, PMUNC in the fall for high school students and PDI in the spring for college students. It also hosts the Princeton Invitational Speech and Debate tournament each year at the end of November. Princeton also runs Princeton Model Congress, an event that is held once a year in mid-November. The four-day conference has high school students from around the country as participants.
Although the school's admissions policy is need-blind, Princeton, based on the proportion of students who receive Pell Grants, was ranked as a school with little economic diversity among all national universities ranked by "U.S. News & World Report". While Pell figures are widely used as a gauge of the number of low-income undergraduates on a given campus, the rankings article cautions "the proportion of students on Pell Grants isn't a perfect measure of an institution's efforts to achieve economic diversity," but goes on to say that "still, many experts say that Pell figures are the best available gauge of how many low-income undergrads there are on a given campus."
Princeton has made significant progress in expanding the diversity of its student body in recent years. The 2016 freshman class was the most diverse in the school's history, with over 43% of students identifying as students of color. Undergraduate and master's students were 51% male and 49% female for the 2018–19 academic year.
In 1999, 10% of the student body was Jewish, a percentage lower than those at other Ivy League schools. Sixteen percent of the student body was Jewish in 1985; the number decreased by 40% from 1985 to 1999. This decline prompted "The Daily Princetonian" to write a series of articles on the decline and its reasons. Caroline C. Pam of "The New York Observer" wrote that Princeton was "long dogged by a reputation for anti-Semitism" and that this history as well as Princeton's elite status caused the university and its community to feel sensitivity towards the decrease of Jewish students. At the time many Jewish students at Princeton dated Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia because they perceived Princeton as an environment where it was difficult to find romantic prospects; Pam stated that there was a theory that the dating issues were a cause of the decline in Jewish students.
In 1981, the population of African Americans at Princeton University made up less than 10%. Bruce M. Wright was admitted into the university in 1936 as the first African American, however, his admission was a mistake and when he got to campus he was asked to leave. Three years later Wright asked the dean for an explanation on his dismissal and the dean suggested to him that "a member of your race might feel very much alone" at Princeton University.
Princeton supports organized athletics at three levels: varsity intercollegiate, club intercollegiate, and intramural. It also provides "a variety of physical education and recreational programs" for members of the Princeton community. According to the athletics program's mission statement, Princeton aims for its students who participate in athletics to be "'student athletes' in the fullest sense of the phrase." Most undergraduates participate in athletics at some level.
Princeton's colors are orange and black. The school's athletes are known as "Tigers", and the mascot is a tiger. The Princeton administration considered naming the mascot in 2007, but the effort was dropped in the face of alumni opposition.
Princeton is an NCAA Division I school. Its athletic conference is the Ivy League. Princeton hosts 38 men's and women's varsity sports. The largest varsity sport is rowing, with almost 150 athletes.
Princeton's football team has a long and storied history. Princeton played against Rutgers University in the first intercollegiate football game in the U.S. on Nov 6, 1869. By a score of 6–4, Rutgers won the game, which was played by rules similar to modern rugby. Today Princeton is a member of the Football Championship Subdivision of NCAA Division I. As of the end of the 2010 season, Princeton had won 26 national football championships, more than any other school.
The men's basketball program is noted for its success under Pete Carril, the head coach from 1967 to 1996. During this time, Princeton won 13 Ivy League titles and made 11 NCAA tournament appearances. Carril introduced the Princeton offense, an offensive strategy that has since been adopted by a number of college and professional basketball teams. Carril's final victory at Princeton came when the Tigers beat UCLA, the defending national champion, in the opening round of the 1996 NCAA tournament, in what is considered one of the greatest upsets in the history of the tournament. Recently Princeton tied the record for the fewest points in a Division I game since the institution of the three-point line in 1986–87, when the Tigers scored 21 points in a loss against Monmouth University on Dec 14, 2005.
Princeton women's soccer team advanced to the NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship semi-finals in 2004, the only Ivy League team to do so in a 64-team tournament. The season was led by former U.S. National Team member, Esmeralda Negron, Olympic medalist Canadian National Team member Diana Matheson, and coach Julie Shackford. The Tigers men's soccer team was coached for many years by Princeton alumnus and future United States men's national team manager Bob Bradley.
The men's water polo team is currently a dominant force in the Collegiate Water Polo Association, having reached the Final Four in two of the last three years. Similarly, the men's lacrosse program enjoyed a period of dominance 1992–2001, during which time it won six national championships.
In addition to varsity sports, Princeton hosts about 35 club sports teams. Princeton's rugby team is organized as a club sport.
Each year, nearly 300 teams participate in intramural sports at Princeton. Intramurals are open to members of Princeton's faculty, staff, and students, though a team representing a residential college or eating club must consist only of members of that college or club. Several leagues with differing levels of competitiveness are available.
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement, convocation, and athletic games is Princeton Cannon Song, the Princeton University fight song.
Bob Dylan wrote "Day of The Locusts" (for his 1970 album "New Morning") about his experience of receiving an honorary doctorate from the University. It is a reference to the negative experience he had and it mentions the Brood X cicada infestation Princeton experienced that June 1970.
"" has been Princeton University's anthem since 1859. Its words were written that year by a freshman, Harlan Page Peck, and published in the March issue of the "Nassau Literary Review" (the oldest student publication at Princeton and also the second oldest undergraduate literary magazine in the country). The words and music appeared together for the first time in "Songs of Old Nassau", published in April 1859. Before the Langlotz tune was written, the song was sung to "Auld Lang Syne"'s melody, which also fits.
However, Old Nassau does not only refer to the university's anthem. It can also refer to Nassau Hall, the building that was built in 1756 and named after William III of the House of Orange-Nassau. When built, it was the largest college building in North America. It served briefly as the capitol of the United States when the Continental Congress convened there in the summer of 1783. By metonymy, the term can refer to the university as a whole. Finally, it can also refer to a chemical reaction that is dubbed "Old Nassau reaction" because the solution turns orange and then black.
U.S. Presidents James Madison and Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Aaron Burr graduated from Princeton, as did Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States. Former Chief Justice of the United States Oliver Ellsworth was an alumnus, as are current U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Alumnus Jerome Powell was appointed as Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in 2018.
Princeton graduates played a major role in the American Revolution, including the first and last Colonels on the Patriot side Philip Johnston and Nathaniel Scudder, as well as the highest ranking civilian leader on the British side David Mathews.
Notable graduates of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science include Apollo astronaut and commander of Apollo 12 Pete Conrad, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, former Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Eric Schmidt, and Lisa P. Jackson, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Actors Jimmy Stewart, Wentworth Miller, José Ferrer, David Duchovny, Brooke Shields, and Graham Phillips graduated from Princeton as did composer and pianist Richard Aaker Trythall. Soccer-player alumna, Diana Matheson, scored the game-winning goal that earned Canada their Olympic bronze medal in 2012.
Writers Booth Tarkington, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Eugene O'Neill attended but did not graduate. Selden Edwards and Will Stanton graduated with English degrees. American novelist Jodi Picoult graduated in 1987. Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize in Literature, received an honorary degree in 2015 and has been a visiting lecturer at the Spanish Department.
William P. Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and founding editor of the "Cherokee Advocate", graduated in 1844.
Notable graduate alumni include Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Richard Feynman, Lee Iacocca, John Nash, Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, Terence Tao, Edward Witten, John Milnor, John Bardeen, Steven Weinberg, John Tate, and David Petraeus. Royals such as Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, and Queen Noor of Jordan also have attended Princeton.
Notable faculty members include P. Adams Sitney, Angus Deaton, Daniel Kahneman, Joyce Carol Oates, Cornel West, Robert Keohane, Anthony Grafton, Peter Singer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Mullen, Robert P. George, and Andrew Wiles. Notable former faculty members include John Witherspoon, Walter Kaufmann, John von Neumann, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Joseph Henry, Toni Morrison, John P. Lewis, and alumnus Woodrow Wilson, who also served as president of the University 1902–1910.
Albert Einstein, though on the faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study rather than at Princeton, came to be associated with the university through frequent lectures and visits on the campus.
Posthumous execution
Posthumous execution is the ritual or ceremonial mutilation of an already dead body as a punishment. It is typically performed to show that even in death, one cannot escape justice.
Some Christians believed that the resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day requires that the body be buried whole facing east so that the body could rise facing God. If dismemberment stopped the possibility of the resurrection of an intact body, then a posthumous execution was an effective way of punishing a criminal.
Passenger pigeon
The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon ("Ectopistes migratorius") is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word "passager", meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits of the species. The scientific name also refers to its migratory characteristics. The morphologically similar mourning dove ("Zenaida macroura") was long thought to be its closest relative, and the two were at times confused, but genetic analysis has shown that the genus "Patagioenas" is more closely related to it than the "Zenaida" doves.
The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. The male was in length, mainly gray on the upperparts, lighter on the underparts, with iridescent bronze feathers on the neck, and black spots on the wings. The female was , and was duller and browner than the male overall. The juvenile was similar to the female, but without iridescence. It mainly inhabited the deciduous forests of eastern North America and was also recorded elsewhere, but bred primarily around the Great Lakes. The pigeon migrated in enormous flocks, constantly searching for food, shelter, and breeding grounds, and was once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering around 3 billion, and possibly up to 5 billion. A very fast flyer, the passenger pigeon could reach a speed of . The bird fed mainly on mast, and also fruits and invertebrates. It practiced communal roosting and communal breeding, and its extreme gregariousness may be linked with searching for food and predator satiation.
Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. The last confirmed wild bird is thought to have been shot in 1901. The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of this species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.
Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus coined the binomial name "Columba macroura" for both the mourning dove and the passenger pigeon in the 1758 edition of his work "Systema Naturae" (the starting point of biological nomenclature), wherein he appears to have considered the two identical. This composite description cited accounts of these birds in two pre-Linnean books. One of these was Mark Catesby's description of the passenger pigeon, which was published in his 1731 to 1743 work "Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands", which referred to this bird as "Palumbus migratorius", and was accompanied by the earliest published illustration of the species. Catesby's description was combined with the 1743 description of the mourning dove by George Edwards, who used the name "C. macroura" for that bird. There is nothing to suggest Linnaeus ever saw specimens of these birds himself, and his description is thought to be fully derivative of these earlier accounts and their illustrations. In his 1766 edition of "Systema Naturae", Linnaeus dropped the name "C. macroura", and instead used the name "C. migratoria" for the passenger pigeon, and "C. carolinensis" for the mourning dove. In the same edition, Linnaeus also named "C. canadensis", based on "Turtur canadensis", as used by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. Brisson's description was later shown to have been based on a female passenger pigeon.
In 1827 William John Swainson moved the passenger pigeon from the genus "Columba" to the new monotypic genus "Ectopistes", due in part to the length of the wings and the wedge shape of the tail. In 1906 Outram Bangs suggested that because Linnaeus had wholly copied Catesby's text when coining "C. macroura", this name should apply to the passenger pigeon, as "E. macroura". In 1918 Harry C. Oberholser suggested that "C. canadensis" should take precedence over "C. migratoria" (as "E. canadensis"), as it appeared on an earlier page in Linnaeus' book. In 1952 Francis Hemming proposed that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) secure the specific name "macroura" for the mourning dove, and the name "migratorius" for the passenger pigeon, since this was the intended use by the authors on whose work Linnaeus had based his description. This was accepted by the ICZN, which used its plenary powers to designate the species for the respective names in 1955.
The passenger pigeon was a member of the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. The oldest known fossil of the genus is an isolated humerus (USNM 430960) known from the Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina in sediments belonging to the Yorktown Formation, dating to the Zanclean stage of the Pliocene, between 5.3 and 3.6 million years ago. Its closest living relatives were long thought to be the "Zenaida" doves, based on morphological grounds, particularly the physically similar mourning dove (now "Z. macroura"). It was even suggested that the mourning dove belonged to the genus "Ectopistes" and was listed as "E. carolinensis" by some authors, including Thomas Mayo Brewer. The passenger pigeon was supposedly descended from "Zenaida" pigeons that had adapted to the woodlands on the plains of central North America.
The passenger pigeon differed from the species in the genus "Zenaida" in being larger, lacking a facial stripe, being sexually dimorphic, and having iridescent neck feathers and a smaller clutch. In a 2002 study by American geneticist Beth Shapiro et al., museum specimens of the passenger pigeon were included in an ancient DNA analysis for the first time (in a paper focusing mainly on the dodo), and it was found to be the sister taxon of the cuckoo-dove genus "Macropygia". The "Zenaida" doves were instead shown to be related to the quail-doves of the genus "Geotrygon" and the "Leptotila" doves.
A more extensive 2010 study instead showed that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to the New World "Patagioenas" pigeons, including the band-tailed pigeon ("P. fasciata") of western North America, which are related to the Southeast Asian species in the genera "Turacoena", "Macropygia" and "Reinwardtoena". This clade is also related to the "Columba" and "Streptopelia" doves of the Old World (collectively termed the "typical pigeons and doves"). The authors of the study suggested that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon may have colonized the New World from South East Asia by flying across the Pacific Ocean, or perhaps across Beringia in the north.
In a 2012 study, the nuclear DNA of the passenger pigeon was analyzed for the first time, and its relationship with the "Patagioenas" pigeons was confirmed. In contrast to the 2010 study, these authors suggested that their results could indicate that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon and its Old World relatives may have originated in the Neotropical region of the New World.
The cladogram below follows the 2012 DNA study showing the position of the passenger pigeon among its closest relatives:
DNA in old museum specimens is often degraded and fragmentary, and passenger pigeon specimens have been used in various studies to discover improved methods of analyzing and assembling genomes from such material. DNA samples are often taken from the toe pads of bird skins in museums, as this can be done without causing significant damage to valuable specimens. The passenger pigeon had no known subspecies. Hybridization occurred between the passenger pigeon and the Barbary dove ("Streptopelia risoria") in the aviary of Charles Otis Whitman (who owned many of the last captive birds around the turn of the 20th century, and kept them with other pigeon species) but the offspring were infertile.
The genus name, "Ectopistes", translates as "moving about" or "wandering", while the specific name, "migratorius", indicates its migratory habits. The full binomial can thus be translated as "migratory wanderer". The English common name "passenger pigeon" derives from the French word "", which means "to pass by" in a fleeting manner. While the pigeon was extant, the name passenger pigeon was used interchangeably with "wild pigeon". The bird also gained some less-frequently used names, including blue pigeon, merne rouck pigeon, wandering long-tailed dove, and wood pigeon. In the 18th century, the passenger pigeon was known as "tourte" in New France (in modern Canada), but to the French in Europe it was known as "tourtre". In modern French, the bird is known as "tourte voyageuse" or "pigeon migrateur", among other names.
In the Native American Algonquian languages, the pigeon was called "amimi" by the Lenape, ' by the Ojibwe, and ' by the Kaskaskia Illinois. Other names in indigenous American languages include ' in Mohawk, and ', or "lost dove", in Choctaw. The Seneca people called the pigeon ', meaning "big bread", as it was a source of food for their tribes. Chief Simon Pokagon of the Potawatomi stated that his people called the pigeon ', and that the Europeans did not adopt native names for the bird, as it reminded them of their domesticated pigeons, instead calling them "wild" pigeons, as they called the native peoples "wild" men.
The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. It weighed between . The adult male was about in length. It had a bluish-gray head, nape, and hindneck. On the sides of the neck and the upper mantle were iridescent display feathers that have variously been described as being a bright bronze, violet or golden-green, depending on the angle of the light. The upper back and wings were a pale or slate gray tinged with olive brown, that turned into grayish-brown on the lower wings. The lower back and rump were a dark blue-gray that became grayish-brown on the upper tail-covert feathers. The greater and median wing-covert feathers were pale gray, with a small number of irregular black spots near the end. The primary and secondary feathers of the wing were a blackish-brown with a narrow white edge on the outer side of the secondaries. The two central tail feathers were brownish gray, and the rest were white.
The tail pattern was distinctive as it had white outer edges with blackish spots that were prominently displayed in flight. The lower throat and breast were richly pinkish-rufous, grading into a paler pink further down, and into white on the abdomen and undertail covert feathers. The undertail coverts also had a few black spots. The bill was black, while the feet and legs were a bright coral red. It had a carmine-red iris surrounded by a narrow purplish-red eye-ring. The wing of the male measured , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .
The adult female passenger pigeon was slightly smaller than the male at in length. It was duller than the male overall, and was a grayish-brown on the forehead, crown, and nape down to the scapulars, and the feathers on the sides of the neck had less iridescence than those of the male. The lower throat and breast were a buff-gray that developed into white on the belly and undertail-coverts. It was browner on the upperparts and paler buff brown and less rufous on the underparts than the male. The wings, back, and tail were similar in appearance to those of the male except that the outer edges of the primary feathers were edged in buff or rufous buff. The wings had more spotting than those of the male. The tail was shorter than that of the male, and the legs and feet were a paler red. The iris was orange red, with a grayish blue, naked orbital ring. The wing of the female was , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .
The juvenile passenger pigeon was similar in plumage to the adult female, but lacked the spotting on the wings, and was a darker brownish-gray on the head, neck, and breast. The feathers on the wings had pale gray fringes (also described as white tips), giving it a scaled look. The secondaries were brownish-black with pale edges, and the tertial feathers had a rufous wash. The primaries were also edged with a rufous-brown color. The neck feathers had no iridescence. The legs and feet were dull red, and the iris was brownish, and surrounded by a narrow carmine ring. The plumage of the sexes was similar during their first year.
Of the hundreds of surviving skins, only one appears to be aberrant in coloran adult female from the collection of Walter Rothschild, Natural History Museum at Tring. It is a washed brown on the upper parts, wing covert, secondary feathers, and tail (where it would otherwise have been gray), and white on the primary feathers and underparts. The normally black spots are brown, and it is pale gray on the head, lower back, and upper-tail covert feathers, yet the iridescence is unaffected. The brown mutation is a result of a reduction in eumelanin, due to incomplete synthesis (oxidation) of this pigment. This sex-linked mutation is common in female wild birds, but it is thought the white feathers of this specimen are instead the result of bleaching due to exposure to sunlight.
The passenger pigeon was physically adapted for speed, endurance, and maneuverability in flight, and has been described as having a streamlined version of the typical pigeon shape, such as that of the generalized rock dove ("Columba livia"). The wings were very long and pointed, and measured from the wing-chord to the primary feathers, and to the secondaries. The tail, which accounted for much of its overall length, was long and wedge-shaped (or graduated), with two central feathers longer than the rest. The body was slender and narrow, and the head and neck were small.
The internal anatomy of the passenger pigeon has rarely been described. Robert W. Shufeldt found little to differentiate the bird's osteology from that of other pigeons when examining a male skeleton in 1914, but Julian P. Hume noted several distinct features in a more detailed 2015 description. The pigeon had particularly large breast muscles that indicate powerful flight (musculus pectoralis major for downstroke and the smaller musculus supracoracoideus for upstroke). The coracoid bone (which connects the scapula, furcula, and sternum) was large relative to the size of the bird, , with straighter shafts and more robust articular ends than in other pigeons. The furcula had a sharper V-shape and was more robust, with expanded articular ends. The scapula was long, straight, and robust, and its distal end was enlarged. The sternum was very large and robust compared to that of other pigeons; its keel was deep. The overlapping uncinate processes, which stiffen the ribcage, were very well developed. The wing bones (humerus, radius, ulna, carpometacarpus) were short but robust compared to other pigeons. The leg bones were similar to those of other pigeons.
The noise produced by flocks of passenger pigeons was described as deafening, audible for miles away, and the bird's voice as loud, harsh, and unmusical. It was also described by some as clucks, twittering, and cooing, and as a series of low notes instead of actual song. The birds apparently made croaking noises when building nests, and bell-like sounds when mating. During feeding, some individuals would give alarm calls when facing a threat, and the rest of the flock would join the sound while taking off.
In 1911 American behavioral scientist Wallace Craig published an account of the gestures and sounds of this species as a series of descriptions and musical notations, based on observation of C. O. Whitman's captive passenger pigeons in 1903. Craig compiled these records to assist in identifying potential survivors in the wild (as the physically similar mourning doves could otherwise be mistaken for passenger pigeons), while noting this "meager information" was likely all that would be left on the subject. According to Craig, one call was a simple harsh "keck" that could be given twice in succession with a pause in between. This was said to be used to attract the attention of another pigeon. Another call was a more frequent and variable scolding. This sound was described as "kee-kee-kee-kee" or "tete! tete! tete!", and was used to call either to its mate or towards other creatures it considered to be enemies. One variant of this call, described as a long, drawn-out "tweet", could be used to call down a flock of passenger pigeons passing overhead, which would then land in a nearby tree. "Keeho" was a soft cooing that, while followed by louder "keck" notes or scolding, was directed at the bird's mate. A nesting passenger pigeon would also give off a stream of at least eight mixed notes that were both high and low in tone and ended with "keeho". Overall, female passenger pigeons were quieter and called infrequently. Craig suggested that the loud, strident voice and "degenerated" musicality was the result of living in populous colonies where only the loudest sounds could be heard.
The passenger pigeon was found across most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, from the Great Plains to the Atlantic coast in the east, to the south of Canada in the north, and the north of Mississippi in the southern United States, coinciding with its primary habitat, the eastern deciduous forests. Within this range, it constantly migrated in search of food and shelter. It is unclear if the birds favored particular trees and terrain, but they were possibly not restricted to one type, as long as their numbers could be supported. It originally bred from the southern parts of eastern and central Canada south to eastern Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia in the United States, but the primary breeding range was in southern Ontario and the Great Lakes states south through states north of the Appalachian Mountains. Though the western forests were ecologically similar to those in the east, these were occupied by band-tailed pigeons, which may have kept out the passenger pigeons through competitive exclusion.
The passenger pigeon wintered from Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina south to Texas, the Gulf Coast, and northern Florida, though flocks occasionally wintered as far north as southern Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It preferred to winter in large swamps, particularly those with alder trees; if swamps were not available, forested areas, particularly with pine trees, were favored roosting sites. There were also sightings of passenger pigeons outside of its normal range, including in several Western states, Bermuda, Cuba, and Mexico, particularly during severe winters. It has been suggested that some of these extralimital records may have been due to the paucity of observers rather than the actual extent of passenger pigeons; North America was then unsettled country, and the bird may have appeared anywhere on the continent except for the far west. There were also records of stragglers in Scotland, Ireland, and France, although these birds may have been escaped captives, or the records incorrect.
More than 130 passenger pigeon fossils have been found scattered across 25 US states, including in the La Brea Tar Pits of California. These records date as far back as 100,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era, during which the pigeon's range extended to several western states that were not a part of its modern range. The abundance of the species in these regions and during this time is unknown.
The passenger pigeon was nomadic, constantly migrating in search of food, shelter, or nesting grounds. In his 1831 "Ornithological Biography", American naturalist and artist John James Audubon described a migration he observed in 1813 as follows:
These flocks were frequently described as being so dense that they blackened the sky and as having no sign of subdivisions. The flocks ranged from only above the ground in windy conditions to as high as . These migrating flocks were typically in narrow columns that twisted and undulated, and they were reported as being in nearly every conceivable shape. A skilled flyer, the passenger pigeon is estimated to have averaged during migration. It flew with quick, repeated flaps that increased the bird's velocity the closer the wings got to the body. It was equally as adept and quick at flying through a forest as through open space. A flock was also adept at following the lead of the pigeon in front of it, and flocks swerved together to avoid a predator. When landing, the pigeon flapped its wings repeatedly before raising them at the moment of landing. The pigeon was awkward when on the ground, and moved around with jerky, alert steps.
The passenger pigeon was one of the most social of all land birds. Estimated to have numbered three to five billion at the height of its population, it may have been the most numerous bird on Earth; researcher Arlie W. Schorger believed that it accounted for between 25 and 40 percent of the total land bird population in the United States. The passenger pigeon's historic population is roughly the equivalent of the number of birds that overwinter in the United States every year in the early 21st century. Even within their range, the size of individual flocks could vary greatly. In November 1859, Henry David Thoreau, writing in Concord, Massachusetts, noted that “quite a little flock of [passenger] pigeons bred here last summer,” while only seven years later, in 1866, one flock in southern Ontario was described as being wide and long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. Such a number would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time, or perhaps all of it. Most estimations of numbers were based on single migrating colonies, and it is unknown how many of these existed at a given time. American writer Christopher Cokinos has suggested that if the birds flew single file, they would have stretched around the earth 22 times.
A 2014 genetic study (based on coalescent theory and on “sequences from most of the genome” of three individual passenger pigeons) suggested that the passenger pigeon population experienced dramatic fluctuations across the last million years, due to their dependence on availability of mast (which itself fluctuates). The study suggested the bird was not always abundant, mainly persisting at around 1/10,000 the amount of the several billions estimated in the 1800s, with vastly larger numbers present during outbreak phases. Some early accounts also suggest that the appearance of flocks in great numbers was an irregular occurrence. These large fluctuations in population may have been the result of a disrupted ecosystem and have consisted of outbreak populations much larger than those common in pre-European times. The authors of the 2014 genetic study note that a similar analysis of the human population size arrives at an “effective population size” of between 9,000 and 17,000 individuals (or approximately 1/550,000th of the peak total human population size of 7 billion cited in the study).
For a 2017 genetic study, the authors sequenced the genomes of two additional passenger pigeons, as well as analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of 41 individuals. This study found evidence that the passenger-pigeon population had been stable for at least the previous 20,000 years. The study also found that the size of the passenger pigeon population over that time period had been larger than the 2014 genetic study had found. However, the 2017 study's "conservative" estimate of an "effective population size" of 13 million birds is still only about 1/300th of the bird's estimated historic population of approximately 3–5 billion before their "19th century decline and eventual extinction." A similar study inferring human population size from genetics (published in 2008, and using human mitochondrial DNA and Bayesian coalescent inference methods) showed considerable accuracy in reflecting overall patterns of human population growth as compared to data deduced by other means — though the study arrived at a human effective population size (as of 1600 AD, for Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas combined) that was roughly 1/1000 of the census population estimate for the same time and area based on anthropological and historical evidence.
The 2017 passenger-pigeon genetic study also found that, in spite of its large population size, the genetic diversity was very low in the species. The authors suggested that this was a side-effect of natural selection, which theory and previous empirical studies suggested could have a particular great impact on species with very large and cohesive populations. Natural selection can reduce genetic diversity over extended regions of a genome through 'selective sweeps' or 'background selection'. The authors found evidence of a faster rate of adaptive evolution and faster removal of harmful mutations in passenger pigeons compared to band-tailed pigeons, which are some of passenger pigeons' closest living relatives. They also found evidence of lower genetic diversity in regions of the passenger pigeon genome that have lower rates of genetic recombination. This is expected if natural selection, via selective sweeps or background selection, reduced their genetic diversity, but not if population instability did. The study concluded that earlier suggestion that population instability contributed to the extinction of the species was invalid. Evolutionary biologist A. Townsend Peterson said of the two passenger-pigeon genetic studies (published in 2014 and 2017) that, though the idea of extreme fluctuations in the passenger-pigeon population was “deeply entrenched,” he was persuaded by the 2017 study's argument, due to its “in-depth analysis” and “massive data resources.”
A communally roosting species, the passenger pigeon chose roosting sites that could provide shelter and enough food to sustain their large numbers for an indefinite period. The time spent at one roosting site may have depended on the extent of human persecution, weather conditions, or other, unknown factors. Roosts ranged in size and extent, from a few acres to or greater. Some roosting areas would be reused for subsequent years, others would only be used once. The passenger pigeon roosted in such numbers that even thick tree branches would break under the strain. The birds frequently piled on top of each other's backs to roost. They rested in a slumped position that hid their feet. They slept with their bills concealed by the feathers in the middle of the breast while holding their tail at a 45-degree angle. Dung could accumulate under a roosting site to a depth of over .
If the pigeon became alert, it would often stretch out its head and neck in line with its body and tail, then nod its head in a circular pattern. When aggravated by another pigeon, it raised its wings threateningly, but passenger pigeons almost never actually fought. The pigeon bathed in shallow water, and afterwards lay on each side in turn and raised the opposite wing to dry it.
The passenger pigeon drank at least once a day, typically at dawn, by fully inserting its bill into lakes, small ponds, and streams. Pigeons were seen perching on top of each other to access water, and if necessary, the species could alight on open water to drink. One of the primary causes of natural mortality was the weather, and every spring many individuals froze to death after migrating north too early. In captivity, a passenger pigeon was capable of living at least 15 years; Martha, the last known living passenger pigeon, was at least 17 and possibly as old as 29 when she died. It is undocumented how long a wild pigeon lived.
The bird is believed to have played a significant ecological role in the composition of pre-Columbian forests of eastern North America. For instance, while the passenger pigeon was extant, forests were dominated by white oaks. This species germinated in the fall, therefore making its seeds almost useless as a food source during the spring breeding season, while red oaks produced acorns during the spring, which were devoured by the pigeons. The absence of the passenger pigeon's seed consumption may have contributed to the modern dominance of red oaks. Due to the immense amount of dung present at roosting sites, few plants grew for years after the pigeons left. Also, the accumulation of flammable debris (such as limbs broken from trees and foliage killed by excrement) at these sites may have increased both the frequency and intensity of forest fires, which would have favored fire-tolerant species, such as bur oaks, black oaks, and white oaks over less fire-tolerant species, such as red oaks, thus helping to explain the change in the composition of eastern forests since the passenger pigeon's extinction (from white oaks, bur oaks, and black oaks predominating in presettlement forests, to the “dramatic expansion” of red oaks today).
A study released in 2018 concluded that the “vast numbers” of passenger pigeons present for “tens of thousands of years” would have influenced the evolution of the tree species that they ate the seeds of — specifically, that masting trees that produced seeds during the spring nesting season (such as red oaks) evolved so that some portion of their seeds would be too large for passenger pigeons to swallow (thus allowing some of their seeds to escape predation and grow new trees), while white oaks, with its seeds sized consistently in the edible range, evolved an irregular masting pattern that took place in the fall, when fewer passenger pigeons would have been present. The study further concluded that this allowed white oaks to be the dominant tree species in regions where passenger pigeons were commonly present in the spring.
With the large numbers in passenger pigeon flocks, the excrement they produced was enough to destroy surface-level vegetation at long-term roosting sites, while adding high quantities of nutrients to the ecosystem. Because of this — along with the breaking of tree limbs under their collective weight and the great amount of mast they consumed — passenger pigeons are thought to have influenced both the structure of eastern forests and the composition of the species present there. Due to these influences, some ecologists have considered the passenger pigeon a keystone species, with the disappearance of their vast flocks leaving a major gap in the ecosystem. Their role in creating forest disturbances has been linked to greater vertebrate diversity in forests by creating more niches for animals to fill, as well as contributing to a healthy forest fire cycle in the forests, as it has been found that forest fires have increased in prevalence since the extinction of the passenger pigeon, which seems to go against the idea that the tree limbs and branches they would bring down served as fuel for the fires. To help fill that ecological gap, it has been proposed that modern land managers attempt to replicate some of their effects on the ecosystem by creating openings in forest canopies to provide more understory light.
The American chestnut trees that provided much of the mast on which the passenger pigeon fed was itself almost driven to extinction by an imported Asian fungus (chestnut blight) around 1905. As many as thirty billion trees are thought to have died as a result in the following decades, but this did not affect the passenger pigeon, which was already extinct in the wild at the time.
After the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, the population of another acorn feeding species, the white-footed mouse, grew exponentially because of the increased availability of the seeds of the oak, beech and chestnut trees. It has been speculated that the extinction of passenger pigeons may have increased the prevalence of tick-borne lyme disease in modern times as white-footed mice are the reservoir hosts of "Borrelia burgdorferi".
Beeches and oaks produced the mast needed to support nesting and roosting flocks. The passenger pigeon changed its diet depending on the season. In the fall, winter, and spring, it mainly ate beechnuts, acorns, and chestnuts. During the summer, berries and softer fruits, such as blueberries, grapes, cherries, mulberries, pokeberries, and bunchberry, became the main objects of its consumption. It also ate worms, caterpillars, snails, and other invertebrates, particularly while breeding. It took advantage of cultivated grains, particularly buckwheat, when it found them. It was especially fond of salt, which it ingested either from brackish springs or salty soil.
Mast occurs in large quantities in different places at different times, and rarely in consecutive years, which is one of the reasons why the large flocks were constantly on the move. As mast is produced during autumn, there would have to be a large amount of it left by the summer, when the young were reared. It is unknown how they located this fluctuating food source, but their eyesight and flight powers helped them survey large areas for places that could provide food enough for a temporary stay.
The passenger pigeon foraged in flocks of tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals that overturned leaves, dirt, and snow with their bills in search of food. One observer described the motion of such a flock in search of mast as having a rolling appearance, as birds in the back of the flock flew overhead to the front of the flock, dropping leaves and grass in flight. The flocks had wide leading edges to better scan the landscape for food sources.
When nuts on a tree loosened from their caps, a pigeon would land on a branch and, while flapping vigorously to stay balanced, grab the nut, pull it loose from its cap, and swallow it whole. Collectively, a foraging flock was capable of removing nearly all fruits and nuts from their path. Birds in the back of the flock flew to the front in order to pick over unsearched ground; however, birds never ventured far from the flock and hurried back if they became isolated. It is believed that the pigeons used social cues to identify abundant sources of food, and a flock of pigeons that saw others feeding on the ground often joined them. During the day, the birds left the roosting forest to forage on more open land. They regularly flew away from their roost daily in search of food, and some pigeons reportedly traveled as far as , leaving the roosting area early and returning at night.
The passenger pigeon had a very elastic mouth and throat, allowing for increased capacity, and a joint in the lower bill enabled it to swallow acorns whole. It could store large quantities of food in its crop, which could expand to about the size of an orange, causing the neck to bulge and allowing a bird quickly to grab any food it discovered. The crop was described as being capable of holding at least 17 acorns or 28 beechnuts, 11 grains of corn, 100 maple seeds, plus other material; it was estimated that a passenger pigeon needed to eat about of food a day to survive. If shot, a pigeon with a crop full of nuts would fall to the ground with a sound described as like the rattle of a bag of marbles. After feeding, the pigeons perched on branches and digested the food stored in their crop overnight.
The pigeon could eat and digest of acorns per day. At the historic population of three billion passenger pigeons, this amounted to of food a day. The pigeon could regurgitate food from its crop when more desirable food became available. A 2018 study found that the dietary range of the passenger pigeon was restricted to certain sizes of seed, due to the size of its gape. This would have prevented it from eating some of the seeds of trees such as red oaks, the black oak, and the American chestnut. Specifically, the study found that between 13% and 69% of red oak seeds were too large for passenger pigeons to have swallowed, that only a “small proportion” of the seeds of black oaks and American chestnuts were too large for the birds to consume, and that all white oak seeds were sized within an edible range. They also found that seeds would be completely destroyed during digestion, which therefore hindered dispersal of seeds this way. Instead, passenger pigeons may have spread seeds by regurgitation, or after dying.
Other than finding roosting sites, the migrations of the passenger pigeon were connected with finding places appropriate for this communally breeding bird to nest and raise its young. It is not certain how many times a year the birds bred; once seems most likely, but some accounts suggest more. The nesting period lasted around four to six weeks. The flock arrived at a nesting ground around March in southern latitudes, and some time later in more northern areas. The pigeon had no site fidelity, often choosing to nest in a different location each year. The formation of a nesting colony did not necessarily take place until several months after the pigeons arrived on their breeding grounds, typically during late March, April, or May.
The colonies, which were known as "cities", were immense, ranging from to thousands of hectares in size, and were often long and narrow in shape (L-shaped), with a few areas untouched for unknown reasons. Due to the topography, they were rarely continuous. Since no accurate data was recorded, it is not possible to give more than estimates on the size and population of these nesting areas, but most accounts mention colonies containing millions of birds. The largest nesting area ever recorded was in central Wisconsin in 1871; it was reported as covering , with the number of birds nesting there estimated to be around 136,000,000. As well as these "cities", there were regular reports of much smaller flocks or even individual pairs setting up a nesting site. The birds do not seem to have formed as vast breeding colonies at the periphery of their range.
Courtship took place at the nesting colony. Unlike other pigeons, courtship took place on a branch or perch. The male, with a flourish of the wings, made a "keck" call while near a female. The male then gripped tightly to the branch and vigorously flapped his wings up and down. When the male was close to the female, he then pressed against her on the perch with his head held high and pointing at her. If receptive, the female pressed back against the male. When ready to mate, the pair preened each other. This was followed by the birds billing, in which the female inserted its bill into and clasped the male's bill, shook for a second, and separated quickly while standing next to each other. The male then scrambled onto the female's back and copulated, which was then followed by soft clucking and occasionally more preening. John James Audubon described the courtship of the passenger pigeon as follows:
After observing captive birds, Wallace Craig found that this species did less charging and strutting than other pigeons (as it was awkward on the ground), and thought it probable that no food was transferred during their brief billing (unlike in other pigeons), and he therefore considered Audubon's description partially based on analogy with other pigeons as well as imagination.
Nests were built immediately after pair formation and took two to four days to construct; this process was highly synchronized within a colony. The female chose the nesting site by sitting on it and flicking its wings. The male then carefully selected nesting materials, typically twigs, and handed them to the female over her back. The male then went in search of more nesting material while the female constructed the nest beneath herself. Nests were built between above the ground, though typically above , and were made of 70 to 110 twigs woven together to create a loose, shallow bowl through which the egg could easily be seen. This bowl was then typically lined with finer twigs. The nests were about wide, high, and deep. Though the nest has been described as crude and flimsy compared to those of many other birds, remains of nests could be found at sites where nesting had taken place several years prior. Nearly every tree capable of supporting nests had them, often more than 50 per tree; one hemlock was recorded as holding 317 nests. The nests were placed on strong branches close to the tree trunks. Some accounts state that ground under the nesting area looked as if it had been swept clean, due to all the twigs being collected at the same time, yet this area would also have been covered in dung. As both sexes took care of the nest, the pairs were monogamous for the duration of the nesting.
Generally, the eggs were laid during the first two weeks of April across the pigeon's range. Each female laid its egg immediately or almost immediately after the nest was completed; sometimes the pigeon was forced to lay it on the ground if the nest was not complete. The normal clutch size appears to have been a single egg, but there is some uncertainty about this, as two have also been reported from the same nests. Occasionally, a second female laid its egg in another female's nest, resulting in two eggs being present. The egg was white and oval shaped and averaged in size. If the egg was lost, it was possible for the pigeon to lay a replacement egg within a week. A whole colony was known to re-nest after a snowstorm forced them to abandon their original colony. The egg was incubated by both parents for 12 to 14 days, with the male incubating it from midmorning to midafternoon and the female incubating it for the rest of the time.
Upon hatching, the nestling (or squab) was blind and sparsely covered with yellow, hairlike down. The nestling developed quickly and within 14 days weighed as much as its parents. During this brooding period both parents took care of the nestling, with the male attending in the middle of the day and the female at other times. The nestlings were fed crop milk (a substance similar to curd, produced in the crops of the parent birds) exclusively for the first days after hatching. Adult food was gradually introduced after three to six days. After 13 to 15 days, the parents fed the nestling for a last time and then abandoned it, leaving the nesting area "en masse". The nestling begged in the nest for a day or two, before climbing from the nest and fluttering to the ground, whereafter it moved around, avoided obstacles, and begged for food from nearby adults. It was another three or four days before it fledged. The entire nesting cycle lasted about 30 days. It is unknown whether colonies re-nested after a successful nesting. The passenger pigeon sexually matured during its first year and bred the following spring.
Nesting colonies attracted large numbers of predators, including American minks, American weasels, American martens, and raccoons that preyed on eggs and nestlings, birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, and eagles that preyed on nestlings and adults, and wolves, foxes, bobcats, bears, and mountain lions that preyed on injured adults and fallen nestlings. Hawks of the genus "Accipiter" and falcons pursued and preyed upon pigeons in flight, which in turn executed complex aerial maneuvers to avoid them; Cooper's hawk was known as the "great pigeon hawk" due to its successes, and these hawks allegedly followed migrating passenger pigeons. While many predators were drawn to the flocks, individual pigeons were largely protected due to the sheer size of the flock, and overall little damage could be inflicted on the flock by predation. Despite the number of predators, nesting colonies were so large that they were estimated to have a 90% success rate if not disturbed. After being abandoned and leaving the nest, the very fat juveniles were vulnerable to predators until they were able to fly. The sheer number of juveniles on the ground meant that only a small percentage of them were killed; predator satiation may therefore be one of the reasons for the extremely social habits and communal breeding of the species.
Two parasites have been recorded on passenger pigeons. One species of phtilopterid louse, "Columbicola extinctus", was originally thought to have lived on just passenger pigeons and to have become coextinct with them. This was proven inaccurate in 1999 when "C. extinctus" was rediscovered living on band-tailed pigeons. This, and the fact that the related louse "C. angustus" is mainly found on cuckoo-doves, further supports the relation between these pigeons, as the phylogeny of lice broadly mirrors that of their hosts. Another louse, "Campanulotes defectus", was thought to have been unique to the passenger pigeon, but is now believed to have been a case of a contaminated specimen, as the species is considered to be the still-extant "Campanulotes flavus" of Australia. There is no record of a wild pigeon dying of either disease or parasites.
For fifteen-thousand years or more before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, passenger pigeons and Native Americans coexisted in the forests of what would later become the eastern part of the continental United States. A study published in 2008 found that, throughout most of the Holocene, Native American land-use practices greatly influenced forest composition. The regular use of prescribed fire, the girdling of unwanted trees, and the planting and tending of favored trees suppressed the populations of a number of tree species that did not produce nuts, acorns, or fruit, while increasing the populations of numerous tree species that did. In addition, the burning away of forest-floor litter made these foods easier to find, once they had fallen from the trees. Some have argued that such Native American land-use practices increased the populations of various animal species, including the passenger pigeon, by increasing the food available to them, while elsewhere it has been claimed that, by hunting passenger pigeons and competing with them for some kinds of nuts and acorns, Native Americans suppressed their population size. Genetic research may shed some light on this question. A 2017 study of passenger-pigeon DNA found that the passenger-pigeon population size had been stable for 20,000 years prior to its 19th-century decline and subsequent extinction, while a 2016 study of ancient Native-American DNA found that the Native-American population went through a period of rapid expansion, increasing 60-fold, starting about 13–16 thousand years ago. If both of these studies are correct, then a great change in the size of the Native-American population had no apparent impact on the size of the passenger-pigeon population. This suggests that the net effect of Native-American activities on passenger-pigeon population size was neutral.
The passenger pigeon played a religious role for some northern Native American tribes. The Wyandot people (or Huron) believed that every twelve years during the Feast of the Dead, the souls of the dead changed into passenger pigeons, which were then hunted and eaten. Before hunting the juvenile pigeons, the Seneca people made an offering of wampum and brooches to the old passenger pigeons; these were placed in a small kettle or other receptacle by a smoky fire. The Ho-Chunk people considered the passenger pigeon to be the bird of the chief, as they were served whenever the chieftain gave a feast. The Seneca people believed that a white pigeon was the chief of the passenger pigeon colony, and that a Council of Birds had decided that the pigeons had to give their bodies to the Seneca because they were the only birds that nested in colonies. The Seneca developed a pigeon dance as a way of showing their gratitude.
French explorer Jacques Cartier was the first European to report on passenger pigeons, during his voyage in 1534. The bird was subsequently observed and noted by historical figures such as Samuel de Champlain and Cotton Mather. Most early accounts dwell on the vast number of pigeons, the resulting darkened skies, and the enormous amount of hunted birds (50,000 birds were reportedly sold at a Boston market in 1771). The early colonists thought that large flights of pigeons would be followed by ill fortune or sickness. When the pigeons wintered outside of their normal range, some believed that they would have "a sickly summer and autumn." In the 18th and 19th centuries, various parts of the pigeon were thought to have medicinal properties. The blood was supposed to be good for eye disorders, the powdered stomach lining was used to treat dysentery, and the dung was used to treat a variety of ailments, including headaches, stomach pains, and lethargy. Though they did not last as long as the feathers of a goose, the feathers of the passenger pigeon were frequently used for bedding. Pigeon feather beds were so popular that for a time in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, every dowry included a bed and pillows made of pigeon feathers. In 1822, one family in Chautauqua County, New York, killed 4,000 pigeons in a day solely for this purpose.
The passenger pigeon was featured in the writings of many significant early naturalists, as well as accompanying illustrations. Mark Catesby's 1731 illustration, the first published depiction of this bird, is somewhat crude, according to some later commentators. The original watercolor that the engraving is based on was bought by the British royal family in 1768, along with the rest of Catesby's watercolors. The naturalists Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon both witnessed large pigeon migrations first hand, and published detailed accounts wherein both attempted to deduce the total number of birds involved. The most famous and often reproduced depiction of the passenger pigeon is Audubon's illustration (handcolored aquatint) in his book "The Birds of America", published between 1827 and 1838. Audubon's image has been praised for its artistic qualities, but criticized for its supposed scientific inaccuracies. As Wallace Craig and R. W. Shufeldt (among others) pointed out, the birds are shown perched and billing one above the other, whereas they would instead have done this side by side, the male would be the one passing food to the female, and the male's tail would not be spread. Craig and Shufeldt instead cited illustrations by American artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Japanese artist K. Hayashi as more accurate depictions of the bird. Illustrations of the passenger pigeon were often drawn after stuffed birds, and Charles R. Knight is the only "serious" artist known to have drawn the species from life. He did so on at least two occasions; in 1903 he drew a bird possibly in one of the three aviaries with surviving birds, and some time before 1914, he drew Martha, the last individual, in the Cincinnati Zoo.
The bird has been written about (including in poems, songs, and fiction) and illustrated by many notable writers and artists, and is depicted in art to this day, for example in Walton Ford's 2002 painting "Falling Bough", and National Medal of Arts winner John A. Ruthven's 2014 mural in Cincinnati, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of Martha's death. The centennial of its extinction was used by the "Project Passenger Pigeon" outreach group to spread awareness about human-induced extinction, and to recognize its relevance in the 21st century. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon could be used as a "flagship" species to spread awareness of other threatened, but less well-known North American birds.
The passenger pigeon was an important source of food for the people of North America. Native Americans ate pigeons, and tribes near nesting colonies would sometimes move to live closer to them and eat the juveniles, killing them at night with long poles. Many Native Americans were careful not to disturb the adult pigeons, and instead ate only the juveniles as they were afraid that the adults might desert their nesting grounds; in some tribes, disturbing the adult pigeons was considered a crime. Away from the nests, large nets were used to capture adult pigeons, sometimes up to 800 at a time. Low-flying pigeons could be killed by throwing sticks or stones. At one site in Oklahoma, the pigeons leaving their roost every morning flew low enough that the Cherokee could throw clubs into their midst, which caused the lead pigeons to try to turn aside and in the process created a blockade that resulted in a large mass of flying, easily hit pigeons. Among the game birds, passenger pigeons were second only to the wild turkey ("Meleagris gallopavo") in terms of importance for the Native Americans living in the southeastern United States. The bird's fat was stored, often in large quantities, and used as butter. Archaeological evidence supports the idea that Native Americans ate the pigeons frequently prior to colonization.
What may be the earliest account of Europeans hunting passenger pigeons dates to January 1565, when the French explorer René Laudonnière wrote of killing close to 10,000 of them around Fort Caroline in a matter of weeks: There came to us a manna of wood pigeons in such great numbers, that over a span of about seven weeks, each day we killed more than two hundred with arquebuses in the woods around our fort.
This amounted to about one passenger pigeon per day for each person in the fort.
After European colonization, the passenger pigeon was hunted more intensively and with more sophisticated methods than the more sustainable methods practiced by the natives. Yet it has also been suggested that the species was rare prior to 1492, and that the subsequent increase in their numbers may be due to the decrease in the Native American population (who, as well as hunting the birds, competed with them for mast) caused by European immigration, and the supplementary food (agricultural crops) the immigrants imported (a theory for which Joel Greenberg offered a detailed rebuttal in his book, "A Feathered River Across the Sky"). The passenger pigeon was of particular value on the frontier, and some settlements counted on its meat to support their population. The flavor of the flesh of passenger pigeons varied depending on how they were prepared. In general, juveniles were thought to taste the best, followed by birds fattened in captivity and birds caught in September and October. It was common practice to fatten trapped pigeons before eating them or storing their bodies for winter. Dead pigeons were commonly stored by salting or pickling the bodies; other times, only the breasts of the pigeons were kept, in which case they were typically smoked. In the early 19th century, commercial hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell as food in city markets, and even as pig fodder. Once pigeon meat became popular, commercial hunting started on a prodigious scale.
Passenger pigeons were shot with such ease that many did not consider them to be a game bird, as an amateur hunter could easily bring down six with one shotgun blast; a particularly good shot with both barrels of a shotgun at a roost could kill 61 birds. The birds were frequently shot either in flight during migration or immediately after, when they commonly perched in dead, exposed trees. Hunters only had to shoot toward the sky without aiming, and many pigeons would be brought down. The pigeons proved difficult to shoot head-on, so hunters typically waited for the flocks to pass overhead before shooting them. Trenches were sometimes dug and filled with grain so that a hunter could shoot the pigeons along this trench. Hunters largely outnumbered trappers, and hunting passenger pigeons was a popular sport for young boys. In 1871, a single seller of ammunition provided three tons of powder and 16 tons (32,000 lb) of shot during a nesting. In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as "trap-shooting", the controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down as many birds as possible in a passing flock. The pigeon was considered so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one competition.
There were a wide variety of other methods used to capture and kill passenger pigeons. Nets were propped up to allow passenger pigeons entry, then closed by knocking loose the stick that supported the opening, trapping twenty or more pigeons inside. Tunnel nets were also used to great effect, and one particularly large net was capable of catching 3,500 pigeons at a time. These nets were used by many farmers on their own property as well as by professional trappers. Food would be placed on the ground near the nets to attract the pigeons. Decoy or "stool pigeons" (sometimes blinded by having their eyelids sewn together) were tied to a stool. When a flock of pigeons passed by, a cord would be pulled that made the stool pigeon flutter to the ground, making it seem as if it had found food, and the flock would be lured into the trap. Salt was also frequently used as bait, and many trappers set up near salt springs. At least one trapper used alcohol-soaked grain as bait to intoxicate the birds and make them easier to kill. Another method of capture was to hunt at a nesting colony, particularly during the period of a few days after the adult pigeons abandoned their nestlings, but before the nestlings could fly. Some hunters used sticks to poke the nestlings out of the nest, while others shot the bottom of a nest with a blunt arrow to dislodge the pigeon. Others cut down a nesting tree in such a way that when it fell, it would also hit a second nesting tree and dislodge the pigeons within. In one case, of large trees were speedily cut down to get birds, and such methods were common. A severe method was to set fire to the base of a tree nested with pigeons; the adults would flee and the juveniles would fall to the ground. Sulfur was sometimes burned beneath the nesting tree to suffocate the birds, which fell out of the tree in a weakened state.
By the mid-19th century, railroads had opened new opportunities for pigeon hunters. While previously it had proved too difficult to ship masses of pigeons to eastern cities, the access provided by the railroad permitted pigeon hunting to become commercialized. An extensive telegraph system was introduced in the 1860s, which improved communication across the United States, making it easier to spread information about the whereabouts of pigeon flocks. After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized. Large commission houses employed trappers (known as "pigeoners") to follow the flocks of pigeons year-round. A single hunter is reported to have sent three million birds to eastern cities during his career. In 1874, at least 600 people were employed as pigeon trappers, a number which grew to 1,200 by 1881. Pigeons were caught in such numbers that by 1876, shipments of dead pigeons were unable to recoup the costs of the barrels and ice needed to ship them. The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when the birds were killed, and sold once their market value had increased again. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.
Hunting of passenger pigeons was documented and depicted in contemporaneous newspapers, wherein various trapping methods and uses were featured. The most often reproduced of these illustrations was captioned "Winter sports in northern Louisiana: shooting wild pigeons", and published in 1875. Passenger pigeons were also seen as agricultural pests, since entire crops could be destroyed by feeding flocks. The bird was described as a "perfect scourge" by some farming communities, and hunters were employed to "wage warfare" on the birds to save grain, as shown in another newspaper illustration from 1867 captioned as "Shooting wild pigeons in Iowa". When comparing these "pests" to the bison of the Great Plains, the valuable resource needed was not the species of animals but the agriculture which was consumed by said animal. The crops that were eaten were seen as marketable calories, proteins, and nutrients all grown for the wrong species.
The notion that the species could be driven to extinction was alien to the early colonists, because the number of birds did not appear to diminish, and also because the concept of extinction was yet to be defined. The bird seems to have been slowly pushed westwards after the arrival of Europeans, becoming scarce or absent in the east, though there were still millions of birds in the 1850s. The population must have been decreasing in numbers for many years, though this went unnoticed due to the apparent vast number of birds, which clouded their decline. In 1856 Bénédict Henry Révoil may have been one of the first writers to voice concern about the fate of the passenger pigeon, after witnessing a hunt in 1847:
By the 1870s, the decrease in birds was noticeable, especially after the last large-scale nestings and subsequent slaughters of millions of birds in 1874 and 1878. By this time, large nestings only took place in the north, around the Great Lakes. The last large nesting was in Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878 (following one in Pennsylvania a few days earlier), where 50,000 birds were killed each day for nearly five months. The surviving adults attempted a second nesting at new sites, but were killed by professional hunters before they had a chance to raise any young. Scattered nestings are reported into the 1880s, but the birds were now wary, and commonly abandoned their nests if persecuted.
By the time of these last nestings, laws had already been enacted to protect the passenger pigeon, but these proved ineffective, as they were unclearly framed and hard to enforce. H. B. Roney, who had witnessed the Petoskey slaughter, led campaigns to protect the pigeon, but was met with resistance, and accusations that he was exaggerating the severity of the situation. Few offenders were prosecuted, mainly some poor trappers, but the large enterprises were not affected. In 1857, a bill was brought forth to the Ohio State Legislature seeking protection for the passenger pigeon, yet a Select Committee of the Senate filed a report stating that the bird did not need protection, being "wonderfully prolific", and dismissing the suggestion that the species could be destroyed. Public protests against trap-shooting erupted in the 1870s, as the birds were badly treated before and after such contests. Conservationists were ineffective in stopping the slaughter. A bill was passed in the Michigan legislature making it illegal to net pigeons within of a nesting area. In 1897, a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a 10-year closed season on passenger pigeons. Similar legal measures were passed and then disregarded in Pennsylvania. The gestures proved futile, and by the mid-1890s, the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared, and was probably extinct as a breeding bird in the wild. Small flocks are known to have existed at this point, since large numbers of birds were still being sold at markets. Thereafter, only small groups or individual birds were reported, many of which were shot on sight.
The last recorded nest and egg in the wild were collected in 1895 near Minneapolis. The last wild individual in Louisiana was discovered among a flock of mourning doves in 1896, and subsequently shot. Many late sightings are thought to be false or due to confusion with mourning doves. The last fully authenticated record of a wild passenger pigeon was near Oakford, Illinois, on March 12, 1901, when a male bird was killed, stuffed, and placed in Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where it remains today. This was not discovered until 2014, when writer Joel Greenberg found out the date of the bird's shooting while doing research for his book "A Feathered River Across the Sky." Greenberg also pointed out a record of a male shot near Laurel, Indiana, on April 3, 1902, that was stuffed but later destroyed.
For many years, the last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was thought to have been shot near Sargents, Pike County, Ohio, on March 24, 1900, when a female bird was killed by a boy named Press Clay Southworth with a BB gun. The boy had not recognized the bird as a passenger pigeon, but his parents identified it, and sent it to a taxidermist. The specimen, nicknamed "Buttons" due to the buttons used instead of glass eyes, was donated to the Ohio Historical Society by the family in 1915. The reliability of accounts after the Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana birds are in question. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed to have seen a bird in Michigan in 1907. Ornithologist Alexander Wetmore claimed that he saw a pair flying near Independence, Kansas, in April 1905. In 1910, the American Ornithologists' Union offered a reward of $3,000 for discovering a nest – the equivalent of $76,990 in 2015.
Most captive passenger pigeons were kept for exploitative purposes, but some were housed in zoos and aviaries. Audubon alone claimed to have brought 350 birds to England in 1830, distributing them among various noblemen, and the species is also known to have been kept at London Zoo. Being common birds, these attracted little interest, until the species became rare in the 1890s. By the turn of the 20th century, the last known captive passenger pigeons were divided in three groups; one in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, and one in Cincinnati. There are claims of a few further individuals having been kept in various places, but these accounts are not considered reliable today. The Milwaukee group was kept by David Whittaker, who began his collection in 1888, and possessed fifteen birds some years later, all descended from a single pair.
The Chicago group was kept by Charles Otis Whitman, whose collection began with passenger pigeons bought from Whittaker beginning in 1896. He had an interest in studying pigeons, and kept his passenger pigeons with other pigeon species. Whitman brought his pigeons with him from Chicago to Massachusetts by railcar each summer. By 1897, Whitman had bought all of Whittaker's birds, and upon reaching a maximum of 19 individuals, he gave seven back to Whittaker in 1898. Around this time, a series of photographs were taken of these birds; 24 of the photos survive. Some of these images have been reproduced in various media, copies of which are now kept at the Wisconsin Historical Society. It is unclear exactly where, when, and by whom these photos were taken, but some appear to have been taken in Chicago in 1896, others in Massachusetts in 1898, the latter by a J. G. Hubbard. By 1902, Whitman owned sixteen birds. Many eggs were laid by his pigeons, but few hatched, and many hatchlings died. A newspaper inquiry was published that requested "fresh blood" to the flock which had now ceased breeding. By 1907, he was down to two female passenger pigeons that died that winter, and was left with two infertile male hybrids, whose subsequent fate is unknown. By this time, only four (all males) of the birds Whitman had returned to Whittaker were alive, and these died between November 1908 and February 1909.
The Cincinnati Zoo, one of the oldest zoos in the United States, kept passenger pigeons from its beginning in 1875. The zoo kept more than twenty individuals, in a ten-by-twelve-foot cage. Passenger pigeons do not appear to have been kept at the zoo due to their rarity, but to enable guests to have a closer look at a native species. Recognizing the decline of the wild populations, Whitman and the Cincinnati Zoo consistently strove to breed the surviving birds, including attempts at making a rock dove foster passenger pigeon eggs. In 1902, Whitman gave a female passenger pigeon to the zoo; this was possibly the individual later known as Martha, which would become the last living member of the species. Other sources argue that Martha was hatched at the Cincinnati Zoo, had lived there for 25 years, and was the descendant of three pairs of passenger pigeons purchased by the zoo in 1877. It is thought this individual was named Martha because her last cage mate was named George, thereby honoring George Washington and his wife Martha, though it has also been claimed she was named after the mother of a zookeeper's friends.
In 1909, Martha and her two male companions at the Cincinnati Zoo became the only known surviving passenger pigeons. One of these males died around April that year, followed by George, the remaining male, on July 10, 1910. It is unknown whether the remains of George were preserved. Martha soon became a celebrity due to her status as an endling, and offers of a $1,000 reward for finding a mate for her brought even more visitors to see her. During her last four years in solitude (her cage was ), Martha became steadily slower and more immobile; visitors would throw sand at her to make her move, and her cage was roped off in response. Martha died of old age on September 1, 1914, and was found lifeless on the floor of her cage. It was claimed that she died at 1 p.m., but other sources suggest she died some hours later. Depending on the source, Martha was between 17 and 29 years old at the time of her death, although 29 is the generally accepted figure. At the time, it was suggested that Martha might have died from an apoplectic stroke, as she had suffered one a few weeks before dying. Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where it was skinned, dissected, photographed, and mounted. As she was molting when she died, she proved difficult to stuff, and previously shed feathers were added to the skin. Martha was on display for many years, but after a period in the museum vaults, she was put back on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 2015. A memorial statue of Martha stands on the grounds of the Cincinnati Zoo, in front of the "Passenger Pigeon Memorial Hut", formerly the aviary wherein Martha lived, now a National Historic Landmark. Incidentally, the last specimen of the extinct Carolina parakeet, named "Incus," died in Martha's cage in 1918; the stuffed remains of that bird are exhibited in the "Memorial Hut".
The main reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon were the massive scale of hunting, the rapid loss of habitat, and the extremely social lifestyle of the bird, which made it highly vulnerable to the former factors. Deforestation was driven by the need to free land for agriculture and expanding towns, but also due to the demand for lumber and fuel. About 728,000 km2 (180 million acres) were cleared for farming between 1850 and 1910. Though there are still large woodland areas in eastern North America, which support a variety of wildlife, it was not enough to support the vast number of passenger pigeons needed to sustain the population. In contrast, very small populations of nearly extinct birds, such as the kakapo ("Strigops habroptilus") and the takahe ("Porphyrio hochstetteri"), have been enough to keep those species extant to the present. The combined effects of intense hunting and deforestation has been referred to as a "Blitzkrieg" against the passenger pigeon, and it has been labeled one of the greatest and most senseless human-induced extinctions in history. As the flocks dwindled in size, the passenger pigeon population decreased below the threshold necessary to propagate the species.
The 2014 genetic study that found natural fluctuations in population numbers prior to human arrival also concluded that the species routinely recovered from lows in the population, and suggested that one of these lows may have coincided with the intensified exploitation by humans in the 1800s, a combination which would have led to the rapid extinction of the species. A similar scenario may also explain the rapid extinction of the Rocky Mountain locust ("Melanoplus spretus") during the same period. It has also been suggested that after the population was thinned out, it would be harder for few or solitary birds to locate suitable feeding areas. In addition to the birds killed or driven away by hunting during breeding seasons, many nestlings were also orphaned before being able to fend for themselves. Other, less convincing contributing factors have been suggested at times, including mass drownings, Newcastle disease, and migrations to areas outside their original range.
The extinction of the passenger pigeon aroused public interest in the conservation movement, and resulted in new laws and practices which prevented many other species from becoming extinct. The rapid decline of the passenger pigeon has influenced later assessment methods of the extinction risk of endangered animal populations. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has used the passenger pigeon as an example in cases where a species was declared "at risk" for extinction even though population numbers are high.
Today, more than 1,532 passenger pigeon skins (along with 16 skeletons) are in existence, spread across many institutions all over the world. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon should be revived when available technology allows it (a concept which has been termed "de-extinction"), using genetic material from such specimens. In 2003, the Pyrenean ibex ("Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica", a subspecies of the Spanish ibex) was the first extinct animal to be cloned back to life; the clone lived for only seven minutes before dying of lung defects. A hindrance to cloning the passenger pigeon is the fact that the DNA of museum specimens has been contaminated and fragmented, due to exposure to heat and oxygen. American geneticist George M. Church has proposed that the passenger pigeon genome can be reconstructed by piecing together DNA fragments from different specimens. The next step would be to splice these genes into the stem cells of rock pigeons (or band-tailed pigeons), which would then be transformed into egg and sperm cells, and placed into the eggs of rock pigeons, resulting in rock pigeons bearing passenger pigeon sperm and eggs. The offspring of these would have passenger pigeon traits, and would be further bred to favor unique features of the extinct species.
The general idea of re-creating extinct species has been criticized, since the large funds needed could be spent on conserving currently threatened species and habitats, and because conservation efforts might be viewed as less urgent. In the case of the passenger pigeon, since it was very social, it is unlikely that enough birds could be created for revival to be successful, and it is unclear whether there is enough appropriate habitat left for its reintroduction. Furthermore, the parent pigeons that would raise the cloned passenger pigeons would belong to a different species, with a different way of rearing young.
PHP-Nuke
PHP-Nuke is a web-based automated news publishing and content management system based on PHP and MySQL originally written by Francisco Burzi. The system is controlled using a web-based user interface. PHP-Nuke was originally a fork of the Thatware news portal system by David Norman.
PHP-Nuke was originally released under the GNU General Public License as free software. Versions after 7.5 required a license fee; from version 8.3 it became free again. This is permitted under the GNU GPL (providing the source code is included), and the purchaser of the software has the right to freely distribute the source code of the product. Burzi no longer owns the PHP-Nuke site.
As of version 5.6, the display of a copyright message on webpages is required in accordance with the GPL section 2(c).
PHP-Nuke requires a web server which supports the PHP extension, as well as an SQL database.
PHP-Nuke is a content management system allowing webmasters to create community-based portals (websites), allowing users and editors to post news items (user-submitted news items are selected by editors) or other types of articles. Registered users can then comment on these articles.
Modules can be added to the PHP-Nuke system allowing additional features such as an Internet forum, Calendar, News Feed, FAQs, Private Messaging and others. The site is maintained through an administration interface.
PHP-Nuke includes the following standard modules:
PHP-Nuke supports many languages and its look and feel can be customized using the "Themes" system, but major changes requires knowledge of PHP, HTML and CSS.
Several security holes have been discovered in PHP-Nuke, including SQL injection via unchecked PHP code. PHP-Nuke may have issues with some search engine indexes. PHP-Nuke does not use simple URLs or unique titles for pages.
PHP-Nuke is distributed for free and licensed under the GNU/GPL license; however, current versions must be purchased and can then be distributed for free.
The PHP-Nuke website is now owned by Bibado Investments S.L. which is also a distributor of unwanted programs.
Palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name "palātium", for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences. Most European languages have a version of the term ("palais", "palazzo", "palacio", etc.), and many use it for a wider range of buildings than English. In many parts of Europe, the equivalent term is also applied to large private houses in cities, especially of the aristocracy; often the term for a large country house is different. Many historic palaces are now put to other uses such as parliaments, museums, hotels, or office buildings. The word is also sometimes used to describe a lavishly ornate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions, such as a movie palace.
The word "palace" comes from Old French "palais" (imperial residence), from Latin "Palātium", the name of one of the seven hills of Rome. The original "palaces" on the Palatine Hill were the seat of the imperial power while the "capitol" on the Capitoline Hill was the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills the Palatine remained a desirable residential area. Emperor Caesar Augustus lived there in a purposely modest house only set apart from his neighbours by the two laurel trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants, especially Nero, with his "Golden House", enlarged the house and grounds over and over until it took up the hill top. The word "Palātium" came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighbourhood on top of the hill.
"Palace" meaning "government" can be recognized in a remark of Paul the Deacon, writing c. AD 790 and describing events of the 660s: "When Grimuald set out for Beneventum, he entrusted his palace to Lupus" ("Historia Langobardorum", V.xvii). At the same time, Charlemagne was consciously reviving the Roman expression in his "palace" at Aachen, of which only his chapel remains. In the 9th century, the "palace" indicated the housing of the government too, and the constantly travelling Charlemagne built fourteen. In the early Middle Ages, the "palas" was usually that part of an imperial palace (or "Kaiserpfalz"), that housed the Great Hall, where affairs of state were conducted; it continued to be used as the seat of government in some German cities. In the Holy Roman Empire the powerful independent Electors came to be housed in palaces ("Paläste"). This has been used as evidence that power was widely distributed in the Empire; as in more centralized monarchies, only the monarch's residence would be a "palace".
In modern times, the term has been applied by archaeologists and historians to large structures that housed combined ruler, court and bureaucracy in "palace cultures". In informal usage, a "palace" can be extended to a grand residence of any kind.
Early ancient palaces include the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh, the Minoan palace at Knossos, and the Persian palaces at Persepolis and Susa. Palaces in East Asia, such as the imperial palaces of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and large wooden structures in China's Forbidden City, consist of many low pavilions surrounded by vast, walled gardens, in contrast to the single building palaces of Medieval Western Europe.
Palaces were also built by post-classical African kingdoms such as the Ashanti Empire. The Palace of the Asantehene before its destruction by the British was described by Thomas Edward Bowdich and Winwood Reade as having entablatures, many courtyards, coffers, Bohemian glass, a collection of books in many languages as well as clocks.
The Brazilian new capital, Brasília, hosts modern palaces, most designed by the city's architect Oscar Niemeyer. The Alvorada Palace is the official residence of Brazil's president. The Planalto Palace is the official workplace. The Jaburu Palace is the official residence of Brazil's vice-president. Also Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of the Portuguese Empire and the Empire of Brazil, houses numerous royal and imperial palaces as the Imperial Palace of São Cristóvão, former official residence of the Brazil's Emperors, the Paço Imperial, its official workplace and the Guanabara Palace, former residence of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil besides palaces of the nobility and aristocracy. The city of Petropolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, is particularly known for its palaces of the imperial period such as the Petrópolis Palace and the Grão-Pará Palace.
In Canada, Government House is a title given to the official residences of the Canadian monarchy and various viceroys (the governor generals and the lieutenant governors). Though not universal, in most cases the title is also the building's sole name; for example, the sovereign's and governor general's principal residence in Ottawa is known as Government House only in formal contexts, being more generally referred to as Rideau Hall. The use of the term Government House is an inherited custom from the British Empire, where there were and are many government houses.
Rideau Hall is, since 1867, the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the Governor General of Canada, and has been described as "Canada's house". It stands in Canada's capital on a 0.36 km2 (88 acre) estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main building consisting of approximately 175 rooms across 9,500 m2 (102,000 sq ft), and 27 outbuildings around the grounds. While the equivalent building in many countries has a prominent, central place in the national capital, Rideau Hall's site is relatively unobtrusive within Ottawa, giving it more the character of a private home.
Along with Rideau Hall, the Citadelle of Quebec, also known as La Citadelle, is an active military installation and official residence of both the Canadian monarch and the Governor General. It is located atop Cap Diamant, adjoining the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Quebec. The citadel is the oldest military building in Canada, and forms part of the fortifications of Quebec City, which is one of only two cities in North America still surrounded by fortifications. The fortress is located within the historic district of Old Québec, which was designated a World Heritage Site in 1985.
In addition to the federal residences, most provinces maintain a residence for the Canadian monarch, as well as their provincial viceroys lieutenant-governors. There is no government house for the Lieutenant Governors of Ontario (repurposed in 1937 and demolished in 1961), Quebec (destroyed by fire in 1966), or Alberta (closed in 1938 and repurchased and repurposed in 1964).
The capital of Mexico, Mexico City, is traditionally nicknamed the "City of Palaces"; a nickname usually attributed to Alexander von Humboldt after he visited the city in the late 18th century and early 19th century, but originally coined by Charles Latrobe, an English traveller who visited Mexico City in 1834 and "got the feeling of living a dream".
In Central Mexico, the Aztec emperors built many palaces in the capital of their empire, Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City), some of which may still be seen. On observing the great city Hernán Cortés wrote, "There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or palaces... They are all very beautiful buildings. Amongst these temples there is one, the principal one, whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe... All round inside this wall there are very elegant quarters with very large rooms and corridors. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville..."
The National Palace, or "Palacio Nacional", located in Mexico City's main square, the Plaza de la Constitución (El Zócalo), first built in 1563, is in the heart of the Mexican capital. In 1821, the palace was given its current name and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government were housed in the palace; the latter two branches would eventually reside elsewhere. During the Second Mexican Empire, its name was changed, for a time, to the Imperial Palace. The National Palace continues to be the official seat of the executive authority, though it is no longer the official residence of the President.
Also in Mexico City is the "Castillo de Chapultepec", or Chapultepec Castle, located in the middle of Chapultepec Park which currently houses the Mexican National Museum of History. It is the only castle, or palace, in North America that was occupied by sovereigns – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, a member of the House of Habsburg and his consort, Empress Carlota of Mexico, daughter of Leopold I of Belgium. The palace features many "objets d'art" ranging from gifts of Napoleon III to paintings by Franz Xaver Winterhalter and Mexican painter Santiago Rebull.
Palaces in the United States include the White House, the official residence of the President, and the official residences of many governors and Roman Catholic bishops. Some palaces of former heads of state or their representatives, such English and Spanish Royal Governors and the Hawaiian Royal Family still exist.
Examples include: ʻIolani Palace and Hānaiakamalama, the former homes of the Hawaiian monarchs in Honolulu; Hulihee Palace in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii; The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, a modern reconstruction of the official residence of the Royal governors of the Colony of Virginia; Tryon Palace in New Bern, a modern reconstruction of the historical colonial governors' palace of the Province of North Carolina; and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico as well as the Spanish Governor's Palace in San Antonio, Texas, which were residences of both Spanish and Mexican governors.
There are many private buildings or mansions in the United States, which, though not called "palaces", have the grandeur typical of a palace, and which have been used as residences. Hearst Castle and the Biltmore Estate are examples.
The Palacio Legislativo (Legislative Palace) is the house of the Uruguayan Parliament.
The Palacio de Miraflores is the setting for the offices of the president of the country.
Afghanistan's capital Kabul is well known for its sheer number of palaces. Many had been built in the 19th century but perhaps the most famous is the Darul Aman Palace. Many palaces were damaged by the civil war, including Darul Aman, but others have survived or have been rebuilt.
Azerbaijan has a number of palaces and they belong to different ages, you can find palaces of BC or AD ages, or 10th century. For example, "Goyalp" Palace of Eldiguzids Empire Atabeg — located in Nakhchivan city and was built in 1130s.
Baku Khans' Palace is a complex of several houses belonged to members of ruling family of Baku Khanate in 17th century. The palace complex is in ruins and used as warehouse by workers. Official Administration of State Historical-Architectural Reserve "Icheri Sheher" informed media that they have no whatsoever intentions to repair the palace
The Palace of Happiness (Azerbaijani: Səadət Sarayı), currently also called Palace of Marriage Registrations and previously called Mukhtarov Palace, is a historic building in the center of Baku, Azerbaijan, built in Neo-Gothic style in the early 19th century.
Shahbulag Castle Palace (Azerbaijani: Şahbulaq qalası "Spring of the Shah"), is an 18th-century fortress in near Aghdam. After the death of Turkic ruler Nadir Shah, the territory that is nowadays Azerbaijan split into several Caucasian khanates one of which was the Karabakh Khanate founded by Panah Ali Khan. The first capital of the khanate was the Bayat Castle built in 1748
Haji Gayib’s Palace – is an ancient fortress construction near a coastal side of Icheri Sheher. It is located in Baku quarter of Icheri Sheher, opposite the Maiden Tower. History of the palace is dated back to the 15th century. Intake portal of the bathhouse is rectangular shaped
The Palace of Shaki Khans (Azerbaijani: Şəki xanlarının sarayı) in Shaki, Azerbaijan was a summer residence of Shaki Khans. It was built in 1797 by Muhammed Hasan Khan. Along with its pool and plane trees, the summer residence is the only remaining structure from the larger palatial complex inside the Sheki Khans' Fortress, which once included a winter palace, residences for the Khan's family and servants' quarters. It features decorative tiles, fountains and several stained-glass windows. The exterior was decorated with dark blue, turquoise and ochre tiles in geometric patterns and the murals were coloured with tempera and were inspired by the works of Nizami Ganjavi.
These are located in various regions and capital of Azerbaijan – the palace of government:
Istana Nurul Iman is the world's largest residential palace and is the official residence of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, and the seat of the Brunei government. The palace is located on a leafy sprawl of hills on the banks of the Brunei River, a few kilometres south of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei's capital.
Most of the Palaces in Bangladesh are built by the Zamindars and Nawabs of British Bengal. Many magnificent palaces are found across the country. Among them Ahsan Manzil (also known as Pink Palace) built by the Nawabs of Dhaka, Tajhat Palace of Rangpur, Natore Palace, Puthia Rajbari of Rajshahi, Rose Garden Palace of Old Dhaka, Baliati Palace of Manikganj, Shashi Lodge of Mymensingh and Bangabhaban (Presidential Palace) are notable one.
A famed example of Chinese palaces is the Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Chinese Empire from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It is the largest palace complex currently in existence in the world and is located in the middle of Beijing, China. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture. Another example is the Summer Palace located in the northern suburb of Beijing and the Mukden Palace in Shenyang. The Presidential Palace in Nanjing displays European architectural influences.
The Weiyang Palace built during the Han dynasty was the largest palace complex ever built in the world, but it was destroyed during the Tang dynasty.
Chinese palaces are designed in regular square grids and arranged in a formal layout consisting of main buildings and a number of pavilions enclosed within walls. Unlike massive single-structured European palaces or castles, Chinese palaces are a multitude of complexes containing several larger and smaller structures with parks and courtyards.
India is home to many palaces and vast empires. Its history is full of numerous dynasties that have ruled over various parts of the country. While most monuments of the ancient period have been destroyed or lie in ruins, some medieval buildings have been maintained or restored to good condition. Several medieval forts and palaces still stand all over India. These are examples of the achievements of the architects and engineers of that age. The palaces of India offer an insight into the life of the royalty of the country. While some royal palaces have been maintained as museums or hotels over the last decades, some are still homes for the members of the erstwhile royal families. These forts and palaces are the largest illustrations and legacy of the princely states of India. They feature floats of flowers in grand fountains, shimmering blue water of magnificent baths and private pools, doric pillars, ornamental brackets, decorative staircases, and light streaming in through large windows. India possesses some of the most fascinating forts and palaces, a true royal retreat. It is not just a romantic longing for a royal experience, but also the search for the truly authentic Indian experience that brings thousands of heritage lovers to India's palaces.
Rajasthan has many forts and palaces that are major tourist destinations in North India. (See List of palaces in Rajasthan.) The Rajputs (collective term for the rulers of the region) were known as brave soldiers who preferred to die than be taken prisoners. They were also great connoisseurs of art and brilliant builders. The most famous forts and palaces in Rajasthan are located in Chittor, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur, Saphieree, Amber and Nahargarh. Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces manages some of the most iconic palaces of the region, Lake Palace, Udaipur; Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur; Fort Madhogarh, Jaipur and Rambagh Palace, Jaipur; and offer authentic royal retreats to the guests in all its grandeur, splendour and magnificence.
Kolkata is known as the City of Palaces within the Indian context, referring to the numerous grand residential buildings that dotted the city from the end of the 18th century onwards, as it grew to become one of the largest cities of the British Raj.
Karnataka is famous for the Amba Vilas Palace (commonly known as Mysore Palace) in Mysuru / Mysore, which was the palace of the Wodeyar kings. It was said to have been built of wood until it had to be rebuilt after a fire that burned down the entire palace complex.
In Indonesia, palaces are known as "istana" (Malay and Indonesian), or "kraton" (Javanese and Sundanese). In Bali the royal palace compound is called "puri". The palaces reflect the long history and diverse culture of the Indonesian archipelago.
Although Indonesia is now a republic, some of its parts and provinces still retain and preserve their traditional royal heritage, for example the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Mangkunegaran princedom, Kasepuhan palace in Cirebon, and Kutai in East Kalimantan. Remnants of palaces and royal houses still can be found in Banten, Medan, Ternate, Bima, Bali and Sumenep.
The layout of traditional Balinese and Javanese kratons is similar to the Chinese concept of walled compounds of royal pavilions, squares and gardens. Most of these kratons took the form of wooden pavilions called pendopo, while the istana of Sumatra usually consist of a single large structure. Typical Minangkabau vernacular architecture can be found in Pagaruyung Palace, West Sumatra. An example of Malay palace is Istana Maimun in Medan.
During VOC and the colonial era of the Dutch East Indies, the colonial government built several European stately palaces as the residence of the Governor General. Most of these European palaces have now become the state palace of the Republic of Indonesia. Indonesian state palaces are the neoclassic Merdeka Palace and Bogor Palace.
Niavarān Palace Complex is a historical complex situated in the northern part of Tehran, Iran. It consists of several buildings and a museum. The Sahebqraniyeh Palace, from the time of Naser al-Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty, is also inside this complex. The main Niavaran Palace, completed in 1968, was the primary residence of the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Imperial family until the Iranian Revolution. The main palace was designed by the Iranian architect Mohsen Foroughi.
The pre-Israelite Canaanite site of Tel Kabri, destroyed ca 1600 BCE, was built around a palace core. Though palace culture of ancient Israel and Judea can be inferred through the Hebrew Bible, no palace of Solomon or David has been securely identified. In Israel there are many ancient palaces like the Masada. In Roman Judaea palaces of the Herodian line of client-kings have been identified at several sites, including the main palace at Jerusalem and a winter palace at Herodium, in the Judean desert. Herod's palace at Caesarea Maritima preserved its palatial function as the official residence of the Roman procurators and governors of Judaea. There are other palaces in the Old City of Jerusalem, such as the Lady Tonsok Palace.
In Israel there are a number of magnificent buildings that are not considered "palaces", but they have the grandeur of a typical palace, and serve as residences, such as the House of Yehudayoff Hefetz, and the Sergei courtyard in Jerusalem.
Of the palaces in Japan, many of them are located in Tokyo, such as the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which houses Japan’s royal family. The Imperial palace was built on the site of Edo Castle.
Palaces have existed in Lebanon since the time of the Phoenicians. Almost all of the palaces of Ancient Phoenicia have been destroyed.
During the Renaissance palaces were built in Lebanon, especially in the Chouf region of Mount Lebanon. Lebanese palaces are very diverse architecturally, being influenced by Arabs, Italians, French, Persians, Turkish and East Asians. This is seen in the Beiteddine Palace, which is a mixture of traditional Lebanese, Italian, Arabic and Persian architecture.
Today in Lebanon there are at least ten buildings that can be classified as palaces, including the Beiteddine Palace, Grand Serail (one of the largest in the world), Baabda Palace, Sursock Museum, and Fakhreddine Palace.
Malaysia, a constituent of nine states, is ruled by hereditary sultans. Every five years, one sultan is elected as Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Supreme King), the head of state of Malaysia. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong has a palace, referred to as an istana. Each of the other sultans has their own istana, located in their state. Throughout the country they are sometimes called Istana Hinggap.
The Yang di-Pertuan Agong's official residences are the Istana Negara, Jalan Duta, the Royal Museum, and Istana Melawati, a palace and retreat, located in Putrajaya. Some of the other official palaces are the Istana Besar, Istana Anak Bukit, Istana Pekan, Istana Maziah, Istana Alam Shah, Istana Balai Besar, Istana Besar Seri Menanti, Istana Iskandariah and Istana Arau. Several appointed governors, or Yang di-Pertua Negeri, are also assigned to have their official seat and residence such as The Astana, Istana Negeri Sabah and Seri Mutiara.
Singha Durbar (literally, "Lion Palace") in Kathmandu is the official seat of government of Nepal and the largest Palace in Asia.
Narayanhiti Palace Museum was a residence and principal workplace of the reigning Monarch of the Kingdom of Nepal. It was built by king Mahendra in 1961 under the design of Californian architect Benjamin Polk. After the 2006 revolution, this royal palace is turned into a public museum.
Older palaces include the Durbar Squares, which are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They are located in Kathmandu Valley in districts of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur. In Kathmandu is Kathmandu Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square in Bhaktapur, Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur.
Kathmandu Durbar Square (Basantapur Darbar Kshetra) in front of the old royal palace of the former Kathmandu Kingdom is one of three Durbar (royal palace) Squares in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Several buildings in the Square collapsed due to a major earthquake on 25 April 2015. Durbar Square was surrounded with spectacular architecture and vividly showcases the skills of the Newar artists and craftsmen over several centuries. The Royal Palace was originally at Dattaraya square and was later moved to Durbar square.
The Kathmandu Durbar Square held the palaces of the Malla and Shah kings who ruled over the city. Along with these palaces, the square surrounds quadrangles, revealing courtyards and temples. It is known as Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square, a name derived from a statue of Hanuman, the monkey devotee of Lord Ram, at the entrance of the palace.
Bhaktapur Durbar Square is the plaza in front of the royal palace of the old Bhaktapur Kingdom. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Bhaktapur Durbar Square is located in the current town of Bhaktapur, also known as Bhadgaon, which lies 13 km east of Kathmandu. While the complex consists of at least four distinct squares (Durbar Square, Taumadhi Square, Dattatreya Square and Pottery Square), the whole area is informally known as the Bhakapur Durbar Square and is a highly visited site in the Kathmandu Valley. This palace consists of 55 windows so it is also known as '55 Windowed Palace'.
Patan Durbar Square is situated at the centre of the city of Lalitpur in Nepal. It is also one of the three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of its attraction is the ancient royal palace where the Malla Kings of Lalitpur resided.
The Durbar Square is a marvel of Newa architecture. The Square floor is tiled with red bricks. There are many temples and idols in the area. The main temples are aligned opposite of the western face of the palace. The entrance of the temples faces east, towards the palace. There is also a bell situated in the alignment beside the main temples. The Square also holds old Newari residential houses. There are various other temples and structures in and around Patan Durbar Square built by the Newa People.
In pre-Hispanic Philippines, Filipinos built large wooden residences for the ancient nobility and royalty (such as Lakans, Wangs, rajahs and datus) called "Torogan" or "Bahay Lakan" ("king's house").The windows of torogan are slits and richly framed in wood panels with okir designs located in front of the house. The communal kitchen is half a meter lower than the main house is both used for cooking and eating. The distinct high gable roof of the torogan, thin at the apex and gracefully flaring out to the eaves, sits on a huge structures enclosed by slabs of timber and lifted more than two meters above the ground by a huge trunk of a tree that was set on a rock. The end floor beams lengthen as panolongs the seemed to lift up the whole house. The torogan is suffused with decorations. There were diongal at the apex of the roof, also an intricately carved tinai a walai, okir designs in the floor, on windows and on panolongs.
The people in the Southern part of Philippines, built the same wooden palaces such as "langgal" of Tausug. In the Sultanate of Sulu, a palace was built for the Sultans which has the name Astana Darul Jambangan (white adobe) which has been destroyed by a typhoon in 1912. A replica of the royal palace was rebuilt as an attraction in Mt. Bayug Eco-Cultural Park in the town of Talipao, Sulu.
The "Yakan" or "ranggar" in Maranao, specially when Islam was established in Sulu (14th century) and in Mindanao (15th century).
During the Spanish Era, the government of the Spanish East Indies built a succession of palaces in and around Manila for high colonial officials and religious authorities. The most famous of these is the 18th-century Malacañang Palace, which originally housed Spanish and American Governors-General and, since the Commonwealth, the President of the Philippines.
Former president and strongman Ferdinand Marcos had Coconut Palace constructed in 1978 to showcase the country's varied uses for the coconut. It serves as the home and office of the vice-president. In 2004, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo converted the former "Aduana" (customs house) in Cebu City into a small palace, called Malacañang sa Sugbo.
The Gruuthusemuseum is a museum of applied arts in Bruges, located in the medieval Gruuthuse, the Palace of Louis de Gruuthuse. The collection ranges from the 15th to the 19th century.
Presumably in the 13th century, a rich family from Bruges received the monopoly to levy taxes on gruit, and built a storage for it. The building was changed in the early fifteenth century by Jan IV van der Aa to a luxury house for his family, which subsequently changes its name to "Van Gruuthuse" ("From the Gruit house"). His son Louis de Gruuthuse adds a second wing to the house, and in 1472 a chapel. This connects the house to the adjacent Church of Our Lady, Bruges.
In France there has been a clear distinction between a château and a "palais". The palace has always been urban, like the "Palais de la Cité" in Paris, which was the royal palace of France and is now the supreme court of justice of France, or the palace of the Popes at Avignon.
The château, by contrast, has always been in rural settings, supported by its demesne, even when it was no longer actually fortified. Speakers of English think of the "Palace of Versailles" because it was the residence of the king of France, and the king was the source of power, though the building has always remained the "Château de Versailles" for the French, and the seat of government under the "Ancien Régime" remained the Palais du Louvre. The Louvre had begun as a fortified "Château du Louvre" on the edge of Paris, but as the seat of government and shorn of its fortified architecture and then completely surrounded by the city, it developed into the "Palais du Louvre".
The "hôtel particulier" remains the term for an urban residence sited "entre cour et jardin", behind a forecourt and opening onto a garden; when fronting directly on streets, they are "maisons", "houses". Bishops always had a "palais" in the town of their diocese, an "hôtel" in other towns, though they might possess "chateaux".
The usage is essentially the same in Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as the former Austrian Empire. In Vienna, Austria, all large mansions belonging to aristocratic or very wealthy families were traditionally called "palais", but this never applied to imperial palaces themselves which were called "Burg" within the city and "Schloss" when outside it. In Germany, the wider term was a relatively recent importation and was used rather more restrictively.
The German term for "palace" is "Palast", which is used especially for large palatial complexes and gardens. Large country houses are typically called "schloss" ("chateaux" or "castle" in English).
Germany offers a variety of more than 25,000 castles and palaces and thousands of manor houses. The country is known for its fairy tale-like scenery palatial buildings, such as Sanssouci, Linderhof Palace, Herrenchiemsee, Schwetzingen, Nordkirchen and Schwerin Palace. Many of these buildings have a history of over 1000 years, ranging from fortifications to royal residences. Many German castles after the middle ages were mainly built as royal or ducal palaces rather than as a fortified building.
The best examples of the Bronze Age Greece palace are seen in the excavations at Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos. That these were administrative centers is shown by the records found there. From an architectural point of view, they were the heirs of the Minoan palaces and also of other palaces built earlier on the Greek mainland. They were ranged around a group of courtyards each opening upon several rooms of different dimensions, such as storerooms and workshops, as well as reception halls and living quarters. The heart of the palace was the megaron. This was the throne room, laid out around a circular hearth surrounded by four columns, the throne generally being found on the right-hand side upon entering the room. The staircases found in the palace of Pylos indicate palaces had two stories. Located on the top floor were probably the private quarters of the royal family and some storerooms. These palaces have yielded a wealth of artifacts and fragmentary frescoes.
In Hungary distinction is made between urban and rural residencies. Only the urban residencies of the higher aristocracy were called "palota" (palace), rural stately homes were named "kastély" (mansion), or in case of smaller country houses "kúria". Noble landowner families, like the House of Esterházy, often had several mansions in the countryside and palaces in towns. The office of the President of the Republic of Hungary, Sándor Palace was the residence of the Sándor family in the 19th century. Royal residencies were also called palaces, for example, the Early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias Corvinus in Visegrád or Buda Castle which was called "Királyi-palota" (Royal Palace). In the second half of the 19th century splendid new townhouses of the bourgeoisie on Andrássy út and elsewhere in Budapest were named palaces. A typical example is the Art Nouveau Gresham Palace which was built by an insurance company. Grand public buildings and even blocks of flats of higher standard were regularly called palaces (the contemporary term of the latter were "bérpalota" meaning rent palace). For contemporary buildings the term is seldom used with the notable exemption of the Palace of Arts.
In Italy, any urban building built as a grand residence is a "palazzo"; these are often no larger than a Victorian townhouse. It was not necessary to be a nobleman for one's house to be considered a "palazzo"; the hundreds of "palazzi" in Venice nearly all belonged to the patrician class of the city. In the Middle Ages these also functioned as warehouses and places of business, as well as homes. Each family's "palazzo" was a hive that contained all the family members, though it might not always show a grand architectural public front. In the 20th century, "palazzo" in Italian came to apply by extension to any large fine apartment building, as many old "palazzi" were converted to this use.
Bishop's townhouses were always "palazzi", and the seat of a localized regime would also be so called. Many former capitals display a Ducal Palace, the seat of the local duke or lord. In Florence (just as for other strong communal governments), the seat of government was known as Palazzo della Signoria. When the Medici were made Grand Dukes of Tuscany, however, the centre of power shifted to their new residence in Palazzo Pitti, and the old centre of power began to be referred to as the Palazzo Vecchio.
Shops on the ground floor and flats at the top of a modern "palazzo" are not at all incongruous: historically, the ground floors of even a great family's "palazzo" could be trade and domestic offices often open to servants, tradesmen, customers and the public, while the smartest and most prestigious floor (known as the "piano nobile") was kept for the family along with the upper floors and apartments, all of which were considered cleaner and safer than those on the ground floor. There were (and are) often separate, sometimes external, stairs to the humblest attic rooms and roofs used by the staff.
The most important royal "palazzi" in Italy are those in Caserta, Naples, Palermo, Turin, as well as the Quirinale Palace in Rome.
Until the sixteenth century, Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily, and the capital Mdina housed many palaces for the nobility, such as Palazzo Falson and Palazzo Santa Sofia. After the arrival of the Order of Saint John in 1530, the knights settled in Birgu, where part of Fort St Angelo was used as a palace for the Grand Master. The knights themselves lived in auberges, but these were more large houses rather than palaces.
When the Order began to build a new capital Valletta in 1566, a new Grandmaster's Palace and a series of new auberges were built. The auberges in Valletta are much larger than their counterparts in Birgu, and can be considered as palaces. The most important auberge still standing is Auberge de Castille, which currently houses the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta. Over the years, the Grand Masters also built a number of large residences in the countryside, such as Verdala Palace and San Anton Palace. Both of these now serve as official residences of the President of Malta.
The Archbishop of Malta has a palace in Mdina. The inquisitor also had a palace in Birgu and another in Girgenti until the abolition of the inquisition in 1798. The nobility, upper classes and individual knights of the Order built a number of private palaces, especially in Valletta, but also in the countryside. There are other palaces built by the nobility, such as, most notably Palazzo Parisio in Valletta and Palazzo Dragonara in St Julians.
The former Kingdom of Poland, known as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, once spanned over 1,153,465 km², which allowed the nobles to construct their residences anywhere from modern-day Poland to as far as southern Estonia. The Polish aristocracy (szlachta) greatly favoured Baroque and Rococo architecture of the period. Most notable architect specializing in those styles was Dutch-born Tylman van Gameren (also Tylman Gamerski), who designed several renowned palaces, for both kings and nobles, throughout the Commonwealth. Tylman also left behind a lifelong legacy of buildings that are regarded as gems of Polish Baroque architecture. His most famous works include Krasiński Palace and Łazienki Palace, both in Warsaw, and Branicki Palace in Białystok. Other palatial architects in Poland at the time were Chrystian Piotr Aigner, Szymon Bogumił Zug, Domenico Merlini and Johann Christian Schuch.
At present, Poland possesses hundreds of varied-style palaces and residences designed by architects from all over the world. Some best examples are Wilanów Palace, Presidential Palace, Oliwa Abbot's Palace, Copper-Roof Palace, Palace of the Ministry of Revenues and Treasury, Rogalin, Jabłonowski Palace, Zamoyski Palace in Kozłówka, Lanckoroński Palace in Kurozwęki, Nieborów Palace and the Palace in Otwock Wielki. There are also several palaces resembling castles or medieval Gothic residences, most notably Moszna Castle, Książ Castle and the Warsaw Royal Castle.
Due to its relatively small geography, most of Portugal's palaces are former royal residences. Some examples of Portuguese palaces are Mafra National Palace, Pena National Palace, Belém Palace, Ajuda National Palace, Palácio das Necessidades, Mateus Palace, Palace Hotel of Bussaco, Palácio da Regaleira, and Palácio da Brejoeira.
Palaces in Romania, as elsewhere in Europe, were originally built for royalty, nobles and bishops. Three former royal palaces in Romania are the Cotroceni Palace (now the Presidential residence); the Royal Palace in Bucharest, which now houses the National Museum of Art of Romania; and the Elisabeta Palace. Although Romania is no longer a constitutional monarchy, the current holder of the Romanian crown, HM Princess Margareta of Romania continues to reside at Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest.
Other palaces include the Crețulescu Palace in Bucharest, built for the Crețulescu family, Peles palace, built by King Carol I of Romania as a royal residence.
The Palace of the Parliament (Casa Poporului) from Bucharest and the Palace of Culture in Iași (Palatul Culturii) are large government buildings, both purpose-built solely for government and public use.
The first palaces in Russia were built about a thousand years ago for the Grand Dukes of Kiev. These are not preserved, having been destroyed by the Mongols. The first palaces in European style were built during the reign of Tsar Peter the Great and his immediate successors. Examples of Russian palaces include:
The three Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden all have long monarchic histories, and possess several palaces. In Denmark Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen was built as a royal palace, but is now only used for royal receptions; Amalienborg Palace has been the Danish royal residence since 1794. In Norway the Royal Palace in Oslo has been used as the royal residence since 1849. In Sweden the large Stockholm Palace was built in 1760, and remains the official royal residence, but at the current time is only used for official purposes while the Swedish royal family resides in the more modest Drottningholm Palace.
The two dynasties of post-Ottoman Serbia, Karađorđević and Obrenović built numerous residences throughout their domain. The most prominent and official palaces are the Stari Dvor and the Novi Dvor (Old and New Court, respectively) in the center of Belgrade and the Royal Compound which includes the Beli Dvor and Kraljevski Dvor (Royal Palace) in the Belgrade suburb, Dedinje.
With over a thousand years of monarchic history, Spain has many palaces of its own that were built for different monarchs or nobles. Among these palaces are the Royal Palace of Madrid, also referred to as the Palacio Real. The palace is the largest palace in Europe with over 2,800 rooms but at the current time is of use for only governmental business while the royal family resides in the smaller Palacio de la Zarzuela.
In addition to the Royal Palace of Madrid, Alcázar of Seville (which mixes, with the delicate Moorish filigree, European Christian architectural styles), the Alhambra, the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, fine baroque palace is surrounded by gardens. Currently, the royal family and prime minister live in the more modest Palace of Zarzuela and Palace of Moncloa respectively.
In the United Kingdom, by tacit agreement, there have been no "palaces" other than those used as official residences by royalty or bishops, regardless of whether located in town or country. However, not all palaces use the term in their name – see Holyrood Palace. Thus the Palace of Beaulieu gained its name precisely when Thomas Boleyn sold it to Henry VIII in 1517. Previously, it had been known as Walkfares, but like several other palaces, the name stuck even once the royal connection ended.
Blenheim Palace was built, on a different site, in the grounds of the disused royal Palace of Woodstock, and the name was also part of the extraordinary honour when the house was given by a grateful nation to a great general, the Duke of Marlborough. Along with several royal and episcopal palaces in the countryside, Blenheim does demonstrate that "palace" has no specific urban connotation in English. On the use of the term "palace" in the UK, it is notable that Buckingham Palace was known as Buckingham House before it was acquired by the monarchy.
Blenheim Palace (in England) and Hamilton Palace (in Scotland, demolished in 1927) are the only non-royal and non-episcopal residences to have the word "palace" in their name, other than Dalkeith Palace in Scotland, which used to be the seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch (who descend from Charles II of England).
After the conquest of Istanbul by Mehmed the Conqueror at 1453, construction of the Topkapı Palace was started in the year 1460 and completed in 1478. The palace was built upon a 700,000 square meter area on an Eastern Roman Acropolis located on the Istanbul Peninsula between the Sea of Marmara, Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Topkapı Palace was the administrative, educational, and art center of the Empire for nearly four hundred years from Mehmed the Conqueror until Sultan Abdulmecid who was the thirty-first Sultan. Although Topkapi Palace was abandoned by the Ottoman Dynasty by moving to the Dolmabahçe Palace in the middle of the 19th century, Topkapı Palace retained its importance.
After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Topkapı Palace was transformed into a museum on 3 April 1924. It was also the first museum of the Republic of Turkey. Topkapı Palace Museum covers approximately 400,000 square meters at the present day. Topkapı Palace is separated from the city on the land-side by the Imperial Walls, which were constructed by Mehmed the Conqueror. It is separated from the city on the sea-side by the Byzantine Walls. Topkapı Palace is one of the largest palace-museums with its architectural structures, collections, and approximately 300,000 archive papers.
In Continental Europe royal and episcopal palaces were not merely residences; the clerks who administered the realm or the diocese laboured there as well. (To this day many bishops' palaces house both their family apartments and their official offices.) However, unlike the "Palais du Justice" which is often encountered in the French-speaking world, modern British public administration buildings are never called "palaces"; although the formal name for the "Houses of Parliament" is the Palace of Westminster, this reflects Westminster's former role as a royal residence and centre of administration.
In more recent years, the word has been used in a more informal sense for other large, impressive buildings, such as The Crystal Palace of 1851 (an immensely large, glazed hall erected for The Great Exhibition) and modern arenas-convention centers like Alexandra Palace.
The largest in the world is the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. Built during the socialist regime, no effort or expense was spared to raise this colossal neo-classic building.
The Palace of the Olowo, ruler of the Yoruba Owo clan of Nigeria, is acknowledged to be the largest palace in all of Africa. It consists of more than 100 courtyards, each with a unique traditional usage.
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian writer who published 12 novels, three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987.
White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative vantage points and stream of consciousness techniques. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature", as it says in the Swedish Academy's citation, the only Australian to have been awarded the prize. White was also the inaugural recipient of the Miles Franklin Award.
White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to Victor Martindale White and Ruth (née Withycombe), both Australians, in their apartment overlooking Hyde Park, London on 28 May 1912. His family returned to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. As a child he lived in a flat with his sister, a nanny, and a maid while his parents lived in an adjoining flat. In 1916 they moved to a house in Elizabeth Bay that many years later became a nursing home, Lulworth House, the residents of which included Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran, and White's partner Manoly Lascaris.
At the age of four, White developed asthma, a condition that had taken the life of his maternal grandfather. White's health was fragile throughout his childhood, which precluded his participation in many childhood activities.
He loved the theatre, which he first visited at an early age (his mother took him to see "The Merchant of Venice" at the age of six). This love was expressed at home when he performed private rites in the garden and danced for his mother's friends.
At the age of five, he attended kindergarten at Sandtoft in Woollahra, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
At the age of ten, White was sent to Tudor House School, a boarding school in Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, in an attempt to abate his asthma. It took him some time to adjust to the presence of other children. At boarding school, he started to write plays. Even at this early age, White wrote about palpably adult themes. In 1924, the boarding school ran into financial trouble, and the headmaster suggested for White to be sent to a public school in England, a suggestion that his parents accepted.
White struggled to adjust to his new surroundings at Cheltenham College, England. He later described it as "a four-year prison sentence". White withdrew socially and had a limited circle of acquaintances. Occasionally, he would holiday with his parents at European locations, but their relationship remained distant. However he did spend time with his cousin Jack Withycombe during this period, and Jack's daughter Elizabeth Withycombe became a mentor to him while he was writing his first book of poems, "Thirteen Poems" between the years 1927–29.
While at school in London, White made one close friend, Ronald Waterall, an older boy who shared similar interests. White's biographer, David Marr, wrote that "the two men would walk, arm-in-arm, to London shows; and stand around stage doors crumbing for a glimpse of their favourite stars, giving a practical demonstration of a chorus girl's high kick... with appropriate vocal accompaniment". When Waterall left school, White withdrew again. He asked his parents if he could leave school to become an actor. The parents compromised and allowed him to finish school early if he came home to Australia to try life on the land. His parents felt that he should work on the land rather than become a writer and hoped that his work as a jackaroo would temper his artistic ambitions.
White spent two years working as a stockman at Bolaro, a station near Adaminaby, on the edge of the Snowy Mountains, in southeastern Australia. Although he grew to respect the land and his health improved, it was clear that he was not cut out for this life.
From 1932 to 1935, White lived in England, studying French and German literature at King's College, Cambridge University. During his time at Cambridge he developed a romantic attraction to a young man who had come to King's College to become an Anglican priest. White dared not speak of his feelings for fear of losing the friendship and, like many other gay men of that period, he feared that his sexuality would doom him to a lonely life. Then, one night, the student priest, after an awkward liaison with two women, admitted to White that women meant nothing to him sexually. That became White's first love affair.
During White's time at Cambridge he published a collection of poetry entitled "The Ploughman and Other Poems", and wrote a play named "Bread and Butter Women", which was later performed by an amateur group (which included his sister Suzanne) at the tiny Bryant's Playhouse in Sydney. After being admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1935, White briefly settled in London, where he lived in an area that was frequented by artists. There, the young author thrived creatively for a time, writing several unpublished works and reworking "Happy Valley", a novel that he had written while jackarooing. In 1937, White's father died, leaving him ten thousand pounds in inheritance. The fortune enabled him to write full-time in relative comfort. Two more plays followed before he succeeded in finding a publisher for "Happy Valley". The novel was received well in London but poorly in Australia. He began writing another novel, "Nightside", but abandoned it before its completion after receiving negative comments, a decision that he later admitted regretting.
In 1936, White met the painter Roy De Maistre, 18 years his senior, who became an important influence in his life and work. The two men never became lovers but remained firm friends. In White's own words, "He became what I most needed, an intellectual and aesthetic mentor". They had many similarities: they were both gay and they both felt like outsiders in their own families; as a result they both had ambivalent feelings about their families and backgrounds, yet both maintained close and lifelong links with their families, particularly their mothers. They also both appreciated the benefits of social standing and connections and Christian symbolism and biblical themes are common in both artists' work.
White dedicated his first novel "Happy Valley" to De Maistre and acknowledged De Maistre's influence on his writing. In 1947, De Maistre's painting "Figure in a Garden (The Aunt)" was used as the cover for the first edition of White's "The Aunt's Story". White bought many of De Maistre's paintings. In 1974 White gave all his paintings by De Maistre to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Towards the end of the 1930s, White spent time in the United States, including Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and New York City, which were artistic hotbeds at the time, where he wrote "The Living and the Dead". By the time World War II broke out, he had returned to London and joined the British Royal Air Force. He was accepted as an intelligence officer, and was posted to the Middle East. He served in Egypt, Palestine, and Greece before the war was over. While in the Middle East, he had an affair with a Greek army officer, Manoly Lascaris, who was to become his life partner.
White and Lascaris lived together in Cairo for six years before moving to a small farm purchased by White at Castle Hill, near Sydney, in 1948. After the death of White's mother in 1963, they moved into a large house, Highbury, in Centennial Park, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
After the war, White once again returned to Australia, buying an old house in Castle Hill, now a Sydney suburb but then semi-rural. He named the house "The Dogwoods," after trees he planted there. In this house, he settled down with Lascaris, the Greek he had met during the war. They lived there for 18 years, selling flowers, vegetables, milk, and cream as well as pedigreed puppies. During these years he started to make a reputation for himself as a writer, publishing "The Aunt's Story" and "The Tree of Man" in the United States in 1955 and shortly after in the United Kingdom. "The Tree of Man" was released to rave reviews in the United States, but in what had become a typical pattern, it was panned in Australia. White had doubts about whether to continue writing after his books were largely dismissed in Australia (three of them having been called 'un-Australian' by critics), but, in the end, he decided to persevere. His first breakthrough in Australia came when his next novel, "Voss", won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award.
In 1961, White published "Riders in the Chariot". It was to become both a bestseller and a prizewinner, gaining him a second Miles Franklin Award. In 1963, White and Lascaris decided to sell the house at Castle Hill that they had named "Dogwoods". A number of White's works from the 1960s depict the fictional town of Sarsaparilla, including his collection of short stories, "The Burnt Ones", and the play, "The Season at Sarsaparilla". By now, he had clearly established his reputation as one of the world's great authors, but remained an essentially private person, resisting opportunities for interviews and public appearances although his circle of friends had widened significantly.
In 1968, White wrote "The Vivisector", a searing character portrait of an artist. Many people drew links to the Sydney painter John Passmore (1904–84) and White's friend, the painter Sidney Nolan, but White denied the connections. Patrick White was an art collector who had, as a young man, been deeply impressed by his friends Roy De Maistre and Francis Bacon, and later said he wished he had been an artist. By the mid-1960s, he had also become interested in encouraging dozens of young and less established artists, such as James Clifford, Erica McGilchrist, and Lawrence Daws. White was later friends with Brett Whiteley, the young star of Australian painting, in the 1970s. That friendship ended when White felt that Whiteley, a heroin addict, was deceitful and pushy about selling his paintings. A portrait of White by Louis Kahan won the 1962 Archibald Prize.
White decided not to accept any more prizes for his work, and he declined both the $10,000 Britannia Award and another Miles Franklin Award. White was approached by Harry M. Miller to work on a screenplay for "Voss" but nothing came of it. He became an active opponent of literary censorship and joined a number of other public figures in signing a statement of defiance against Australia's decision to participate in the Vietnam War. His name had sometimes been mentioned as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but in 1971, after losing to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he wrote to a friend: "That Nobel Prize! I hope I never hear it mentioned again. I certainly don't want it; the machinery behind it seems a bit dirty, when we thought that only applied to Australian awards. In my case to win the prize would upset my life far too much, and it would embarrass me to be held up to the world as an Australian writer when, apart from the accident of blood, I feel I am temperamentally a cosmopolitan Londoner".
Nevertheless, in 1973, White did accept the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature". His cause was said to have been championed by a Scandinavian diplomat resident in Australia. White enlisted Nolan to travel to Stockholm to accept the prize on his behalf. The award had an immediate impact on his career, as his publisher doubled the print run for "The Eye of the Storm" and gave him a larger advance for his next novel. White used the money from the prize to establish a trust to fund the Patrick White Award, given annually to established creative writers who have received little public recognition. He was invited by the House of Representatives to be seated on the floor of the House in recognition of his achievement. White declined, explaining that his nature could not easily adapt itself to such a situation. The last time such an invitation had been extended was in 1928, to Bert Hinkler.
White was made Australian of the Year for 1974, but in a typically rebellious fashion, his acceptance speech encouraged Australians to spend the day reflecting on the state of the country. Privately, he was less than enthusiastic about it. In a letter to Marshall Best on 27 January 1974, he wrote: "Something terrible happened to me last week. There is an organisation which chooses an Australian of the Year, who has to appear at an official lunch in Melbourne Town Hall on Australia Day. This year I was picked on as they had run through all the swimmers, tennis players, yachtsmen".
White and Lascaris hosted many dinner parties at Highbury, their Centennial Park home, in a leafy part of the affluent Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. In "Patrick White, A Life", his biographer David Marr portrays White as a genial host but one who easily fell out with friends.
White supported the conservative, business oriented Liberal Party of Australia until the election of Gough Whitlam's Labor government and, following the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, he became particularly antiroyalist, making a rare appearance on national television to broadcast his views on the matter. White also publicly expressed his admiration for the historian Manning Clark, satirist Barry Humphries, and unionist Jack Mundey.
During the 1970s, White's health began to deteriorate: his teeth were crumbling, his eyesight was failing, and he had chronic lung problems - however, he also became a more openly political person, and began sometimes commenting on current issues. He was among the first group of Companions of the Order of Australia in 1975 but resigned in June 1976 in protest at the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975 by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr. In 1979, his novel "The Twyborn Affair" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but White requested that it to be removed to give younger writers a chance to win. (The prize was won by Penelope Fitzgerald, who ironically was just four years younger than White.) Soon after, White announced that he had written his last novel, and from then on, he would write only for radio or the stage.
Director Jim Sharman introduced himself to White while walking down a Sydney street, some time after White had seen a politically loaded stage revue by Sharman, "Terror Australis", which had been panned by Sydney newspaper critics, and had written a letter to the editor of a newspaper defending the show. White felt somewhat cautious at first, not least due to the gulf in age between them, but after a while the two men became friends and Sharman and his theatrical circle, as well as his visual style as a director, would inspire White to a couple of new plays, notably "Big Toys" with its satirical portrayal of a posh and vulgar upper-class Sydney society. A few years later, Sharman asked White if he could make a film of "The Night the Prowler". White agreed and wrote the screenplay for the film.
In 1981, White published his autobiography, "Flaws in the Glass: a self-portrait", which explored issues about which he had publicly said little such as his homosexuality, his dislike of the "subservient" attitude of Australian society towards Britain and the Royal family, and also the distance he had felt towards his mother. On Palm Sunday, 1982, White addressed a crowd of 30,000 people, calling for a ban on uranium mining and for the destruction of nuclear weapons.
In 1986 White released one last novel, "Memoirs of Many in One", but it was published under the pen name "Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray" with White named as editor. In the same year, "Voss" was turned into an opera, with music by Richard Meale and the libretto adapted by David Malouf. White refused to see it when it was first performed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts, because Queen Elizabeth II had been invited, and chose instead to see it later in Sydney. In 1987, White wrote "Three Uneasy Pieces", with his musings on ageing and society's efforts to achieve aesthetic perfection. When David Marr finished his biography of White in July 1990, his subject spent nine days going over the details with him.
White died in Sydney on 30 September 1990.
In 2009, The Sydney Theatre Company staged White's play "The Season at Sarsaparilla". In 2010 White received posthumous recognition for his novel "The Vivisector", which was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize for 1970.
In 2011 Fred Schepisi's film of "The Eye of the Storm" was released with screenplay adaptation by Judy Morris, Geoffrey Rush playing the son Basil, Judy Davis as the daughter Dorothy, and Charlotte Rampling as the dying matriarch Elizabeth Hunter. This is the first screen realisation of a White novel, fittingly the one that played a key role in the Swedish panel's choice of White as Nobel prize winner.
Novels
Short story collections
Poetry
Thirteen Poems / under the pseudonym Patrick Victor Martindale. – Sydney : Privately printed, (ca. 1929)
The Ploughman and Other Poems. – Sydney : Beacon Press, (1935)
Plays
Screenplay
Autobiography
In 1970, White was offered a knighthood but declined it.
Both White and Nugget Coombs were members of the first group of six people appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the civil division, (now called the general division). The awards were announced in the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours List. They both resigned from the order in 1976, when the Knight of the Order of Australia (AK) was created.
White is commemorated by the Patrick White Lawns adjacent to the National Library of Australia in Canberra. The lawns are on two levels, with the part nearest the library about wide from the approximately retaining wall of the main library entrance esplanade and higher than the lower lawn. The lawns extend from the library north to Lake Burley Griffin and provide a venue for concerts and other large scale public events under the auspices of the National Capital Authority.
Pope Martin I
Pope Martin I (; between 590 and 600 – 16 September 655), also known as Martin the Confessor, was the bishop of Rome from 21 July 649 to his death. He served as Pope Theodore I's ambassador to Constantinople and was elected to succeed him as pope. He was the only pope during the Eastern Roman domination of the papacy whose election was not approved by an imperial mandate from Constantinople. For his strong opposition to Monothelitism, Pope Martin I was arrested by Emperor Constans II, carried off to Constantinople, and ultimately banished to Cherson. He is considered a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Martin was born near Todi, Umbria, in the place now named after him (Pian di San Martino). According to his biographer Theodore, Martin was of noble birth, of commanding intelligence, and of great charity to the poor. Piazza states that he belonged to the order of St. Basil.
In 641, Pope John IV sent the abbot Martin into Dalmatia and Istria with large sums of money to alleviate the distress of the inhabitants, and redeem captives seized during the invasion of the Slavs. As the ruined churches could not be rebuilt, the relics of some of the more important Dalmatian saints were brought to Rome, where John then erected an oratory in their honour. Martin acted as "apocrisiarius" or legate at Constantinople in the early years of the pontificate of Theodore I (642–49), and was a deacon at the time of his election in 649.
When Martin I was elected pope, Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and the patriarch of Constantinople was the most influential Church leader in the eastern Christian world.
Martin had himself consecrated without waiting for the imperial ratification of the election. One of his first official acts was to summon the Lateran Council of 649 to deal with the Monothelites, whom the Church considered heretical. The Council met in the Church of St. John Lateran. It was attended by 105 bishops (chiefly from Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, with a few from Africa and other quarters), held five sessions or "secretarii" from 5 October to 31 October 649, and in twenty canons condemned Monothelitism, its authors, and the writings by which Monothelitism had been promulgated. In this condemnation were included not only the "Ecthesis" (the exposition of faith of Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople, for which Emperor Heraclius had stood sponsor), but also the "Type" issued by the reigning emperor, Constans II.
Martin was very energetic in publishing the decrees of the Lateran Council of 649 in an encyclical, and Constans replied by enjoining his exarch in Italy to arrest the pope should he persist and to send him as a prisoner to Constantinople. He was also accused by Constans of unauthorised contact and collaboration with the Muslims of the Rashidun Caliphate—allegations which he was unable to convince the infuriated imperial authorities to drop.
The arrest orders were impossible to carry out for some time, but at last Martin was arrested in the Lateran on 17 June 653 along with Maximus the Confessor. He was hurried out of Rome and conveyed first to Naxos, Greece, and subsequently to Constantinople, where he arrived on 17 September 653. He was saved from execution by the pleas of Patriarch Paul II of Constantinople, who was himself gravely ill. Martin hoped that a new pope would not be elected while he lived but the imperial government forced the Romans to find a successor. Eugene I was elected on 10 August 654, and Martin apparently acquiesced. After suffering an exhausting imprisonment and many alleged public indignities, Martin was banished to Cherson, where he arrived on 15 May 655. He died there on 16 September.
A selection of documents recording the trial and exile of Pope Martin I was translated into Latin in Rome in the ninth century by Anastasius Bibliothecarius.
Since the 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar, the memorial of Saint Martin I, which earlier versions of the calendar place on 12 November, is on 13 April, celebrated as the formal anniversary of his death. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, his feast day is 14 April (27 April New Style).
Pope Pius VII made an honourable reference to Martin in his 1800 encyclical "Diu satis":
The breviary of the Orthodox Church states: "Glorious definer of the Orthodox Faith... sacred chief of divine dogmas, unstained by error... true reprover of heresy... foundation of bishops, pillar of the Orthodox faith, teacher of religion... Thou didst adorn the divine see of Peter, and since from this divine Rock, thou didst immovably defend the Church, so now thou art glorified with him.”
Pope Martin IV
Pope Martin IV (; c. 1210/1220 – 6 March 1285), born Simon de Brion, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1281 to his death. He was the last French pope to have held court in Rome; all subsequent French popes held court in Avignon (the Avignon Papacy).
Simon de Brion, son of Jean, sieur de Brion, was born at the château of Meinpincien, Île-de-France, France, in the decade following 1210. He had a brother named Gilo, who was a knight in diocese of Sens. The seigneurial family of Brion, who took their name from Brion near Joigny, flourished in the "Brie français". He spent time at the University of Paris, and is said to have then studied law at Padua and Bologna. Through papal favour he received a canonry at Saint-Quentin in 1238 and spent the period 1248–1259 as a canon of the cathedral chapter in Rouen, finally as archdeacon. At the same time he was appointed treasurer of the church of St. Martin in Tours by King Louis IX of France, an office he held until he was elected pope in 1281. In 1255-1259, King Louis IX founded the French royal convent at Longchamps for the Poor Clares (Minoresses); the King's sister Isabelle was the patroness (though she never entered the cloister herself), and Simon de Brion was the Guardian. In 1259, he was appointed to the council of the king, who made him keeper of the great seal, chancellor of France, one of the great officers in the household of the king. He became Chancellor of Louis IX of France (1260-1261).
On December 17, 1261, the new French Pope, Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon), made Chancellor de Brion cardinal-priest, with the "titulus" of the church of St. Cecilia. This would have entailed Simon de Brion's residence in Rome, but the affairs of Pope Urban required that he send a representative of the highest level to France to deal personally with King Louis IX and his brother Charles of Anjou and Provence. Simon's previous experience at the French Court made him the perfect choice as Legate.
Cardinal Simon therefore returned to France as Papal Legate for Urban IV and also for his successor Pope Clement IV in 1264–1268. In 1264, on the eve of S. Bartholomew, he held a general synod at Paris. He was appointed again, by Pope Gregory X on 1 August 1274, and he served continuously in France until 1279. His first task was to raise support and money for a Crusade against Manfred, the Hohenstaufen candidate for the Imperial Crown. He immediately became deeply involved in the negotiations for papal support for the assumption of the crown of Sicily by Charles of Anjou. As Legate he presided over several synods on reform, and on the raising of funds for Pope Gregory's crusade. The most important of these was held at Bourges on 13 September 1276.
Signatures on papal bulls indicate that Cardinal Simon was back in Viterbo by 11 January 1268. In a letter of 14 or 15 January 1268, Pope Clement IV wrote to Cardinal Simon de Brion that he had heard that the Cardinal had fallen from his horse and in the accident had injured his leg. He also wrote that Conradin and Ludwig Duke of Bavaria were at Verona, and were pressing for Pavia. A general war was likely. Cardinal Simon's injury must not have been severe, since, on April 3, 1268, the Pope wrote to him with the request (not an order) that he undertake a legation to Germany (Teutonia), if he wished and if it were possible. The Pope needed a prudent and faithful man, who had clean hands and eyes wide open, who could stay centered on the business and let himself stray neither right nor left, who could preserve the Empire, keep the Apostolic See free from scandal, and the neighboring kingdoms free from danger. In vetting names, Simon seemed the most suitable.
Pope Clement IV (Guy Foulques) fell ill on the Feast of S. Cecilia (November 22), and died at Viterbo on 29 November 1268. He had governed the Church for three years, nine months, and twenty-four days. The See of Peter was vacant for two years and nine months. Cardinal Simon de Brion came from France to attend the Conclave, which took place in the Episcopal Palace, next to the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo in Viterbo. He was the senior cardinal-priest. Around Pentecost of 1270 (June 1), Cardinal Simon and Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi of S. Angelo had to leave the Conclave and retire to their residences for the sake of their health. 20213]. On 22 August 1270, he was one of the signatories to the letter of protest sent by the Cardinals to Raynerius Gatti, Captain of the City of Viterbo, to cease and desist from their harassment of the Cardinals and their suites. He was one of the cardinals who signed the electoral compact on September, 1270, to leave the election of a new pope to a committee of six, promising to accept the committee's decision. He was not, however, one of the six cardinals elected to the Compromise Committee that selected Archdeacon Teobaldo Visconti as pope on 1 September 1270. The newly elected pope was not present in Viterbo, but was serving on Crusade with King Edward I of England. He arrived in Italy on 1 January 1271, and travelled to Viterbo, where he arrived early in February. He accepted the election, and chose to be called Gregory X. He and the Curia travelled to Rome, arriving on 13 March. On 19 March he was ordained a priest, and on 27 March he was consecrated bishop, and then crowned by Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.
Simon de Brion's appointment as Legate in France, made by Pope Gregory on 1 August 1274 continued throughout 1276. He was unable to be present for the Conclave of 1 January 1276, which elected Peter of Tarantaise as Pope Innocent V. Nor was he present for the Conclave of 2–11 July, which elected Ottobono Fieschi as Pope Adrian V. Nor was he present at the September Conclave, which, on 8 September, elected Peter Julian as Pope John XXI. In each case the election was completed before he could have been notified, and before he could have travelled from France to central Italy. This was one of the defects of Gregory X's regulations on the holding of a Conclave.
Pope John XXI was in contact with Cardinal Simon. He had written to him on 3 March 1277, ordering him to speak with the king of France about matters connected with Alfonso of Castile. But the Pope died rather suddenly, after a reign of only eight months. He was still living in the Episcopal Palace in Viterbo, where Adrian V (Fieschi) had died and where he had been elected. The palace was still under construction, when suddenly the roof of one of the chambers collapsed. The Pope was in the room at the time, and he was severely injured. He died three (or six) days later, on 20 May 1277. Cardinal Simon de Brion was still in France when the Conclave began, but he was unable to predict that the Conclave would last until 25 November, and therefore he was not present. There were only seven cardinals in Viterbo, since neither Innocent V, nor Adrian V, nor John XXI had named any new cardinals. They argued on and on, trying to choose a pope. There were three cardinals who favored the Angevin Charles I and his designs. There were three who opposed him. Cardinal Bertrand de Saint Martin, Bishop of Sabina, the only surviving Cardinal Bishop, held a middle course, or perhaps one should say he saw too clearly to be willing to commit to either party. Finally, they chose Cardinal Giovanni Gaetani (Orsini), a native Roman, the Deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere and senior Deacon, and Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica.
Nicholas III immediately set out for Rome, where he was ordained a priest on December 18, 1277, and consecrated Bishop of Rome on December 19. He was crowned on the Feast of S. Stephen, December 26, 1277 at the Vatican Basilica. One person, at least, was deeply unhappy about the outcome of this Conclave, King Charles I of Sicily. The new Orsini pope was an enemy of the Angevins, and Charles knew he would have nothing but trouble from Nicholas III.
A week after the election of Nicholas III, the new pope wrote to Simon, who was still Legate in France, urging him to effect a reconciliation between the King of France, Philip III, and the King of Leon and Castile, Alfonso the Wise. Since the King of Aragon, Peter III (who was married to Constance of Sicily) was involved in the struggle over Sicily with Charles I, this peace initiative threatened King Charles directly. On 22 April 1279, Pope Nicholas wrote to Cardinal Simon about King Philip. The Pope had issued a prohibition on tournaments, and King Philip and his barons were flagrantly violating the prohibition. Cardinal Simon was ordered to excommunicate the King of France.
To ensure that his victory against the Angevins would stand, Nicholas III decided to go forward with a much needed addition to the Sacred College of Cardinals. At his first opportunity, on 12 March 1278, he created ten cardinals. Five cardinal bishops were named: Latino Frangipani Malabranca, OP, of Rome (Nicholas III's nephew by his sister Mabilia); Erhard de Lessines (Lesigny), of Langres, son of Guillaume, Marshal of Champagne; Bentivenga de Bentivengis, O.Min., of Aquasparta; Robert Kilwardby, OP, Archbishop of Canterbury; and Ordoño (Ordeonio) Álvarez, Bishop of Braga. Two cardinal-priests were named: Gerardo Bianchi of Parma, and Girolamo Masci d' Ascoli, O.Min., of Picenum. He also appointed three cardinal-deacons: Giordano Orsini, brother of Pope Nicholas III, of Rome; Giacomo Colonna of Rome; and Gerardo Cupalates, O.Min., of Piacenza. The effect of these creations was to seriously dilute the Angevin influence in the Sacred College, and to considerably increase the monastic element, especially the Franciscan one. It needs to be recalled that Nicholas III was the Governor, Corrector, and Protector of the Franciscans. The Roman influence was also strengthened. The inevitable consequence would be that the next pope too would not be a creature of Charles I of Sicily.
Eventually, though, by 19 October 1279, Pope Nicholas recalled Cardinal Simon de Brion.
Pope Nicholas III (Giovanni Caetano Orsini) died at Castro Soriano in the diocese of Viterbo on August 22, 1280 of an apoplectic stroke which had left him without speech. A story was circulated nonetheless that he had been poisoned. At the time of his death on 22 August 1280, there were thirteen cardinals. This would be the fifth Conclave in five years. King Charles had taken the trouble to make friends with the Annibaldi faction, led by Riccardo Annibaldi, who were enemies of the Orsini and who had been driven out of Rome in street fighting following the death of Nicholas III. They had taken refuge in Viterbo, and now, by coincidence, they were present and entrenched and ready to make trouble on behalf of Charles I and themselves. Annibaldi led a coup in Viterbo, which drove out the governor of the city, Orso Orsini, the dead pope's nephew. The Angevins thereupon dominated the Conclave, in which the regulations of Gregory X were still in abayence. But the Conclave still required a two-thirds vote to elect a pope, in according with the Constitution of Alexander III, which was still in effect. Neither the Orsini faction nor the French faction had sufficient votes to elect, but each had sufficient votes to block an election. The stalemate continued throughout the winter. On 2 February 1280, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a mob broke into the Episcopal palace, where the Conclave was in progress, and abducted two of the cardinals, Matteo Rosso Orsini and Giordano Orsini (the late pope's brother). Without their opposition, Simon de Brion was unanimously elected to the papacy on 22 February 1281, taking the name Martin IV,
For the third time in fifteen years Viterbo had hosted a papal conclave. And for the third time there were disorders which had threatened the validity of the election and the lives of the participants. Viterbo was placed under the ban of excommunication and of the interdict for the imprisonment of the cardinals. It was not possible, therefore, for the Coronation to take place in Viterbo. But Rome was not at all inclined to accept a hated Frenchman as Pope. Martin IV sent two cardinals, Latino Orsini and Goffredo da Alatri, to Rome with a letter, proposing that he be crowned in Rome on Quadragesima Sunday. The Romans positively refused to allow the Coronation to take place in Rome. But they did hold a public meeting, and elected Giovanni Caetani Orsini in his purely personal capacity as their Senator, and authorized him to appoint anyone he chose as his substitute. So Martin IV was crowned instead at Orvieto on 23 March 1281. He never visited Rome during his Pontificate. Instead he immediately sent his Vicar, Peter of Lavagna, to Rome. But on 30 April 1281, Pope Martin handed the senatorial power over to King Charles for the rest of his reign.
Dependent on Charles of Anjou in nearly everything, the new Pope quickly appointed him to the position of Senator of Rome. At the insistence of Charles, Martin IV excommunicated the Eastern Roman Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, who stood in the way of Charles's plans to restore the Latin Empire of the East that had been established in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. He thus broke the tenuous union which had been reached between the Greek and the Latin Churches at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 and further compromise was rendered impossible.
In 1282, Charles lost control of the island of Sicily in the violent massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. The Sicilians had elected Peter III of Aragon as their king and sought papal confirmation, in vain, though they were willing to reconfirm Sicily as a vassal state of the papacy. Martin IV used all the spiritual and material resources at his command against the Aragonese in order to preserve Sicily for the House of Anjou. He excommunicated Peter III, declared his kingdom of Aragon forfeit, and ordered a crusade against him, but it was all in vain.
Due to the hostility of Raynerius, the Captain of Orvieto, in the repeated struggles between Guelphs and Ghibbelines, Pope Martin was unable to remain at Orvieto. He removed himself and the Papal Curia from Orvieto on 26 June 1284, and arrived in Perugia on 4 October. He died at Perugia on 28 March 1285.
Following the example of Nicholas III, Pope Martin IV created new cardinals at his first opportunity, on the Quattuor Tempora of Lent, April 12, 1281. His new cardinals included: Bernardus de Languissello of Nîmes, the Archbishop of Arles since 1273; Hugh of Evesham, Canon of York and Archdeacon of Worcester; Gervasius de Glincamp of Mans, Archdeacon of Paris; Comes Giusianus, Conte de Casate, of Milan, Auditor of the Rota; Gaufridus (Geoffroy) de Barro or Barbeau, of Burgundy, Dean of the Cathedral of Paris; Johannes Chauleti (Cholet), of the village of Nointre in the diocese of Beauvais, a personal friend of Philip III, Philip IV, and Pope Martin IV; and Benedetto Gaetano of Anagni, who was elected Pope Boniface VIII on 24 December 1295. The French influence is strongly in evidence, and only Cardinal Gaetano came from the neighborhood of Rome.
Pope Martin IV celebrated a solemn Mass in the Cathedral at Perugia on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1285, which was also the Feast of the Annunciation. After his usual lunch with his chaplains he was stricken with a sudden illness. On the following Wednesday, March 28, around the fifth hour of the night, he died. He was buried in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Perugia. He had reigned four years and one month. His successor was elected four days later, on April 2.
In the "Divine Comedy", Dante sees Martin IV in Purgatory, where the reader is reminded of the former pontiff's fondness for Lake Bolsena eels and Vernaccia wine.
Pope Martin V
Pope Martin V (; January/February 1369 – 20 February 1431), born Otto (or Oddone) Colonna, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 November 1417 to his death. His election effectively ended the Western Schism (1378–1417).
He was born at Genazzano, the son of Agapito Colonna and Caterina Conti, between January 26 and February 20, 1369.
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was officially changed to Raku in October 2019.
Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions. Raku, which began as a redesign of Perl 5 in 2000, eventually evolved into a separate language. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different development teams and liberally borrow ideas from one another.
The Perl languages borrow features from other programming languages including C, shell script (sh), AWK, and sed; Wall also alludes to BASIC and Lisp in the introduction to "Learning Perl" (Schwartz & Christiansen) and so on. They provide text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix command line tools, facilitating manipulation of text files. Perl 5 gained widespread popularity in the late 1990s as a CGI scripting language, in part due to its unsurpassed regular expression and string parsing abilities.
In addition to CGI, Perl 5 is used for system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications, such as for GUIs. It has been nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages" because of its flexibility and power, and also its ugliness. In 1998, it was also referred to as the "duct tape that holds the Internet together," in reference to both its ubiquitous use as a glue language and its perceived inelegance.
Larry Wall began work on Perl in 1987, while working as a programmer at Unisys, and released version 1.0 to the comp.sources.misc newsgroup on December 18, 1987. The language expanded rapidly over the next few years.
Perl 2, released in 1988, featured a better regular expression engine. Perl 3, released in 1989, added support for binary data streams.
Originally, the only documentation for Perl was a single lengthy man page. In 1991, "Programming Perl", known to many Perl programmers as the "Camel Book" because of its cover, was published and became the "de facto" reference for the language. At the same time, the Perl version number was bumped to 4, not to mark a major change in the language but to identify the version that was well documented by the book.
Perl 4 went through a series of maintenance releases, culminating in Perl 4.036 in 1993, whereupon Wall abandoned Perl 4 to begin work on Perl 5. Initial design of Perl 5 continued into 1994. The "perl5-porters" mailing list was established in May 1994 to coordinate work on porting Perl 5 to different platforms. It remains the primary forum for development, maintenance, and porting of Perl 5.
Perl 5.000 was released on October 17, 1994. It was a nearly complete rewrite of the interpreter, and it added many new features to the language, including objects, references, lexical (my) variables, and modules. Importantly, modules provided a mechanism for extending the language without modifying the interpreter. This allowed the core interpreter to stabilize, even as it enabled ordinary Perl programmers to add new language features. Perl 5 has been in active development since then.
Perl 5.001 was released on March 13, 1995. Perl 5.002 was released on February 29, 1996 with the new prototypes feature. This allowed module authors to make subroutines that behaved like Perl builtins. Perl 5.003 was released June 25, 1996, as a security release.
One of the most important events in Perl 5 history took place outside of the language proper and was a consequence of its module support. On October 26, 1995, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) was established as a repository for the Perl language and Perl modules; as of May 2017, it carries over 185,178 modules in 35,190 distributions, written by more than 13,071 authors, and is mirrored worldwide at more than 245 locations.
Perl 5.004 was released on May 15, 1997, and included, among other things, the UNIVERSAL package, giving Perl a base object to which all classes were automatically derived and the ability to require versions of modules. Another significant development was the inclusion of the CGI.pm module, which contributed to Perl's popularity as a CGI scripting language.
Perl 5.004 also added support for Microsoft Windows and several other operating systems.
Perl 5.005 was released on July 22, 1998. This release included several enhancements to the regex engine, new hooks into the backend through the codice_1 modules, the codice_2 regex quote operator, a large selection of other new core modules, and added support for several more operating systems, including BeOS.
Perl 5.6 was released on March 22, 2000. Major changes included 64-bit support, Unicode string representation, support for files over 2 GiB, and the "our" keyword. When developing Perl 5.6, the decision was made to switch the versioning scheme to one more similar to other open source projects; after 5.005_63, the next version became 5.5.640, with plans for development versions to have odd numbers and stable versions to have even numbers.
In 2000, Wall put forth a call for suggestions for a new version of Perl from the community. The process resulted in 361 RFC (request for comments) documents that were to be used in guiding development of Perl 6. In 2001, work began on the "Apocalypses" for Perl 6, a series of documents meant to summarize the change requests and present the design of the next generation of Perl. They were presented as a digest of the RFCs, rather than a formal document. At this point, Perl 6 existed only as a description of a language.
Perl 5.8 was first released on July 18, 2002, and had nearly yearly updates since then. Perl 5.8 improved Unicode support, added a new I/O implementation, added a new thread implementation, improved numeric accuracy, and added several new modules. As of 2013 this version still remains the most popular version of Perl and is used by Red Hat 5, Suse 10, Solaris 10, HP-UX 11.31 and AIX 5.
In 2004, work began on the "Synopses"documents that originally summarized the Apocalypses, but which became the specification for the Perl 6 language. In February 2005, Audrey Tang began work on Pugs, a Perl 6 interpreter written in Haskell. This was the first concerted effort towards making Perl 6 a reality. This effort stalled in 2006.
On December 18, 2007, the 20th anniversary of Perl 1.0, Perl 5.10.0 was released. Perl 5.10.0 included notable new features, which brought it closer to Perl 6. These included a switch statement (called "given"/"when"), regular expressions updates, and the "'smart match operator" (~~).
Around this same time, development began in earnest on another implementation of Perl 6 known as Rakudo Perl, developed in tandem with the Parrot virtual machine. As of November 2009, Rakudo Perl has had regular monthly releases and now is the most complete implementation of Perl 6.
A major change in the development process of Perl 5 occurred with Perl 5.11; the development community has switched to a monthly release cycle of development releases, with a yearly schedule of stable releases. By that plan, bugfix point releases will follow the stable releases every three months.
On April 12, 2010, Perl 5.12.0 was released. Notable core enhancements include new codice_3 syntax, the Yada Yada operator (intended to mark placeholder code that is not yet implemented), implicit strictures, full Y2038 compliance, regex conversion overloading, DTrace support, and Unicode 5.2. On January 21, 2011, Perl 5.12.3 was released; it contains updated modules and some documentation changes. Version 5.12.4 was released on June 20, 2011. The latest version of that branch, 5.12.5, was released on November 10, 2012.
On May 14, 2011, Perl 5.14 was released. JSON support is built-in as of 5.14.0. The latest version of that branch, 5.14.4, was released on March 10, 2013.
On May 20, 2012, Perl 5.16 was released. Notable new features include the ability to specify a given version of Perl that one wishes to emulate, allowing users to upgrade their version of Perl, but still run old scripts that would normally be incompatible. Perl 5.16 also updates the core to support Unicode 6.1.
On May 18, 2013, Perl 5.18 was released. Notable new features include the new dtrace hooks, lexical subs, more CORE:: subs, overhaul of the hash for security reasons, support for Unicode 6.2.
On May 27, 2014, Perl 5.20 was released. Notable new features include subroutine signatures, hash slices/new slice syntax, postfix dereferencing (experimental), Unicode 6.3, rand() using consistent random number generator.
Some observers credit the release of Perl 5.10 with the start of the Modern Perl movement. In particular, this phrase describes a style of development that embraces the use of the CPAN, takes advantage of recent developments in the language, and is rigorous about creating high quality code. While the book "Modern Perl" may be the most visible standard-bearer of this idea, other groups such as the Enlightened Perl Organization have taken up the cause.
In late 2012 and 2013, several projects for alternative implementations for Perl 5 started: Perl5 in Perl6 by the Rakudo Perl team, "moe" by Stevan Little and friends, "p2" by the Perl11 team under Reini Urban, "gperl" by goccy, and "rperl" a kickstarter project led by Will Braswell and affiliated with the Perll11 project.
In June 2020 Perl 7 was announced as the successor to Perl 5 . Perl 7 will initially be based on Perl 5.32 with release candidates expected later in 2020. . When Perl 7 is released, Perl 5 will go into long term maintenance. Supported Perl 5 versions however will continue to get important security and bug fixes .
PONIE is an acronym for Perl On New Internal Engine. The PONIE Project existed from 2003 until 2006 and was to be a bridge between Perl 5 and Perl 6. It was an effort to rewrite the Perl 5 interpreter to run on Parrot, the Perl 6 virtual machine. The goal was to ensure the future of the millions of lines of Perl 5 code at thousands of companies around the world.
The PONIE project ended in 2006 and is no longer being actively developed. Some of the improvements made to the Perl 5 interpreter as part of PONIE were folded into that project.
Perl was originally named "Pearl". Wall wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations; he claims that he considered every three- and four-letter word in the dictionary. He also considered naming it after his wife Gloria. Wall discovered the existing PEARL programming language before Perl's official release and changed the spelling of the name.
When referring to the language, the name is normally capitalized ("Perl") as a proper noun. When referring to the interpreter program itself, the name is often uncapitalized ("perl") because most Unix-like file systems are case-sensitive. Before the release of the first edition of "Programming Perl", it was common to refer to the language as "perl"; Randal L. Schwartz, however, capitalized the language's name in the book to make it stand out better when typeset. This case distinction was subsequently documented as canonical.
The name is occasionally expanded as "Practical Extraction and Report Language", but this is a backronym. Other expansions have been suggested as equally canonical, including Wall's own "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" which is in the manual page for perl. Indeed, Wall claims that the name was intended to inspire many different expansions.
"Programming Perl", published by O'Reilly Media, features a picture of a dromedary camel on the cover and is commonly called the "Camel Book". This image of a camel has become an unofficial symbol of Perl as well as a general hacker emblem, appearing on T-shirts and other clothing items.
O'Reilly owns the image as a trademark but licenses it for non-commercial use, requiring only an acknowledgement and a link to www.perl.com. Licensing for commercial use is decided on a case-by-case basis. O'Reilly also provides "Programming Republic of Perl" logos for non-commercial sites and "Powered by Perl" buttons for any site that uses Perl.
The Perl Foundation owns an alternative symbol, an onion, which it licenses to its subsidiaries, Perl Mongers, PerlMonks, Perl.org, and others. The symbol is a visual pun on pearl onion.
Sebastian Riedel, the creator of Mojolicious, has created a logo depicting a raptor dinosaur, which is available under a CC-SA License, Version 4.0. The logo is being remixed and used in different places and is symbolising Perl 5. The analogue of the raptor comes from a series of talks given by Matt S Trout beginning in 2010. The talks were aimed at being more Perl 5 community-centric, in a period where Perl 6 was a hot topic.
According to Wall, Perl has two slogans. The first is "There's more than one way to do it," commonly known as TMTOWTDI. The second slogan is "Easy things should be easy and hard things should be possible".
The overall structure of Perl derives broadly from C. Perl is procedural in nature, with variables, expressions, assignment statements, brace-delimited blocks, control structures, and subroutines.
Perl also takes features from shell programming. All variables are marked with leading sigils, which allow variables to be interpolated directly into strings. However, unlike the shell, Perl uses sigils on all accesses to variables, and unlike most other programming languages that use sigils, the sigil doesn't denote the type of the variable but the type of the expression. So for example, to access a list of values in a hash, the sigil for an array ("@") is used, not the sigil for a hash ("%").
Perl also has many built-in functions that provide tools often used in shell programming (although many of these tools are implemented by programs external to the shell) such as sorting, and calling operating system facilities.
Perl takes lists from Lisp, hashes ("associative arrays") from AWK, and regular expressions from sed. These simplify and facilitate many parsing, text-handling, and data-management tasks. Also shared with Lisp are the implicit return of the last value in a block, and the fact that all statements have a value, and thus are also expressions and can be used in larger expressions themselves.
Perl 5 added features that support complex data structures, first-class functions (that is, closures as values), and an object-oriented programming model. These include references, packages, class-based method dispatch, and lexically scoped variables, along with compiler directives (for example, the codice_4 pragma). A major additional feature introduced with Perl 5 was the ability to package code as reusable modules. Wall later stated that "The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core."
All versions of Perl do automatic data-typing and automatic memory management. The interpreter knows the type and storage requirements of every data object in the program; it allocates and frees storage for them as necessary using reference counting (so it cannot deallocate circular data structures without manual intervention). Legal type conversions — for example, conversions from number to string — are done automatically at run time; illegal type conversions are fatal errors.
The design of Perl can be understood as a response to three broad trends in the computer industry: falling hardware costs, rising labor costs, and improvements in compiler technology. Many earlier computer languages, such as Fortran and C, aimed to make efficient use of expensive computer hardware. In contrast, Perl was designed so that computer programmers could write programs more quickly and easily.
Perl has many features that ease the task of the programmer at the expense of greater CPU and memory requirements. These include automatic memory management; dynamic typing; strings, lists, and hashes; regular expressions; introspection; and an codice_5 function. Perl follows the theory of "no built-in limits," an idea similar to the Zero One Infinity rule.
Wall was trained as a linguist, and the design of Perl is very much informed by linguistic principles. Examples include Huffman coding (common constructions should be short), good end-weighting (the important information should come first), and a large collection of language primitives. Perl favors language constructs that are concise and natural for humans to write, even where they complicate the Perl interpreter.
Perl's syntax reflects the idea that "things that are different should look different." For example, scalars, arrays, and hashes have different leading sigils. Array indices and hash keys use different kinds of braces. Strings and regular expressions have different standard delimiters. This approach can be contrasted with a language such as Lisp, where the same basic syntax, composed of simple and universal symbolic expressions, is used for all purposes.
Perl does not enforce any particular programming paradigm (procedural, object-oriented, functional, or others) or even require the programmer to choose among them.
There is a broad practical bent to both the Perl language and the community and culture that surround it. The preface to "Programming Perl" begins: "Perl is a language for getting your job done." One consequence of this is that Perl is not a tidy language. It includes many features, tolerates exceptions to its rules, and employs heuristics to resolve syntactical ambiguities. Because of the forgiving nature of the compiler, bugs can sometimes be hard to find. Perl's function documentation remarks on the variant behavior of built-in functions in list and scalar contexts by saying, "In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency."
No written specification or standard for the Perl language exists for Perl versions through Perl 5, and there are no plans to create one for the current version of Perl. There has been only one implementation of the interpreter, and the language has evolved along with it. That interpreter, together with its functional tests, stands as a "de facto" specification of the language. Perl 6, however, started with a specification, and several projects aim to implement some or all of the specification.
Perl has many and varied applications, compounded by the availability of many standard and third-party modules.
Perl has chiefly been used to write CGI scripts: large projects written in Perl include cPanel, Slash, Bugzilla, RT, TWiki, and Movable Type; high-traffic websites that use Perl extensively include Priceline.com, Craigslist, IMDb, LiveJournal, DuckDuckGo, Slashdot and Ticketmaster.
It is also an optional component of the popular LAMP technology stack for Web development, in lieu of PHP or Python. Perl is used extensively as a system programming language in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
Perl is often used as a glue language, tying together systems and interfaces that were not specifically designed to interoperate, and for "data munging," that is, converting or processing large amounts of data for tasks such as creating reports. In fact, these strengths are intimately linked. The combination makes Perl a popular all-purpose language for system administrators, particularly because short programs, often called "one-liner programs," can be entered and run on a single command line.
Perl code can be made portable across Windows and Unix; such code is often used by suppliers of software (both COTS and bespoke) to simplify packaging and maintenance of software build- and deployment-scripts.
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) may be developed using Perl. For example, Perl/Tk and wxPerl are commonly used to enable user interaction with Perl scripts. Such interaction may be synchronous or asynchronous, using callbacks to update the GUI.
Perl is implemented as a core interpreter, written in C, together with a large collection of modules, written in Perl and C. , the interpreter is 150,000 lines of C code and compiles to a 1 MB executable on typical machine architectures. Alternatively, the interpreter can be compiled to a link library and embedded in other programs. There are nearly 500 modules in the distribution, comprising 200,000 lines of Perl and an additional 350,000 lines of C code (much of the C code in the modules consists of character encoding tables).
The interpreter has an object-oriented architecture. All of the elements of the Perl language—scalars, arrays, hashes, coderefs, file handles—are represented in the interpreter by C structs. Operations on these structs are defined by a large collection of macros, typedefs, and functions; these constitute the Perl C API. The Perl API can be bewildering to the uninitiated, but its entry points follow a consistent naming scheme, which provides guidance to those who use it.
The life of a Perl interpreter divides broadly into a compile phase and a run phase. In Perl, the phases are the major stages in the interpreter's life-cycle. Each interpreter goes through each phase only once, and the phases follow in a fixed sequence.
Most of what happens in Perl's compile phase is compilation, and most of what happens in Perl's run phase is execution, but there are significant exceptions. Perl makes important use of its capability to execute Perl code during the compile phase. Perl will also delay compilation into the run phase. The terms that indicate the kind of processing that is actually occurring at any moment are compile time and run time. Perl is in compile time at most points during the compile phase, but compile time may also be entered during the run phase. The compile time for code in a string argument passed to the codice_6 built-in occurs during the run phase. Perl is often in run time during the compile phase and spends most of the run phase in run time. Code in codice_7 blocks executes at run time but in the compile phase.
At compile time, the interpreter parses Perl code into a syntax tree. At run time, it executes the program by walking the tree. Text is parsed only once, and the syntax tree is subject to optimization before it is executed, so that execution is relatively efficient. Compile-time optimizations on the syntax tree include constant folding and context propagation, but peephole optimization is also performed.
Perl has a Turing-complete grammar because parsing can be affected by run-time code executed during the compile phase. Therefore, Perl cannot be parsed by a straight Lex/Yacc lexer/parser combination. Instead, the interpreter implements its own lexer, which coordinates with a modified GNU bison parser to resolve ambiguities in the language.
It is often said that "Only perl can parse Perl," meaning that only the Perl interpreter ("codice_8") can parse the Perl language ("Perl"), but even this is not, in general, true. Because the Perl interpreter can simulate a Turing machine during its compile phase, it would need to decide the halting problem in order to complete parsing in every case. It is a long-standing result that the halting problem is undecidable, and therefore not even perl can always parse Perl. Perl makes the unusual choice of giving the user access to its full programming power in its own compile phase. The cost in terms of theoretical purity is high, but practical inconvenience seems to be rare.
Other programs that undertake to parse Perl, such as source-code analyzers and auto-indenters, have to contend not only with ambiguous syntactic constructs but also with the undecidability of Perl parsing in the general case. Adam Kennedy's PPI project focused on parsing Perl code as a document (retaining its integrity as a document), instead of parsing Perl as executable code (that not even Perl itself can always do). It was Kennedy who first conjectured that "parsing Perl suffers from the 'halting problem'," which was later proved.
Perl is distributed with over 250,000 functional tests for core Perl language and over 250,000 functional tests for core modules. These run as part of the normal build process and extensively exercise the interpreter and its core modules. Perl developers rely on the functional tests to ensure that changes to the interpreter do not introduce software bugs; additionally, Perl users who see that the interpreter passes its functional tests on their system can have a high degree of confidence that it is working properly.
Perl is dual licensed under both the Artistic License 1.0 and the GNU General Public License. Distributions are available for most operating systems. It is particularly prevalent on Unix and Unix-like systems, but it has been ported to most modern (and many obsolete) platforms. With only six reported exceptions, Perl can be compiled from source code on all POSIX-compliant, or otherwise-Unix-compatible platforms.
Because of unusual changes required for the classic Mac OS environment, a special port called MacPerl was shipped independently.
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network carries a complete list of supported platforms with links to the distributions available on each. CPAN is also the source for publicly available Perl modules that are not part of the core Perl distribution.
Users of Microsoft Windows typically install one of the native binary distributions of Perl for Win32, most commonly Strawberry Perl or ActivePerl. Compiling Perl from source code under Windows is possible, but most installations lack the requisite C compiler and build tools. This also makes it difficult to install modules from the CPAN, particularly those that are partially written in C.
ActivePerl is a closed source distribution from ActiveState that has regular releases that track the core Perl releases. The distribution previously included the Perl package manager (PPM), a popular tool for installing, removing, upgrading, and managing the use of common Perl modules, however this tool was discontinued as of ActivePerl 5.28. Included also is PerlScript, a Windows Script Host (WSH) engine implementing the Perl language. Visual Perl is an ActiveState tool that adds Perl to the Visual Studio .NET development suite. A VBScript to Perl converter, as well as a Perl compiler for Windows, and converters of awk and sed to Perl have also been produced by this company and included on the "ActiveState CD for Windows", which includes all of their distributions plus the Komodo IDE and all but the first on the Unix/Linux/Posix variant thereof in 2002 and subsequently.
Strawberry Perl is an open source distribution for Windows. It has had regular, quarterly releases since January 2008, including new modules as feedback and requests come in. Strawberry Perl aims to be able to install modules like standard Perl distributions on other platforms, including compiling XS modules.
The Cygwin emulation layer is another way of running Perl under Windows. Cygwin provides a Unix-like environment on Windows, and both Perl and CPAN are available as standard pre-compiled packages in the Cygwin setup program. Since Cygwin also includes gcc, compiling Perl from source is also possible.
A perl executable is included in several Windows Resource kits in the directory with other scripting tools.
Implementations of Perl come with the MKS Toolkit, Interix (the base of earlier implementations of Windows Services for Unix, and UWIN.
Perl's text-handling capabilities can be used for generating SQL queries; arrays, hashes, and automatic memory management make it easy to collect and process the returned data. For example, in Tim Bunce's Perl DBI application programming interface (API), the arguments to the API can be the text of SQL queries; thus it is possible to program in multiple languages at the same time (e.g., for generating a Web page using HTML, JavaScript, and SQL in a here document). The use of Perl variable interpolation to programmatically customize each of the SQL queries, and the specification of Perl arrays or hashes as the structures to programmatically hold the resulting data sets from each SQL query, allows a high-level mechanism for handling large amounts of data for post-processing by a Perl subprogram.
In early versions of Perl, database interfaces were created by relinking the interpreter with a client-side database library. This was sufficiently difficult that it was done for only a few of the most-important and most widely used databases, and it restricted the resulting codice_8 executable to using just one database interface at a time.
In Perl 5, database interfaces are implemented by Perl DBI modules. The DBI (Database Interface) module presents a single, database-independent interface to Perl applications, while the DBD (Database Driver) modules handle the details of accessing some 50 different databases; there are DBD drivers for most ANSI SQL databases.
DBI provides caching for database handles and queries, which can greatly improve performance in long-lived execution environments such as mod perl, helping high-volume systems avert load spikes as in the Slashdot effect.
In modern Perl applications, especially those written using web frameworks such as Catalyst, the DBI module is often used indirectly via object-relational mappers such as , Class::DBI or Rose::DB::Object that generate SQL queries and handle data transparently to the application author.
The Computer Language Benchmarks Game compares the performance of implementations of typical programming problems in several programming languages. The submitted Perl implementations typically perform toward the high end of the memory-usage spectrum and give varied speed results. Perl's performance in the benchmarks game is typical for interpreted languages.
Large Perl programs start more slowly than similar programs in compiled languages because perl has to compile the source every time it runs. In a talk at the YAPC::Europe 2005 conference and subsequent article "A Timely Start," Jean-Louis Leroy found that his Perl programs took much longer to run than expected because the perl interpreter spent significant time finding modules within his over-large include path. Unlike Java, Python, and Ruby, Perl has only experimental support for pre-compiling. Therefore, Perl programs pay this overhead penalty on every execution. The run phase of typical programs is long enough that amortized startup time is not substantial, but benchmarks that measure very short execution times are likely to be skewed due to this overhead.
A number of tools have been introduced to improve this situation. The first such tool was Apache's mod perl, which sought to address one of the most-common reasons that small Perl programs were invoked rapidly: CGI Web development. ActivePerl, via Microsoft ISAPI, provides similar performance improvements.
Once Perl code is compiled, there is additional overhead during the execution phase that typically isn't present for programs written in compiled languages such as C or C++. Examples of such overhead include bytecode interpretation, reference-counting memory management, and dynamic type-checking.
Because Perl is an interpreted language, it can give problems when efficiency is critical; in such situations, the most critical routines can be written in other languages (such as C), which can be connected to Perl via simple Inline modules or the more complex but flexible XS mechanism.
Perl 5, the language usually referred to as "Perl", continues to be actively developed. Perl 5.12.0 was released in April 2010 with some new features influenced by the design of Perl 6, followed by Perl 5.14.1 (released on June 17, 2011), Perl 5.16.1 (released on August 9, 2012.), and Perl 5.18.0 (released on May 18, 2013). Perl 5 development versions are released on a monthly basis, with major releases coming out once per year.
The relative proportion of Internet searches for "Perl programming", as compared with similar searches for other programming languages, steadily declined from about 10% in 2005 to about 2% in 2011, to about 0.7% in 2020.
At the 2000 Perl Conference, Jon Orwant made a case for a major new language-initiative. This led to a decision to begin work on a redesign of the language, to be called Perl 6. Proposals for new language features were solicited from the Perl community at large, which submitted more than 300 RFCs.
Wall spent the next few years digesting the RFCs and synthesizing them into a coherent framework for Perl 6. He presented his design for Perl 6 in a series of documents called "apocalypses"numbered to correspond to chapters in "Programming Perl". , the developing specification of Perl 6 was encapsulated in design documents called Synopsesnumbered to correspond to Apocalypses.
Thesis work by Bradley M. Kuhn, overseen by Wall, considered the possible use of the Java virtual machine as a runtime for Perl. Kuhn's thesis showed this approach to be problematic. In 2001, it was decided that Perl 6 would run on a cross-language virtual machine called Parrot. This will mean that other languages targeting the Parrot will gain native access to CPAN, allowing some level of cross-language development.
In 2005, Audrey Tang created the Pugs project, an implementation of Perl 6 in Haskell. This acted as, and continues to act as, a test platform for the Perl 6 language (separate from the development of the actual implementation)allowing the language designers to explore. The Pugs project spawned an active Perl/Haskell cross-language community centered around the freenode #perl6 IRC channel. Many functional programming influences were absorbed by the Perl 6 design team.
In 2012, Perl 6 development was centered primarily around two compilers:
In 2013, MoarVM (“Metamodel On A Runtime”), a C language-based virtual machine designed primarily for Rakudo was announced.
In October 2019, Perl 6 was renamed to Raku.
Perl 7 was announced on 24 June 2020 at "The Perl Conference in the Cloud" as the successor to Perl 5. Based on Perl 5.32, Perl 7 is designed to be backwards compatible with Perl 5.
Perl's culture and community has developed alongside the language itself. Usenet was the first public venue in which Perl was introduced, but over the course of its evolution, Perl's community was shaped by the growth of broadening Internet-based services including the introduction of the World Wide Web. The community that surrounds Perl was, in fact, the topic of Wall's first "State of the Onion" talk.
State of the Onion is the name for Wall's yearly keynote-style summaries on the progress of Perl and its community. They are characterized by his hallmark humor, employing references to Perl's culture, the wider hacker culture, Wall's linguistic background, sometimes his family life, and occasionally even his Christian background.
Each talk is first given at various Perl conferences and is eventually also published online.
In the parlance of Perl culture, Perl programmers are known as Perl hackers, and from this derives the practice of writing short programs to print out the phrase "Just another Perl hacker". In the spirit of the original concept, these programs are moderately obfuscated and short enough to fit into the signature of an email or Usenet message. The "canonical" JAPH as developed by Schwartz includes the comma at the end, although this is often omitted.
In subsequent years, the term "code golf" has been applied to the pastime in other languages. A Perl Golf Apocalypse was held at Perl Conference 4.0 in Monterey, California in July 2000.
There are a number of IRC channels that offer support for the language and some modules.
There are also many examples of code written purely for entertainment on the CPAN. codice_10, for example, allows writing programs in Latin. Upon execution of such a program, the module translates its source code into regular Perl and runs it.
The Perl community has set aside the "Acme" namespace for modules that are fun in nature (but its scope has widened to include exploratory or experimental code or any other module that is not meant to ever be used in production). Some of the Acme modules are deliberately implemented in amusing ways. This includes codice_11, one of the first modules in the codice_12 namespace, which allows the program's source code to be "whitened" (i.e., all characters replaced with whitespace) and yet still work.
In older versions of Perl, one would write the Hello World program as:
print "Hello, World!\n";
Here is a more complex Perl program, that counts down the seconds up to a given threshold:
use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Handle;
my ( $remaining, $total );
$remaining = $total = shift(@ARGV);
STDOUT->autoflush(1);
while ( $remaining ) {
print "\n";
The perl interpreter can also be used for one-off scripts on the command line. The following example (as invoked from an sh-compatible shell, such as Bash) translates the string "Bob" in all files ending with .txt in the current directory to "Robert":
$ perl -i.bak -lp -e 's/Bob/Robert/g' *.txt
Perl has been referred to as "line noise" by some programmers who claim its syntax makes it a write-only language. The earliest such mention was in the first edition of the book "Learning Perl", a Perl 4 tutorial book written by Randal L. Schwartz, in the first chapter of which he states: "Yes, sometimes Perl looks like line noise to the uninitiated, but to the seasoned Perl programmer, it looks like checksummed line noise with a mission in life." He also stated that the accusation that Perl is a write-only language could be avoided by coding with "proper care". The Perl overview document "perlintro" states that the names of built-in "magic" scalar variables "look like punctuation or line noise". However, the English module provides both long and short English alternatives. "perlstyle" document states that line noise in regular expressions could be mitigated using the codice_13 modifier to add whitespace.
According to the "Perl 6 FAQ", Perl 6 was designed to mitigate "the usual suspects" that elicit the "line noise" claim from Perl 5 critics, including the removal of "the majority of the punctuation variables" and the sanitization of the regex syntax. The "Perl 6 FAQ" also states that what is sometimes referred to as Perl's line noise is "the actual syntax of the language" just as gerunds and prepositions are a part of the English language. In a December 2012 blog posting, despite claiming that "Rakudo Perl 6 has failed and will continue to fail unless it gets some adult supervision", chromatic stated that the design of Perl 6 has a "well-defined grammar" as well as an "improved type system, a unified object system with an intelligent metamodel, metaoperators, and a clearer system of context that provides for such niceties as pervasive laziness". He also stated that "Perl 6 has a coherence and a consistency that Perl 5 lacks."
Proto-Human language
The Proto-Human language (also Proto-Sapiens, Proto-World) is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all the world's languages.
The concept is speculative and not amenable to analysis in historical linguistics. It presupposes a monogenetic origin of language, i.e. the derivation of all natural languages from a single origin, presumably at some point of the Middle Paleolithic. As the predecessor of all "extant" languages, it would not necessarily be ancestral to a hypothetical Neanderthal language.
There is no generally accepted term for this concept. Most treatments of the subject do not include a name for the language under consideration (e.g. Bengtson and Ruhlen). The terms "Proto-World" and "Proto-Human" are in occasional use. Merritt Ruhlen has been using the term "Proto-Sapiens".
The first serious scientific attempt to establish the reality of monogenesis was that of Alfredo Trombetti, in his book "L'unità d'origine del linguaggio", published in 1905. Trombetti estimated that the common ancestor of existing languages had been spoken between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago .
Monogenesis was dismissed by many linguists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the doctrine of the polygenesis of the human races and their languages was widely popular.
The best-known supporter of monogenesis in America in the mid-20th century was Morris Swadesh. He pioneered two important methods for investigating deep relationships between languages, lexicostatistics and glottochronology.
In the second half of the 20th century, Joseph Greenberg produced a series of large-scale classifications of the world's languages. These were and are controversial but widely discussed. Although Greenberg did not produce an explicit argument for monogenesis, all of his classification work was geared toward this end. As he stated: "The ultimate goal is a comprehensive classification of what is very likely a single language family."
Notable American advocates of linguistic monogenesis include Merritt Ruhlen, John Bengtson, and Harold Fleming.
The first concrete attempt to estimate the date of the hypothetical ancestor language was that of Alfredo Trombetti, who concluded it was spoken between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, or close to the first emergence of "Homo sapiens".
It is uncertain or disputed whether the earliest members of "Homo sapiens" had fully developed language. Some scholars link the emergence of language proper (out of a proto-linguistic stage that may have lasted considerably longer) to the development of behavioral modernity towards the end of the Middle Paleolithic or at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, roughly 50,000 years ago.
Thus, in the opinion of Richard Klein, the ability to produce complex speech only developed some 50,000 years ago (with the appearance of modern humans or Cro-Magnons).
Johanna Nichols (1998) argued that vocal languages must have begun diversifying in our species at least 100,000 years ago.
In a 2012 study, an estimate on the time of the first emergence of human language was based on
phonemic diversity. This is based on the assumption that phonemic diversity evolves much more slowly than grammar or vocabulary, slowly increasing over time (but reduced among small founding populations).
The largest phoneme inventories are found among African languages, while the smallest inventories are found in South America and Oceania, some of the last regions of the globe to be colonized.
The authors used data from the colonization of Southeast Asia to estimate the rate of increase in phonemic diversity.
Applying this rate to African languages, they arrived at an estimated age of 150,000 to 350,000 years, compatible with the emergence and early dispersal of "H. sapiens".
The validity of this approach has been criticized as flawed.
Speculation as to "characteristics" of Proto-World is limited to linguistic typology, i.e. the identification of universal features shared by all human languages, such as grammar (in the sense of "fixed or preferred sequences of linguistic elements"), and recursion ("clauses [or phrases] embedded in other clauses [or phrases]"), but that beyond this nothing can be known of it (Campbell and Poser 2008:391).
Christopher Ehret has hypothesized that Proto-Human had a very complex consonant system, including clicks.
A few linguists, such as Merritt Ruhlen, have suggested the application of mass comparison and internal reconstruction (cf. Babaev 2008). A number of linguists have attempted to reconstruct the language, while many others reject this as fringe science.
According to Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen (2011), the ancestral language would have had a basic order of Subject (S) - Object (O) - Verb (V) or SOV.
Ruhlen tentatively traces a number of words back to the ancestral language, based on the occurrence of similar sound-and-meaning forms in languages across the globe. Bengtson and Ruhlen identify 27 "global etymologies". The following table lists a selection of these forms:
Based on these correspondences, Ruhlen lists these roots for the ancestor language:
In a 2011 paper, Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen argued that the ancestral language had subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. The reason for thinking so is that in the world's natural language families, it is typical for the original language to have an SOV word order, and languages that evolve from it sometimes deviate. Their proposal develops an earlier one made by Talmy Givón (1979:271–309).
Languages with SOV word order have a strong tendency to have other word orders in common, such as:
For example, instead of saying "The man goes to the wide river", as in English, Ruhlen's Proto-Human speakers would have said "Man wide river to goes". However, half of all current languages have SOV order, and historically languages cycle between word orders, so finding evidence of this order in the reconstructions of many families may reflect no more than this general tendency, rather than reflecting a common ancestral form.
Many linguists reject the methods used to determine these forms. Several areas of criticism are raised with the methods Ruhlen and Gell-Mann employ. The essential basis of these criticisms is that the words being compared do not show common ancestry; the reasons for this vary. One is onomatopoeia: for example, the suggested root for 'smell' listed above, *"čuna", may simply be a result of many languages employing an onomatopoeic word that sounds like sniffing, snuffling, or smelling. Another is the taboo quality of certain words. Lyle Campbell points out that many established proto-languages do not contain an equivalent word for *"putV" 'vulva' because of how often such taboo words are replaced in the lexicon, and notes that it "strains credibility to imagine" that a proto-World form of such a word would survive in many languages.
Using the criteria that Bengtson and Ruhlen employ to find cognates to their proposed roots, Lyle Campbell finds seven possible matches to their root for woman *"kuna" in Spanish, including "cónyuge" 'wife, spouse', "chica" 'girl', and "cana" 'old woman (adjective)'. He then goes on to show how what Bengtson and Ruhlen would identify as reflexes of *"kuna" cannot possibly be related to a proto-World word for woman. "Cónyuge", for example, comes from the Latin root meaning 'to join', so its origin had nothing to do with the word 'woman'; "chica" is a feminine adjective coming from a Latin noun meaning 'worthless object'; "cana" comes from the Latin word for 'white', and again shows a history unrelated to the word 'woman' (Campbell and Poser 2008:370–372). Campbell's assertion is that these types of problems are endemic to the methods used by Ruhlen and others.
There are some linguists who question the very possibility of tracing language elements so far back into the past. Campbell notes that given the time elapsed since the origin of human language, every word from that time would have been replaced or changed beyond recognition in all languages today. Campbell harshly criticizes efforts to reconstruct a Proto-human language, saying "the search for global etymologies is at best a hopeless waste of time, at worst an embarrassment to linguistics as a discipline, unfortunately confusing and misleading to those who might look to linguistics for understanding in this area." (Campbell and Poser 2008:393)
Palestinian Christians
Palestinian Christians () are Christian citizens of the State of Palestine. In the wider definition of Palestinian Christians, including the Palestinian refugees, diaspora and people with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry this can be applied to an estimated 500,000 people worldwide as of 2000. Palestinian Christians belong to one of a number of Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Catholicism (Eastern and Western rites), Anglicanism, Lutheranism, other branches of Protestantism and others. They number 20% of the 13 million Palestinians. 70% live outside Palestine and Israel. In both the local dialect of Palestinian Arabic and in Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, Christians are called "Nasrani" (the Arabic word Nazarene) or "Masihi" (a derivative of Arabic word "Masih", meaning "Messiah"). Hebrew-speakers call them "Notzri" (also spelt "Notsri"), which means Nazarene (originated from Nazareth).
, Palestinian Christians comprise approximately 1–2.5% of the population of the West Bank, and less than 1% in the Gaza Strip. According to official British Mandatory estimates, Palestine's Christian population in 1922 constituted 9.5% of the total Mandatory Palestine population (10.8% of the Palestinian Arab population), and 7.9% in 1946.
A large number of Arab Christians fled or were expelled from the Jewish-controlled areas of Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and a small number left during the period (1948–1967) of Jordanian control of the West Bank for economic reasons. From 1967, during the Israeli military rule, the Palestinian Christian population has increased in excess of the continued emigration.
There are also many Palestinian Christians who are descendants of Palestinian refugees from the post-1948 era who fled to Christian-majority countries and formed large diasporan Christian communities. Worldwide, there are nearly one million Palestinian Christians in these territories as well as in the Palestinian diaspora, comprising around 6–7% of the world's total Palestinian population. Palestinian Christians live primarily in Arab states surrounding historic Palestine and in the diaspora, particularly in Europe and the Americas.
In the 1922 census of Palestine there were approximately 73,000 Christian Palestinians: 46% Orthodox, 40% Catholic (20% Roman Catholic, and 20% Eastern Catholic (Uniate).
The census recorded over 200 localities with a Christian population. The totals by denomination for all of Mandatory Palestine were: Greek Orthodox 33,369, Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) 813, Roman Catholic 14,245, Greek Catholic (Melkite) 11,191, Syriac Catholic 323, Armenian Catholic 271, Maronite 2,382, Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian) 2,939, Coptic Church 297, Abyssinian Church 85, Church of England 4,553, Presbyterian Church 361, Protestants 826, Lutheran Church 437, Templars Community 724, others 208.
In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip. Of the total Christian population of 154,000 in Israel, about 80% are designated as Arabs, many of whom self-identify as Palestinian. The majority (56%) of Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian diaspora.
Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, one of the 15 churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. This community has also been known as the Arab Orthodox Christians. There are also Maronites, Melkite-Eastern Catholics, Jacobites, Chaldeans, Roman Catholics (locally known as Latins), Syriac Catholics, Orthodox Copts, Catholic Copts, Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholic, Quakers (Society of Friends), Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans (Episcopal), Lutherans, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Nazarene, Assemblies of God, Baptists and other Protestants; in addition to small groups of Jehovah's Witnesses, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.
The Patriarch Theophilos III is the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem since 2005. He replaced Irenaios (in office from 2001), who was deposed by the church synod after a term surrounded by controversy and scandal given that he sold Palestinian property to Israeli Orthodox Jews. The Israel government initially refused to recognize Theophilos's appointment but finally granted full recognition in December 2007, despite a legal challenge by his predecessor Irenaios.. Archbishop Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia the highest ranking Palestinian clergyman in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the leader of the Roman Catholics in Jerusalem, Palestine, Jordan, Israel and Cyprus. The office is vacant since the 2016 resignation of Patriarch Fouad Twal, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa acting as apostolic administrator. George Bacouni, of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, is Archbishop of Akka, with jurisdiction over Haifa, Acre and the Galilee, and replaced Elias Chacour, a Palestinian refugee, in 2014. Moussa El-Hage, of the Maronite Church, is since 2012 simultaneously Archbishop of the Archeparchy of Haifa and the Holy Land and Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem and Palestine.
The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem is Suheil Dawani, who replaced Bishop Riah Abou Al Assal. Bishop Dr. Munib Younan is the president of the Lutheran World Federation and the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL).
The first Christian communities in Roman Judea were Aramaic speaking Messianic Jews and Latin and Greek-speaking Romans and Greeks, who were in part descendants from previous settlers of the regions, such as Syro-Phoenicians, Arameans, Greeks, Persians, and Arabs such as Nabataeans.
Contrary to other groups of oriental Christians such as the largely Assyrian Nestorians, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians went under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Roman emperors after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD (which would be part of the Orthodox Church after the Great Schism), and were known by other Syrian Christians as Melkites (followers of the king). The Melkites were heavily Hellenised in the following centuries, abandoning their distinct Western Aramaic languages in favour of Greek. By the 7th century, Jerusalem and Byzantine Palestine became the epicentre of Greek culture in the Orient.
Soon after the Muslim conquests, the Melkites began abandoning Greek for Arabic, a process which made them the most Arabicised Christians in the Levant.
Most Palestinian Christians nowadays see themselves as culturally and linguistically Arab Christians with ancestors dating back to the first followers of Christ. They claim descent from Romans, Ghassanid Arabs, Byzantines, and Crusaders. The region consisting mainly of modern Israel and the State of Palestine is considered to be the Holy Land by Christians. Major Christian holy cities such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem are located in Israel and the State of Palestine.
That Christian Arabs in Palestine see themselves as Arab nationalistically reflects also the fact that, as of the beginning of the twentieth century, they shared many of the same customs as their Muslim neighbors. In some respects, this was a consequence of Christians adopting what were essentially Islamic practices, many of which were derived of "sharî'ah". In others, it was more the case that the customs shared by both Muslims and Christians derived from neither faith, but rather were a result of a process of syncretization, whereby what had once been pagan practices were later redefined as Christian and subsequently adopted by Muslims. This was especially evident in the fact that Palestine's Muslims and Christians shared many of the same feast days, in honor of the same saints, even if they referred to them by different names. "Shrines dedicated to St. George, for instance, were transformed into shrines honoring Khidr-Ilyas, a conflation of the Prophet Elijah and the mythical sprite Khidr.” Added to this, many Muslims viewed local Christian churches as saints’ shrines. Thus, for instance, a “Muslim women having difficulties conceiving, for instance, might travel to Bethlehem to pray for a child before the Virgin Mary.” It was even not uncommon for a Muslim to have his child baptized in a Christian church, in the name of Khaḍr.
The category of 'Palestinian Arab Christian' came to assume a political dimension in the 19th century as international interest grew and foreign institutions were developed there. The urban elite began to undertake the construction of a modern multi-religious Arab civil society. When the British received from the League of Nations a mandate to administer Palestine after World War I, many British dignitaries in London were surprised to discover so many Christian leaders in the Palestinian Arab political movements. The British authorities in the Mandate of Palestine had difficulty understanding the commitment of the Palestinian Christians to Palestinian nationalism.
Palestinian Christian owned Falastin was founded in 1911 in the then Arab-majority city of Jaffa. The newspaper is often described as one of the most influential newspapers in historic Palestine, and probably the nation's fiercest and most consistent critic of the Zionist movement. It helped shape Palestinian identity and nationalism and was shut down several times by the Ottoman and British authorities, most of the time due to complaints made by Zionists.
The Nakba left the multi-denominational Christian Arab communities in disarray. They had little background in theology, their work being predominantly pastoral, and their immediate task was to assist the thousands of homeless refugees. But it also sowed the seeds for the development of a Liberation Theology among Palestinian Arab Christians. There was a differential policy of expulsion. More lenience was applied to the Christians of the Galilee where expulsion mostly affected Muslims: at Tarshiha, Me'eliya, Dayr al-Qassi, and Salaban, Christians were allowed to remain while Muslims were driven out. At Iqrit and Bir'im the IDF ordered Christians to evacuate for a brief spell, an order that was then confirmed as a permanent expulsion. Sometimes In a mixed Druze-Christian village like al-Rama, only the Christians were initially expelled towards Lebanon, but, thanks to the intervention of the local Druze were permitted to return. Important Christian figures were sometimes allowed to return, on condition they help Israel among their communities. Archbishop Hakim, with many hundreds of Christians, was allowed reentry on expressing a willingness to campaign against Communists in Israel and among his flock.
After the war of 1948, the Christian population in the West Bank, under Jordanian control, dropped slightly, largely due to economic problems. This contrasts with the process occurring in Israel where Christians left "en masse" after 1948. Constituting 21% of Israel's Arab population in 1950, they now make up just 9% of that group. These trends accelerated after the 1967 war in the aftermath of Israel's takeover of the West Bank and Gaza.
Christians within the Palestinian Authority constituted around one in seventy-five residents. In 2009, Reuters reported that 47,000–50,000 Christians remained in the West Bank, with around 17,000 following the various Catholic traditions and most of the rest following the Orthodox church and other eastern denominations. Both Bethlehem and Nazareth, which were once overwhelmingly Christian, now have Muslim majorities. Today about three-quarters of all Bethlehem Christians live abroad, and more Jerusalem Christians live in Sydney, Australia than in Jerusalem. Christians now comprise 2.5 percent of the population of Jerusalem. Those remaining include a few born in the Old City when Christians there constituted a majority.
In a 2007 letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush, Hyde stated that "the Christian community is being crushed in the mill of the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community".
There have been reports of attacks on Palestinian Christians in Gaza from Muslim extremist groups. Gaza Pastor Manuel Musallam has voiced doubts that those attacks were religiously motivated. The Palestinian President, Prime Minister, Hamas and many other political and religious leaders condemned such attacks.
Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Custodian of the Holy Land, a senior Catholic spokesman, has stated that police inaction and an educational culture that encourages Jewish children to treat Christians with "contempt" has made life increasingly "intolerable" for many Christians. Fr Pizzaballa's statement came after pro-settler extremists attacked a Trappist monastery in the town of Latroun, setting fire to its door, and covering walls with anti-Christian graffiti. The incident followed a series of acts of arson and vandalism, in 2012, targeting places of Christian worship, including Jerusalem's 11th century Monastery of the Cross, where slogans such as "Death to Christians" and other offensive graffiti were daubed on its walls. According to an article in the Telegraph, Christian leaders feel that the most important issue that Israel has failed to address is the practice of some ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools to teach children that it is a religious obligation to abuse anyone in Holy Orders they encounter in public, such that Ultra-Orthodox Jews, including children as young as eight, spit at members of the clergy on a daily basis.
After Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam in September 2006, five churches not affiliated with either Catholicism or the Pope—among them an Anglican and an Orthodox church—were firebombed and shot at in the West Bank and Gaza. A Muslim extremist group called "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility. Former Palestinian Prime Minister and current Hamas leader Ismail Haniya condemned the attacks, and police presence was elevated in Bethlehem, which has a sizable Christian community.
Armenians in Jerusalem, identified as Palestinian Christians or Israeli-Armenians, have also been attacked and received threats from Jewish extremists; Christians and clergy have been spat at, and one Armenian Archbishop was beaten and his centuries old cross broken. In September 2009, two Armenian Christian clergy were expelled after a brawl erupted with a Jewish extremist for spitting on holy Christian objects.
In February 2009, a group of Christian activists within the West Bank wrote an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to postpone his scheduled trip to Israel unless the government changed its treatment. They highlighted improved access to places of worship and ending the taxation of church properties as key concerns. The Pope began his five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Sunday, 10 May, planning to express support for the region's Christians. In response to Palestinian public statements, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor criticized the political polarization of the papal visit, remarking that "[i]t will serve the cause of peace much better if this visit is taken for what it is, a pilgrimage, a visit for the cause of peace and unity".
In November 2009, Berlanty Azzam, a Palestinian Christian student from Gaza, was expelled from Bethlehem and was not allowed to continue her studying. She had two months left for the completion of her degree. Berlanty Azzam said the Israeli military handcuffed her, blindfolded her, and left her waiting for hours at a checkpoint on her way back from a job interview in Ramallah. She described the incident as "frightening" and claimed Israeli official treated her like a criminal and denied her an education because she is a Palestinian Christian from Gaza.
In April 2014, IDF began to send enlistment notices to Christian Arab youths of military age, informing them of the possibility of joining the military. During 2013, enlistment from the Christian population has been on the rise, with 84 new recruits between July and December that year. As of December 2013 there were approximately 140 Christians serving in the IDF, with another 400 in the reserves. Father Gabriel Naddaf from Nazareth, who established the Forum for Christian Enlistment to the IDF and one of the most active advocates of Christian-Arab enlistment, welcomed the step and said he was certain it would help increase the numbers of Christian youth volunteering for service. See also Christianity in Israel§Sons of the New Testament Party.
In July 2014, during operation Protective Edge an Israeli-Arab Christian demonstration was held in Haifa in a protest against Muslim extremism in the Middle East (concerning the rise of the Islamic State) and in support of Israel and the IDF.
Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Statistically, Christian Arabs in Israel have the highest rates of educational attainment among all religious communities, according to a data by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2010, 63% of Israeli Christian Arabs have had college or postgraduate education, the highest of any religious and ethno-religious group. Despite the fact that Arab Christians only represent 2.1% of the total Israeli population, in 2014 they accounted for 17.0% of the country's university students, and for 14.4% of its college students. There are more Christians who have attained a bachelor's degree or higher academic degrees than the median Israeli population. Also Christian Arabs have one of the highest rates of success in the matriculation examinations, (73.9%) in 2017 both in comparison to the Muslims and the Druze and in comparison to all students in the Jewish education system as a group. Arab Christians were also the vanguard in terms of eligibility for higher education, and they have attained a bachelor's degree and academic degree more than the median Israeli population. Christians schools in Israel went on strike in 2015 at the beginning of the 2015 academic year in protest at budget cuts aimed at them. The strike affected 33,000 pupils, 40 percent of them Muslim. In 2013, Israel covered 65% of the budget of Palestinian Christian schools in Israel, a figure cut that year to 34%. Christians say they now received a third of what Jewish schools receive, with a shortfall of $53 million.
The rate of students studying in the field of medicine was also higher among the Christian Arab students, compared with all the students from other sectors. The percentage of Arab Christian women who are higher education students is higher than other sectors.
In September 2014, Israel's interior minister signed an order that the Aramean Christian minority in Israel could register as Arameans rather than Arabs. The order will affect about 200 families.
The mayors of Ramallah, Birzeit, Bethlehem, Zababdeh, Jifna, Ein 'Arik, Aboud, Taybeh, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour are Christians. The Governor of Tubas, Marwan Tubassi, is a Christian. The former Palestinian representative to the United States, Afif Saffieh, is a Christian, as is the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in France, Hind Khoury. The Palestinian women's soccer team has a majority of Muslim girls, but the captain, Honey Thaljieh, is a Christian from Bethlehem. Many of the Palestinian officials such as ministers, advisers, ambassadors, consulates, heads of missions, PLC, PNA, PLO, Fateh leaders and others are Christians. Some Christians were part of the affluent segments of Palestinian society that left the country during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In West Jerusalem, over 50% of Christian Palestinians lost their homes to the Israelis, according to the historian Sami Hadawi.
Though numbering only a few hundred, there is a community of Christians who have converted from Islam. They are not centered in one particular city and mostly belong to various evangelical and charismatic communities. Due to the fact that official conversion from Islam to Christianity is illegal in accordance with Islamic sharia law in Palestine, these individuals tend to keep a low profile.
The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center is a Christian non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem; was founded in 1990 as an outgrowth of a conference regarding "Palestinian Liberation Theology." According to its web site, "Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. Inspired by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, this liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them toward social action. Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. The word "Sabeel" is Arabic for ‘the way‘ and also a ‘channel‘ or ‘spring‘ of life-giving water."
Sabeel has been criticized for its belief that "Israel is solely culpable for the origin and continuation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict," and for using "anti-Semitic deicide imagery against Israel, and of disparaging Judaism as 'tribal,' 'primitive,' and 'exclusionary,' in contrast to Christianity’s 'universalism' and 'inclusiveness.'" In addition, Daniel Fink, writing on behalf of NGO Monitor, shows that Sabeel leader Naim Ateek has described Zionism as a “step backward in the development of Judaism,” and Zionists as “oppressors and war makers.”
In December 2009, a number of prominent Palestinian Christian activists, both clergy and lay people, released the Kairos Palestine document, "A moment of truth." Among the authors of the document are Michel Sabbah, former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Attalah Hanna, Father Jamal Khader, Rev. Mitri Raheb, Rev. Naim Ateek and Rifat Kassis who is the coordinator and chief spokesperson of the group.
The document declares the Israeli occupation of Palestine a "sin against God" and against humanity. It calls on churches and Christians all over the world to consider it and adopt it and to call for the boycott of Israel. Section 7 calls for "the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel." It states that isolation of Israel will cause pressure on Israel to abolish all of what it labels as "apartheid laws" that discriminate against Palestinians and non-Jews.
The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) was founded in 1999 by an ecumenical group of American Christians to preserve the Christian presence in the Holy Land. HCEF stated goal is to attempt to continue the presence and well-being of Arab Christians in the Holy Land and to develop the bonds of solidarity between them and Christians elsewhere. HCEF offers material assistance to Palestinian Christians and to churches in the area. HCEF advocates for solidarity on the part of Western Christians with Christians in the Holy Land.
There are around 1,300 Christians in the Gaza Strip and the number of Christians is steadily declining. Gaza's Christian community mostly lives within the city, especially in areas neighbouring the three main churches: Church of Saint Porphyrius, The Holy Family Catholic Parish in Zeitoun Street, and the Gaza Baptist Church, in addition to an Anglican chapel in the Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Arab Evangelical Hospital. Saint Porphyrius is an Orthodox Church that dates back to the 12th century. Gaza Baptist Church is the city's only Evangelical Church; it lies close to the Legislative Council (parliamentary building). Christians in Gaza freely practice their religion. They also may observe all the religious holidays in accordance with the Christian calendars followed by their churches.
Those among them working as civil servants in the government and in the private sector are given an official holiday during the week, which some devote to communal prayer in churches. Christians are permitted to obtain any job, in addition to having their full rights and duties as their Muslim counterparts in accordance with the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the regime, and all the systems prevailing over the territories. Moreover, seats have been allocated to Christian citizens in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in accordance with a quota system that allocates based on a significant Christian presence.
A census revealed that 40 percent of the Christian community worked in the medical, educational, engineering and law sectors. Additionally, the churches in Gaza are renowned for the relief and educational services that they offer, and Muslim citizens participate in these services. Palestinian citizens as a whole benefit from these services. The Latin Patriarchate School, for example, offers relief in the form of medication and social and educational services. The school has been offering services for nearly 150 years.
In 1974, the idea of establishing a new school was proposed by Father Jalil Awad, a former parish priest in Gaza who recognized the need to expand the Latin Patriarchate School and build a new complex. In 2011, the Holy family school had 1,250 students and the Roman Catholic primary school, which is an extension of the Latin Patriarchate School, continues to enroll a rising number of young students. The primary school was established approximately 20 years ago. Aside from education, other services are offered to Muslims and Christians alike with no discrimination. Services include women's groups, students' groups and youth groups, such as those offered at the Baptist Church on weekdays. As of 2013, only 113 out of 968 of these Christian schools students were in fact Christians.
In October 2007, Rami Ayyad, the Baptist manager of The Teacher's Bookshop, the only Christian bookstore in the Gaza Strip, was murdered, following the firebombing of his bookstore and the receipt of death threats from Muslim extremists.
In addition to neighboring countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, many Palestinian Christians emigrated to countries in Latin America (notably Argentina and Chile), as well as to Australia, the United States and Canada. The Palestinian Authority is unable to keep exact tallies. The share of Christians in the population has also decreased due to the fact that Muslim Palestinians generally have much higher birth rates than the Christians.
The causes of this Christian exodus are hotly debated, with various possibilities put forth. Many of the Palestinian Christians in the diaspora are those who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war and their descendants. After discussion between Yosef Weitz and Moshe Sharett, Ben-Gurion authorized a project for the transference of the Christian communities of the Galilee to Argentina, but the proposal failed in the face of Christian opposition. Reuters has reported that the emigrants since then have left in pursuit of better living standards.
The BBC has also blamed the economic decline in the Palestinian Authority as well as pressure from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the exodus. A report on Bethlehem residents stated both Christians and Muslims wished to leave but the Christians possessed better contacts with people abroad and higher levels of education. The Vatican and the Catholic Church blamed the Israeli occupation and the conflict in the Holy Land for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land and the Middle East in general.
"The Jerusalem Post" (an Israeli newspaper) has stated that the "shrinking of the Palestinian Christian community in the Holy Land came as a direct result of its middle-class standards" and that Muslim pressure has not played a major role according to Christian residents themselves. It reported that the Christians have a public image of elitism and of class privilege as well as of non-violence and of open personalities, which leaves them more vulnerable to criminals than Muslims. Hanna Siniora, a prominent Christian Palestinian human rights activist, has attributed harassment against Christians to "little groups" of "hoodlums" rather than to the Hamas and Fatah governments. In his last novel, the Palestinian Christian writer Emile Habibi has a character affirm that:
"There is no difference between Christian and Muslim: we are all Palestinian in our predicament."
According to a report in "The Independent", thousands of Christian Palestinians "emigrated to Latin America in the 1920s, when Mandatory Palestine was hit by drought and a severe economic depression."
Today, Chile houses the largest Palestinian Christian community in the world outside of the Levant. As many as 350,000 Palestinian Christians reside in Chile, most of whom came from Beit Jala, Bethlehem, and Beit Sahur. Also, El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries have significant Palestinian Christian communities, some of whom immigrated almost a century ago during the time of Ottoman Palestine. During the 2008 Gaza War, Palestinian Christians in Chile demonstrated against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. They were hoping to move the government into altering its relations with Israel.
In a 2006 poll of Christians in Bethlehem by the Palestinian Centre for Research and Cultural Dialogue, 90% reported having Muslim friends, 73% agreed that the Palestinian Authority treats Christian heritage in the city with respect, and 78% attributed the ongoing exodus of Christians from Bethlehem to the Israeli occupation and travel restrictions on the area. Daniel Rossing, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs' chief liaison to Christians in the 1970s and 1980s, has stated that the situations for them in Gaza became much worse after the election of Hamas. He also stated that the Palestinian Authority, which counts on Christian westerners for financial support, treats the minority fairly. He blamed the Israeli West Bank barrier as the primary problem for the Christians.
The United States State Department's 2006 report on religious freedom criticized both Israel for its restrictions on travel to Christian holy sites and the Palestinian Authority for its failure to stamp out anti-Christian crime. It also reported that the former gives preferential treatment in basic civic services to Jews and the latter does so to Muslims. The report stated that, generally, ordinary Muslim and Christian citizens enjoy good relations in contrast to the "strained" Jewish and Arab relations. A 2005 BBC report also described Muslim and Christian relations as "peaceful".
The Arab Human Rights Association, an Arab NGO in Israel, has stated that Israeli authorities have denied Palestinian Christians in Israel access to holy places, prevented repairs needed to preserve historic holy sites, and carried out physical attacks on religious leaders.
Multiple factors, the internal dislocation of Palestinians in wars; the creation of three contiguous refugee camps for those displaced; emigration of Muslims from Hebron; hindrances to development under Israeli military occupation with its land confiscations, and a lax and corrupt judicial system under the PNA that is often incapable of enforcing laws, have all contributed to Christian emigration, which has been a tradition since the British Mandate period.
This has been contested, as the main cause of Christian emigration from Bethlehem, Kairos Palestine—an independent coalition Christian organisation, set up to help communicate to the Christian world what is happening in Palestine—sent a letter to "The Wall Street Journal" to explain that "In the case of Bethlehem, for instance, it is in fact the rampant construction of Israeli settlements, the chokehold imposed by the separation wall and the Israeli government's confiscation of Palestinian land that has driven many Christians to leave," the unprinted letter, quoted in "Haaretz", states. "At present, a mere 13 percent of Bethlehem-area land is left to its Palestinian inhabitants".
Christian families are the largest landowners in Bethlehem and have often been subject to theft of property. Bethlehem's core of traditional Christian and Muslim families speak of the rise of a 'foreign', more conservative, Islamic Hebronite class as changing the traditional regional identity of the town, as are the villages dominated by the Ta'amre Bedouin clans close to Bethlehem. Rising Muslim land purchase, said at times to be Saudi-financed, and incidents of land theft with forged documents, except in Beit Sahour where Christian and Muslims share a strong sense of local identity, are seen by Christians as making their demographic presence vulnerable. Christians are often described as of Yamani descent (as are some Muslim clans), vs the al-Qaysi Muslim clans, respectively from southern and northern Arabia. Christians are wary of the international media and of discussing these issues publicly, which involve criticism of fellow Palestinians, since there is a risk that their remarks may be manipulated by outsiders to undermine Palestinian claims to nationhood, distract attention from the crippling impact of Israel's occupation, and conjure up an image of a Muslim drive to oust Christians from Bethlehem.
The Christian Broadcasting Network (an American Protestant organization) claimed that Palestinian Christians suffer systematic discrimination and persecution at the hands of the predominantly Muslim population and Palestinian government aimed at driving their population out of their homeland. However, Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem and Beit Jala have claimed otherwise that it is the loss of agricultural land and expropriation from the Israeli military, the persecution of 1948 and violence from the military occupation that has led to a flight and major exodus of Christians.
On 26 September 2015, the Mar Charbel monastery in Bethlehem was set on fire, resulting in the burning of many rooms and damaging various parts of the building.
In September 2016, the Jerusalem-based Center for Jewish–Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC) established "Blessing Bethlehem", a charity fundraising initiative with the purpose of helping the persecuted Christians living in the city of Bethlehem and its surrounding areas.
Pope Marinus I
Pope Marinus I (; died 15 May 884) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 882 until his death. Controversially at the time, he was already a bishop when he became pope, and had served as papal legate to Constantinople.
Born at Gallese, Marinus was the son of a priest. He was ordained as a deacon by Pope Nicholas I. He first served as bishop of Caere. On three separate occasions he had been employed by the three popes who preceded him as legate to Constantinople, his mission in each case having reference to the controversy started by Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople. In 882, he was sent on behalf of Pope John VIII to Duke Athanasius of Naples to warn him not to trade with the Muslims of southern Italy.
Marinus I was elected to succeed John VIII as bishop of Rome from around the end of December 882. This papal election was controversial because Marinus had already been consecrated as bishop of Caere; at the time, a bishop was expected never to move to another see. Among his first acts as pope were the restitution of Formosus as cardinal bishop of Portus and the anathematizing of Photius I. Due to his respect for Alfred the Great (r. 871–899), he freed the Anglo-Saxons of the "Schola Anglorum" in Rome from tribute and taxation. He also is recorded to have sent a piece of the True Cross to Alfred as a gift. He died in May or June 884, his successor being Adrian III.
Because of the similarity of the names, Marinus I and Marinus II were, in some sources, mistakenly called Martinus II and Martinus III.
Pope Marinus II
Pope Marinus II (died May 946) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 30 October 942 to his death. He has also been mistakenly called Martinus. He ruled during the "Saeculum obscurum".
Marinus was born in Rome, and prior to becoming pope he was attached to the Church of Saint Cyriacus in the Baths of Diocletian. He was said to have encountered Ulrich of Augsburg on his visit to Rome in 909, and reportedly predicted Ulrich's eventual appointment as bishop of Augsburg.
Marinus was elevated to the papacy on 30 October 942 through intervention of Alberic II of Spoleto. This period is known as "Saeculum obscurum" due to the power of Alberic and his relatives over the popes. Marinus concentrated on administrative aspects of the papacy, and sought to reform both the secular and regular clergy. He extended the appointment of Archbishop Frederick of Mainz as papal vicar and missus dominicus throughout Germany and Francia. Marinus later intervened when the bishop of Capua seized without authorization a church which had been given to the local Benedictine monks. In fact, throughout his pontificate, Marinus favoured various monasteries, issuing a number of bulls in their favour.
Marinus occupied the palace built by Pope John VII atop the Palatine Hill in the ruins of the "Domus Gaiana". He died in May 946 and was succeeded by Agapetus II.
Because of the similarity of the names Marinus and Martinus, Marinus I and Marinus II were, in some sources, mistakenly called Martinus II and Martinus III.
Pope Marcellus I
Pope Marcellus I (6 January 255 – 16 January 309) was the bishop of Rome from May or June 308 to his death. He succeeded Marcellinus after a considerable interval. Under Maxentius, he was banished from Rome in 309, on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. His relics are under the altar of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. His third-class feast day is kept on January 16.
For some time after the death of Marcellinus in 304, the Diocletian persecution continued with unabated severity. After the abdication of Diocletian in 305, and the accession in Rome of Maxentius to the throne of the Caesars in October of the following year, the Christians of the capital again enjoyed comparative peace. Nevertheless, nearly two years passed before a new bishop of Rome was elected. Then in 308, according to the "Catalogus Liberianus", Marcellus first entered on his office: "He was bishop in the time of Maxentius, from the 4th consulship of Maxentius when Maximus was his colleague, until after the consulship." At Rome, Marcellus found the Church in the greatest confusion. The meeting-places and some of the burial-places of the faithful had been confiscated, and the ordinary life and activity of the Church was interrupted. Added to this were the dissensions within the Church itself, caused by the large number of weaker members who had fallen away during the long period of active persecution and later, under the leadership of an apostate, violently demanded that they should be readmitted to communion without doing penance.
According to the "Liber Pontificalis", Marcellus divided the territorial administration of the Church into twenty-five districts (tituli), appointing over each a presbyter, who saw to the preparation of the catechumens for baptism and directed the performance of public penances. The presbyter was also made responsible for the burial of the dead and for the celebrations commemorating the deaths of the martyrs. The pope also had a new burial-place, the Cœmeterium Novellœ on the Via Salaria (opposite the Catacomb of St. Priscilla), laid out. The "Liber Pontificalis" says: "He established a cemetery on the Via Salaria, and he appointed 25 parish churches as dioceses in the city of Rome to provide baptism and penance for the many who were converted among the pagans and burial for the martyrs." At the beginning of the 7th century, there were probably twenty-five titular churches in Rome; even granting that, perhaps, the compiler of the "Liber Pontificalis" referred this number to the time of Marcellus, there is still a clear historical tradition in support of his declaration that the ecclesiastical administration in Rome was reorganized by this pope after the great persecution.
The work of the pope was, however, quickly interrupted by the controversies to which the question of the readmittance of the lapsi into the Church gave rise. As to this, we gather some light from the poetic tribute composed by Pope Damasus I in memory of his predecessor and placed over his grave (De Rossi, "Inscr. christ. urbis Romæ", II, 62, 103, 138; cf. Idem, "Roma sotterranea", II, 204–5). Damasus relates that Marcellus was looked upon as a wicked enemy by all the lapsed, because he insisted that they should perform the prescribed penance for their guilt. As a result, serious conflicts arose, some of which ended in bloodshed, and every bond of peace was broken. At the head of this band of dissenters was an apostate who had denied the Faith even before the outbreak of persecution. The tyrannical Maxentius had the pope seized and sent into exile. This took place at the end of 308 or the beginning of 309 according to the passages cited above from the "Catalogus Liberianus", which gives the length of the pontificate as no more than one year, six (or seven) months, and twenty days. Marcellus died shortly after leaving Rome, and was venerated as a saint.
His feast day was 16 January, according to the "Depositio episcoporum" of the Chronography of 354 and every other Roman authority. Nevertheless, it is not known whether this is the date of his death or that of the burial of his remains, after these had been brought back from the unknown quarter to which he had been exiled. He was buried in the catacomb of St. Priscilla where his grave is mentioned by the itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs as existing in the basilica of St. Silvester (De Rossi, "Roma sotterranea", I, 176).
A 5th-century "Passio Marcelli", which is included in the legendary account of the martyrdom of St. Cyriacus (cf. Acta Sanct., Jan., II, 10-14) and is followed by the "Liber Pontificalis", gives a different account of the end of Marcellus. According to this version, the pope was required by Maxentius, who was enraged at his reorganization of the Church, to lay aside his episcopal dignity and make an offering to the gods. On his refusal, he was condemned to work as a slave at a station on the public highway (catabulum). At the end of nine months he was set free by the clergy; but a matron named Lucina having had her house on the Via Lata consecrated by him as "titulus Marcelli" he was again condemned to the work of attending to the horses brought into the station, in which menial occupation he died.
All this is probably legendary, the reference to the restoration of ecclesiastical activity by Marcellus alone having an historical basis. The tradition related in the verses of Damasus seems much more worthy of belief. The feast of St. Marcellus, whose name is to this day borne by the church at Rome mentioned in the above legend, is still celebrated on January 16. There still remains to be mentioned Mommsen's peculiar view that Marcellus was not really a bishop, but a simple Roman presbyter to whom was committed the ecclesiastical administration during the latter part of the period of vacancy of the papal chair. According to this view, 16 January was really the date of Marcellus' death, the next occupant of the chair being Eusebius (Neues Archiv, 1896, XXI, 350–3). This hypothesis has, however, found no support.
Pope Marcellus II
Pope Marcellus II (6 May 1501 – 1 May 1555), born Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 April 1555 until his death 22 days later on 1 May 1555.
He succeeded Pope Julius III. Before his accession as pope he had been Cardinal-Priest of "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme". He is the most recent pope to choose to retain his birth name as his regnal name upon his accession, as well as only the second and most recent pope to date to take the name "Marcellus" upon being elected. After his death, it would be 423 years before another pope would choose a name with an ordinal number less than IV (John Paul I).
Cervini was the maternal uncle of Robert Bellarmine. Cervini's father and Pope Clement VII were personal friends. Cervini served in the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. When Farnese became Pope, Cervini served as his secretary and was employed on some diplomatic missions. On 10 April, 1555, he was elected to succeed Pope Julius III. He died of a stroke twenty-two days later.
A native of Montefano, a small village near Macerata and Loreto he was the son of Ricardo Cervini who was the Apostolic Treasurer in Ancona. The family originated in Tuscany, in the town of Montepulciano, which had once been subject to Siena, but later was under the control of Florence. Marcello had two half-brothers, Alexander and Romulus. One of his sisters, Cinzia Cervini, married Vincenzo Bellarmino, and was the mother of Roberto Bellarmine.
Marcello was educated locally, and at Siena and Florence, where he became proficient in writing Latin, Greek, and Italian. He also received instruction in jurisprudence, philosophy, and mathematics. His father had an interest in astrology and upon discovering that his son's horoscope presaged high ecclesiastical honours, Riccardo set the young Cervini on a path to the priesthood.
After his period of study at Siena, Cervini traveled to Rome in the company of the Delegation sent by Florence to congratulate the new Pope on his election. His father and Pope Clement VII were personal friends, and Marcello was made "Scrittore Apostolico". He was set to work on astronomical and calendar studies, a project which was intended to bring the year back into synchronization with the seasons. In 1527, he fled home after the Sack of Rome, but eventually returned and was taken into the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese "senior". Cervini was ordained a priest in 1535.
In 1534, after Farnese had become pope Pope Paul III, Cervini was appointed a papal secretary (1534–49) and served as a close advisor to the pope's nephew Alessandro Farnese. He was made a papal Protonotarius. He travelled in the suite of the Pope during the papal visit to Nice, where Paul III was promoting a truce between François I and Charles V. He then accompanied the young Cardinal Farnese on a trip to Spain, France and the Spanish Netherlands to help implement the terms of the truce. Paul III later appointed him bishop of Nicastro, Italy in 1539. Cervini was not, however, consecrated bishop until the day he himself was elected pope. While he was still on the embassy to the Netherlands, Paul III created him the Cardinal-Priest of "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme" on 19 December 1539.
When, almost immediately after, Cardinal Farnese was recalled to Rome, Cervini stayed on as Nuntius. Over the course of next decade Cervini also became the apostolic administrator of the dioceses of Reggio and Gubbio. His house in Rome became a center of Renaissance culture, and he himself corresponded with most of the leading humanists
During the Council of Trent he was elected one of the council's three presidents, along with fellow cardinals Reginald Pole and Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (the future Pope Julius III). He continued to serve in that role throughout the remainder of Paul III's papacy after which he was replaced to placate the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519–56). He was credited not only with defending orthodoxy and Church discipline, but also the universal claims of the Papacy in spiritual and temporal affairs, and with such vigor that the Emperor was affronted. In 1548 (or 1550) he was granted the supervision of the Vatican Library, with the title of "Protettore della Biblioteca Apostolica".
The Apostolic Brief of his appointment, however, came from the new pope, Julius III, on 24 May 1550, and he was named not Vatican Librarian, but "Bibliothecarius Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae" because he was the first cardinal to be in charge of the library. During his administration, he employed the services of Marcello and Sirleto, as well as Onuphrio Panvinio (who was especially consulted in matters of Christian archaeology). He added more than 500 codices to the holdings of the Library, including 143 Greek codices, as his own entry book (which still survives as "Vaticanus Latinus" 3963) testifies.
In the conclave of 1549–50 to elect a successor to Paul III, fifty-one cardinals, including Marcello Cervini, participated at the opening on 3 December 1549. The initial candidates included Cardinals Pole, Sfondrati, Carpi and Ridolfi (who died on the night of 31 January). Pole, the favorite of the Emperor Charles V, came within two votes of being elected in the first scrutinies, but he could not attract any additional votes. Juan Álvarez de Toledo (Bishop of Burgos), another Imperial favorite, was proposed, and he too failed, because of strong opposition from the faction of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, nephew of the late Pope Paul III and from the French.
On 12 December, five more French voters arrived, and though they could not advance the candidacy of their favorite, Ippolito d' Este, they did have Cardinal Cervini on their list of possible candidates. Farnese and his faction were also positively inclined toward him. Unfortunately, the Imperial faction was not. Worst of all, on 22 December, Cardinal Cervini left the Conclave, suffering from a quartan fever. Finally, on 7 February 1550, the cardinals chose Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, who took the name Julius III.
The first conclave of 1555, following the death of Julius III (1550–55), involved a struggle between French interests in Italy (which had been favored by Julius III) and Imperial interests, which were intent on Church reform through a Church council, but with the Emperor controlling the outcome. On 9 April 1555, on the evening of the fourth day of the papal conclave, Cervini was "adored" as Pope, despite efforts by cardinals loyal to the Emperor Charles V to block his election. Next morning, a formal vote was taken in the Capella Paolina, in which all of the votes cast were for Cardinal Cervini except his own, which he cast for the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, Giampietro Carafa.
The new Pope chose to retain his birth name, the most recent Pope to do so, reigning as Marcellus II. He was both ordained [consecrated] as a bishop and crowned Pope on the next day in a subdued ceremony on account of it falling during the Lenten season.
Though Marcellus II desired to reform many of the inner workings of the church, his feeble constitution succumbed to the fatigues of the conclave, the exhausting ceremonies connected with his ascension, the anxieties arising from his high office, and overexertion in his performance of the pontifical functions of the Holy Week and Easter. He quickly fell ill.
He was bled, and appeared to begin to recover. In an audience he gave to the Cardinals, who wanted him to sign the Electoral Capitulations from the conclave and to guarantee that he would make no more cardinals than those agreements allowed, he refused to sign, stating that he would show his intent by deeds not words. In his first audience with the Ambassadors of France and Spain, he warned the Ambassadors that their monarchs should keep the peace that had been agreed upon, and that if they did not, not only would they be sent Nuncios and Legates, but that the Pope himself would come and admonish them. He wrote letters to the Emperor, to Queen Mary I of England, and to Cardinal Reginald Pole (in which he confirmed Pole's Legateship in England). When the Spanish Ambassador asked for pardon for having killed a man, the Pope replied that he did not want to start his reign with such auspices as absolution from homicide, and ordered the appropriate tribunals to observe the law.
He did not want his relatives descending on Rome, nor did he want them to be enriched beyond the station of a member of the nobility, and he did not allow his two nephews, Riccardo and Herennius (sons of his half-brother Alexander), who lived in Rome under his care, to have formal visits. He instituted immediate economies in Vatican expenditures. On 28 April, he was able to receive the Duke of Urbino in audience, and on 29 April, the Duke of Ferrara. He also gave audience to four cardinals, Farnese, D'Este, Louis de Guise and Ascanio Sforza, the leaders of the French faction in the recent conclave. That night he had difficulty sleeping. On the morning of the 30th he suffered a stroke ("hora XII apoplexi correptus") and slipped into a coma. That night he died, on the 22nd day after his election.
Palestrina's "Missa Papae Marcelli" (dating from 1565 or before), one of the glories of polyphonic sacred choral music, is traditionally believed to have been composed in his memory, ca. 1562. Having reigned for just 22 calendar days, Pope Marcellus II ranks sixth on the list of 10 shortest-reigning Popes. His successor was Giampietro Carafa, Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, who reigned as Pope Paul IV (1555–59).
Pope Miltiades
Pope Miltiades (, "Miltiádēs") or Melchiades was the bishop of Rome from 311 to his death on 10 or 11 January 314. It was during his pontificate that Emperor Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan (313), giving Christianity legal status within the Roman Empire. The pope also received the palace of Empress Fausta where the Lateran Palace, the papal seat and residence of the papal administration, would be built. At the Lateran Council, during the schism with the Church of Carthage, Miltiades condemned the rebaptism of apostatised bishops and priests, teaching of Donatus Magnus.
The year of Miltiades' birth is unknown. According to the "Liber Pontificalis", compiled from the 5th century onwards, he was of North African and a citizen of Rome where contemporary scholars believe he was born. Miltiades and his successor, Sylvester I, were part of the clergy of Pope Marcellinus. It has been suggested that he was a party to the alleged apostasy of Pope Marcellinus, which was repudiated by Augustine of Hippo. This view originated from letters, dated to between 400 and 410, written by Donatist Bishop Petilianus of Constantine, who claimed that Marcellinus, along with Miltiades and Sylvester, surrendered sacred texts and offered incense to Roman deities.
In April 311, the Edict of Toleration was issued in Serdica (modern day Sofia, Bulgaria) by the Roman emperor Galerius, officially ending the Diocletianic Persecution of Christianity.
The election of Miltiades to the papacy on 2 July 311, according to the Liberian Catalogue, marked the end of a "sede vacante", the vacancy of the papacy, following the death of Pope Eusebius on 17 August 310 or 309 according to "Liber Pontificalis" not long after his exile to Sicily by the Emperor Maxentius. After his election, Church property that was confiscated during the Diocletianic Persecution was restored by Maxentius. This order, however, probably did not extend to all of the parts of Maxentius' jurisdiction.
The "Liber Pontificalis", attributed the introduction of several later customs to Miltiades, such as not fasting on Thursdays or Sundays, although subsequent scholarship now believes the customs likely pre-dated Miltiades. Miltades prescribed the distribution of portions of the bread consecrated by the pope at all of the churches around Rome, the fermentum, as a sign of unity.
In October 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge to become emperor. He later presented the pope with the palace of Empress Fausta, where the Lateran Palace, the papal residence and seat of central Church administration, would be built.
Being the first pope under Constantine, his pontificate coincided with the peace Constantine gave to the Church. In February 313, Constantine and Licinius, emperor of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, agreed to extend tolerance of Christianity to Licinius' territory, proclaimed by the Edict of Milan. Consequently, Christians not only attained the freedom of worship, but also all places of Christian worship were restored and all confiscated property returned.
During Miltiades' tenure as pontiff, a schism over the election of Bishop Caecilianus split the Church of Carthage. The opposing parties were those of Caecilianus, who was supported by Rome, and of Donatus, mainly clergymen from North Africa who demanded that schismatics, and heretics, be re-baptised and re-ordained before taking office, the central issue dividing Donatists and Catholics. The supporters of Donatus appealed to Constantine and requested that judges from Gaul be assigned to adjudicate. Constantine agreed and commissioned Miltiades together with three Gallic bishops to resolve the dispute, the first time an emperor had interfered in church affairs. Miltiades, unwilling to jeopardise his relationship with the Emperor, but also unwilling to preside over a council with an uncertain outcome, changed the proceedings into a regular church synod and appointed an additional 15 Italian bishops.
The Lateran Council was held for three days from 2–4 October 313. The process was modeled on Roman civil proceedings, with Miltiades insisting on strict rules of evidence and argument. This frustrated the Donatists who left the council without presenting their case, which led Miltiades to rule in favour of Caecilianus by default. The council thus ended after only three sessions. The pope retained Caecilianus as bishop of Carthage and condemned Donatus' teachings of rebaptism of bishops and priests. The adverse rulings failed to stop the continuing spread of Donatism across North Africa.
The Donatists again appealed to the Emperor, who responded by convening the Council of Arles in 314 but it too ruled against the Donatists. By the time the council was convened, Miltiades had died on 10 or 11 January 314. He was succeeded by Sylvester I. He was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus at the Appian Way and venerated as a saint. Licinius, who promulgated the Edict of Milan, violated the edict in 320 by persecuting Christians, sacking them from public offices, forbidding synods and condoning executions. A civil war broke out between him and Constantine, with Constantine eventually defeating him in 324.
The feast of Miltiades in the 4th century, according to the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum", was celebrated on 10 January. In the 13th century, the feast of Saint Melchiades (as he was then called) was included, with the mistaken qualification of "martyr", in the General Roman Calendar for celebration on 10 December. In 1969, the celebration was removed from that calendar of obligatory liturgical celebrations, and moved to the day of his death, 10 January, with his name given in the form "Miltiades" but without the indication "martyr".
Phylogenetics
In biology, phylogenetics (Greek: φυλή, φῦλον – "phylé", "phylon" = tribe, clan, race + γενετικός – "genetikós" = origin, source, birth) is a part of systematics that addresses the inference of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms (e.g. species, or more inclusive taxa). These relationships are hypothesized by phylogenetic inference methods that evaluate observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences or morphology, often under a specified model of evolution of these traits. The result of such an analysis is a phylogeny (also known as a phylogenetic tree)—a diagrammatic hypothesis of relationships that reflects the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, and represent the 'end', or the present, in an evolutionary lineage. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor, or ancestral lineage, of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does not show the origin or "root" of the taxa in question or the direction of inferred evolutionary transformations. In addition to their proper use for inferring phylogenetic patterns among taxa, phylogenetic analyses are often employed to represent relationships among gene copies or individual organisms. Such uses have become central to understanding biodiversity, evolution, ecology, and genomes.
Taxonomy is the identification, naming and classification of organisms. Classifications are now usually based on phylogenetic data, and many systematists contend that only monophyletic taxa should be recognized as named groups. The degree to which classification depends on inferred evolutionary history differs depending on the school of taxonomy: phenetics ignores phylogenetic speculation altogether, trying to represent the similarity between organisms instead; cladistics (phylogenetic systematics) tries to reflect phylogeny in its classifications by only recognizing groups based on shared, derived characters (synapomorphies); evolutionary taxonomy tries to take into account both the branching pattern and "degree of difference" to find a compromise between them.
Usual methods of phylogenetic inference involve computational approaches implementing the optimality criteria and methods of parsimony, maximum likelihood (ML), and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. All these depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed.
Phenetics, popular in the mid-20th century but now largely obsolete, used distance matrix-based methods to construct trees based on overall similarity in morphology or similar observable traits (i.e. in the phenotype or the overall similarity of DNA, not the DNA sequence), which was often assumed to approximate phylogenetic relationships.
Prior to 1950, phylogenetic inferences were generally presented as narrative scenarios. Such methods are often ambiguous and lack explicit criteria for evaluating alternative hypotheses.
The term "phylogeny" derives from the German "Phylogenie", introduced by Haeckel in 1866, and the Darwinian approach to classification became known as the "phyletic" approach.
During the late 19th century, Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory, or "biogenetic fundamental law", was widely accepted. It was often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", i.e. the development of a single organism during its lifetime, from germ to adult, successively mirrors the adult stages of successive ancestors of the species to which it belongs. But this theory has long been rejected. Instead, ontogeny evolves – the phylogenetic history of a species cannot be read directly from its ontogeny, as Haeckel thought would be possible, but characters from ontogeny can be (and have been) used as data for phylogenetic analyses; the more closely related two species are, the more apomorphies their embryos share.
Phenetics
In biology, phenetics ( - to appear) , also known as taximetrics, is an attempt to classify organisms based on overall similarity, usually in morphology or other observable traits, regardless of their phylogeny or evolutionary relation. It is closely related to numerical taxonomy which is concerned with the use of numerical methods for taxonomic classification. Many people contributed to the development of phenetics, but the most influential were Peter Sneath and Robert R. Sokal. Their books are still primary references for this sub-discipline, although now out of print.
Phenetics has largely been superseded by cladistics for research into evolutionary relationships among species. However, certain phenetic methods, such as neighbor-joining, have found their way into phylogenetics, as a reasonable approximation of phylogeny when more advanced methods (such as Bayesian inference) are too computationally expensive.
Phenetic techniques include various forms of clustering and ordination. These are sophisticated ways of reducing the variation displayed by organisms to a manageable level. In practice this means measuring dozens of variables, and then presenting them as two- or three-dimensional graphs. Much of the technical challenge in phenetics revolves around balancing the loss of information in such a reduction against the ease of interpreting the resulting graphs.
The method can be traced back to 1763 and Michel Adanson (in his "Familles des plantes") because of two shared basic principles — overall similarity and equal weighting — and modern pheneticists are sometimes called neo-Adansonians.
Phenetic analyses are unrooted, that is, they do not distinguish between plesiomorphies, traits that are inherited from an ancestor, and apomorphies, traits that evolved anew in one or several lineages. A common problem with phenetic analysis is that basal evolutionary grades, which retain many plesiomorphies compared to more advanced lineages, appear to be monophyletic. Phenetic analyses are also liable to be misled by convergent evolution and adaptive radiation. Cladistic methods have attempted to solve those problems.
Consider for example songbirds. These can be divided into two groups – Corvida, which retains ancient characters in phenotype and genotype, and Passerida, which has more modern traits. But only the latter are a group of closest relatives; the former are numerous independent and ancient lineages which are about as distantly related to each other as each single one of them is to the Passerida. In a phenetic analysis, the large degree of overall similarity found among the Corvida will make them appear to be monophyletic too, but their shared traits were present in the ancestors of "all" songbirds already. It is the loss of these ancestral traits rather than their presence that signifies which songbirds are more closely related to each other than to other songbirds. However, the requirement that taxa be monophyletic – rather than paraphyletic as in the case of the Corvida – is itself part of the cladistic view of Taxonomy, not necessarily followed to an absolute degree by other schools.
The two methodologies are not mutually exclusive. There is no reason why, e.g., species identified using phenetics cannot subsequently be subjected to cladistic analysis, to determine their evolutionary relationships. Phenetic methods can also be superior to cladistics when only the "distinctness" of related taxa is important, as the computational requirements are lower.
The history of pheneticism and cladism as rival taxonomic systems is analysed in David Hull's 1988 book "Science as a Process".
Traditionally there was a great deal of heated debate between pheneticists and cladists, as both methods were initially proposed to resolve evolutionary relationships. Perhaps the "high-water mark" of phenetics were the DNA-DNA hybridization studies by Charles G. Sibley, Jon E. Ahlquist and Burt L. Monroe Jr., from which resulted the 1990 Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy for birds. Highly controversial at its time, some of its findings (e.g. the Galloanserae) have been vindicated, while others (e.g. the all-inclusive "Ciconiiformes" or the "Corvida") have been rejected. However, with computers growing increasingly powerful and widespread, more refined cladistic algorithms became available and could put the suggestions of Willi Hennig to the test. The results of cladistic analyses turned out to be superior to those of phenetic methods – at least when it came to resolving phylogenies.
Many systematists continue to use phenetic methods, particularly in addressing species-level questions. While a major goal of taxonomy remains describing the 'tree of life' – the evolutionary path connecting all species – in fieldwork one needs to be able to separate one taxon from another. Classifying diverse groups of closely related organisms that differ very subtly is difficult using a cladistic approach. Phenetics provides numerical tools for examining overall patterns of variation, allowing researchers to identify discrete groups that can be classified as species.
Modern applications of phenetics are common in botany, and some examples can be found in most issues of the journal "Systematic Botany". Indeed, due to the effects of horizontal gene transfer, polyploid complexes and other peculiarities of plant genomics, phenetic techniques in botany – though less informative altogether – may, in these special cases, be less prone to errors compared with cladistic analysis of DNA sequences.
In addition, many of the techniques developed by phenetic taxonomists have been adopted and extended by community ecologists, due to a similar need to deal with large amounts of data.
PlayStation (console)
The PlayStation (officially abbreviated as PS and commonly known as the PS1 or its codename PSX) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released on 3 December 1994 in Japan, on 9 September 1995 in North America, on 29 September 1995 in Europe, and on 15 November 1995 in Australia, and was the first of the PlayStation lineup of video game consoles. As a fifth generation console, the PlayStation primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn.
The PlayStation was the first "computer entertainment platform" to ship over 100 million units, which it had reached nine years after its initial launch. In July 2000, a redesigned, slim version called the PS one was released, replacing the original grey console and named appropriately to avoid confusion with its successor, the PlayStation 2.
The PlayStation 2, which is backwards compatible with the PlayStation's DualShock controller and games, was announced in 1999 and launched in 2000. The last PS one units were sold in late 2006 to early 2007 shortly after it was officially discontinued, for a total of 102 million units shipped since its launch eleven years earlier. Games for the PlayStation continued to sell until Sony ceased production of both the PlayStation and PlayStation games on 23 March 2006 – over eleven years after it had been released, and less than a year before the debut of the PlayStation 3.
On 19 September 2018, Sony unveiled the PlayStation Classic to mark the 24th anniversary of the original console. The new console is a miniature recreation of the original PlayStation, preloaded with 20 titles released on the original console, and was released on 3 December 2018, the exact date the console was released in Japan in 1994.
The inception of what became the released PlayStation dates back to 1986 with a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo had already produced floppy disk technology to complement cartridges, in the form of the Family Computer Disk System, and wanted to continue this complementary storage strategy for the Super Famicom. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "Play Station" or "SNES-CD". A contract was signed, and work began. Nintendo's choice of someone they had worked with before, Ken Kutaragi, who was later called "The Father of the PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.
Kutaragi was nearly fired by Sony because he was originally working with Nintendo on the side without Sony's knowledge (while still employed by Sony). It was then-CEO, Norio Ohga, who recognised the potential in Kutaragi's chip, and in working with Nintendo on the project. Ohga kept Kutaragi on at Sony, and it was not until Nintendo cancelled the project that Sony decided to develop its own console.
Sony also planned to develop a Super NES-compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super NES cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CDs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.
The product, under the name "Play Station", was to be announced at the May 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realised that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo–Sony SNES CD attachment. Instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, at 9 am the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknownst to Sony, flown to Philips' global headquarters in the Netherlands and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.
After the collapse of the joint-Nintendo project, Sony briefly considered allying itself with Sega to produce a stand-alone console. The Sega CEO at the time, Tom Kalinske, took the proposal to Sega's Board of Directors in Tokyo, who promptly vetoed the idea. Kalinske, in a 2013 interview recalled them saying "that's a stupid idea, Sony doesn't know how to make hardware. They don't know how to make software either. Why would we want to do this?". This prompted Sony into halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what it had developed so far with both Nintendo and Sega to make it into a complete console based upon the Super Famicom. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in US federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of what was originally christened the "Play Station", on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the aforementioned brand new game system was revealed. However, it is theorised that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.
By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached a deal whereby the "Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. However, Sony decided in early 1993 to begin reworking the "Play Station" concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. As part of this process the SNES cartridge port was dropped and the space between the names "Play Station" was removed becoming "PlayStation", thereby ending Nintendo's involvement with the project. According to a Sony engineer, all work on the console from the time of the partnership with Nintendo was eventually scrapped, and the PlayStation design was restarted from scratch. Sony's North American division, known as Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), originally planned to market the new console under the alternative branding "PSX" following the negative feedback regarding "PlayStation" in focus group studies. Early advertising prior to the console's launch in North America referenced PSX, but the term was scrapped before launch. The console was not marketed with Sony's name in contrast to Nintendo's consoles; according to Phil Harrison, much of Sony's upper management feared that the "Sony" brand would be tarnished by connecting it with the console which they considered to be a "toy".
According to SCE's producer Ryoji Akagawa and chairman Shigeo Maruyama, there was uncertainty over whether the console should primarily focus on 2D sprite graphics or 3D polygon graphics. It was only after witnessing the success of Sega's "Virtua Fighter" in Japanese arcades that "the direction of the PlayStation became instantly clear" and 3D polygon graphics became the console's primary focus.
Since Sony had no experience in game development and the managers knew about it, the company turned to third-party game developers. With support from Namco, Konami, and Williams, as well as 250 other development teams in Japan alone, the company secured the launch of new games such as "Ridge Racer" and "Mortal Kombat 3". In addition, Sony bought the European company Psygnosis for million, and renamed it Sony Interactive Entertainment, which began developing games for the future console, including "Wipeout" and "Destruction Derby".
The purchase of Psygnosis also brought other benefits to the company, including a dedicated game development kit for the console. With the help of Psygnosis, SN Systems was publishing software development tools called PSY-Q. Initially Sony planned to use its own game development kit based on the expensive R4000 processor; however, Andy Beveridge and Martin Day, owners of SN Systems, built a prototype of the development tool, which used an ordinary personal computer, and showed it to the representatives of Sony at the winter CES in 1994. Sony executives liked the alternative, and the company helped SN Systems with condensing the development kit on two PC extension boards.
Industry hype for the console spread quickly, and in early 1994 "GamePro" reported that "many video game companies [feel] that in the near future, the video game platforms to contend with will be from Nintendo, Sega... and "Sony"." [emphasis in original].
PlayStation went on sale in Japan on 3 December 1994, a week after the release of its rival Sega Saturn, at a price of . Sales in Japan began with a "stunning" success, with long lines in stores, and it sold 100,000 units on the first day, and then two million units after six months on the market. After a while, a gray market emerged for the consoles, which were shipped from Japan to the US and Europe, and buyers of such consoles paid large amounts of money in the range of .
Before the release in North America, Sega and Sony presented their game consoles at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo conference, held in May 1995. First, Sega announced its Saturn console, and announced that it will be released at a price of . Immediately after that, Olaf Olafsson, the head of the Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), summoned Steve Race, the head of development, to the conference stage, who said "" and left the audience with a round of applause. The attention to the Sony conference was also attracted by the appearance of Michael Jackson and the showcase of games for the console: "WipEout", "Ridge Racer" and "Tekken". In addition, Sony announced that "Ridge Racer" would not be bundled with the console as previously expected.
In North America, PlayStation went on sale on 9 September 1995 at the previously announced price of . There were over 100,000 pre-orders placed and 17 games available on the market by the time of launch. The launch was a success, and the stores reportedly were running out of consoles and accessories. In Europe, PlayStation was released on 29 September 1995, and finally in November 1995 in Oceania. During the first four months – from September to the end of 1995 – sales of the console in the U.S. amounted to 800,000 units, giving the PlayStation a commanding lead over the other fifth generation consoles, though the Super NES and Sega Genesis from the fourth generation still outsold it. At the same time, according to the president of SCEA, the attach rate of sold games and consoles was 4 to 1. The console was marketed with advertising slogans such as, ""Live in your world. Play in ours"", stylised as "LIVE IN YUR WRLD. PLY IN URS". The slogan "You Are Not Ready" was also used briefly, stylised as "U R NOT " (red E). Regarding the second one, Sony's CCO Lee Clow explained that "it's the ultimate challenge. Gamers love to respond to that tag line and say 'Bullshit. Let me show you how ready I am.'"
Critics generally welcomed the new console. The staff of "Next Generation" reviewed the PlayStation a few weeks after its North American launch, where they commented that, while the CPU is "fairly average", the supplementary custom hardware, such as the GPU and sound processor, is stunningly powerful. They praised the PlayStation's focus on 3D, and complemented on the comfort of its controller and the convenience of its memory cards. Giving the system 4 out of 5 stars, they concluded, "To succeed in this extremely cut-throat market, you need a combination of great hardware, great games, and great marketing. Whether by skill, luck, or just deep pockets, Sony has scored three out of three in the first salvo of this war." In a special Game Machine Cross Review in May 1995, "Famicom Tsūshin" scored the PlayStation console a 19 out of 40.
The PlayStation was immediately successful. Lee Hutchinson of Ars Technica, a Babbage's employee in 1995, recalled how PlayStation preorders greatly outnumbered Saturn sales at his store:
Hutchinson attributed PlayStation's success to third party developers:
While Sega and Nintendo took an isolationist approach, focusing primarily on first party development while generally ignoring the concerns of third party developers, Sony streamlined game production by providing a range of online programming libraries that were constantly updated. They also organised third party technical support teams, and in some cases gave direct development support to third parties. At the close of 1996, approximately 400 games were being developed for the PlayStation, compared to approximately 200 and 60 games being developed for the Saturn and the Nintendo 64 respectively.
While the Sega Saturn was marketed towards 18 to 34-year-olds, the PlayStation was marketed roughly, but not exclusively, towards 12 to 24-year-olds. Both Sony and Sega reasoned that because younger players typically look up to older, more experienced players, advertising targeted at teens and adults would draw them in too. Additionally, Sony found that adults react best to advertising geared towards teenagers; according to Lee Clow, "One of the first things we resolved early on was that everyone is 17 when they play video games. The young people look up to the best gamer who is usually a little older and more practiced and talented. Then there are people who start working and grow up, but when they go into their room and sit down with their video games, they're regressing and becoming 17 again." Initially, PlayStation demographics were skewed towards adults, but the audience broadened after the first price drop.
In 1996, Sony expanded their CD production facilities in Springfield, Oregon, due to the high demand for PlayStation games. This increased their monthly output from 4 million discs to 6.5 million discs. This was necessary because PlayStation sales were running at twice the rate of Saturn sales, and dramatically increased their lead when both the PlayStation and Saturn dropped in price to $199 in May; this was largely because some retailers (such as KB Toys) did not stock the Saturn. The PlayStation also outsold the Saturn at a similar ratio in Europe during 1996, with an accumulated 2.2 million consoles sold in the region by the end of the year. Sales figures for PlayStation hardware and software only increased following the launch of the Nintendo 64. Sony Computer Entertainment president Teruhisa Tokunaka speculated that the Nintendo 64 launch had actually helped PlayStation sales by raising public awareness of the gaming market through Nintendo's added marketing efforts.
However, the PlayStation took longer to achieve dominance in Japan. Tokunaka stated that, even after the PlayStation and Saturn had been on the market for nearly two years, the competition between them was still "very close", and that neither console had led in sales for any meaningful length of time.
In addition to playing games, select PlayStation models are equipped to play audio CDs; further, Asian model SCPH-5903 can also play Video CDs. Like most CD players, the PlayStation can play songs in a programmed order, shuffle the playback order of the disc and repeat one song or the entire disc. Later PlayStation models utilise a music visualisation function called SoundScope. This function, as well as a memory card manager, is accessed by starting the console without either inserting a game or closing the CD tray, thereby accessing a GUI for the PlayStation BIOS.
The GUI for the PS one and PlayStation differ depending on the firmware version: the original PlayStation GUI had a dark blue background with rainbow graffiti used as buttons, while the early PAL PlayStation and PS one GUI had a grey blocked background with 2 icons in the middle (these were different on each version). If the CD lid is closed with a game inside at any time while in the menu, the game will start.
As of 30 June 2007, 7,918 software titles had been released worldwide for the PlayStation (counting games released in multiple regions as separate titles). As of 31 March 2007, the cumulative software shipment was at 962 million units. "FIFA Football 2005" was the last game released for the system in the United States. However, several reprinted and remastered editions were released in later years. On 26 July 2007, Konami released "Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection", which contained "Metal Gear Solid" in the original PlayStation format. In 2011, Capcom released the "Resident Evil 15th Anniversary Collection", and in 2012, Square Enix released the "Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box" in Japan containing all of the "Final Fantasy" titles, a majority of which were in the original PlayStation format.
Initially, in the United States, PlayStation games were packaged in long cardboard boxes, similar to non-Japanese 3DO and Saturn games. Sony later switched to the jewel case format typically used for audio CDs and Japanese video games, as this format took up less retailer shelf space (which was at a premium due to the large number of PlayStation games being released), and focus testing showed that most consumers preferred this format.
The "OK" and "Cancel" buttons in most of the Japanese PlayStation games are reversed in their North American and European releases. In Japan, the button ("maru", right) is used as OK, while the button ("batsu", wrong) is used as Cancel. North American and European releases have the button or the buttons as OK, while either the or the button are used as Cancel (some titles, like "Xenogears," use the button for cancelling actions and selections, along with the PlayStation 2 system browser and the XrossMedia Bar on the PlayStation 3 and the PSP). However, a few games, such as Square's "Vagrant Story", "Final Fantasy VII" (which uses the button as cancel) and "Final Fantasy Tactics", Namco's "Ridge Racer Type 4", and Konami's "Metal Gear Solid", use the Japanese button layout worldwide. Other games, like the Japanese version of "Gran Turismo", use controls that are similar to North American games. These Japanese button layouts also apply to future PlayStation consoles. This is because in the early years Sony America (SCEA), Sony Europe (SCEE), and Sony Japan (SCEJ) had different development and testing documents (TRCs) for their respective territories.
In regard to the PlayStation's hardware, its designer Ken Kutaragi said, "The technology came from an original idea to create a synthesizer for graphics, something that takes a basic graphic and then adds various effects to it quickly and easily." Kutaragi saw the biggest challenge in developing the system to be balancing the conflicting goals of high performance, low cost, and being easy to program for, and felt he and his team were successful in this regard: "Sure, it would have been nice to, say, double the size of the RAM memory. This would have been very easy. But ... it would have cost more at retail level, and we probably would not have sold as many. Sure, Nintendo 64 now has a faster clock speed, but the ratio of clock speed to price typically doubles every two years, so it's no surprise that it is faster. But PlayStation was the cutting-edge technology of its time, and I am happy with it."
The PlayStation utilises a proprietary video compression unit called MDEC, which is integrated into the CPU, allowing for the presentation of full motion video at a higher quality than other consoles of its generation.
Unusual for the time, the PlayStation lacks a dedicated 2D graphics processor; 2D elements are instead calculated as polygons by the Geometry Transfer Engine (GTE) so that they can be processed and displayed on screen by the GPU.
With the early PlayStation units, particularly early 1000 models, many gamers experience skipping full-motion video or physical "ticking" noises coming from their units. The problem seemingly comes from poorly placed vents leading to overheating in some environments. This causes the plastic mouldings inside the console to warp slightly and create knock-on effects with the laser assembly. The solution is to sit the console on a surface which dissipates heat efficiently in a well vented area or raise the unit up slightly from its resting surface. Sony representatives also recommended unplugging the PlayStation when it is not in use, as the system draws in a small amount of power (and therefore heat) even when turned off.
The first batch of PlayStations use a KSM-440AAM laser unit, whose case and movable parts are all built out of plastic. Over time, the plastic lens sled rail wears out—usually unevenly—due to friction. The placement of the laser unit close to the power supply accelerates wear, due to the additional heat, which makes the plastic more vulnerable to friction. Eventually, one side of the lens sled will become so worn that the laser can tilt, no longer pointing directly at the CD; after this, games will no longer load, due to data read errors. One common fix is turning the PlayStation upside down, which makes the lens sled rest on the unworn top rails. Sony eventually fixed the problem by making the sled out of die-cast metal and placing the laser unit further away from the power supply on later PlayStation models.
The PlayStation does not produce a proper signal on several older models of televisions (due to an engineering oversight) causing the display to flicker or bounce around the screen. Sony decided not to change the console design, since only a small percentage of PlayStation owners used such televisions, and instead gave consumers the option of sending their PlayStation unit to a Sony service centre to have an official modchip installed, allowing it to play on older televisions.
Prior to the PlayStation, reproducing copyrighted material for game consoles was restricted to either enthusiasts with exceptional technical ability, or people who had access to CD manufacturers. However, due to the increased availability of cheap CD burners at this time, Sony modified the shape of the first portion of the data track on PlayStation formatted discs: A normal data track follows a smooth spiral path around a disc, whereas the modified portion follows a wavy spiral path. As a result, any discs that did not contain this modification, such as CD-R copies or standard pirated discs, would not boot on the console. This modified portion of the data path is also used to encode the disc "region"; for example, a disc distributed in the NTSC-U/C region encoded the letters "SCEA", a disc in Europe encoded "SCEE", and a disc in Japan "SCEI". This served as copy protection as well as region-locking.
The installation of an unofficial modchip allowed the PlayStation to play CD-R copies of games. It also allowed the console to play games from any region, as the modchip could inject the data for any region into the system. Since there was a multitude of electronic parts on the market, by the end of the system's life cycle, anyone with minimal soldering experience could perform these modifications. This created a wave of games developed without official approval using free, official tools, such as the Net Yaroze, as well as unofficial tools, and the reproduction of original discs. With the introduction of such devices the console became very attractive to programmers and illegal copiers alike, as well as those who wished to protect the lifespan of their lawful, original discs. In 1996 Sony filed lawsuits against many companies which advertised such modchips and pirated games, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Some companies (notably Datel) eventually produced discs that booted on unmodified retail units while using special equipment.
Instead of a D-pad, which is used for directional movement in nearly every other console then on the market, the PlayStation controller uses four directional buttons.
Peripherals released for the PlayStation include memory cards, the PlayStation Mouse, the PlayStation Analog Joystick, the PlayStation Link Cable, the Multiplayer Adapter (a four-player multitap), the Memory Drive (a disk drive for 3.5-inch floppy disks), the GunCon (a light gun), and the Glasstron (a monoscopic head-mounted display).
The PlayStation went through a number of variants during its production run. From an external perspective, the most notable change between variants was the reduction in the number of connectors. The RCA jacks were removed in the first revision, and the Parallel I/O port was removed in the final revision.
Sony marketed a development kit for hobbyists and developers also known as the Net Yaroze, which launched in June 1996 in Japan and in 1997 in other countries. Sold only through an ordering service, the development console came with the necessary documentation and software to program PlayStation games and applications.
On 7 July 2000, Sony released the PS One (stylized as PS one), a smaller, redesigned version of the original PlayStation. It was the highest-selling console through the end of the year, outselling all other consoles – including Sony's own PlayStation 2. A total of 28.15 million PS one units had been sold by the time it was discontinued in March 2006.
A version of the PS one included a LCD screen, referred to as the "Combo pack".
On 19 September 2018, Sony announced the PlayStation Classic. It was released on 3 December 2018. It featured 20 pre-installed video games such as "Tekken 3", "Final Fantasy VII", "Jumping Flash", "Wild Arms" and "Ridge Racer Type 4". It also features two replicas of the wired PlayStation controllers without analog sticks. It also features an HDMI output. The maximum resolution is 720p. It is 45% smaller than the original console.
In a 1997 year-end review, a team of five "Electronic Gaming Monthly" editors gave the PlayStation scores of 9.5, 8.5, 9.0, 9.0, and 9.5 - for all five editors, the highest score they gave to any of the five consoles reviewed in the issue. They lauded the breadth and quality of the games library, saying it had vastly improved over previous years due to Sony dropping its ban on 2D games and RPGs and developers mastering the system's capabilities. They also complimented the low price point of the games, especially as compared to Nintendo 64 releases, and noted that it was the only console on the market that could be relied upon to deliver a solid stream of games for the coming year, primarily due to third party developers almost unanimously favoring it over its competitors.
Sony Computer Entertainment was an upstart in the video game industry in late 1994, as the early 1990s were dominated by Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo had been the clear leader in the video game industry since the introduction of the NES in 1985 and the Nintendo 64 was initially expected to maintain this position for Nintendo. The PlayStation's target audience included 15- to 17-year-olds who were not the primary focus of Nintendo, and 18- to 29-year-olds, who represented the first generation to grow up playing video games. By the late 1990s, Sony became a highly regarded console brand due to the PlayStation, with a significant lead over second-place Nintendo, while Sega was relegated to a distant third.
The PlayStation's lead in installed base and developer support paved the way for the success of the next-generation PlayStation 2, which overcame an early launch from the Sega Dreamcast and then fended off competition from the Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube.
The success of the PlayStation is widely believed to have influenced the demise of the cartridge-based home console. While not the first system to utilise an optical disc format, it is the first highly successful one, and ended up going head-to-head with the last major home console for over two decades to rely on proprietary cartridges—the Nintendo 64. Sony Computer Entertainment president Teruhisa Tokunaka remarked in 1996:
Nintendo was very public about its scepticism toward using CDs and DVDs to store games, citing longer load times and durability problems. It was widely speculated that the company was even more concerned with the proprietary cartridge format's ability to help enforce copy protection, given its substantial reliance on licensing and exclusive titles for its revenue. Piracy was rampant on the PlayStation due to the relative ease of the installation of a modchip allowing the PlayStation to play games region free or recorded on a regular CD-R making the console very attractive to programmers and illegal copiers.
The increasing complexity of games (in content, graphics, and sound) pushed cartridges to their storage limits and this gradually turned off some third-party developers. Part of the CD format's appeal to publishers was that they could be produced at a significantly lower cost and offered more production flexibility to meet demand. As a result, some third-party developers switched to the PlayStation, such as Squaresoft, whose "Final Fantasy VII", and Enix (later merged with Squaresoft create Square Enix), whose "Dragon Quest VII" titles were initially pre-planned for the N64; while some who remained released fewer games to the Nintendo 64 (Konami, releasing only thirteen N64 games but over fifty on the PlayStation). While new games were coming out rapidly for the PlayStation, new Nintendo 64 game releases were less frequent and that system's biggest successes were developed by either Nintendo itself or by second-parties, such as Rare. The lower production costs also allowed publishers an additional source of profit: budget-priced reissues of titles which had already recouped their development costs.
A successor, the PlayStation 2, was released in Japan in March 2000, North America in October 2000 and Europe in November 2000.
PDP-1
The PDP-1 ("Programmed Data Processor-1") is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at MIT, BBN and elsewhere. The PDP-1 is the original hardware for playing history's first game on a minicomputer, Steve Russell's "Spacewar!"
The PDP-1 uses an 18-bit word size and has 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, though the system actually uses six-bit bytes), upgradable to 65,536 words. The magnetic core memory's cycle time is 5.35 microseconds (corresponding roughly to a "clock speed" of 187 kilohertz); consequently most arithmetic instructions take 10.7 microseconds (93,458 operations per second) because they use two memory cycles: the first to fetch the instruction, the second to fetch or store the data word. Signed numbers are represented in ones' complement. The PDP-1 has computing power roughly equivalent to a 1996 pocket organizer and a little less memory.
The PDP-1 uses 2,700 transistors and 3,000 diodes.
It is built mostly of DEC 1000-series System Building Blocks, using micro-alloy and micro-alloy diffused transistors with a rated switching speed of 5 MHz. The System Building Blocks are packaged into several 19-inch racks. The racks are themselves packaged into a single large mainframe case, with a hexagonal control panel containing switches and lights mounted to lie at table-top height at one end of the mainframe. Above the control panel is the system's standard input/output solution, a punched tape reader and writer.
The PDP-1 weighed about .
The design of the PDP-1 is based on the pioneering TX-0 and TX-2 computers, designed and built at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Benjamin Gurley was the lead engineer on the project. After showing a prototype at the Eastern Joint Computer Conference in December 1959, DEC delivered the first PDP-1 to Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) in November 1960, and it was formally accepted in early 1961. In September 1961, DEC donated the PDP-1 to MIT, where it was placed in the room next to its ancestor, the TX-0 computer, which was by then on indefinite loan from Lincoln Laboratory.
In this setting, the PDP-1 quickly replaced the TX-0 as the favorite machine among the budding hacker culture, and served as the platform for a long list of computing innovations. This list includes one of the earliest digital video games, "Spacewar!", the first text editor, the first word processor, the first interactive debugger, the first credible computer chess program, one of the very earliest time-sharing systems (BBN Time-Sharing System), and some of the earliest computerized music. At the Computer History Museum TX-0 alumni reunion in 1984, Gordon Bell said DEC's products developed directly from the TX-2, the successor to the TX-0 which had been developed at what Bell thought was a bargain price at the time, about . At the same meeting, Jack Dennis said Ben Gurley's design for the PDP-1 was influenced by his work on the TX-0 display.
The PDP-1 sold in basic form for . BBN's system was quickly followed by orders from Lawrence Livermore and Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL), and eventually 53 PDP-1s were delivered until production ended in 1969. All of these machines were still being actively used in 1970, and several were eventually saved. MIT's example was donated to The Computer Museum, Boston, and from there ended up at the Computer History Museum (CHM). A late version of "Spacewar!" on paper tape was still tucked into the case. PDP-1 #44 was found in a barn in Wichita, Kansas in 1988, apparently formerly owned by one of the many aviation companies in the area, and rescued for the Digital Historical Collection, also eventually ending up at the CHM. AECL's computer was sent to Science North, but was later scrapped.
The launch of the PDP-1 marked a radical shift in the philosophy of computer design: it is the first commercial computer that focuses on interaction with the user rather than just the efficient use of computer cycles.
The first ever reference to malicious hacking is 'telephone hackers' in MIT's student newspaper, "The Tech" of hackers trying up the lines with Harvard, configuring the PDP-1 to make free calls, war dialing and accumulating large phone bills.
The PDP-1 uses punched paper tape as its primary storage medium. Unlike punched card decks, which could be sorted and re-ordered, paper tape is difficult to physically edit. This inspired the creation of text-editing programs such as Expensive Typewriter and TECO. Because it is equipped with online and offline printers that were based on IBM electric typewriter mechanisms, it is capable of what, in 1980s terminology, would be called "letter-quality printing" and therefore inspired TJ-2, arguably the first word processor.
The console typewriter is the product of a company named Soroban Engineering. It uses an IBM Model B Electric typewriter mechanism, modified by the addition of switches to detect keypresses, and solenoids to activate the typebars. It uses a traditional typebar mechanism, not the "golfball" IBM Selectric typewriter mechanism, which was not introduced until the next year. Lettercase is selected by raising and lowering the massive type basket. The Soroban is equipped with a two-color inked ribbon (red and black), and the interface allows color selection. Programs commonly use color-coding to distinguish user input from machine responses. The Soroban mechanism is unreliable and prone to jamming, particularly when shifting case or changing ribbon color.
Offline devices are typically Friden Flexowriters that have been specially built to operate with the FIO-DEC character coding used by the PDP-1. Like the console typewriter, these are built around a typing mechanism that is mechanically the same as an IBM Electric typewriter. However, Flexowriters are highly reliable and were often used for long unattended printing sessions. Flexowriters have electromechanical paper tape punches and readers which operate synchronously with the typewriter mechanism. Typing rates are about ten characters per second. A typical PDP-1 operating procedure is to output text to punched paper tape using the PDP-1's "high speed" (60-character-per-second) Teletype model BRPE punch, then to hand carry the tape to a Flexowriter for offline printing.
In later years, DECtape drives were added to some PDP-1 systems, as a more convenient method of backing up programs and data, and to enable early time-sharing. This latter application usually requires a secondary storage medium for swapping programs and data in and out of core memory, without requiring manual intervention. For this purpose, DECtapes are far superior to paper tapes, in terms of reliability, durability, and speed. Early hard disks were expensive and notoriously unreliable; if available and working, they are used primarily for speed of swapping, and not for permanent file storage.
The Type 30 Precision CRT display is a point plotting display device capable of addressing 1024 by 1024 addressable locations at a rate of 20,000 points per second. A special "Display One Point On CRT" instruction is used to build up images, which have to be refreshed many times per second. The CRT, which was originally developed for use in radar, is in diameter and uses a long-persistence P7 phosphor. A light pen can be used with the Type 30 to pick points on the display. An optional character generator and hardware for line and curve generation are available.
MIT hackers also used the PDP-1 for playing music in four-part harmony, using some special hardware – four flip-flops directly controlled by the processor (the audio signal is filtered with simple RC filters). Music was prepared via Peter Samson's "Harmony Compiler", a sophisticated text-based program with some features specifically oriented toward the efficient coding of baroque music. Several hours of music were prepared for it, including Bach fugues, all of Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", the "Ode to Joy" movement concluding Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9", Christmas carols, and numerous popular songs.
Only three PDP-1 computers are still known to exist, and all three are in the collection of the Computer History Museum (CHM). One is the prototype formerly used at MIT, and the other two are production PDP-1C machines. One of the latter, serial number 55 (the last PDP-1 made) has been restored to working order, is on exhibit, and is demonstrated on two Saturdays every month. The restoration is described on a special web page of the Computer History Museum. The demonstrations include:
Software simulations of the PDP-1 exist in SIMH and MESS, and binary image paper tapes of the software exist in the bitsavers.org archives.
PCR (disambiguation)
PCR, or polymerase chain reaction is a biochemical technology in molecular biology.
PCR may also refer to:
Pico
Pico may refer to:
Pilus
A pilus (Latin for 'hair'; plural: "pili") is a hair-like appendage found on the surface of many bacteria and archaea. The terms "pilus" and "fimbria" (Latin for 'fringe'; plural: "fimbriae") can be used interchangeably, although some researchers reserve the term "pilus" for the appendage required for bacterial conjugation. All pili in the latter sense are primarily composed of pilin proteins, which are oligomeric.
Dozens of these structures can exist on the bacterial and archaeal surface. Some bacteria, viruses or bacteriophages attach to receptors on pili at the start of their reproductive cycle.
Pili are antigenic. They are also fragile and constantly replaced, sometimes with pili of different composition, resulting in altered antigenicity. Specific host responses to old pili structure are not effective on the new structure. Recombination genes of pili code for variable (V) and constant (C) regions of the pili (similar to immunoglobulin diversity). As the primary antigenic determinants, virulence factors and impunity factors on the cell surface of a number of species of Gram negative and some Gram positive bacteria, including "Enterboacteriaceae", "Pseudomonadaceae", and "Neisseriaceae", there has been much interest in the study of pili as organelle of adhesion and as vaccine components. The first detailed study of pili was done by Brinton and co-workers who demonstrated the existence of two distinct phases within one bacterial strain: piloted (p+) and non-pileated)
Conjugative pili allow for the transfer of DNA between bacteria, in the process of bacterial conjugation. They are sometimes called "sex pili", in analogy to sexual reproduction, because they allow for the exchange of genes via the formation of "mating pairs". Perhaps the most well-studied is the pilus of "Escherichia coli", encoded by the fertility F sex factor.
A pili is typically 6 to 7 nm in diameter. During conjugation, a pilus emerging from the donor bacterium ensnares the recipient bacterium, draws it in close, and eventually triggers the formation of a mating bridge, which establishes direct contact and the formation of a controlled pore that allows transfer of DNA from the donor to the recipient. Typically, the DNA transferred consists of the genes required to make and transfer pili (often encoded on a plasmid), and so is a kind of selfish DNA; however, other pieces of DNA are often co-transferred and this can result in dissemination of genetic traits throughout a bacterial population, such as antibiotic resistance. Not all bacteria can make conjugative pili, but conjugation can occur between bacteria of different species.
Some pili, called type IV pili (T4P), generate motile forces. The external ends of the pili adhere to a solid substrate, either the surface to which the bacterium is attached or to other bacteria. Then, when the pili contract, they pull the bacterium forward like a grappling hook. Movement produced by type IV pili is typically jerky, so it is called twitching motility, as opposed to other forms of bacterial motility such as that produced by flagella. However, some bacteria, for example "Myxococcus xanthus", exhibit gliding motility. Bacterial type IV pili are similar in structure to the component flagellins of archaella (archaeal flagella). Besides archaella, many archaea produce adhesive type 4 pili, which enable archaeal cells to adhere to different substrates. The N-terminal alpha-helical portions of the archaeal type 4 pilins and archaellins are homologous to the corresponding regions of bacterial T4P; however, the C-terminal beta-strand-rich domains appear to be unrelated in bacterial and archaeal pilins.
Genetic transformation is the process by which a recipient bacterial cell takes up DNA from a neighboring cell and integrates this DNA into its genome by homologous recombination. In "Neisseria meningitidis" (also called meningococcus), DNA transformation requires the presence of short DNA uptake sequences (DUSs) which are 9-10 monomers residing in coding regions of the donor DNA. Specific recognition of DUSs is mediated by a type IV pilin. Menningococcal type IV pili bind DNA through the minor pilin ComP via an electropositive stripe that is predicted to be exposed on the filament's surface. ComP displays an exquisite binding preference for selective DUSs. The distribution of DUSs within the "N. meningitides" genome favors certain genes, suggesting that there is a bias for genes involved in genomic maintenance and repair.
To initiate formation of a biofilm, fimbriae must attach bacteria to host surfaces for colonization during infection. A fimbria is a short pilus that is used to attach the bacterium to a surface. They are sometimes called "attachment pili". Fimbriae are either located at the poles of a cell or are evenly spread over its entire surface. Mutant bacteria that lack fimbriae cannot adhere to their usual target surfaces, and thus cannot cause diseases.
Some fimbriae can contain lectins. The lectins are necessary to adhere to target cells because they can recognize oligosaccharide units on the surface of these target cells. Other fimbriae bind to components of the extracellular matrix. Fimbriae found in Gram-negative have the pilin subunits covalently linked.
Some aerobic bacteria form a thin layer at the surface of a broth culture. This layer, called a pellicle, consists of many aerobic bacteria that adhere to the surface by their fimbriae or "attachment pili". Thus, fimbriae allow the aerobic bacteria to remain on the broth, from which they take nutrients, while they congregate near the air.
Pili are responsible for virulence in the pathogenic strains of many bacteria, including "E. coli", "Vibrio cholerae", and many strains of "Streptococcus". This is because the presence of pili greatly enhances bacteria's ability to bind to body tissues, which then increases replication rates and ability to interact with the host organism. If a species of bacteria has multiple strains but only some are pathogenic, it is likely that the pathogenic strains will have pili while the nonpathogenic strains won't.
The development of attachment pili may then result in the development of further virulence traits. Nonpathogenic strains of "V. cholerae" first evolved pili, allowing them to bind to human tissues and form microcolonies. These pili then served as binding sites for the lysogenic bacteriophage that carries the disease-causing toxin. The gene for this toxin, once incorporated into the bacterium's genome, is expressed when the gene coding for the pilus is expressed (hence the name "toxin mediated pilus").
Porsche 928
The Porsche 928 is a luxury grand tourer produced by Porsche AG of Germany from 1978 to 1995. Originally intended to replace the company's iconic 911, the 928 combined the power, poise, and handling of a sports car with the refinement, comfort, and equipment of a luxury sedan. Porsche executives believed such a flagship would have wider appeal than the compact, quirky and sometimes difficult to drive 911.
The 928 has the distinction of being the company's first production V8 powered model and its only coupé powered by a front-mounted V8 engine.
By the late 1960s Porsche had firmly established itself as a manufacturer of high-performance sports cars. Executives, including owner Ferdinand Porsche, were beginning to consider adding a luxury touring car to the line-up due to the need of a car using less fuel and being more usable in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis. Managing director Ernst Fuhrmann was pressuring Ferdinand to approve development of the new model due to concerns that the then-current flagship model, the 911, was reaching the limits of its potential. Fuhrmann believed that the future of the company relied upon grand touring cars with conventional engines rather than unconventional sports cars. Slumping sales of the 911 in the mid-1970s seemed to confirm that the model was approaching the end of its economic life cycle. Fuhrmann envisioned the new range-topping grand tourer model as being the best possible combination of a sports coupé and a luxury sedan. This would set it apart from the 911, with its relatively spartan interior and true sports car performance. The targets were that the car had to compete on par with offerings from Mercedes-Benz and BMW while also being successful in the United States, Porsche's main market at the time.
Ordered by Ferdinand Porsche to design a production-feasible concept for the new model, Fuhrmann initiated a design study in 1971, eventually yielding the 928 which was the first clean sheet design by the company for its own model; the 356 had evolved from the Volkswagen Beetle, the 911 was an evolution of the 356 and the 924 was the result of an abandoned project by Volkswagen and Audi.
Several drivetrain layouts were considered during early development, including rear and mid-engine designs, but most were dismissed because of technical and legislative difficulties. Having the engine, transmission, catalytic converter(s) and exhaust all cramped into a small rear engine bay made emission and noise control difficult which were the problems Porsche had with the 911. After deciding that the mid-engine layout did not allow enough room in the passenger compartment, a front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout was chosen. Porsche may have feared that the U.S. government would soon ban the sale of rear-engine cars in response to concern over safety problems with the rear-engine Chevrolet Corvair.
Porsche engineers wanted a large-displacement engine to power the 928, and prototype units were built with a 5-litre V8 engine rated at nearly . Ferdinand Piëch wanted this car to use a 4.6-litre 90 degree V10 engine with 88 mm bore spacing, a derivative of the Audi 5 cylinder engine, which in turn is based upon the Volkswagen EA827 unit. The Porsche board objected as this move would give rise to a rumour of a new 911 with a front-mounted six cylinder engine, but also it is theorized that the board wanted to maintain some distance from the Volkswagen group.
The resulting all-alloy M28 engine has multiple unusual features. Its bore spacing is 122 mm, and uses thick aluminium cylinder barrels, hence the lower displacement. The engine was designed for air flow first, thus the spark plugs are located at the top of the head. The four-bolt bearings are sizeable and are fed oil via grooves in the bottom surface of the block. The oil and water pumps are driven by the timing belt, and the design of the engine allows for sufficient air flow with a low bonnet.
The first two running prototypes of Porsche's M28 V8 used one four-barrel carburetor for initial testing. The cars were sold with the planned Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system. When increasing concern within the company over price and availability of fuel during the oil crisis of the 1970s became an issue of contention, smaller engines were considered in the interest of fuel economy. A push began for the development of a 3.3 L powerplant envisioned by Fuhrmann, but company engineers balked at this suggestion. Both sides finally settled on a 4.5 L, SOHC per bank 16-valve V8 rated at ( in North America), which they considered to have an acceptable compromise of performance and fuel economy.
The finished car debuted at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show before going on sale later that year as a 1978 model. Although it won early acclaim for its comfort, power and futuristic design, sales were slow. Base prices were much higher than that of the previous range-topping 911 model and the 928's front-engined, water-cooled design alienated many Porsche purists.
Fuhrmann's replacement, Peter Schutz, decided that the models should be sold side by side, feeling that the 911 still had potential in the company's line-up. Legislation against rear-engined vehicles did not materialize. Although it never sold in the numbers Fuhrmann envisioned, the 928 developed an avid following and had an 18-year production run.
The 928 featured a large, front-mounted and water-cooled V8 engine driving the rear wheels. Originally displacing 4.5 L and featuring a single overhead camshaft design, it was rated at for the North American market and in other markets. Porsche upgraded the engine from mechanical to electronic fuel injection in 1980 for US models, although power remained the same. This design marked a major change in direction for Porsche (started with the introduction of the 924 in 1976), whose cars had until then used only rear- or mid-mounted air-cooled flat engines with four or six cylinders.
Porsche utilised a transaxle in the 928 to help achieve 50/50 front/rear weight distribution, aiding the car's balance. Although it weighed more than the difficult-to-handle 911, its more neutral weight balance and higher power output gave it similar performance on the track. The 928 was regarded as the more relaxing car to drive at the time. It came with either a five-speed dog leg manual transmission, or a Mercedes-Benz-derived automatic transmission, originally with three speeds, with four-speed from 1983 in North America and 1984 in other markets. More than 80% of the cars had the automatic transmission. Exact percentage of manual gearbox cars for entire production run is not known but it is believed to be between 15 and 20%.
The body, styled by Wolfgang Möbius under guidance of Anatole Lapine, was mainly galvanized steel, but the doors, front wing, front fenders, and hood were made of aluminium in order to make the car more lightweight. It had a substantial luggage area accessed via a large hatchback. The new polyurethane elastic bumpers were integrated into the nose and tail and covered in body-coloured plastic; an unusual feature for the time that aided the car visually and reduced its drag. Another unusual feature were the pop-up headlamps which were based on the units found on the Lamborghini Miura and were integrated into the front wings.
The 928 qualified as a 2+2, having two small seats in the rear. Both rear seats could be folded down to enlarge the luggage area, and both the front and rear seats had sun visors for occupants. The rear seats are small (due to the prominent transmission hump) and have very little leg room; they are only suitable for adults on very short trips or children. The 928 was also the first vehicle in which the instrument cluster moved along with the adjustable steering wheel in order to maintain maximum instrument visibility.
The 928 included several other features such as the "Weissach Axle", a simple rear-wheel steering system that provides passive rear-wheel steering to increase stability while braking during a turn, and an unsleeved, silicon alloy engine block made of aluminium, which reduced weight and provided a highly durable cylinder bore.
Porsche's design and development efforts paid off during the 1978 European Car of the Year, where the 928 won ahead of the BMW 7 Series, and the Ford Granada. The 928 is the only sports car so far to have won this competition, where the usual winners are mainstream hatchbacks and sedans/saloons from major European manufacturers. This is regarded as proof of how advanced the 928 was, compared to its contemporaries.
Styling was the same in both 1978 and 1979, with the body lacking both front and rear spoilers. From 1980 (1983 in North America) through 1986, front and rear spoilers were present on "S" models, rear spoilers being integrated into the hatch. From 1987 through 1995, the front spoiler was integrated into the nose and the rear spoiler became a separated wing rather than an integrated piece, and side skirts were added. The rear tail-light configuration was also different from previous models. GTS models had wider rear fenders added to give more room for 9-inch wide wheels. Another easily noticeable visual difference between versions is the style of the wheels. Early 928s had 15-inch or 16-inch "phone dial"-style wheels, while most 1980s 928s had 16-inch slotted "flat disc" wheels, CSs, SEs and 1989 GTs had 16-inch "Club Sport" wheels, later GTs had 16-inch "Design 90" style wheels which were also option on same period S4s (shared with the 944 as well), the GTS used two variations of the 17-inch "CUP" wheels.
Porsche introduced a refreshed 928 S into the European market in 1980 model year, although it was summer of 1982 and MY 1983 before the model reached North America. Externally, the S wore new front and rear spoilers and sported wider wheels and tires than the older variant, but the main change for the 928 S was under the hood, where a revised 4.7 L engine was used. European versions debuted with , and were upgraded to for the 1984 model year. From 1984 to 1986, the S model was called S2 in United Kingdom. These cars used Bosch LH-Jetronic fuel injection system and purely electronic Bosch ignition, the same systems used on the later 32-valve cars, though without the pollution controls. North American-spec 1983 and 1984 S models used among other differences, smaller valves, milder camshafts, smaller diameter intake manifolds, and additional pollution equipment in order to meet emissions regulations, and were limited to as a result. Due to low grade fuel, the 16-valve low compression S engine was made for Australian market in the 1985 model year. It had a 9.3:1 compression ratio pistons as opposed to the normal 10.4:1 but used the same large intake, high lift cams, large valves etc. of other S engines.
As the faster European model was not available in the United States and Canada during the first three years of its existence, a "Competition Group" option was created to allow North American customers to have an S model lookalike with front and rear spoilers, 16-inch flat disc wheels, sport seats, sport springs and Bilstein Shock Absorbers. Customers could specify paint and interior colours the same way as on a normal 928. Two cars were made in the late 1980 model year for U.S. with this option. The package was officially available in 1981 and 1982 model years and was canceled in 1983 when the S model became available for these markets. Many cars have had S model features added by subsequent owners, making original "Competition Group" cars difficult to distinguish without checking option codes.
In the 1982 model year, two special models were available for different markets. 202 "Weissach Edition" cars were sold in North America. Unusual features were champagne gold metallic paint, matching brushed gold flat disc wheels, two-tone leather interior, a plaque containing the production number on the dash and the extremely collectible three-piece Porsche luggage set. It's believed these cars were not made with S spoilers even though these were available in U.S. during this time period as part of the "Competition Group" option. The "Weissach Edition" option was also available for the US market 911 for the 1980 model year and 924 for the 1981 model year.
141 special "50th Jubilee" 928 S models were available outside the U.S. and Canada to celebrate the company's 50-year existence as a car manufacturer. This model is also sometimes referred to as the "Ferry Porsche Edition" because his signature was embroidered into the front seats. It featured meteor metallic paint and was fitted with flat disc wheels, wine red leather and special striped fabric seat centers. Similar 911 and 924 specials were also made for world markets.
Porsche updated the North American 928 S for 1985, replacing the 4.7 L SOHC engine with a new 5.0 L DOHC unit sporting four valves per cylinder and producing . Seats were also updated to a new style, these cars are sometimes unofficially called S3 to distinguish them from 16-valve "S" models. European models kept a 4.7 L engine, which was somewhat more powerful as standard, though lower 9.3:1 compression 32-valve engine together with catalytic converters became an option in some European countries and Australia for 1986. In 1986, revised suspension settings, larger brakes with 4-piston callipers and modified exhaust system was available on the 928S, marking the final changes to old body style cars. These were straight from the 928S4, which was slated to debut a few months later. These changes came starting from VIN 1001, which means that the first thousand 1986 cars had the old brakes, but later cars had this equipment available. This later 1986 model is sometimes referred to as a 1986 or 1986.5 because of these changes. The name is a little misleading as more than 3/4 of the 1986 production had these updates.
The 928 S4 variant debuted in the second half of 1986 as a 1987 model, an updated version of the 5.0 L V8 for all markets producing , sporting a new single-disc clutch in manual transmission cars, larger torque converter in cars equipped with automatic transmission cars and fairly significant styling updates which gave the car a cleaner, sleeker look. S4 was much closer to being a truly world car than previous models as only major differences for North American models were instrumentation in either kilometers or miles, lighting, front and rear bumper shocks and the availability of catalytic converters in many other markets. The Australian market version was the only one with different horsepower rating at due to preparation for possible low grade fuel. Even this was achieved without engine changes.
A Club Sport variant which was up to lighter became available to continental Europe and U.S. in 1988. This model was the toned down version of the 1987 factory prototype which had a lightened body. Also in 1987, the factory made five white lightweight S4 models with a manual transmission for racecar drivers who were on their payroll at the time (Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Hans Stuck, Bob Wollek and Jacky Ickx). These were close to same as later actual Club Sport models and can also be considered prototypes for it. An SE (sometimes called the S4 Sport due to model designation on rear bumper), a sort of halfway point between a normally equipped S4 and the more race-oriented Club Sport, became available for the UK market. It's generally believed that these cars have more power than the usual S4. They utilize parts which later became known as GT pistons, cams and engine ECU programs. Some of them had stronger, short ratio manual transmission. The automatic transmission was not available for this model.
For the 1989 model year, a visible change inside was digital trip computer in the dashboard. At the same time Australian models received the same engine management setup as other markets. Porsche debuted the 928 GT in the late winter 1988/89 after dropping the slow-selling CS and SE. In terms of equipment, the GT was like the 928 SE, having more equipment than a Club Sport model but less than a 928 S4 to keep the weight down somewhat. It had the ZF 40% limited-slip differential as standard like the Club Sport and SE before it. Also, like the CS and SE, the GT was only available with a manual gearbox. European 1989 CS and GT wheels had an RDK tire pressure monitoring system as standard, which was also optional for the same year S4. For 1990 model year Porsche made RDK and a 0-100% variable ratio limited-slip called PSD (Porsche Sperr Differential) standard in both GT and S4 models for all markets. This system is much like the one from the flagship 959 and gives the vehicle even more grip on the track. In 1990, the S4 was no longer available with a manual transmission.
The S4 and GT variants halted production at the end of the 1991 model year, making way for the final version of the 928. The 928 GTS was available for sale in late 1991 as a 1992 model in Europe and in spring of 1992 as an early 1993 model in North America. Changed bodywork, larger front brakes and a new, more powerful 5.4 L, 350 PS (257 kW/345 hp) engine were the big advertised changes; what Porsche wasn't advertising was the price. Loaded GTS models could eclipse US$100,000 in 1995, making them among the most expensive cars on the road at the time. This severely hampered sales despite the model's high competency and long standard equipment list. Porsche discontinued the GTS model that year after shipping only 77 of them to the United States. Total worldwide production for all years was a little over 61,000 cars.
Second-hand models' value decreased as a result of high maintenance costs due to spare parts that are expensive to manufacture. Many parts suppliers and enthusiast networks exist, especially in the United States, Germany and the UK.
Road & Track magazine published a speculative piece in their April 2006 issue regarding the possibility of a new, 928-esque coupé that may debut on a shortened version of the Panamera's platform sometime around 2011 or 2012 model year but this speculation remained uncredible as Porsche denied the possibility of any such model reaching production stage.
The evolution of the 928 during its 18 years of production was quite subtle. The tables below show the major differences, which were made to the nose, tail, interior, engine, and wheels.
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
All production numbers are approximate figures collected from several sources. Porsche hasn't published actual numbers.
1) Count contains 2 1980, 458 1981 and 1,084 1982 US "Competition Group" models made.
2) Count contains 202 US "Weissach edition" models made in 1982 model year. 205 is official number which don't seem to be correct. Cars with higher production number than 202 or 205 exist. 217 is known existing plaque number but there were only 202 cars made with M462 option code.
3) Count contains 141 European "50th Jubilee" models made in 1982 model year.
4) Count contains 44 M151 low compression 16V 4.7L S engine models made in 1985 model year for Australian market.
5) Count contains 2,219 so-called S3 US models made in 1985 model year and 877 1986 models made in early part of 1986 model year up to November 1985.
6) Count contains 517 1986 European 32-valve S models. Most were Australian and Japanese models. 266 were optional M298/M299 catalytic converter models sold in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
7) Count contains 2,071 so-called S3.5 US models made in later part of 1986 model year starting from November 1985.
8) Count contains 6 Club Sport prototypes made in the 1987 model year.
9) Count contains 10 European models and 2 US models made in 1988 model year and 7 European models made in early part of 1989 model year. Last Club Sport cars were made in early winter 1988/89.
10) Count contains 358 European and 115 US/CDN model made in 1989 model year, 808 European and 142 US made in 1990, 516 European and 145 US made in 1991 resulting 1682 European and 396 US model made over two and half year time period. GT production started in around February 1989.
11) Count contains 955 1992, 621 1993, 523 1994 and 399 1995 European models resulting 2,498 cars made. Count contains 88 early VIN 1993, 102 late VIN 1993, 19 + 120 1994 and 77 1995 US models resulting 406 cars made.
The Porsche 942 was a special edition 928 presented by the company as a gift to Ferry Porsche on his 75th birthday in 1984. It's also known as the 928-4. It featured a longer wheelbase than the normal 928 production model, including an extended roof above the rear seats to better accommodate tall passengers, and what were at the time very advanced projector headlights. The weight increased marginally, by . It also received the new front and rear bumpers two years before they entered production on the S4 and the 5.0-litre 32-valve engine before it was introduced in the US market. This early model of the engine was slightly less powerful, producing and of torque at 2700 rpm.
Three years later, in 1987, the lengthened 928 that had been presented to the company's founder on his 75th birthday turned up as a "Feasibility Study", now with a second (rather narrow) set of doors, apparently opening in the same way as the suicide doors seen on the later Mazda RX-8. At the time "Study H50" appeared to sink with little trace, but two decades later, with the launch of the larger four-door Porsche Panamera saloon, the 928 based four-door saloon prototype from 1987 acquired greater significance.
In 1986 Porsche together with tuning company AMG made a few long wheelbase 928 specials. Unlike the 942, these had normal 928 headlights. One was presented to American Sunroof Corporation (ASC) founder and CEO Heinz Prechter. ASC was later partly responsible for manufacturing Porsche 944 S2 cabriolets.
Porsche's Racing Department never officially entered or prepared a racing 928 for a pure works entry. Only once Porsche decided to make it obvious to the 911 enthusiasts that they usually tended to underrate the racing genes of the 928. Porsche then "arranged" this 928GTR to compete against the then dominant 911 (993GTR) on the race track. In order not to offend sensibilities of their traditional 911 customers by openly challenging them with a Works 928GTR offering, Porsche asked Max Moritz Racing, their longtime private racing partner from next door Reutlingen to enter a 928GTR Cup as a 'semi-works' car.
The drivers were: Bernd Mayländer, Manuel Reuter (Porsche works pilots), also Harm Lagaay (then Head of Porsche's Design Studio). Vittorio Strosek sponsored MM with his Lightweight-Body-Parts and racing exhaust. The car was officially entered by Porsche-Club-Schwaben. Homologation minimum weight had to be, and actually is .
Lagaay reports that the car was very competitive and able to hold most 964 Cup GTs down, although the engine was no more than fine-tuned after having been chosen from a set of high power output specimen in Weissach. In the last race of the season at Hockenheim a crank-bearing ran dry. As the car was supposed to race in 1995 as well, it was made ready to continue its successful competition in the 1995 season. A fresh engine was installed, selected from the same lot of high output engines and tuned as before. In 1995 Porsche's 928 production came to an end, and the car consequently was not raced in the new season.
The late Max Moritz himself then added the car to his collection of historic vehicles. It was not put on the road again until after his death, when the family sold the car in October 2004 - with 24,500 km on the odometer.
For the 1984 24 hours of Daytona, Porsche sent one of its experimental "All-aluminium" 928S to the Brumos Racing Team to be prepared with specific instruction not to modify the car in any way. Porsche wanted to promote the performance of the 928 to North America. The drivers Richard Attwood (GB), Vic Elford (GB), Howard Meister (USA) and Bob Hagestad (USA) were told to just "drive the car". During practice for the 24-hour race the drivers found the car to be somewhat unstable on the high banks of Daytona and wanted to add a rear wing to the car; Porsche denied the request. The Brumos team tinkered with the suspension set up to make the car more stable. The car finished in 15th overall and 4th in the GTO class. One driver stated in an interview later on, that were it not for a lengthy pit stop to fix some body damage, they would have finished in the top 5 overall. The car was then returned to Porsche and is now in the Porsche Museum.
A 928S from Raymond Boutinaud also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1983 & 1984 with a 22nd-place finish in 1984. The same car also competed in 1000k races at Spa, Brands Hatch and Silverstone in 1984, but with little success. It has been rumored that the Raymond Boutinaud 928S was also an "all-aluminium" car from Porsche but that has been unfounded.
On August 7, 1986 American racing driver Al Holbert set a speed record at Bonneville in a pre-production 928 S4. This 928 would turn 171.110 mph in the flying mile and 171.926 mph for the flying kilometer. In March 1986, the same car reportedly did 180+ mph at Nardo, but the Bonneville run netted United States Auto Club official record "at the time" for International Category A, Group 2, Class 9, for normally aspirated vehicles. That made 1987's 928 S4 the fastest non-turbocharged production car in the world.
On September 15, 2011 at the Bonneville Salt Flats, racing driver and owner of 928 Motorsports, LLC. Carl Fausett set the current world record as the fastest Porsche 928 in recorded history. The record setting run was clocked by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association at 216.63537 mph. The car was a 900 BHP supercharged 6.54 liter 32 valve 928 specially built for the land speed record attempt. dubbed by 928 Motorsports as the "Rekordwagen", which raced in the class Blown Gas Modified Sports B/BGMS.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is the second oldest auto race in the U.S.; a 12.42 mile (19.99 km) course with 156 turns starting at 9390 ft and ending at the 14110 foot summit of Pikes Peak. In 2007, 2008 and 2009 American racing driver Carl Fausett took his specially prepared and supercharged 1978 Porsche 928 to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and competed in the Open Division. Fausett placed third in the Open Division in both 2007 and again in 2009, where he was also the fastest 2WD car. At that time, much of the race course was gravel. Today the entire Pikes Peak Highway has been paved.
Plasmid
A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; however, plasmids are sometimes present in archaea and eukaryotic organisms. In nature, plasmids often carry genes that benefit the survival of the organism and confer selective advantage such as antibiotic resistance. While chromosomes are large and contain all the essential genetic information for living under normal conditions, plasmids are usually very small and contain only additional genes that may be useful in certain situations or conditions. Artificial plasmids are widely used as vectors in molecular cloning, serving to drive the replication of recombinant DNA sequences within host organisms. In the laboratory, plasmids may be introduced into a cell via transformation.
Plasmids are considered "replicons", units of DNA capable of replicating autonomously within a suitable host. However, plasmids, like viruses, are not generally classified as life. Plasmids are transmitted from one bacterium to another (even of another species) mostly through conjugation. This host-to-host transfer of genetic material is one mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, and plasmids are considered part of the mobilome. Unlike viruses, which encase their genetic material in a protective protein coat called a capsid, plasmids are "naked" DNA and do not encode genes necessary to encase the genetic material for transfer to a new host; however, some classes of plasmids encode the conjugative "sex" pilus necessary for their own transfer. The size of the plasmid varies from 1 to over 200 kbp, and the number of identical plasmids in a single cell can range anywhere from one to thousands under some circumstances.
The term "plasmid" was introduced in 1952 by the American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg to refer to "any extrachromosomal hereditary determinant." The term's early usage included any bacterial genetic material that exists extrachromosomally for at least part of its replication cycle, but because that description includes bacterial viruses, the notion of plasmid was refined over time to comprise genetic elements that reproduce autonomously.
Later in 1968, it was decided that the term plasmid should be adopted as the term for extrachromosomal genetic element, and to distinguish it from viruses, the definition was narrowed to genetic elements that exist exclusively or predominantly outside of the chromosome and can replicate autonomously.
In order for plasmids to replicate independently within a cell, they must possess a stretch of DNA that can act as an origin of replication. The self-replicating unit, in this case, the plasmid, is called a replicon. A typical bacterial replicon may consist of a number of elements, such as the gene for plasmid-specific replication initiation protein (Rep), repeating units called iterons, DnaA boxes, and an adjacent AT-rich region. Smaller plasmids make use of the host replicative enzymes to make copies of themselves, while larger plasmids may carry genes specific for the replication of those plasmids. A few types of plasmids can also insert into the host chromosome, and these integrative plasmids are sometimes referred to as episomes in prokaryotes.
Plasmids almost always carry at least one gene. Many of the genes carried by a plasmid are beneficial for the host cells, for example: enabling the host cell to survive in an environment that would otherwise be lethal or restrictive for growth. Some of these genes encode traits for antibiotic resistance or resistance to heavy metal, while others may produce virulence factors that enable a bacterium to colonize a host and overcome its defences or have specific metabolic functions that allow the bacterium to utilize a particular nutrient, including the ability to degrade recalcitrant or toxic organic compounds. Plasmids can also provide bacteria with the ability to fix nitrogen. Some plasmids, however, have no observable effect on the phenotype of the host cell or its benefit to the host cells cannot be determined, and these plasmids are called cryptic plasmids.
Naturally occurring plasmids vary greatly in their physical properties. Their size can range from very small mini-plasmids of less than 1-kilobase pairs (Kbp) to very large megaplasmids of several megabase pairs (Mbp). At the upper end, little differs between a megaplasmid and a minichromosome. Plasmids are generally circular, but examples of linear plasmids are also known. These linear plasmids require specialized mechanisms to replicate their ends.
Plasmids may be present in an individual cell in varying number, ranging from one to several hundreds. The normal number of copies of plasmid that may be found in a single cell is called the Plasmid copy number, and is determined by how the replication initiation is regulated and the size of the molecule. Larger plasmids tend to have lower copy numbers. Low-copy-number plasmids that exist only as one or a few copies in each bacterium are, upon cell division, in danger of being lost in one of the segregating bacteria. Such single-copy plasmids have systems that attempt to actively distribute a copy to both daughter cells. These systems, which include the parABS system and parMRC system, are often referred to as the partition system or partition function of a plasmid.
Plasmids may be classified in a number of ways. Plasmids can be broadly classified into conjugative plasmids and non-conjugative plasmids. Conjugative plasmids contain a set of transfer genes which promote sexual conjugation between different cells. In the complex process of conjugation, plasmids may be transferred from one bacterium to another via sex pili encoded by some of the transfer genes (see figure). Non-conjugative plasmids are incapable of initiating conjugation, hence they can be transferred only with the assistance of conjugative plasmids. An intermediate class of plasmids are mobilizable, and carry only a subset of the genes required for transfer. They can parasitize a conjugative plasmid, transferring at high frequency only in its presence.
Plasmids can also be classified into incompatibility groups. A microbe can harbour different types of plasmids, but different plasmids can only exist in a single bacterial cell if they are compatible. If two plasmids are not compatible, one or the other will be rapidly lost from the cell. Different plasmids may therefore be assigned to different incompatibility groups depending on whether they can coexist together. Incompatible plasmids (belonging to the same incompatibility group) normally share the same replication or partition mechanisms and can thus not be kept together in a single cell.
Another way to classify plasmids is by function. There are five main classes:
Plasmids can belong to more than one of these functional groups.
Artificially constructed plasmids may be used as vectors in genetic engineering. These plasmids serve as important tools in genetics and biotechnology labs, where they are commonly used to clone and amplify (make many copies of) or express particular genes. A wide variety of plasmids are commercially available for such uses. The gene to be replicated is normally inserted into a plasmid that typically contains a number of features for their use. These include a gene that confers resistance to particular antibiotics (ampicillin is most frequently used for bacterial strains), an origin of replication to allow the bacterial cells to replicate the plasmid DNA, and a suitable site for cloning (referred to as a multiple cloning site).
DNA structural instability can be defined as a series of spontaneous events that culminate in an unforeseen rearrangement, loss, or gain of genetic material. Such events are frequently triggered by the transposition of mobile elements or by the presence of unstable elements such as non-canonical (non-B) structures. Accessory regions pertaining to the bacterial backbone may engage in a wide range of structural instability phenomena. Well-known catalysts of genetic instability include direct, inverted, and tandem repeats, which are known to be conspicuous in a large number of commercially available cloning and expression vectors. Insertion sequences can also severely impact plasmid function and yield, by leading to deletions and rearrangements, activation, down-regulation or inactivation of neighboring gene expression. Therefore, the reduction or complete elimination of extraneous noncoding backbone sequences would pointedly reduce the propensity for such events to take place, and consequently, the overall recombinogenic potential of the plasmid.
Plasmids are the most-commonly used bacterial cloning vectors. These cloning vectors contain a site that allows DNA fragments to be inserted, for example a multiple cloning site or polylinker which has several commonly used restriction sites to which DNA fragments may be ligated. After the gene of interest is inserted, the plasmids are introduced into bacteria by a process called transformation. These plasmids contain a selectable marker, usually an antibiotic resistance gene, which confers on the bacteria an ability to survive and proliferate in a selective growth medium containing the particular antibiotics. The cells after transformation are exposed to the selective media, and only cells containing the plasmid may survive. In this way, the antibiotics act as a filter to select only the bacteria containing the plasmid DNA. The vector may also contain other marker genes or reporter genes to facilitate selection of plasmids with cloned inserts. Bacteria containing the plasmid can then be grown in large amounts, harvested, and the plasmid of interest may then be isolated using various methods of plasmid preparation.
A plasmid cloning vector is typically used to clone DNA fragments of up to 15 kbp. To clone longer lengths of DNA, lambda phage with lysogeny genes deleted, cosmids, bacterial artificial chromosomes, or yeast artificial chromosomes are used.
Another major use of plasmids is to make large amounts of proteins. In this case, researchers grow bacteria containing a plasmid harboring the gene of interest. Just as the bacterium produces proteins to confer its antibiotic resistance, it can also be induced to produce large amounts of proteins from the inserted gene. This is a cheap and easy way of mass-producing the protein the gene codes for, for example, insulin.
Plasmids may also be used for gene transfer as a potential treatment in gene therapy so that it may express the protein that is lacking in the cells. Some forms of gene therapy require the insertion of therapeutic genes at pre-selected chromosomal target sites within the human genome. Plasmid vectors are one of many approaches that could be used for this purpose. Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) offer a way to cause a site-specific double-strand break to the DNA genome and cause homologous recombination. Plasmids encoding ZFN could help deliver a therapeutic gene to a specific site so that cell damage, cancer-causing mutations, or an immune response is avoided.
Plasmids were historically used to genetically engineer the embryonic stem cells of rats to create rat genetic disease models. The limited efficiency of plasmid-based techniques precluded their use in the creation of more accurate human cell models. However, developments in adeno-associated virus recombination techniques, and zinc finger nucleases, have enabled the creation of a new generation of isogenic human disease models.
The term "episome" was introduced by François Jacob and Élie Wollman in 1958 to refer to extra-chromosomal genetic material that may replicate autonomously or become integrated into the chromosome. Since the term was introduced, however, its use has shifted, as "plasmid" has become the preferred term for autonomously replicating extrachromosomal DNA. At a 1968 symposium in London some participants suggested that the term "episome" be abandoned, although others continued to use the term with a shift in meaning.
Today, some authors use "episome" in the context of prokaryotes to refer to a plasmid that is capable of integrating into the chromosome. The integrative plasmids may be replicated and stably maintained in a cell through multiple generations, but at some stage, they will exist as an independent plasmid molecule. In the context of eukaryotes, the term "episomes" is used to mean a non-integrated extrachromosomal closed circular DNA molecule that may be replicated in the nucleus. Viruses are the most common examples of this, such as herpesviruses, adenoviruses, and polyomaviruses, but some are plasmids. Other examples include aberrant chromosomal fragments, such as double minute chromosomes, that can arise during artificial gene amplifications or in pathologic processes (e.g., cancer cell transformation). Episomes in eukaryotes behave similarly to plasmids in prokaryotes in that the DNA is stably maintained and replicated with the host cell. Cytoplasmic viral episomes (as in poxvirus infections) can also occur. Some episomes, such as herpesviruses, replicate in a rolling circle mechanism, similar to bacterial phage viruses. Others replicate through a bidirectional replication mechanism ("Theta type" plasmids). In either case, episomes remain physically separate from host cell chromosomes. Several cancer viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, are maintained as latent, chromosomally distinct episomes in cancer cells, where the viruses express oncogenes that promote cancer cell proliferation. In cancers, these episomes passively replicate together with host chromosomes when the cell divides. When these viral episomes initiate lytic replication to generate multiple virus particles, they generally activate cellular innate immunity defense mechanisms that kill the host cell.
Some plasmids or microbial hosts include an addiction system or postsegregational killing system (PSK), such as the hok/sok (host killing/suppressor of killing) system of plasmid R1 in "Escherichia coli". This variant produces both a long-lived poison and a short-lived antidote. Several types of plasmid addiction systems (toxin/ antitoxin, metabolism-based, ORT systems) were described in the literature and used in biotechnical (fermentation) or biomedical (vaccine therapy) applications. Daughter cells that retain a copy of the plasmid survive, while a daughter cell that fails to inherit the plasmid dies or suffers a reduced growth-rate because of the lingering poison from the parent cell. Finally, the overall productivity could be enhanced.
In contrast, virtually all biotechnologically used plasmids (such as pUC18, pBR322 and derived vectors) do not contain toxin-antitoxin addiction systems and thus need to be kept under antibiotic pressure to avoid plasmid loss.
Yeasts naturally harbour various plasmids. Notable among them are 2 μm plasmids—small circular plasmids often used for genetic engineering of yeast—and linear pGKL plasmids from "Kluyveromyces lactis", that are responsible for killer phenotypes.
Other types of plasmids are often related to yeast cloning vectors that include:
Plasmids are often used to purify a specific sequence, since they can easily be purified away from the rest of the genome. For their use as vectors, and for molecular cloning, plasmids often need to be isolated.
There are several methods to isolate plasmid DNA from bacteria, ranging from the miniprep to the maxiprep or bulkprep. The former can be used to quickly find out whether the plasmid is correct in any of several bacterial clones. The yield is a small amount of impure plasmid DNA, which is sufficient for analysis by restriction digest and for some cloning techniques.
In the latter, much larger volumes of bacterial suspension are grown from which a maxi-prep can be performed. In essence, this is a scaled-up miniprep followed by additional purification. This results in relatively large amounts (several hundred micrograms) of very pure plasmid DNA.
Many commercial kits have been created to perform plasmid extraction at various scales, purity, and levels of automation.
Plasmid DNA may appear in one of five conformations, which (for a given size) run at different speeds in a gel during electrophoresis. The conformations are listed below in order of electrophoretic mobility (speed for a given applied voltage) from slowest to fastest:
The rate of migration for small linear fragments is directly proportional to the voltage applied at low voltages. At higher voltages, larger fragments migrate at continuously increasing yet different rates. Thus, the resolution of a gel decreases with increased voltage.
At a specified, low voltage, the migration rate of small linear DNA fragments is a function of their length. Large linear fragments (over 20 kb or so) migrate at a certain fixed rate regardless of length. This is because the molecules 'resperate', with the bulk of the molecule following the leading end through the gel matrix. Restriction digests are frequently used to analyse purified plasmids. These enzymes specifically break the DNA at certain short sequences. The resulting linear fragments form 'bands' after gel electrophoresis. It is possible to purify certain fragments by cutting the bands out of the gel and dissolving the gel to release the DNA fragments.
Because of its tight conformation, supercoiled DNA migrates faster through a gel than linear or open-circular DNA.
The use of plasmids as a technique in molecular biology is supported by bioinformatics software. These programs record the DNA sequence of plasmid vectors, help to predict cut sites of restriction enzymes, and to plan manipulations. Examples of software packages that handle plasmid maps are ApE, Clone Manager, GeneConstructionKit, Geneious, Genome Compiler, LabGenius, Lasergene, MacVector, pDraw32, Serial Cloner, VectorFriends, Vector NTI, and WebDSV. These pieces of software help conduct entire experiments in silico before doing wet experiments.
Many plasmids have been created over the years and researchers have given out plasmids to plasmid databases such as the non-profit organisations Addgene and BCCM/LMBP. One can find and request plasmids from those databases for research.
Researchers also often upload plasmid sequences to the NCBI database, from which sequences of specific plasmids can be retrieved.
Parallelepiped
In geometry, a parallelepiped, parallelopiped or parallelopipedon is a three-dimensional figure formed by six parallelograms (the term "rhomboid" is also sometimes used with this meaning). By analogy, it relates to a parallelogram just as a cube relates to a square. In Euclidean geometry, the four concepts—"parallelepiped" and "cube" in three dimensions, "parallelogram" and "square" in two dimensions—are defined, but in the context of affine geometry, in which angles are not differentiated, only "parallelograms" and "parallelepipeds" exist. Three equivalent definitions of "parallelepiped" are
The rectangular cuboid (six rectangular faces), cube (six square faces), and the rhombohedron (six rhombus faces) are all specific cases of parallelepiped.
"Parallelepiped" is now usually pronounced , , or ; traditionally it was in accordance with its etymology in Greek παραλληλ-επίπεδον, a body "having parallel planes".
Parallelepipeds are a subclass of the prismatoids.
Any of the three pairs of parallel faces can be viewed as the base planes of the prism. A parallelepiped has three sets of four parallel edges; the edges within each set are of equal length.
Parallelepipeds result from linear transformations of a cube (for the non-degenerate cases: the bijective linear transformations).
Since each face has point symmetry, a parallelepiped is a zonohedron. Also the whole parallelepiped has point symmetry "Ci" (see also triclinic). Each face is, seen from the outside, the mirror image of the opposite face. The faces are in general chiral, but the parallelepiped is not.
A space-filling tessellation is possible with congruent copies of any parallelepiped.
A parallelepiped can be considered as an oblique prism with a parallelogram as base.
Hence the volume formula_1 of a parallelepiped is the product of the base area formula_2 and the height formula_3 (see diagram). With
The mixed product of three vectors is called triple product. It can be described by a determinant. Hence for formula_12 the volume is:
An alternative representation of the volume uses geometric properties (angles and edge lengths) only:
where formula_15 and formula_16 are the edge lengths.
The proof of (V2) uses properties of a determinant and the geometric interpretation of the dot product:
Let be formula_17 the 3x3-matrix, whose columns are the vectors formula_18 (see above). Then the following is true:
The volume of any tetrahedron that shares three converging edges of a parallelepiped is equal to one sixth of the volume of that parallelepiped (see proof).
The surface area of a parallelepiped is the sum of the areas of the bounding parallelograms:
A "perfect parallelepiped" is a parallelepiped with integer-length edges, face diagonals, and space diagonals. In 2009, dozens of perfect parallelepipeds were shown to exist, answering an open question of Richard Guy. One example has edges 271, 106, and 103, minor face diagonals 101, 266, and 255, major face diagonals 183, 312, and 323, and space diagonals 374, 300, 278, and 272.
Some perfect parallelopipeds having two rectangular faces are known. But it is not known whether there exist any with all faces rectangular; such a case would be called a perfect cuboid.
Coxeter called the generalization of a parallelepiped in higher dimensions a parallelotope.
Specifically in "n"-dimensional space it is called "n"-dimensional parallelotope, or simply "n"-parallelotope. Thus a parallelogram is a 2-parallelotope and a parallelepiped is a 3-parallelotope.
More generally a parallelotope, or "voronoi parallelotope", has parallel and congruent opposite facets. So a 2-parallelotope is a parallelogon which can also include certain hexagons, and a 3-parallelotope is a parallelohedron, including 5 types of polyhedra.
The diagonals of an "n"-parallelotope intersect at one point and are bisected by this point. Inversion in this point leaves the "n"-parallelotope unchanged. See also fixed points of isometry groups in Euclidean space.
The edges radiating from one vertex of a "k"-parallelotope form a "k"-frame formula_25 of the vector space, and the parallelotope can be recovered from these vectors, by taking linear combinations of the vectors, with weights between 0 and 1.
The "n"-volume of an "n"-parallelotope embedded in formula_26 where formula_27 can be computed by means of the Gram determinant. Alternatively, the volume is the norm of the exterior product of the vectors:
If "m" = "n", this amounts to the absolute value of the determinant of the "n" vectors.
Another formula to compute the volume of an "n"-parallelotope "P" in formula_29, whose vertices are formula_30, is
where formula_32 is the row vector formed by the concatenation of formula_33 and 1. Indeed, the determinant is unchanged if formula_34 is subtracted from formula_32 (), and placing formula_34 in the last position only changes its sign.
Similarly, the volume of any "n"-simplex that shares "n" converging edges of a parallelotope has a volume equal to one 1/"n"! of the volume of that parallelotope.
The word appears as "parallelipipedon" in Sir Henry Billingsley's translation of Euclid's Elements, dated 1570. In the 1644 edition of his "Cursus mathematicus", Pierre Hérigone used the spelling "parallelepipedum". The "Oxford English Dictionary" cites the present-day "parallelepiped" as first appearing in Walter Charleton's "Chorea gigantum" (1663).
Charles Hutton's Dictionary (1795) shows "parallelopiped" and "parallelopipedon", showing the influence of the combining form "parallelo-", as if the second element were "pipedon" rather than "epipedon". Noah Webster (1806) includes the spelling "parallelopiped". The 1989 edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" describes "parallelopiped" (and "parallelipiped") explicitly as incorrect forms, but these are listed without comment in the 2004 edition, and only pronunciations with the emphasis on the fifth syllable "pi" () are given.
A change away from the traditional pronunciation has hidden the different partition suggested by the Greek roots, with "epi-" ("on") and "pedon" ("ground") combining to give "epiped", a flat "plane". Thus the faces of a parallelepiped are planar, with opposite faces being parallel.
Plant cell
Plant cells are eukaryotic cells present in green plants, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Their distinctive features include primary cell walls containing cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin, the presence of plastids with the capability to perform photosynthesis and store starch, a large vacuole that regulates turgor pressure, the absence of flagella or centrioles, except in the gametes, and a unique method of cell division involving the formation of a cell plate or phragmoplast that separates the new daughter cells.
Plant cells differentiate from undifferentiated meristematic cells (analogous to the stem cells of animals) to form the major classes of cells and tissues of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and reproductive structures, each of which may be composed of several cell types.
Parenchyma cells are living cells that have functions ranging from storage and support to photosynthesis (mesophyll cells) and phloem loading (transfer cells). Apart from the xylem and phloem in their vascular bundles, leaves are composed mainly of parenchyma cells. Some parenchyma cells, as in the epidermis, are specialized for light penetration and focusing or regulation of gas exchange, but others are among the least specialized cells in plant tissue, and may remain totipotent, capable of dividing to produce new populations of undifferentiated cells, throughout their lives. Parenchyma cells have thin, permeable primary walls enabling the transport of small molecules between them, and their cytoplasm is responsible for a wide range of biochemical functions such as nectar secretion, or the manufacture of secondary products that discourage herbivory. Parenchyma cells that contain many chloroplasts and are concerned primarily with photosynthesis are called chlorenchyma cells. Others, such as the majority of the parenchyma cells in potato tubers and the seed cotyledons of legumes, have a storage function.
Collenchyma cells – collenchyma cells are alive at maturity and have thickened cellulosic cell walls. These cells mature from meristem derivatives that initially resemble parenchyma, but differences quickly become apparent. Plastids do not develop, and the secretory apparatus (ER and Golgi) proliferates to secrete additional primary wall. The wall is most commonly thickest at the corners, where three or more cells come in contact, and thinnest where only two cells come in contact, though other arrangements of the wall thickening are possible. Pectin and hemicellulose are the dominant constituents of collenchyma cell walls of dicotyledon angiosperms, which may contain as little as 20% of cellulose in "Petasites". Collenchyma cells are typically quite elongated, and may divide transversely to give a septate appearance. The role of this cell type is to support the plant in axes still growing in length, and to confer flexibility and tensile strength on tissues. The primary wall lacks lignin that would make it tough and rigid, so this cell type provides what could be called plastic support – support that can hold a young stem or petiole into the air, but in cells that can be stretched as the cells around them elongate. Stretchable support (without elastic snap-back) is a good way to describe what collenchyma does. Parts of the strings in celery are collenchyma.
Sclerenchyma is a tissue composed of two types of cells, sclereids and fibres that have thickened, lignified secondary walls laid down inside of the primary cell wall. The secondary walls harden the cells and make them impermeable to water. Consequently, scereids and fibres are typically dead at functional maturity, and the cytoplasm is missing, leaving an empty central cavity. Sclereids or stone cells, (from the Greek skleros, "hard") are hard, tough cells that give leaves or fruits a gritty texture. They may discourage herbivory by damaging digestive passages in small insect larval stages. Sclereids form the hard pit wall of peaches and many other fruits, providing physical protection to the developing kernel. Fibres are elongated cells with lignified secondary walls that provide load-bearing support and tensile strength to the leaves and stems of herbaceous plants. Sclerenchyma fibres are not involved in conduction, either of water and nutrients (as in the xylem) or of carbon compounds (as in the phloem), but it is likely that they evolved as modifications of xylem and phloem initials in early land plants.
Xylem is a complex vascular tissue composed of water-conducting tracheids or vessel elements, together with fibres and parenchyma cells. Tracheids are elongated cells with lignified secondary thickening of the cell walls, specialised for conduction of water, and first appeared in plants during their transition to land in the Silurian period more than 425 million years ago (see "Cooksonia"). The possession of xylem tracheids defines the vascular plants or Tracheophytes. Tracheids are pointed, elongated xylem cells, the simplest of which have continuous primary cell walls and lignified secondary wall thickenings in the form of rings, hoops, or reticulate networks. More complex tracheids with valve-like perforations called bordered pits characterise the gymnosperms. The ferns and other pteridophytes and the gymnosperms have only xylem tracheids, while the flowering plants also have xylem vessels. Vessel elements are hollow xylem cells without end walls that are aligned end-to-end so as to form long continuous tubes. The bryophytes lack true xylem tissue, but their sporophytes have a water-conducting tissue known as the hydrome that is composed of elongated cells of simpler construction.
Phloem is a specialised tissue for food transport in higher plants, mainly transporting sucrose along pressure gradients generated by osmosis, a process called translocation. Phloem is a complex tissue, consisting of two main cell types, the sieve tubes and the intimately associated companion cells, together with parenchyma cells, phloem fibres and sclereids. Sieve tubes are joined end-to-end with perforate end-plates between known as "sieve plates", which allow transport of photosynthate between the sieve elements. The sieve tube elements lack nuclei and ribosomes, and their metabolism and functions are regulated by the adjacent nucleate companion cells. The companion cells, connected to the sieve tubes via plasmodesmata, are responsible for loading the phloem with sugars. The bryophytes lack phloem, but moss sporophytes have a simpler tissue with analogous function known as the leptome.
The plant epidermis is specialised tissue, composed of parenchyma cells, that covers the external surfaces of leaves, stems and roots. Several cell types may be present in the epidermis. Notable among these are the stomatal guard cells that control the rate of gas exchange between the plant and the atmosphere, glandular and clothing hairs or trichomes, and the root hairs of primary roots. In the shoot epidermis of most plants, only the guard cells have chloroplasts. Chloroplasts contain the green pigment chlorophyll which is needed for photosynthesis. The epidermal cells of aerial organs arise from the superficial layer of cells known as the "tunica" (L1 and L2 layers) that covers the plant shoot apex, whereas the cortex and vascular tissues arise from innermost layer of the shoot apex known as the "corpus" (L3 layer). The epidermis of roots originates from the layer of cells immediately beneath the root cap. The epidermis of all aerial organs, but not roots, is covered with a cuticle made of polyester cutin or polymer cutan (or both), with a superficial layer of epicuticular waxes. The epidermal cells of the primary shoot are thought to be the only plant cells with the biochemical capacity to synthesize cutin.
Polysaccharide
Polysaccharides () are long chains of carbohydrate molecules, specifically polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with water (hydrolysis) using amylase enzymes at catalyst, which produces constituent sugars (monosaccharides, or oligosaccharides). They range in structure from linear to highly branched. Examples include storage polysaccharides such as starch and glycogen, and structural polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin.
Polysaccharides are often quite heterogeneous, containing slight modifications of the repeating unit. Depending on the structure, these macromolecules can have distinct properties from their monosaccharide building blocks. They may be amorphous or even insoluble in water. When all the monosaccharides in a polysaccharide are the same type, the polysaccharide is called a "homopolysaccharide" or "homoglycan", but when more than one type of monosaccharide is present they are called "heteropolysaccharides" or "heteroglycans".
Natural saccharides are generally of simple carbohydrates called monosaccharides with general formula (CH2O)"n" where "n" is three or more. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and glyceraldehyde. Polysaccharides, meanwhile, have a general formula of C"x"(H2O)"y" where "x" is usually a large number between 200 and 2500. When the repeating units in the polymer backbone are six-carbon monosaccharides, as is often the case, the general formula simplifies to (C6H10O5)"n", where typically .
As a rule of thumb, polysaccharides contain more than ten monosaccharide units, whereas oligosaccharides contain three to ten monosaccharide units; but the precise cutoff varies somewhat according to convention. Polysaccharides are an important class of biological polymers. Their function in living organisms is usually either structure- or storage-related. Starch (a polymer of glucose) is used as a storage polysaccharide in plants, being found in the form of both amylose and the branched amylopectin. In animals, the structurally similar glucose polymer is the more densely branched glycogen, sometimes called "animal starch". Glycogen's properties allow it to be metabolized more quickly, which suits the active lives of moving animals.
Cellulose and chitin are examples of structural polysaccharides. Cellulose is used in the cell walls of plants and other organisms, and is said to be the most abundant organic molecule on Earth. It has many uses such as a significant role in the paper and textile industries, and is used as a feedstock for the production of rayon (via the viscose process), cellulose acetate, celluloid, and nitrocellulose. Chitin has a similar structure, but has nitrogen-containing side branches, increasing its strength. It is found in arthropod exoskeletons and in the cell walls of some fungi. It also has multiple uses, including surgical threads. Polysaccharides also include callose or laminarin, chrysolaminarin, xylan, arabinoxylan, mannan, fucoidan and galactomannan.
Nutrition polysaccharides are common sources of energy. Many organisms can easily break down starches into glucose; however, most organisms cannot metabolize cellulose or other polysaccharides like chitin and arabinoxylans. These carbohydrate types can be metabolized by some bacteria and protists. Ruminants and termites, for example, use microorganisms to process cellulose.
Even though these complex polysaccharides are not very digestible, they provide important dietary elements for humans. Called dietary fiber, these carbohydrates enhance digestion among other benefits. The main action of dietary fiber is to change the nature of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract, and to change how other nutrients and chemicals are absorbed. Soluble fiber binds to bile acids in the small intestine, making them less likely to enter the body; this in turn lowers cholesterol levels in the blood. Soluble fiber also attenuates the absorption of sugar, reduces sugar response after eating, normalizes blood lipid levels and, once fermented in the colon, produces short-chain fatty acids as byproducts with wide-ranging physiological activities (discussion below). Although insoluble fiber is associated with reduced diabetes risk, the mechanism by which this occurs is unknown.
Not yet formally proposed as an essential macronutrient (as of 2005), dietary fiber is nevertheless regarded as important for the diet, with regulatory authorities in many developed countries recommending increases in fiber intake.
Starch is a glucose polymer in which glucopyranose units are bonded by "alpha"-linkages. It is made up of a mixture of amylose (15–20%) and amylopectin (80–85%). Amylose consists of a linear chain of several hundred glucose molecules, and Amylopectin is a branched molecule made of several thousand glucose units (every chain of 24–30 glucose units is one unit of Amylopectin). Starches are insoluble in water. They can be digested by breaking the "alpha"-linkages (glycosidic bonds). Both humans and other animals have amylases, so they can digest starches. Potato, rice, wheat, and maize are major sources of starch in the human diet. The formations of starches are the ways that plants store glucose.
Glycogen serves as the secondary long-term energy storage in animal and fungal cells, with the primary energy stores being held in adipose tissue. Glycogen is made primarily by the liver and the muscles, but can also be made by glycogenesis within the brain and stomach.
Glycogen is analogous to starch, a glucose polymer in plants, and is sometimes referred to as "animal starch", having a similar structure to amylopectin but more extensively branched and compact than starch. Glycogen is a polymer of α(1→4) glycosidic bonds linked, with α(1→6)-linked branches. Glycogen is found in the form of granules in the cytosol/cytoplasm in many cell types, and plays an important role in the glucose cycle. Glycogen forms an energy reserve that can be quickly mobilized to meet a sudden need for glucose, but one that is less compact and more immediately available as an energy reserve than triglycerides (lipids).
In the liver hepatocytes, glycogen can compose up to 8 percent (100–120 grams in an adult) of the fresh weight soon after a meal. Only the glycogen stored in the liver can be made accessible to other organs. In the muscles, glycogen is found in a low concentration of one to two percent of the muscle mass. The amount of glycogen stored in the body—especially within the muscles, liver, and red blood cells—varies with physical activity, basal metabolic rate, and eating habits such as intermittent fasting. Small amounts of glycogen are found in the kidneys, and even smaller amounts in certain glial cells in the brain and white blood cells. The uterus also stores glycogen during pregnancy, to nourish the embryo.
Glycogen is composed of a branched chain of glucose residues. It is stored in liver and muscles.
Inulin is a naturally occurring polysaccharide.
Arabinoxylans are found in both the primary and secondary cell walls of plants and are the copolymers of two sugars: arabinose and xylose. They may also have beneficial effects on human health.
The structural components of plants are formed primarily from cellulose. Wood is largely cellulose and lignin, while paper and cotton are nearly pure cellulose. Cellulose is a polymer made with repeated glucose units bonded together by "beta"-linkages. Humans and many animals lack an enzyme to break the "beta"-linkages, so they do not digest cellulose. Certain animals such as termites can digest cellulose, because bacteria possessing the enzyme are present in their gut. Cellulose is insoluble in water. It does not change color when mixed with iodine. On hydrolysis, it yields glucose. It is the most abundant carbohydrate in nature.
Chitin is one of many naturally occurring polymers. It forms a structural component of many animals, such as exoskeletons. Over time it is bio-degradable in the natural environment. Its breakdown may be catalyzed by enzymes called chitinases, secreted by microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, and produced by some plants. Some of these microorganisms have receptors to simple sugars from the decomposition of chitin. If chitin is detected, they then produce enzymes to digest it by cleaving the glycosidic bonds in order to convert it to simple sugars and ammonia.
Chemically, chitin is closely related to chitosan (a more water-soluble derivative of chitin). It is also closely related to cellulose in that it is a long unbranched chain of glucose derivatives. Both materials contribute structure and strength, protecting the organism.
Pectins are a family of complex polysaccharides that contain 1,4-linked α--galactosyl uronic acid residues. They are present in most primary cell walls and in the non-woody parts of terrestrial plants.
Acidic polysaccharides are polysaccharides that contain carboxyl groups, phosphate groups and/or sulfuric ester groups.
Pathogenic bacteria commonly produce a thick, mucous-like, layer of polysaccharide. This "capsule" cloaks antigenic proteins on the bacterial surface that would otherwise provoke an immune response and thereby lead to the destruction of the bacteria. Capsular polysaccharides are water-soluble, commonly acidic, and have molecular weights on the order of 100,000 to 2,000,000 daltons. They are linear and consist of regularly repeating subunits of one to six monosaccharides. There is enormous structural diversity; nearly two hundred different polysaccharides are produced by "E. coli" alone. Mixtures of capsular polysaccharides, either conjugated or native are used as vaccines.
Bacteria and many other microbes, including fungi and algae, often secrete polysaccharides to help them adhere to surfaces and to prevent them from drying out. Humans have developed some of these polysaccharides into useful products, including xanthan gum, dextran, welan gum, gellan gum, diutan gum and pullulan.
Most of these polysaccharides exhibit useful visco-elastic properties when dissolved in water at very low levels. This makes various liquids used in everyday life, such as some foods, lotions, cleaners, and paints, viscous when stationary, but much more free-flowing when even slight shear is applied by stirring or shaking, pouring, wiping, or brushing. This property is named pseudoplasticity or shear thinning; the study of such matters is called rheology.
Aqueous solutions of the polysaccharide alone have a curious behavior when stirred: after stirring ceases, the solution initially continues to swirl due to momentum, then slows to a standstill due to viscosity and reverses direction briefly before stopping. This recoil is due to the elastic effect of the polysaccharide chains, previously stretched in solution, returning to their relaxed state.
Cell-surface polysaccharides play diverse roles in bacterial ecology and physiology. They serve as a barrier between the cell wall and the environment, mediate host-pathogen interactions, and form structural components of biofilms. These polysaccharides are synthesized from nucleotide-activated precursors (called nucleotide sugars) and, in most cases, all the enzymes necessary for biosynthesis, assembly and transport of the completed polymer are encoded by genes organized in dedicated clusters within the genome of the organism. Lipopolysaccharide is one of the most important cell-surface polysaccharides, as it plays a key structural role in outer membrane integrity, as well as being an important mediator of host-pathogen interactions.
The enzymes that make the "A-band" (homopolymeric) and "B-band" (heteropolymeric) O-antigens have been identified and the metabolic pathways defined. The exopolysaccharide alginate is a linear copolymer of β-1,4-linked -mannuronic acid and -guluronic acid residues, and is responsible for the mucoid phenotype of late-stage cystic fibrosis disease. The "pel" and "psl" loci are two recently discovered gene clusters that also encode exopolysaccharides found to be important for biofilm formation. Rhamnolipid is a biosurfactant whose production is tightly regulated at the transcriptional level, but the precise role that it plays in disease is not well understood at present. Protein glycosylation, particularly of pilin and flagellin, became a focus of research by several groups from about 2007, and has been shown to be important for adhesion and invasion during bacterial infection.
Polysaccharides with unprotected vicinal diols or amino sugars (where some hydroxyl groups are replaced with amines) give a positive periodic acid-Schiff stain (PAS). The list of polysaccharides that stain with PAS is long. Although mucins of epithelial origins stain with PAS, mucins of connective tissue origin have so many acidic substitutions that they do not have enough glycol or amino-alcohol groups left to react with PAS.
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , "Klaúdios Ptolemaîos" ; ; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt under the rule of the Roman Empire, had a Latin name (which several historians have taken to imply he was also a Roman citizen), cited Greek philosophers, and used Babylonian observations and Babylonian lunar theory. The 14th century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes gave his birthplace as the prominent Greek city Ptolemais Hermiou () in the Thebaid (). This attestation is quite late, however, and there is no other evidence to confirm or contradict it. He died in Alexandria around 168.
Ptolemy wrote several scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic and Western European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the "Almagest", although it was originally entitled the "Mathematical Treatise" () and then known as "The Great Treatise" (). The second is the "Geography", which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the "Apotelesmatiká" () but more commonly known as the "Tetrábiblos" from the Koine Greek () meaning "Four Books" or by the Latin "Quadripartitum".
"Ptolemaeus" ( "Ptolemaîos") is an ancient Greek personal name. It occurs once in Greek mythology and is of Homeric form. It was common among the Macedonian upper class at the time of Alexander the Great and there were several of this name among Alexander's army, one of whom made himself pharaoh in 323 BCE: Ptolemy I Soter, the first pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. All subsequent pharaohs of Egypt until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BCE, ending the Macedonian family's rule, were also Ptolemies.
The name "Claudius" is a Roman name, belonging to the "gens" Claudia; the peculiar multipart form of the whole name Claudius Ptolemaeus is a Roman custom, characteristic of Roman citizens. Several historians have made the deduction that this indicates that Ptolemy would have been a Roman citizen. Gerald Toomer, the translator of Ptolemy's "Almagest" into English, suggests that citizenship was probably granted to one of Ptolemy's ancestors by either the emperor Claudius or the emperor Nero.
The 9th century Persian astronomer Abu Maʻshar presents Ptolemy as a member of Egypt's royal lineage, stating that the descendants of the Alexandrine general and Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter, were wise "and included Ptolemy the Wise, who composed the book of the "Almagest"". Abu Maʻshar recorded a belief that a different member of this royal line "composed the book on astrology and attributed it to Ptolemy". We can evidence historical confusion on this point from Abu Maʿshar's subsequent remark: "It is sometimes said that the very learned man who wrote the book of astrology also wrote the book of the "Almagest". The correct answer is not known." Not much positive evidence is known on the subject of Ptolemy's ancestry, apart from what can be drawn from the details of his name (see above), although modern scholars have concluded that Abu Maʻshar's account is erroneous. It is no longer doubted that the astronomer who wrote the "Almagest" also wrote the "Tetrabiblos" as its astrological counterpart.
Ptolemy wrote in ancient Greek and can be shown to have utilized Babylonian astronomical data. He might have been a Roman citizen, but was ethnically either a Greek or a Hellenized Egyptian. He was often known in later Arabic sources as "the Upper Egyptian", suggesting he may have had origins in southern Egypt. Later Arabic astronomers, geographers and physicists referred to him as "Baṭlumyus" ().
Ptolemy's "Almagest" is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena; Greek astronomers such as Hipparchus had produced geometric models for calculating celestial motions. Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations. Ptolemy presented his astronomical models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position of the planets. The "Almagest" also contains a star catalogue, which is a version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus. Its list of forty-eight constellations is ancestral to the modern system of constellations, but unlike the modern system they did not cover the whole sky (only the sky Hipparchus could see). Across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in the Medieval period, it was the authoritative text on astronomy, with its author becoming an almost mythical figure, called Ptolemy, King of Alexandria. The "Almagest" was preserved, like most of extant Classical Greek science, in Arabic manuscripts (hence its familiar name). Because of its reputation, it was widely sought and was translated twice into Latin in the 12th century, once in Sicily and again in Spain. Ptolemy's model, like those of his predecessors, was geocentric and was almost universally accepted until the appearance of simpler heliocentric models during the scientific revolution.
His "Planetary Hypotheses" went beyond the mathematical model of the "Almagest" to present a physical realization of the universe as a set of nested spheres, in which he used the epicycles of his planetary model to compute the dimensions of the universe. He estimated the Sun was at an average distance of 1,210 Earth radii, while the radius of the sphere of the fixed stars was 20,000 times the radius of the Earth.
Ptolemy presented a useful tool for astronomical calculations in his "Handy Tables", which tabulated all the data needed to compute the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets, the rising and setting of the stars, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Ptolemy's "Handy Tables" provided the model for later astronomical tables or "zījes". In the "Phaseis" ("Risings of the Fixed Stars"), Ptolemy gave a "parapegma", a star calendar or almanac, based on the appearances and disappearances of stars over the course of the solar year.
Ptolemy's other main work is his "Geography" (also called the "Geographia"), a compilation of geographical coordinates of the part of the world known to the Roman Empire during his time. He relied somewhat on the work of an earlier geographer, Marinos of Tyre, and on gazetteers of the Roman and ancient Persian Empire. He also acknowledged ancient astronomer Hipparchus for having provided the elevation of the north celestial pole for a few cities.
The first part of the "Geography" is a discussion of the data and of the methods he used. As with the model of the Solar System in the "Almagest", Ptolemy put all this information into a grand scheme. Following Marinos, he assigned coordinates to all the places and geographic features he knew, in a grid that spanned the globe. Latitude was measured from the equator, as it is today, but Ptolemy preferred to express it as "climata", the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc: the length of the midsummer day increases from 12h to 24h as one goes from the equator to the polar circle. In books 2 through 7, he used degrees and put the meridian of 0 longitude at the most western land he knew, the "Blessed Islands", often identified as the Canary Islands, as suggested by the location of the six dots labelled the "FORTUNATA" islands near the left extreme of the blue sea of Ptolemy's map here reproduced.
Ptolemy also devised and provided instructions on how to create maps both of the whole inhabited world ("oikoumenè") and of the Roman provinces. In the second part of the "Geography", he provided the necessary topographic lists, and captions for the maps. His "oikoumenè" spanned 180 degrees of longitude from the Blessed Islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the middle of China, and about 80 degrees of latitude from Shetland to anti-Meroe (east coast of Africa); Ptolemy was well aware that he knew about only a quarter of the globe, and an erroneous extension of China southward suggests his sources did not reach all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The maps in surviving manuscripts of Ptolemy's "Geography", however, only date from about 1300, after the text was rediscovered by Maximus Planudes. It seems likely that the topographical tables in books 2–7 are cumulative texts – texts which were altered and added to as new knowledge became available in the centuries after Ptolemy. This means that information contained in different parts of the Geography is likely to be of different dates.
Maps based on scientific principles had been made since the time of Eratosthenes, in the 3rd century BC, but Ptolemy improved map projections. It is known from a speech by Eumenius that a world map, an "orbis pictus", doubtless based on the "Geography", was on display in a school in Augustodunum, Gaul in the 3rd century. In the 15th century, Ptolemy's "Geography" began to be printed with engraved maps; the earliest printed edition with engraved maps was produced in Bologna in 1477, followed quickly by a Roman edition in 1478 (Campbell, 1987). An edition printed at Ulm in 1482, including woodcut maps, was the first one printed north of the Alps. The maps look distorted when compared to modern maps, because Ptolemy's data were inaccurate. One reason is that Ptolemy estimated the size of the Earth as too small: while Eratosthenes found 700 "stadia" for a great circle degree on the globe, Ptolemy uses 500 "stadia" in the "Geography". It is highly probable that these were the same "stadion", since Ptolemy switched from the former scale to the latter between the "Syntaxis" and the "Geography", and severely readjusted longitude degrees accordingly. See also Ancient Greek units of measurement and History of geodesy.
Because Ptolemy derived many of his key latitudes from crude longest day values, his latitudes are erroneous on average by roughly a degree (2 degrees for Byzantium, 4 degrees for Carthage), though capable ancient astronomers knew their latitudes to more like a minute. (Ptolemy's own latitude was in error by 14'.) He agreed ("Geography" 1.4) that longitude was best determined by simultaneous observation of lunar eclipses, yet he was so out of touch with the scientists of his day that he knew of no such data more recent than 500 years before (Arbela eclipse). When switching from 700 stadia per degree to 500, he (or Marinos) expanded longitude differences between cities accordingly (a point first realized by P. Gosselin in 1790), resulting in serious over-stretching of the Earth's east-west scale in degrees, though not distance. Achieving highly precise longitude remained a problem in geography until the application of Galileo's Jovian moon method in the 18th century. It must be added that his original topographic list cannot be reconstructed: the long tables with numbers were transmitted to posterity through copies containing many scribal errors, and people have always been adding or improving the topographic data: this is a testimony to the persistent popularity of this influential work in the history of cartography.
Ptolemy has been referred to as "a pro-astrological authority of the highest magnitude". His astrological treatise, a work in four parts, is known by the Greek term "Tetrabiblos", or the Latin equivalent "Quadripartitum": "Four Books". Ptolemy's own title is unknown, but may have been the term found in some Greek manuscripts: "Apotelesmatika", roughly meaning "Astrological Outcomes", "Effects" or "Prognostics".
As a source of reference, the "Tetrabiblos" is said to have "enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among the astrological writers of a thousand years or more". It was first translated from Arabic into Latin by Plato of Tivoli (Tiburtinus) in 1138, while he was in Spain. The "Tetrabiblos" is an extensive and continually reprinted treatise on the ancient principles of horoscopic astrology. That it did not quite attain the unrivaled status of the "Almagest" was, perhaps, because it did not cover some popular areas of the subject, particularly electional astrology (interpreting astrological charts for a particular moment to determine the outcome of a course of action to be initiated at that time), and medical astrology, which were later adoptions.
The great popularity that the "Tetrabiblos" did possess might be attributed to its nature as an exposition of the art of astrology, and as a compendium of astrological lore, rather than as a manual. It speaks in general terms, avoiding illustrations and details of practice. Ptolemy was concerned to defend astrology by defining its limits, compiling astronomical data that he believed was reliable and dismissing practices (such as considering the numerological significance of names) that he believed to be without sound basis.
Much of the content of the "Tetrabiblos" was collected from earlier sources; Ptolemy's achievement was to order his material in a systematic way, showing how the subject could, in his view, be rationalized. It is, indeed, presented as the second part of the study of astronomy of which the "Almagest" was the first, concerned with the influences of the celestial bodies in the sublunary sphere. Thus explanations of a sort are provided for the astrological effects of the planets, based upon their combined effects of heating, cooling, moistening, and drying.
Ptolemy's astrological outlook was quite practical: he thought that astrology was like medicine, that is "conjectural", because of the many variable factors to be taken into account: the race, country, and upbringing of a person affects an individual's personality as much as, if not more than, the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets at the precise moment of their birth, so Ptolemy saw astrology as something to be used in life but in no way relied on entirely.
A collection of one hundred aphorisms about astrology called the "Centiloquium", ascribed to Ptolemy, was widely reproduced and commented on by Arabic, Latin and Hebrew scholars, and often bound together in medieval manuscripts after the "Tetrabiblos" as a kind of summation. It is now believed to be a much later pseudepigraphical composition. The identity and date of the actual author of the work, referred to now as Pseudo-Ptolemy, remains the subject of conjecture.
Despite Ptolemy's prominence as a philosopher, the Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis criticizes the "Tetrabiblos", stating that "it only remain puzzling that the very writer of the "Almagest", who had taught how to develop astronomy from accurate observations and mathematical constructions, could put together such a system of superficial analogies and unfounded assertions."
Ptolemy also wrote an influential work, "Harmonics", on music theory and the mathematics of music. After criticizing the approaches of his predecessors, Ptolemy argued for basing musical intervals on mathematical ratios (in contrast to the followers of Aristoxenus and in agreement with the followers of Pythagoras), backed up by empirical observation (in contrast to the overly theoretical approach of the Pythagoreans). Ptolemy wrote about how musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations and vice versa in "Harmonics". This is called Pythagorean tuning because it was first discovered by Pythagoras. However, Pythagoras believed that the mathematics of music should be based on the specific ratio of 3:2, whereas Ptolemy merely believed that it should just generally involve tetrachords and octaves. He presented his own divisions of the tetrachord and the octave, which he derived with the help of a monochord. His "Harmonics" never had the influence of his "Almagest" or "Planetary Hypotheses", but a part of it (Book III) did encourage Kepler in his own musings on the harmony of the world (Kepler, "Harmonice Mundi", Appendix to Book V). Ptolemy's astronomical interests also appeared in a discussion of the "music of the spheres".
His "Optics" is a work that survives only in a poor Arabic translation and in about twenty manuscripts of a Latin version of the Arabic, which was translated by Eugenius of Palermo (). In it, Ptolemy writes about properties of light, including reflection, refraction, and colour. The work is a significant part of the early history of optics
and influenced the more famous 11th-century "Book of Optics" by Ibn al-Haytham. It contains the earliest surviving table of refraction from air to water, for which the values (with the exception of the 60° angle of incidence), although historically praised as experimentally derived, appear to have been obtained from an arithmetic progression.
The work is also important for the early history of perception. Ptolemy combined the mathematical, philosophical and physiological traditions. He held an extramission-intromission theory of vision: the rays (or flux) from the eye formed a cone, the vertex being within the eye, and the base defining the visual field. The rays were sensitive, and conveyed information back to the observer's intellect about the distance and orientation of surfaces. Size and shape were determined by the visual angle subtended at the eye combined with perceived distance and orientation. This was one of the early statements of size-distance invariance as a cause of perceptual size and shape constancy, a view supported by the Stoics. Ptolemy offered explanations for many phenomena concerning illumination and colour, size, shape, movement and binocular vision. He also divided illusions into those caused by physical or optical factors and those caused by judgmental factors. He offered an obscure explanation of the sun or moon illusion (the enlarged apparent size on the horizon) based on the difficulty of looking upwards.
There are several characters or items named after Ptolemy, including:
Petabyte
A petabyte is 1015 bytes of digital information. The unit symbol for the petabyte is PB.
The name is composed of the SI prefix peta- (P) composed with the non-SI unit of a byte.
A related unit, the pebibyte (PiB), using a binary prefix, is equal to 10245 bytes, which is more than 12% greater (250 bytes = ).
Examples of the use of the petabyte to describe data sizes in different fields are:
Pyxis
Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass (contrasting with Circinus, which represents a draftsman's compasses). Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations.
The plane of the Milky Way passes through Pyxis. A faint constellation, its three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—are in a rough line. At magnitude 3.68, Alpha is the constellation's brightest star. It is a blue-white star approximately distant and around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun.
Pyxis is located close to the stars that formed the old constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. Parts of Argo Navis were the Carina (the keel or hull), the Puppis (the poop deck or stern), and the Vela (the sails). These eventually became their own constellations. In the 19th century, John Herschel suggested renaming Pyxis to Malus (meaning the mast) but the suggestion was not followed.
T Pyxidis, located about 4 degrees northeast of Alpha Pyxidis, is a recurrent nova that has flared up to magnitude 7 every few decades. Also, three star systems in Pyxis have confirmed exoplanets. The Pyxis globular cluster is situated about 130,000 light-years away in the galactic halo. This region was not thought to contain globular clusters. The possibility has been raised that this object might have escaped from the Large Magellanic Cloud.
In ancient Chinese astronomy, Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis formed part of "Tianmiao", a celestial temple honouring the ancestors of the emperor, along with stars from neighbouring Antlia.
The French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille first described the constellation in French as "la Boussole" (the Marine Compass) in 1752, after he had observed and catalogued almost 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised fourteen new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honoured instruments that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. Lacaille Latinised the name to "Pixis" [sic] "Nautica" on his 1763 chart. The Ancient Greeks identified the four main stars of Pyxis as the mast of the mythological Jason's ship, "Argo Navis".
German astronomer Johann Bode defined the constellation Lochium Funis, the Log, and Line—a nautical device once used for measuring speed and distance travelled at sea—around Pyxis in his 1801 star atlas, but the depiction did not survive. In 1844 John Herschel attempted to resurrect the classical configuration of Argo Navis by renaming it Malus the Mast, a suggestion followed by Francis Baily, but Benjamin Gould restored Lacaille's nomenclature.
Covering 220.8 square degrees and hence 0.535% of the sky, Pyxis ranks 65th of the 88 modern constellations by area. Its position in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers south of 52°N. It is most visible in the evening sky in February and March. A small constellation, it is bordered by Hydra to the north, Puppis to the west, Vela to the south, and Antlia to the east. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Pyx". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of eight sides ("illustrated in infobox"). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between −17.41° and −37.29°.
Lacaille gave Bayer designations to ten stars now named Alpha to Lambda Pyxidis, skipping the Greek letters iota and kappa. Although a nautical element, the constellation was not an integral part of the old Argo Navis and hence did not share in the original Bayer designations of that constellation, which were split between Carina, Vela and Puppis. Pyxis is a faint constellation, its three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—forming a rough line. Overall, there are 41 stars within the constellation's borders with apparent magnitudes brighter than or equal to 6.5.
With an apparent magnitude of 3.68, Alpha Pyxidis is the brightest star in the constellation. Located 880 ± 30 light-years distant from Earth, it is a blue-white giant star of spectral type B1.5III that is around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun and has 9.4 ± 0.7 times its diameter. It began life with a mass 12.1 ± 0.6 times that of the Sun, almost 15 million years ago. Its light is dimmed by 30% due to interstellar dust, so would have a brighter magnitude of 3.31 if not for this. The second brightest star at magnitude 3.97 is Beta Pyxidis, a yellow bright giant or supergiant of spectral type G7Ib-II that is around 435 times as luminous as the Sun, lying 420 ± 10 light-years distant away from Earth. It has a companion star of magnitude 12.5 separated by 9 arcseconds. Gamma Pyxidis is a star of magnitude 4.02 that lies 207 ± 2 light-years distant. It is an orange giant of spectral type K3III that has cooled and swollen to 3.7 times the diameter of the Sun after exhausting its core hydrogen.
Kappa Pyxidis was catalogued but not given a Bayer designation by Lacaille, but Gould felt the star was bright enough to warrant a letter. Kappa has a magnitude of 4.62 and is 560 ± 50 light-years distant. An orange giant of spectral type K4/K5III, Kappa has a luminosity approximately 965 times that of the Sun. It is separated by 2.1 arcseconds from a magnitude 10 star. Theta Pyxidis is a red giant of spectral type M1III and semi-regular variable with two measured periods of 13 and 98.3 days, and an average magnitude of 4.71, and is 500 ± 30 light-years distant from Earth. It has expanded to approximately 54 times the diameter of the Sun.
Located around 4 degrees northeast of Alpha is T Pyxidis, a binary star system composed of a white dwarf with around 0.8 times the Sun's mass and a red dwarf that orbit each other every 1.8 hours. This system is located around 15,500 light-years away from Earth. A recurrent nova, it has brightened to the 7th magnitude in the years 1890, 1902, 1920, 1944, 1966 and 2011 from a baseline of around 14th magnitude. These outbursts are thought to be due to the white dwarf accreting material from its companion and ejecting periodically.
TY Pyxidis is an eclipsing binary star whose apparent magnitude ranges from 6.85 to 7.5 over 3.2 days. The two components are both of spectral type G5IV with a diameter 2.2 times, and mass 1.2 times that of the Sun, and revolve around each other every 3.2 days. The system is classified as a RS Canum Venaticorum variable, a binary system with prominent starspot activity, and lies 184 ± 5 light-years away. The system emits X-rays, and analysing the emission curve over time led researchers to conclude that there was a loop of material arcing between the two stars. RZ Pyxidis is another eclipsing binary system, made up of two young stars less than 200,000 years old. Both are hot blue-white stars of spectral type B7V and are around 2.5 times the size of the Sun. One is around five times as luminous as the Sun and the other around four times as luminous. The system is classified as a Beta Lyrae variable, the apparent magnitude varying from 8.83 to 9.72 over 0.66 days. XX Pyxidis is one of the more-studied members of a class of stars known as Delta Scuti variables—short period (six hours at most) pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study astroseismology. Astronomers made more sense of its pulsations when it became clear that it is also a binary star system. The main star is a white main sequence star of spectral type A4V that is around 1.85 ± 0.05 times as massive as the Sun. Its companion is most likely a red dwarf of spectral type M3V, around 0.3 times as massive as the Sun. The two are very close—possibly only 3 times the diameter of the Sun between them—and orbit each other every 1.15 days. The brighter star is deformed into an egg shape.
AK Pyxidis is a red giant of spectral type M5III and semi-regular variable that varies between magnitudes 6.09 and 6.51. Its pulsations take place over multiple periods simultaneously of 55.5, 57.9, 86.7, 162.9 and 232.6 days. UZ Pyxidis is another semi-regular variable red giant, this time a carbon star, that is around 3560 times as luminous as the Sun with a surface temperature of 3482 K, located 2116 light-years away from Earth. It varies between magnitudes 6.99 and 7.83 over 159 days. VY Pyxidis is a BL Herculis variable (type II Cepheid), ranging between apparent magnitudes 7.13 and 7.40 over a period of 1.24 days. Located around 650 light-years distant, it shines with a luminosity approximately 45 times that of the Sun.
The closest star to Earth in the constellation is Gliese 318, a white dwarf of spectral class DA5 and magnitude 11.85. Its distance has been calculated to be 26 light-years, or 28.7 ± 0.5 light-years distant from Earth. It has around 45% of the Sun's mass, yet only 0.15% of its luminosity. WISEPC J083641.12-185947.2 is a brown dwarf of spectral type T8p located around 72 light-years from Earth. Discovered by infrared astronomy in 2011, it has a magnitude of 18.79.
Pyxis is home to three stars with confirmed planetary systems—all discovered by Doppler spectroscopy. A hot Jupiter, HD 73256 b, that orbits HD 73256 every 2.55 days, was discovered using the CORALIE spectrograph in 2003. The host star is a yellow star of spectral type G9V that has 69% of our Sun's luminosity, 89% of its diameter and 105% of its mass. Around 119 light-years away, it shines with an apparent magnitude of 8.08 and is around a billion years old. HD 73267 b was discovered with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in 2008. It orbits HD 73267 every 1260 days, a 7 billion-year-old star of spectral type G5V that is around 89% as massive as the Sun. A red dwarf of spectral type M2.5V that has around 42% the Sun's mass, Gliese 317 is orbited by two gas giant planets. Around 50 light-years distant from Earth, it is a good candidate for future searches for more terrestrial rocky planets.
Pyxis lies in the plane of the Milky Way, although part of the eastern edge is dark, with material obscuring our galaxy arm there. NGC 2818 is a planetary nebula that lies within a dim open cluster of magnitude 8.2. NGC 2818A is an open cluster that lies on line of sight with it. K 1-2 is a planetary nebula whose central star is a spectroscopic binary composed of two stars in close orbit with jets emanating from the system. The surface temperature of one component has been estimated at as high as 85,000 K. NGC 2627 is an open cluster of magnitude 8.4 that is visible in binoculars.
Discovered in 1995, the Pyxis globular cluster is a 13.3 ± 1.3 billion year-old globular cluster situated around 130,000 light-years distant from Earth and around 133,000 light-years distant from the centre of the Milky Way—a region not previously thought to contain globular clusters. Located in the galactic halo, it was noted to lie on the same plane as the Large Magellanic Cloud and the possibility has been raised that it might be an escaped object from that galaxy.
NGC 2613 is a spiral galaxy of magnitude 10.5 which appears spindle-shaped as it is almost edge-on to observers on Earth. Henize 2-10 is a dwarf galaxy which lies 30 million light-years away. It has a black hole of around a million solar masses at its centre. Known as a starburst galaxy due to very high rates of star formation, it has a bluish colour due to the huge numbers of young stars within it.
Parasitic computing
Parasitic computing is programming technique where a program in normal authorized interactions with another program manages to get the other program to perform computations of a complex nature. It is, in a sense, a security exploit in that the program implementing the parasitic computing has no authority to consume resources made available to the other program.
It was first proposed by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Vincent W. Freeh, Hawoong Jeong & Jay B. Brockman from University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, in 2001. The example given by the original paper was two computers communicating over the Internet, under disguise of a standard communications session. The first computer is attempting to solve a large and extremely difficult 3-SAT problem; it has decomposed the original 3-SAT problem in a considerable number of smaller problems. Each of these smaller problems is then encoded as a relation between a checksum and a packet such that whether the checksum is accurate or not is also the answer to that smaller problem. The packet/checksum is then sent to another computer. This computer will, as part of receiving the packet and deciding whether it is valid and well-formed, create a checksum of the packet and see whether it is identical to the provided checksum. If the checksum is invalid, it will then request a new packet from the original computer. The original computer now knows the answer to that smaller problem based on the second computer's response, and can transmit a fresh packet embodying a different sub-problem. Eventually, all the sub-problems will be answered and the final answer easily calculated.
The example is based on an exploit of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), used for internet connections, so in the end, the target computer(s) is unaware that it has performed computation for the benefit of the other computer, or even done anything besides have a normal TCP/IP session.
The proof-of-concept is obviously extremely inefficient as the amount of computation necessary to merely send the packets in the first place easily exceeds the computations leeched from the other program; the 3-SAT problem would be solved much more quickly if just analyzed locally. In addition, in practice packets would probably have to be retransmitted occasionally when real checksum errors and network problems occur. However, parasitic computing on the level of checksums is a demonstration of the concept. The authors suggest that as one moves up the application stack, there might come a point where there is a net computational gain to the parasite - perhaps one could break down interesting problems into queries of complex cryptographic protocols using public keys. If there was a net gain, one could in theory use a number of control nodes for which many hosts on the Internet form a distributed computing network completely unawares.
Students of the University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Switzerland, extended this concept into a programmable virtual machine in 2002.
In 2011, a group of malware programs were noticed by security software vendors, which utilized high performance graphics processing units (GPUs) for Bitcoin mining, a chain of computationally intensive tasks to generate cryptocurrency units. These programs invaded systems and were executed like other malware, rather than exploiting underlying protocols. Powerful GPUs on personal computers were originally created mainly for games, but with interfaces like CUDA and OpenCL, became usable for general computing tasks, surpassing the performance of a Central Processing Unit (CPU) by multiple times. Until then, parasitic computing lacked powerful computing resources and results to easily convert into cash for criminals.
In January 2014, Bitcoin mining malware was distributed through a Java exploit by compromised ads, displayed on the Yahoo website. In 2013, Bitcoin mining malware was installed as adware alongside other downloads, some pointing out to the functionality in lengthy EULA texts. Malware including Bitcoin mining functionality was also secretly downloaded and activated by adware bundled with regular software downloads, both distributed by related companies in Israel and Ukraine.
Bitcoin mining by personal computers infected with malware is being challenged by dedicated hardware, such as FPGA and ASIC platforms, which are more efficient in terms of power consumption and thus may have lower costs than theft of computing resources.
Pegasus
Pegasus (, "Pḗgasos"; ) is a mythical winged divine horse, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is the offspring of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled by the Gorgon Medusa upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated her. Pegasus is the brother of Chrysaor and the uncle of Geryon.
Pegasus was caught by the Greek hero Bellerophon, near the fountain Peirene, with the help of Athena and Poseidon. Pegasus allowed Bellerophon to ride him in order to defeat the monstrous Chimera, which led to many other exploits. Bellerophon later fell from the winged horse's back while trying to reach Mount Olympus. Afterwards, Zeus transformed Pegasus into the eponymous constellation.
The poet Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name "Pegasus" as derived from "spring, well": "the "pegai" of Okeanos, where he was born."
A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian , meaning "lightning", and , a local Luwian-Hittite name in southern Cilicia of a weather god represented with thunder and lightning. The proponents of this etymology adduce Pegasus' role, reported as early as Hesiod, as the bringer of thunderbolts to Zeus. It was first suggested in 1952 and remains widely accepted, but Robin Lane Fox (2009) has criticized it as implausible.
Dr. Michael Brown, who has been studying ancient and medieval Greek poetry in the context of the Greek-North European dialogue, and has concluded from it that the word "Pegasus" is a pre-Celtic-PIE word, one which did not evolve into one of the numerous common names listed in both Greek and Western languages. This is discussed further in "Linguistics and Classical Theology," by William S. R. Miller, which is based on his work with Charles F. G. Osterhaus's analysis of the word and its relationships to Greek and Italian. The relationship of "Pegasus" to "Cyrillic" is discussed further in his Phrygian Monikers and the Naming of Greek Pronunciation "Cyrillic or Pene-Orthogyrin" and "Pegasus" as an Early Semitic construct.
According to legend, everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring water spring burst forth. One of these springs was upon the Muses' Mount Helicon, the "Hippocrene" ("horse spring"), opened, Antoninus Liberalis suggested, at the behest of Poseidon to prevent the mountain swelling with rapture at the song of the Muses; another was at Troezen. Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him. Hesiod also says Pegasus carried thunderbolts for Zeus.
There are several versions of the birth of the winged stallion and his brother Chrysaor in the far distant place at the edge of Earth, Hesiod's "springs of Oceanus, which encircles the inhabited earth, where Perseus found Medusa:
One is that they sprang from the blood issuing from Medusa's neck as Perseus was beheading her, similar to the manner in which Athena was born from the head of Zeus. In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, they were born of the Earth, fed by the Gorgon's blood. A variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusa's blood, pain and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making. The last version bears resemblance to Hesiod's account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when Uranus's severed genitals were cast into the sea by Cronus.
Pegasus aided the hero Bellerophon in his fight against the Chimera. There are varying tales about how Bellerophon found Pegasus; the most common being that the hero was told by Polyeidos to sleep in the temple of Athena, where the goddess visited him in the night and presented him with a golden bridle. The next morning, still clutching the bridle, Bellerophon found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring, caught him and eventually tamed him.
Michaud's "Biographie universelle" relates that when Pegasus was born, he flew to where thunder and lightning are released. Then, according to certain versions of the myth, Athena tamed him and gave him to Perseus, who flew to Ethiopia to help Andromeda.
Pegasus and Athena left Bellerophon and continued to Olympus where he was stabled with Zeus' other steeds, and was given the task of carrying Zeus' thunderbolts, along with other members of his entourage, his attendants/handmaidens/shield bearers/shieldmaidens, Astrape and Bronte. Because of his years of faithful service to Zeus, Pegasus was later honoured with transformation into a constellation. On the day of his "catasterism", when Zeus transformed him into a constellation, a single feather fell to the earth near the city of Tarsus.
The pegasus became a common element in British heraldry, appearing chiefly as a supporter or a crest. Pegasi may also appear upon escutcheons, although this is rare. A pegasus rampant is featured on the arms of the Inner Temple, while those of the Richardson family contain a rare depiction of a pegasus sejant.
During World War II, the silhouetted image of Bellerophon the warrior, mounted on the winged Pegasus, was adopted by the United Kingdom's newly raised parachute troops in 1941 as their upper sleeve insignia. The image clearly symbolized a warrior arriving at a battle by air, the same tactics used by paratroopers. The square upper-sleeve insignia comprised Bellerophon/Pegasus in light blue on a maroon background. One source suggests that the insignia was designed by famous English novelist Daphne du Maurier, who was wife of the commander of the 1st Airborne Division (and later the expanded British Airborne Forces), General Frederick "Boy" Browning. According to the British Army Website, the insignia was designed by the celebrated East Anglian painter Major Edward Seago in May 1942. The maroon background on the insignia was later used again by the Airborne Forces when they adopted the famous maroon beret in Summer 1942. The beret was the origin of the German nickname for British airborne troops, the Red Devils. Today's Parachute Regiment carries on the maroon beret tradition. The selection process for the elite Parachute Regiment is called Pegasus Company (often abbreviated to "P Company"). In 2015 it was announced that the units of 16 Air Assault Brigade would once again use the Pegasus insignia after a 15-year hiatus.
During the airborne phase of the Normandy invasion on the night of 5–6 June 1944, British 6th Airborne Division captured all its key objectives in advance of the seaborne assault, including the capture and holding at all costs of a vital bridge over the Caen Canal, near Ouistreham. In memory of their tenacity, the bridge has been known ever since as Pegasus Bridge.
The Tuscan National Liberation Committee during the German occupation of Italy also had a Pegasus as its emblem. The winged horse is still featured on the Tuscan flag and coat of arms.
The winged horse has provided an instantly recognizable corporate logo or emblem of inspiration. Ecuador launched its weather satellite, named "Pegaso" (, Pegasus in Spanish), on 26 April 2013 but it was damaged by Russian space debris. Pegasus Airlines (Turkish: Pegasus Hava Taşımacılığı A.Ş.) is a low-cost airline headquartered in the Kurtköy area of Pendik, Istanbul, Turkey. Mobil Oil has had a Pegasus as its company logo since its affiliation with Magnolia Petroleum Company in the 1930s.
Party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation in elections in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through allocations to an electoral list. They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.
In these systems, parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats are distributed to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. Voters may vote directly for the party, as in Albania, Argentina, Turkey, and Israel; or for candidates whose vote total will pool to the party, as in Finland, Brazil and the Netherlands; or for a list of candidates, as in Hong Kong.
Voters in Luxembourg's multi-seat constituencies can choose between voting for a complete list of candidates of a single party ("list vote") or voting for individual candidates from one or several lists ("panachage").
The order in which a party's list candidates get elected may be pre-determined by some method internal to the party or the candidates (a closed list system) or it may be determined by the voters at large (an open list system) or by districts (a local list system).
Many variations on seat allocation within party-list proportional representation exist. The two most common are:
List proportional representation may also be combined in various hybrids, e.g., using the additional member system.
List of main apportionment methods:
While the allocation formula is important, equally important is the district magnitude (number of seats in a constituency). The higher the district magnitude, the more proportional an electoral system becomes - the most proportional being when there is no division into constituencies at all and the entire country is treated as a single constituency. More, in some countries the electoral system works on two levels: at-large for parties, and in constituencies for candidates, with local party-lists seen as fractions of general, national lists. In this case, magnitude of local constituencies is irrelevant, seat apportionment being calculated at national level.
In France, party lists in proportional elections must include as many candidates (and twice as many substitutes for the departmental elections) as there are seats to be allocated, whereas in other countries "incomplete" lists are allowed.
Puppis
Puppis is a constellation in the southern sky. Puppis, the Poop Deck, was originally part of an over-large constellation, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts, Argo Navis, which centuries after its initial description, was divided into three parts, the other two being Carina (the keel and hull), and Vela (the sails of the ship). Puppis is the largest of the three constellations in square degrees. It is one of the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union.
Argo Navis was sub-divided into three sections in 1752 by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, including Argûs in puppi. Despite the division, Lacaille kept a single set of Bayer designations for the whole constellation Argo. Therefore, Carina has the α, β, and ε, Vela has γ and δ, Puppis has ζ, and so on. In the 19th century, these three sections of Argo became established as separate constellations and were formally included in the list of 88 modern IAU constellations in 1930.
Several extrasolar planet systems have been found around stars in the constellation Puppis, including:
As the Milky Way runs through Puppis, there are many open clusters in the constellation. M46 and M47 are two open clusters in the same binocular field. M47 can be seen with the naked eye under dark skies, and its brightest stars are 6th magnitude. Messier 93 (M93) is another open cluster somewhat to the south. NGC 2451 is a very bright open cluster containing the star c Puppis, and the near NGC 2477 is a good target for small telescopes. The star Pi Puppis is the main component of a bright group of stars known as Collinder 135.
M46 is a circular open cluster with an overall magnitude of 6.1 at a distance of approximately 5400 light-years from Earth. The planetary nebula NGC 2438 is superimposed; it is approximately 2900 light-years from Earth. M46 is classified as a Shapley class f and a Trumpler class III 2 m cluster. This means that it is a rich cluster that appears distinct from the star field. However, it is not at its center. The cluster's stars, numbering between 50 and 100, have a moderate range in brightness.
Piscis Austrinus
Piscis Austrinus is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. The name is Latin for "the southern fish", in contrast with the larger constellation Pisces, which represents a pair of fishes. Prior to the 20th century, it was also known as Piscis Notius. Its only star brighter than 4th magnitude is Fomalhaut, which is a 1st-magnitude star and is the 18th-brightest star in the night sky.
Piscis Austrinus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. The stars of the modern constellation Grus once formed the "tail" of Piscis Austrinus. In 1597 (or 1598), Petrus Plancius carved out a separate constellation and named it after the crane.
Pisces Austrinus originated with the Babylonian constellation simply known as the Fish (MUL.KU). Professor of astronomy Bradley Schaefer has proposed that ancient observers must have been able to see as far south as Mu Piscis Austrini to define a pattern that looked like a fish.
Piscis Austrinus, along with the eagle Aquila the crow Corvus and water snake Hydra, were introduced to the Greeks around 500 BCE; they marked the summer and winter solstices respectively.
In Greek mythology, this constellation is known as the Great Fish and it is portrayed as swallowing the water being poured out by Aquarius, the water-bearer constellation. The two fish of the constellation Pisces are said to be the offspring of the Great Fish. In Egyptian mythology, this fish saved the life of the Egyptian goddess Isis, so she placed this fish and its descendants into the heavens as constellations of stars. Ctesias wrote that the fish was said to have lived in a lake near Bambyce in Syria and had saved Derceto, daughter of Aphrodite, and for this deed was placed in the heavens. For this reason, fish were sacred and not eaten by many Syrians.
Piscis Austrinus is a constellation bordered by Capricornus to the northwest, Microscopium to the southwest, Grus to the south, Sculptor to the east, Aquarius to the north. Its recommended three-letter abbreviation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "PsA". Ptolemy called the constellation "Ichthus Notios" "Southern Fish" in his "Almagest"; this was Latinised to Piscis Notius and used by German celestial cartographers Johann Bayer, Johann Bayer, and Johann Elert Bode. Bayer also called it Piscis Meridanus and Piscis Austrinus, while French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille called it Piscis Australis. English Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed went with Piscis Austrinus, which was followed by most subsequently. The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of four segments ("illustrated in infobox"). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between -24.83° and -36.46°. The whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 53°N.
Ancient astronomers counted 12 stars as belonging to the Southern Fish, though one was later incorporated into nearby Grus as Gamma Gruis. Other stars became part of Microscopium. Bayer used the Greek letters alpha through mu to label the most prominent stars in the constellation. Ptolemy had catalogued Fomalhaut (Alpha Piscis Austrini) as belonging to both this constellation and Aquarius. Lacaille redrew the constellation as it was poorly visible from Europe, adding nu, pi and a new kappa as the original kappa became Gamma Gruis, and relabelling gamma, delta and epsilon as epsilon, eta and gamma respectively. However, Baily and Gould did not uphold these changes as Bayer's original chart was fairly accurate. Bode added tau and upsilon. Flamsteed gave 24 stars Flamsteed designations, though the first four numbered became part of Microscopium. Within the constellation's borders, there are 47 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5.
Traditionally representing the mouth of the fish, Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation and the 19th brightest star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of 1.16. Located 25.13 ± 0.09 light-years away, it is a white main sequence star that is 1.92 ± 0.02 times as massive and 16.63±0.48 as luminous as the Sun. Its companion Fomalhaut b was thought to be the first extrasolar planet ever detected by a visible light image, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, but infrared observations have since retracted this claim: it is instead a spherical cloud of dust. TW Piscis Austrini can be seen close by and is possibly associated with Fomalhaut as it lies within a light-year of it. Of magnitude 6.5, it is a BY Draconis variable.
The second brightest star in the constellation, Epsilon Piscis Austrini is a blue-white star of magnitude +4.17. Located 400 ± 20 light-years distant, it is a blue-white main sequence star 4.10 ± 0.19 times as massive as the Sun, and around 661 times as luminous.
Beta, Delta and Zeta constitute the "Tien Kang" ("heavenly rope") in China. Beta is a white main sequence star of apparent magnitude 4.29 that is of similar size and luminosity to Fomalhaut but five times as remote, at around 143 ± 1 light-years distant from Earth. Delta Piscis Austrini is a double star with components of magnitude 4.2 and 9.2. The brighter is a yellow giant of spectral type G8 III. It is a red clump star that is burning helium in its core. It is 172 ± 2 light-years distant from Earth. Zeta Piscis Austrini is an orange giant star of spectral type K1III that is located 413 ± 2 light-years distant from Earth. It is a suspected variable star.
S Piscis Austrini is a long-period Mira-type variable red giant which ranges between magnitude 8.0 and 14.5 over a period of 271.7 days, and V Piscis Austrini is a semi-regular variable ranging between magnitudes 8.0 and 9.0 over 148 days.
Lacaille 9352 is a faint red dwarf star which is a mere 10.74 light-years away. At magnitude 7.34, it is too dim to be seen with the naked eye.
Exoplanets have been discovered in five other star systems in the constellation. HD 205739 is a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F7 V that has a planet around 1.37 times as massive as Jupiter orbiting it with a period of 279 days, and a suggestion of a second planet. HD 216770 is an orange dwarf accompanied by a Jupiter-like plaent every 118 days.. HD 207832 is a sunlike star with two planets. WASP-112 and WASP-124 are two sunlike stars that have planets discovered by transit.
NGC 7172, NGC 7174 and NGC 7314 are three galaxies of magnitudes 11.9, 12.5 and 10.9, respectively. NGC 7259 is another spiral galaxy, which hosted a supernova—SN 2009ip—in 2009.
At redshift z = 0.116, the BL Lacertae object PKS 2155-304 is one of the brightest blazars in the sky.
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty (; , "Ptolemaioi"), sometimes also known as the Lagids () or Lagidae (; , "Lagidai", after Lagus, Ptolemy I's father), was a Macedonian Greek royal family, which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 to 30 BC. They were the last dynasty of ancient Egypt.
Ptolemy, one of the seven somatophylakes (bodyguards) of Macedon who served as Alexander the Great's generals and deputies, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself Ptolemy I, later known as "Sōter" "Saviour". The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC.
Like the earlier dynasties of ancient Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty practiced inbreeding including sibling marriage, but this did not start in earnest until nearly a century into the dynasty's history. All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy, while queens regnant were all called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.
Dates in brackets represent the regnal dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They frequently ruled jointly with their wives, who were often also their sisters. Several queens exercised regal authority. Of these, one of the last and most famous was Cleopatra ("Cleopatra VII Philopator", 51–30 BC), with her two brothers and her son serving as successive nominal co-rulers. Several systems exist for numbering the later rulers; the one used here is the one most widely employed by modern scholars.
In continuation of the tradition established by previous Egyptian dynasties, the Ptolemies engaged in inbreeding including sibling marriage, with many of the pharaohs being married to their siblings and often co-ruling with them. Ptolemy I and other early rulers of the dynasty were not married to their relatives, the childless marriage of siblings Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II being an exception. The first child-producing incestuous marriage in the Ptolemaic dynasty was that of Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III, who were succeeded as co-pharaohs by their son Ptolemy V, born 210 BC. The most famous Ptolemaic pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, was at different times married to and reigning with two of her brothers (Ptolemy XIII until 47 BC and then Ptolemy XIV until 44 BC), and their parents were likely siblings or possibly cousins as well.
Contemporaries describe a number of the Ptolemaic dynasty members as extremely obese, whilst sculptures and coins reveal prominent eyes and swollen necks. Familial Graves' disease could explain the swollen necks and eye prominence (exophthalmos), although this is unlikely to occur in the presence of morbid obesity. This is all likely due to inbreeding within the Ptolemaic dynasty. In view of the familial nature of these findings, members of this dynasty likely suffered from a multi-organ fibrotic condition such as Erdheim–Chester disease or a familial multifocal fibrosclerosis where thyroiditis, obesity and ocular proptosis may have all occurred concurrently.
Party
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration of a special occasion. A party will typically feature food and beverages, and often music and dancing or other forms of entertainment. In many Western countries, parties for teens and adults are associated with drinking alcohol such as beer, wine, or distilled spirits.
More occasionally (though often in politics), a party can also simply refer to a group of people with a common objective.
Some parties are held in honor of a specific person, day, or event, such as a birthday party, a Super Bowl party, or a St. Patrick’s Day party. Parties of this kind are often called celebrations. A party is not necessarily a private occasion. Public parties are sometimes held in restaurants, pubs, beer gardens, nightclubs or bars, and people attending such parties may be charged an admission fee by the host. Large parties in public streets may celebrate events such as Mardi Gras or the signing of a peace treaty ending a long war.
A birthday party is a celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the person who is being honored. The tradition started in the mid-nineteenth century but did not become popular until the mid-twentieth century. Birthday parties are now a feature of many cultures.
In Western cultures, birthday parties include a number of common rituals. The guests may be asked to bring a gift for the honored person. Party locations are often decorated with colorful decorations, such as balloons and streamers. A birthday cake is usually served with lit candles that are to be blown out after a "birthday wish" has been made. The person being honored will be given the first piece of cake. While the birthday cake is being brought to the table, the song "Happy Birthday to You" or some other birthday song is sung by the guests.
At parties for children, time is often taken for the "gift opening" wherein the individual whose birthday is celebrated opens each of the gifts brought. It is also common at children's parties for the host to give parting gifts to the attendees in the form of "goodie bags". Children and even adults sometimes wear colorful cone-shaped party hats.
Birthday parties are often larger and more extravagant if they celebrate someone who has reached what is regarded in the culture as a milestone age, such as transition from childhood to adulthood. Examples of traditional coming of age celebrations include the North American sweet sixteen party and the Latin American quinceañera.
A surprise party is a party that is not made known beforehand to the person in whose honor it is being held.
Birthday surprise parties are the most common kind of surprise party. At most such parties, the guests will arrive an hour or so before the honored person arrives. Often, a friend in on the surprise will lead the honored person to the location of the party without letting on anything.
The guests might even conceal themselves from view, and when the honored person enters the room, they leap from hiding and all shout, "Surprise!" For some surprise birthday parties, it is considered to be a good tactic to shock the honored person. Streamers, silly string, and balloons may be used for this purpose. Evidence of a party, such as decorations and balloons, are not made visible from the exterior of the home, so that the person honored will suspect nothing.
A dinner party is a social gathering at which people eat dinner together, usually in the host's home. At the most formal dinner parties, the dinner is served on a dining table with place settings. Dinner parties are often preceded by a cocktail hour in a living room or bar, where guests drink cocktails while mingling and conversing. Wine is usually served throughout the meal, often with a different wine accompanying each course.
At less formal dinner parties, a buffet is provided. Guests choose food from the buffet and eat while standing up and conversing. Women guests may wear cocktail dresses; men may wear blazers.
At some informal dinner parties, the host may ask guests to bring food or beverages (a main dish, a side dish, a dessert, or appetizers). A party of this type is called a potluck or potluck dinner. In the United States, potlucks are very often held in churches and community centers.
A garden party is a party in a park or a garden. An event described as a garden party is usually more formal than other outdoor gatherings, which may be called simply parties, picnics, barbecues, etc. A garden party can be a prestigious event. For example, invitations by the British Sovereign to garden parties at Buckingham Palace are considered an honor. The President of France holds a garden party at the Palais de l'Elysée in Paris on Bastille Day.
A cocktail party is a party at which cocktails are served. It is sometimes called a "cocktail reception". Women who attend a cocktail party may wear a cocktail dress. A cocktail hat is sometimes worn as a fashion statement.
In Anglo-American culture, a tea party is a formal gathering for afternoon tea. These parties were traditionally attended only by women, but men may also be invited. Tea parties are often characterized by the use of prestigious tableware, such as bone china and silver. The table, whatever its size or cost, is made to look its prettiest, with cloth napkins and matching cups and plates.
In addition to tea, larger parties may serve punch or, in cold weather, hot chocolate. The tea is accompanied by a variety of easily managed foods. Thin sandwiches such as cucumber or tomato, bananas, cake slices, buns, and cookies are all common choices.
Formal receptions are parties that are designed to receive a large number of guests, often at prestigious venues such as Buckingham Palace, the White House or Government Houses of the British Empire and Commonwealth. The hosts and any guests of honor form a receiving line in order of precedence near the entrance. Each guest is announced to the host who greets each one in turn as he or she arrives. Each guest properly speaks little more than his name (if necessary) and a conventional greeting or congratulation to each person in the receiving line. In this way, the line of guests progresses steadily without unnecessary delay. After formally receiving each guest in this fashion, the hosts may mingle with the guests.
Somewhat less formal receptions are common in academic settings, sometimes to honor a guest lecturer, or to celebrate a special occasion such as retirement of a respected member of staff. Receptions are also common in symposium or academic conference settings, as an environment for attendees to mingle and interact informally. These gatherings may be accompanied by a sit-down dinner, or more commonly, a stand-up informal buffet meal.
Receptions are also held to celebrate exhibition openings at art galleries or museums. The featured artist or artists are often present, as well as the curators who organized the exhibition. In addition or instead, a celebratory reception may be held partway through or at the end of an exhibition run. This alternative scheduling allows guests more time to see the exhibition in depth at their own pace, before meeting the featured guests. Some food is often served, as in academic gatherings.
Refreshments at a reception may be as minimal, such as coffee or lemonade, or as elaborate as those at a state dinner.
In the 18th century, in France and England, it became fashionable for wealthy, well married ladies who had a residence "in town" to invite accomplished guests to visit their home in the evening, to partake of refreshments and cultural conversation. Soirées often included refined musical entertainment, and the term is still sometimes used to define a certain sophisticated type of evening party.
Society hostesses included actresses or other women with a larger-than-life reputation. The character of the hostess obviously determined the character of the soirée and the choice of guests.
Famous soirée hostesses include Hester Thrale.
A dance is a social gathering at which the guests dance. It may be a casual, informal affair or a structured event, such as a school dance or a charity ball. Dances usually take place during the evening. An afternoon dance is formally known as a tea dance. Some dances feature specific kinds of dancing, such as square dancing.
A ball is a large formal party that features ballroom dancing. Women guests wear ball gowns; men wear evening dress.
A block party is a public party that is attended by the residents of a specific city block or neighborhood. These parties are typically held in a city street that has been closed to traffic to accommodate the party. At some block parties, attendees are free to pass from house to house, socializing, and often drinking alcoholic beverages.
At a masquerade ball, guests wear masks to conceal their identities. Guests at a costume party or a fancy dress party wear costumes. These parties are sometimes associated with holiday events, such as Halloween and Mardi Gras.
In English and American culture during the Christmas season, it is traditional to have a Christmas caroling party. People go from door to door in a neighborhood and sing Christmas carols. Some popular Christmas carols are "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "Deck the Halls", "The Twelve Days of Christmas", "Frosty the Snowman", "Jingle Bells", "Silver Bells", "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", and "O Holy Night".
In Spain, this type of party is called "El Aguinaldo". It is the same as in England and the United States, but the only difference is that the children who sing the carols are given tips. Christmas songs are called "villancicos" in Spain; they are mainly sung by children at small parties.
Dance parties are gatherings in bars or community centers where the guests dance to house music, techno music, or disco. The music for dance parties is usually selected and played by a disc jockey.
A spin-off of dance parties, the rave involves dancing to loud house music, techno music, or industrial music. Rave parties may be attended by as few as a score of people in a basement or, more likely, by a few hundred people in a club, to as many as thousands in a large warehouse, field, or even tens of thousands in a sporting arena, amusement park, or other large space. Raves are associated with illegal drugs such as Ecstasy and psychedelic drugs.
A house party is a party where a large group of people get together at a private home to socialize. House parties that involve the drinking of beer pumped from a keg are called keg parties or "keggers." These parties are popular in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia and are often attended by people under the legal drinking age. Sometimes, even older party-goers run afoul of the law for having provided alcoholic beverages to minors. Arrests may also be made for violating a noise ordinance, for disorderly conduct, and even for operating a "blind pig", an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages.
On college campuses, parties are often hosted by fraternities.
Outdoor parties include bush parties and beach parties. Bush parties (also called "field parties") are held in a secluded area of a forest ("bush"), where friends gather to drink and talk. These parties are often held around a bonfire. Beach parties are held on a sandy shoreline of a lake, river, or sea, and also often feature a bonfire.
School-related parties for teenagers and young adults include proms and graduation parties, which are held in honor of someone who has recently graduated from a school or university.
A pool party is a party in which the guests swim in a swimming pool.
A singles dance party and mixer is a party which is organized for people who are not married and who want to find a partner for friendship, dating, or sex.
Usually a "mixer game" is played, to make it easy for people to meet each other. For example, each guest may be given a card with an inspiring quotation on it. The game is to find a potential partner who has the same quotation. Couples who have matching cards may be given a small prize.
These parties are sponsored by various organizations, both non-profit and for-profit.
A fundraising party, or fundraiser, is a party that is held for the purpose of collecting money that will be given to some person or to some institution, such as a school, charity, business, or political campaign. These parties are usually formal and consist of a dinner followed by speeches or by a presentation extolling whatever the money is being raised for.
It is very common to charge an admission fee for parties of this kind. This fee may be as high as several thousand dollars, especially if money is being raised for a political campaign.
In some places, parties to celebrate graduation from school, college or university are popular. A graduation party may be held on campus or external, and transportation is provided when location is far away.
A shower is a party whose primary purpose is to give gifts to the guest of honor. Traditionally, a bridal shower is a way for an engaged woman to be "showered" with gifts for her upcoming married life (see hope chest). Guests are expected to bring a small gift related to the upcoming life event. Themed games are a frequent sight at this sort of party. A new twist on the baby shower for a pregnant woman is the gender reveal party, made possible by modern ultrasound technology.
A housewarming party may be held when a family, couple, or person moves into a new house or apartment. It is an occasion for the hosts to show their new home to their friends. Housewarming parties are typically informal and do not include any planned activities other than a tour of the new house or apartment. Invited family members and friends may bring gifts for the new home.
A welcome party is held for the purpose of welcoming a newcomer, such as a new club member, a new employee, or a family's new baby.
In many cultures, it is customary to throw a farewell party in honor of someone who is moving away or departing on a long trip (sometimes called a "bon voyage" party). Retirement parties for departing co-workers fall into this category. Several are described in Japan in Shusaku Endo's 1974 novel "When I Whistle".
A cast party is a celebration following the final performance of a theatric event, such as a play, a musical, or an opera. A party of this kind may also be held following the end of shooting for a motion picture (called a "wrap party") or after the season's final episode of a television series. Cast parties are traditionally held for most theater performances, both professional and amateur.
Invited guests are usually restricted to performers, crew members, and a few others who did not participate in the performance, such as sponsors and donors who have helped fund the production.
A pre-party is a party that is held immediately before some event, such as a school dance, a wedding, a birthday party, or a bar mitzvah. These parties are usually of short duration and sometimes involve getting ready for the event (e.g., the guests may put on makeup or costumes). Guests usually leave at the same time and arrive at the event together. Often people engage in pregaming or drinking before an event or a night out, especially if the event lacks access to alcohol.
An after-party is a party that is held after a musical or theatrical performance or after some other event, such as a wedding or a school dance. Guests are usually limited to friends of the host.
International
Australia
Canada
France
Germany
India
Iran and other Persified societies
Ireland
Israel
Mexico
New Zealand
Pakistan
Scotland
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Christian
Islamic
Jewish
Political party
A political party is an organized group of people who have the same ideology, or who otherwise have the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections, in an attempt to get them elected and thereby implement the party's agenda. They are a defining element of representative democracy.
While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized and in how they operate, there are often many differences, and some are significant. Most of political parties have an ideological core, but some do not, and many represent ideologies very different from their ideology at the time the party was founded. Many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba. The United States is in practice a two-party system but with many smaller parties also participating.
The idea of people forming large groups or factions to advocate for their shared interests is ancient. Plato mentions the political factions of Classical Athens in "the Republic", and Aristotle discusses the tendency of different types of government to produce factions in "the Politics". Certain ancient disputes were also factional, like the Nika riots between two chariot racing factions at the Hippodrome of Constantinople. However, modern political parties are considered to have emerged around the end of the 18th or early 19th centuries, appearing first in Europe and the United States. What distinguishes political parties from factions and interest groups is that political parties use an explicit label to identify their members as having shared electoral and legislative goals. The transformation from loose factions into organised modern political parties is considered to have first occurred in either the United Kingdom or the United States, with the United Kingdom's Conservative Party and the Democratic Party of the United States both frequently called the world's "oldest continuous political party".
The party system that emerged in early modern Britain is considered to be one of the world's first, with origins in the factions that emerged from the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution of the late 17th century. The Whig faction originally organised itself around support for Protestant constitutional monarchy as opposed to absolute rule, whereas the conservative Tory faction (originally the Royalist or Cavalier faction of the English Civil War) supported a strong monarchy. These two groups structured disputes in the politics of the United Kingdom throughout the 18th century. Throughout the next several centuries, these loose factions began to adopt more coherent political tendencies and ideologies: the liberal political ideas of John Locke and the notion of universal rights espoused by theorists like Algernon Sidney and later John Stuart Mill were major influences on the Whigs, whereas the Tories eventually came to be identified with conservative philosophers like Edmund Burke.
The period between the advent of factionalism, around the Glorious Revolution, and the accession of George III in 1760 was characterised by Whig supremacy, during which the Whigs remained the most powerful bloc and consistently championed constitutional monarchy with strict limits on the monarch's power, opposed the accession of a Catholic king, and believed in extending toleration to nonconformist Protestants and dissenters. Although the Tories were out of office for half a century, they largely remained a united opposition to the Whigs.
When they lost power, the old Whig leadership dissolved into a decade of factional chaos with distinct Grenvillite, Bedfordite, Rockinghamite, and Chathamite factions successively in power, and all referring to themselves as "Whigs". The first distinctive political parties emerged from this chaos. The first such party was the Rockingham Whigs under the leadership of Charles Watson-Wentworth and the intellectual guidance of the political philosopher Edmund Burke. Burke laid out a philosophy that described the basic framework of the political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed". As opposed to the instability of the earlier factions, which were often tied to a particular leader and could disintegrate if removed from power, the party was centred around a set of core principles and remained out of power as a united opposition to government.
A coalition including the Rockingham Whigs, led by the Earl of Shelburne, took power in 1782, only to collapse after Rockingham's death. The new government, led by the radical politician Charles James Fox in coalition with Lord North, was soon brought down and replaced by William Pitt the Younger in 1783. It was now that a genuine two-party system began to emerge, with Pitt leading the new Tories against a reconstituted "Whig" party led by Fox. The modern Conservative Party was created out of these Pittite Tories. In 1859 under Lord Palmerston, the Whigs, heavily influenced by the classical liberal ideas of Adam Smith, joined together with the free trade Tory followers of Robert Peel and the independent Radicals to form the Liberal Party.
Although the framers of the 1787 United States Constitution did not anticipate that American political disputes would be primarily organised around political parties, political controversies in the early 1790s over the extent of federal government powers saw the emergence of two proto-political parties: the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party, which were championed by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. However, a consensus reached on these issues ended party politics in 1816 for nearly a decade, a period commonly known as the Era of Good Feelings.
The splintering of the Democratic-Republican Party in the aftermath of the contentious 1824 presidential election led to the re-emergence of political parties. Two major parties would dominate the political landscape for the next quarter-century: the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, established by Henry Clay from the National Republicans and from other Anti-Jackson groups. When the Whig Party fell apart in the mid-1850s, its position as a major U.S. political party was filled by the Republican Party.
Another candidate for the first modern party system to emerge is that of Sweden. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, the party model of politics was adopted across Europe. In Germany, France, Austria and elsewhere, the 1848 Revolutions sparked a wave of liberal sentiment and the formation of representative bodies and political parties. The end of the century saw the formation of large socialist parties in Europe, some conforming to the philosophy of Karl Marx, others adapting social democracy through the use of reformist and gradualist methods.
At the same time, the Home Rule League Party, campaigning for Home Rule for Ireland in the British Parliament, was fundamentally changed by the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell in the 1880s. In 1882, he changed his party's name to the Irish Parliamentary Party and created a well-organized grassroots structure, introducing membership to replace "ad hoc" informal groupings. He created a new selection procedure to ensure the professional selection of party candidates committed to taking their seats, and in 1884 he imposed a firm 'party pledge' which obliged MPs to vote as a bloc in parliament on all occasions. The creation of a strict party whip and a formal party structure was unique at the time, preceded only by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (1875), even though the latter was persecuted by Otto von Bismarck from 1878 to 1890. These parties' efficient structure and control contrasted with the loose rules and flexible informality found in the main British parties, and represented the development of new forms of party organisation, which constituted a "model" in the 20th-century.
Political parties are a nearly ubiquitous feature of modern countries. Nearly all democratic countries have strong political parties, and many political scientists consider countries with fewer than two parties to necessarily be autocratic. However, these sources allow that a country with multiple competitive parties is not necessarily democratic, and the politics of many autocratic countries are organised around one dominant political party. There are many explanations for how and why political parties are such a crucial part of modern states.
One of the core explanations for why political parties exist is that they arise from existing divisions among people. Building on Harold Hotelling's work on the aggregation of preferences and Duncan Black's development of social choice theory, Anthony Downs showed how an underlying distribution of preferences in an electorate can produce regular results in the aggregate, such as the median voter theorem. This abstract model shows that parties can arise from variations within an electorate, and can adjust themselves to the patterns in the electorate. However, Downs assumed that some distribution of preferences exists, rather than attributing any meaning to that distribution.
Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan made the idea of differences within an electorate more concrete by arguing that several major party systems of the 1960s were the result of social cleavages that had already existed in the 1920s. They identify four lasting cleavages in the countries they examine: a Center-Periphery cleavage regarding religion and language, a State-Church cleavage centered on control of mass education, a Land-Industry cleavage regarding freedom of industry and agricultural policies, and an Owner-Worker cleavage which includes a conflict between nationalism and internationalism. Subsequent authors have expanded on or modified these cleavages, particularly when examining parties in other parts of the world.
The argument that parties are produced by social cleavages has drawn several criticisms. Some authors have challenged the theory on empirical grounds, either finding no evidence for the claim that parties emerge from existing cleavages or arguing that this claim is not empirically testable. Others note that while social cleavages might cause political parties to exist, this obscures the opposite effect: that political parties also cause changes in the underlying social cleavages. A further objection is that, if the explanation for where parties come from is that they emerge from existing social cleavages, then the theory has not identified what causes parties unless it also explains where social cleavages come from; one response to this objection, along the lines of Charles Tilly's bellicist theory of state-building, is that social cleavages are formed by historical conflicts.
An alternative explanation for why parties are ubiquitous across the world is that the formation of parties provides compatible incentives for candidates and legislators. One explanation for the existence of parties, advanced by John Aldrich, is that the existence of political parties means that a candidate in one electoral district has an incentive to assist a candidate in a different district, when those two candidates have a similar ideology.
One reason that this incentive exists is that parties can solve certain legislative challenges that a legislature of unaffiliated members might face. Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins argue that the development of many institutions can be explained by their power to constrain the incentives of individuals; a powerful institution can prohibit individuals from acting in ways that harm the community. This suggests that political parties might be mechanisms for preventing candidates with similar ideologies from acting to each other's detriment. One specific advantage that candidates might obtain from helping similar candidates in other districts is that the existence of a party apparatus can help coalitions of electors to agree on ideal policy choices, which is in general not possible. This could be true even in contexts where it is only slightly beneficial to be part of a party; models of how individuals coordinate on joining a group or participating in an event show how even a weak preference to be part of a group can provoke mass participation.
Parties may be necessary for many individuals to participate in politics, because they provide a massively simplifying heuristic which allows people to make informed choices with a much lower cognitive cost. Without political parties, electors would have to evaluate every individual candidate in every single election they are eligible to vote in. Instead, parties enable electors to make judgments about a few groups instead of a much larger number of individuals. Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes argued in The American Voter that identification with a political party is a crucial determinant of whether and how an individual will vote. Because it is much easier to become informed about a few parties' platforms than about many candidates' personal positions, parties reduce the cognitive burden for people to cast informed votes. However, evidence suggests that over the last several decades the strength of party identification has been weakening, so this may be a less important function for parties to provide than it was in the past.
A political party is typically led by a party leader (the most powerful member and spokesperson representing the party), a party secretary (who maintains the daily work and records of party meetings), party treasurer (who is responsible for membership dues) and party chair (who forms strategies for recruiting and retaining party members, and also chairs party meetings). Most of the above positions are also members of the party executive, the leading organization which sets policy for the entire party at the national level. The structure is far more decentralized in the United States because of the separation of powers, federalism and the multiplicity of economic interests and religious sects. Even state parties are decentralized as county and other local committees are largely independent of state central committees. The national party leader in the U.S. will be the president, if the party holds that office, or a prominent member of Congress in opposition (although a big-state governor may aspire to that role). Officially, each party has a chairman for its national committee who is a prominent spokesman, organizer and fund-raiser, but without the status of prominent elected office holders.
In parliamentary democracies, on a regular, periodic basis, party conferences are held to elect party officers, although snap leadership elections can be called if enough members opt for such. Party conferences are also held in order to affirm party values for members in the coming year. American parties also meet regularly and, again, are more subordinate to elected political leaders.
Depending on the demographic spread of the party membership, party members form local or regional party committees in order to help candidates run for local or regional offices in government. These local party branches reflect the officer positions at the national level.
It is also customary for political party members to form wings for current or prospective party members, most of which fall into the following two categories:
These are useful for party outreach, training and employment. Many young aspiring politicians seek these roles and jobs as stepping stones to their political careers in legislative or executive offices.
The internal structure of political parties has to be democratic in some countries. In Germany Art. 21 Abs. 1 Satz 3 GG establishes a command of inner-party democracy.
When the party is represented by members in the lower house of parliament, the party leader simultaneously serves as the leader of the parliamentary group of that full party representation; depending on a minimum number of seats held, Westminster-based parties typically allow for leaders to form frontbench teams of senior fellow members of the parliamentary group to serve as critics of aspects of government policy. When a party becomes the largest party not part of the Government, the party's parliamentary group forms the Official Opposition, with Official Opposition frontbench team members often forming the Official Opposition Shadow cabinet. When a party achieves enough seats in an election to form a majority, the party's frontbench becomes the Cabinet of government ministers. They are all elected members. There are members who attend party without promotion.
The freedom to form, declare membership in, or campaign for candidates from a political party is considered a measurement of a state's adherence to liberal democracy as a political value. Regulation of parties may run from a crackdown on or repression of all opposition parties, a norm for authoritarian governments, to the repression of certain parties which hold or promote ideals which run counter to the general ideology of the state's incumbents (or possess membership by-laws which are legally unenforceable).
Furthermore, in the case of far-right, far-left and regionalism parties in the national parliaments of much of the European Union, mainstream political parties may form an informal cordon sanitaire which applies a policy of non-cooperation towards those "Outsider Parties" present in the legislature which are viewed as 'anti-system' or otherwise unacceptable for government. "Cordons sanitaire", however, have been increasingly abandoned over the past two decades in multi-party democracies as the pressure to construct broad coalitions in order to win elections – along with the increased willingness of outsider parties themselves to participate in government – has led to many such parties entering electoral and government coalitions.
Starting in the second half of the 20th century, modern democracies have introduced rules for the flow of funds through party coffers, e.g. the Canada Election Act 1976, the PPRA in the U.K. or the FECA in the U.S. Such political finance regimes stipulate a variety of regulations for the transparency of fundraising and expenditure, limit or ban specific kinds of activity and provide public subsidies for party activity, including campaigning.
Partisan style varies according to each jurisdiction, depending on how many parties there are, and how much influence each individual party has.
In a nonpartisan system, no official political parties exist, sometimes reflecting legal restrictions on political parties. In nonpartisan elections, each candidate is eligible for office on his or her own merits. In nonpartisan legislatures, there are no typically formal party alignments within the legislature. The administration of George Washington and the first few sessions of the United States Congress were nonpartisan. Washington also warned against political parties during his Farewell Address. In the United States, the unicameral legislature of Nebraska is nonpartisan but is elected and often votes on informal party lines. In Canada, the territorial legislatures of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are nonpartisan. In New Zealand, Tokelau has a nonpartisan parliament. Many city and county governments in the United States and Canada are nonpartisan. Nonpartisan elections and modes of governance are common outside of state institutions. Unless there are legal prohibitions against political parties, factions within nonpartisan systems often evolve into political parties.
In one-party systems, one political party is legally allowed to hold effective power. Although minor parties may sometimes be allowed, they are legally required to accept the leadership of the dominant party. This party may not always be identical to the government, although sometimes positions within the party may in fact be more important than positions within the government. North Korea and China are examples; others can be found in Fascist states, such as Nazi Germany between 1934 and 1945. The one-party system is thus often equated with dictatorships and tyranny.
In dominant-party systems, opposition parties are allowed, and there may be even a deeply established democratic tradition, but other parties are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Sometimes, political, social and economic circumstances, and public opinion are the reason for others parties' failure. Sometimes, typically in countries with less of an established democratic tradition, it is possible the dominant party will remain in power by using patronage and sometimes by voting fraud. In the latter case, the definition between dominant and one-party system becomes rather blurred. Examples of dominant party systems include the People's Action Party in Singapore, the African National Congress in South Africa, the Cambodian People's Party in Cambodia, the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and the National Liberation Front in Algeria. One-party dominant system also existed in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, in the southern United States with the Democratic Party from the late 19th century until the 1970s, in Indonesia with the "Golkar" from the early 1970s until 1998.
Two-party systems are states such as Honduras, Jamaica, Malta, Ghana and the United States in which there are two political parties dominant to such an extent that electoral success under the banner of any other party is almost impossible. One right wing coalition party and one left wing coalition party is the most common ideological breakdown in such a system but in two-party states political parties are traditionally catch all parties which are ideologically broad and inclusive.
The United States has gone through several party systems, each of which has been essentially two-party in nature. The divide has typically been between a conservative and liberal party; presently, the Republican Party and Democratic Party serve these roles. Third parties have seen extremely little electoral success, and successful third party runs typically lead to vote splitting due to the first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all systems used in most US elections. There have been several examples of third parties siphoning votes from major parties, such as Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and George Wallace in 1968, resulting in the victory of the opposing major party. In presidential elections, the Electoral College system has prevented third party candidates from being competitive, even when they have significant support (such as in 1992). More generally, parties with a broad base of support across regions or among economic and other interest groups have a greater chance of winning the necessary plurality in the U.S.'s largely single-member district, winner-take-all elections.
The UK political system, while technically a multi-party system, has functioned generally as a two-party (sometimes called a "two-and-a-half party") system; since the 1920s the two largest political parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics the Liberal Party was the other major political party along with the Conservatives. Though coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has in the past century relied upon a third party to deliver a working majority in Parliament. (A plurality voting system usually leads to a two-party system, a relationship described by Maurice Duverger and known as Duverger's Law.) There are also numerous other parties that hold or have held a number of seats in Parliament.
Multi-party systems are systems in which more than two parties are represented and elected to public office.
Australia, Canada, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Ireland, United Kingdom and Norway are examples of countries with two strong parties and additional smaller parties that have also obtained representation. The smaller or "third" parties may hold the balance of power in a parliamentary system, and thus may be invited to form a part of a coalition government together with one of the larger parties, or may provide a supply and confidence agreement to the government; or may instead act independently from the dominant parties.
More commonly, in cases where there are three or more parties, no one party is likely to gain power alone, and parties have to work with each other to form coalition governments. This is almost always the case in Germany on national and state level, and in most constituencies at the communal level. Furthermore, since the forming of the Republic of Iceland there has never been a government not led by a coalition, usually involving the Independence Party or the Progressive Party. A similar situation exists in the Republic of Ireland, where no one party has held power on its own since 1989. Since then, numerous coalition governments have been formed. These coalitions have been led exclusively by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Political change is often easier with a coalition government than in one-party or two-party dominant systems. If factions in a two-party system are in fundamental disagreement on policy goals, or even principles, they can be slow to make policy changes, which appears to be the case now in the U.S. with power split between Democrats and Republicans. Still coalition governments struggle, sometimes for years, to change policy and often fail altogether, post World War II France and Italy being prime examples. When one party in a two-party system controls all elective branches, however, policy changes can be both swift and significant. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were beneficiaries of such fortuitous circumstances, as were Republicans as far removed in time as Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama briefly had such an advantage between 2009 and 2011.
Political parties are funded by contributions from
Political parties, still called factions by some, especially those in the governmental apparatus, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trade unions. Money and gifts-in-kind to a party, or its leading members, may be offered as incentives. Such donations are the traditional source of funding for all right-of-centre cadre parties. Starting in the late 19th century these parties were opposed by the newly founded left-of-centre workers' parties. They started a new party type, the mass membership party, and a new source of political fundraising, membership dues.
From the second half of the 20th century on parties which continued to rely on donations or membership subscriptions ran into mounting problems. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there has been a long-term decline in party memberships in most western democracies which itself places more strains on funding. For example, in the United Kingdom and Australia membership of the two main parties in 2006 is less than an 1/8 of what it was in 1950, despite significant increases in population over that period.
In some parties, such as the post-communist parties of France and Italy or the Sinn Féin party and the Socialist Party, elected representatives (i.e. incumbents) take only the average industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest goes into party coffers. Although these examples may be rare nowadays, "rent-seeking" continues to be a feature of many political parties around the world.
In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the House of Lords and thus being in a position to participate in legislating. Famously, Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages. To prevent such corruption in the future, Parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 into law. Thus the outright sale of peerages and similar honours became a criminal act. However, some benefactors are alleged to have attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal.
Such activities as well as assumed "influence peddling" have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increase. In the UK some politicians are advocating that parties should be funded by the state; a proposition that promises to give rise to interesting debate in a country that was the first to regulate campaign expenses (in 1883).
In many other democracies such subsidies for party activity (in general or just for campaign purposes) have been introduced decades ago. Public financing for parties and/ or candidates (during election times and beyond) has several permutations and is increasingly common. Germany, Sweden, Israel, Canada, Australia, Austria and Spain are cases in point. More recently among others France, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands and Poland have followed suit.
There are two broad categories of public funding, direct, which entails a monetary transfer to a party, and indirect, which includes broadcasting time on state media, use of the mail service or supplies. According to the Comparative Data from the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, out of a sample of over 180 nations, 25% of nations provide no direct or indirect public funding, 58% provide direct public funding and 60% of nations provide indirect public funding. Some countries provide both direct and indirect public funding to political parties. Funding may be equal for all parties or depend on the results of previous elections or the number of candidates participating in an election. Frequently parties rely on a mix of private and public funding and are required to disclose their finances to the Election management body.
In fledgling democracies funding can also be provided by foreign aid. International donors provide financing to political parties in developing countries as a means to promote democracy and good governance. Support can be purely financial or otherwise. Frequently it is provided as capacity development activities including the development of party manifestos, party constitutions and campaigning skills. Developing links between ideologically linked parties is another common feature of international support for a party. Sometimes this can be perceived as directly supporting the political aims of a political party, such as the support of the US government to the Georgian party behind the Rose Revolution. Other donors work on a more neutral basis, where multiple donors provide grants in countries accessible by all parties for various aims defined by the recipients. There have been calls by leading development think-tanks, such as the Overseas Development Institute, to increase support to political parties as part of developing the capacity to deal with the demands of interest-driven donors to improve governance.
Generally speaking, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during elections.
Color associations are useful when it is not desirable to make rigorous links to parties, particularly when coalitions and alliances are formed between political parties and other organizations, for example: "Purple" (Red-Blue) alliances, Red-green alliances, Blue-green alliances, Traffic light coalitions, Pan-green coalitions, and Pan-blue coalitions.
Political color schemes in the United States diverge from international norms. Since 2000, red has become associated with the right-wing Republican Party and blue with the left-wing Democratic Party. However, unlike political color schemes of other countries, the parties did not choose those colors; they were used in news coverage of the 2000 election results and ensuing legal battle and caught on in popular usage. Prior to the 2000 election the media typically alternated which color represented which party each presidential election cycle. The color scheme happened to get inordinate attention that year, so the cycle was stopped lest it cause confusion the following election.
The emblem of socialist parties is often a red rose held in a fist. Communist parties often use a hammer to represent the worker, a sickle to represent the farmer, or both a hammer and a sickle to refer to both at the same time.
The emblem of Nazism, the swastika or ""hakenkreuz"", has been adopted as a near-universal symbol for almost any organised white supremacist group, even though it dates from more ancient times.
During the 19th and 20th century, many national political parties organized themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines. Notable examples are The Universal Party, International Workingmen's Association (also called the First International), the Socialist International (also called the Second International), the Communist International (also called the Third International), and the Fourth International, as organizations of working class parties, or the Liberal International (yellow), Hizb ut-Tahrir, Christian Democratic International and the International Democrat Union (blue). Organized in Italy in 1945, the International Communist Party, since 1974 headquartered in Florence has sections in six countries. Worldwide green parties have recently established the Global Greens. The Universal Party, The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the International Democrat Union are all based in London.
Some administrations (e.g. Hong Kong) outlaw formal linkages between local and foreign political organizations, effectively outlawing international political parties.
Klaus von Beyme categorised European parties into nine families, which described most parties. He was able to arrange seven of them from left to right: Communist, Socialist, Green, Liberal, Christian democratic, Conservative and Libertarian. The position of two other types, Agrarian and Regional/Ethnic parties varied.
Political scientists have distinguished between different types of political parties that have evolved throughout history. These include cadre parties, mass parties, catch-all parties and cartel parties. Cadre parties were political elites that were concerned with contesting elections and restricted the influence of outsiders, who were only required to assist in election campaigns. Mass parties tried to recruit new members who were a source of party income and were often expected to spread party ideology as well as assist in elections. In the United States, where both major parties were cadre parties, the introduction of primaries and other reforms has transformed them so that power is held by activists who compete over influence and nomination of candidates.
A cadre party, or elite party, is a type of political party that was dominant in the nineteenth century before the introduction of universal suffrage and that was made up of a collection of individuals or political elites. The French political scientist Marcel Duverger first distinguished between “cadre” and “mass” parties, founding his distinction on the differences within the organisational structures of these two types. Cadre parties are characterised by minimal and loose organisation, and are financed by fewer larger monetary contributions typically originating from outside the party. Cadre parties give little priority to expanding the party’s membership base, and its leaders are its only members. The earliest parties, such as the early American political parties, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists, are classified as cadre parties.
A mass party is a type of political party that developed around cleavages in society and mobilised the ordinary citizens or 'masses' in the political process. In Europe, the introduction of universal suffrage resulted in the creation of worker’s parties that later evolved into mass parties; an example is the German Social Democratic Party. These parties represented large groups of citizens who had previously not been represented in political processes, articulating the interests of different groups in society. In contrast to cadre parties, mass parties are funded by their members, and rely on and maintain a large membership base. Further, mass parties prioritise the mobilisation of voters and are more centralised than cadre parties.
The catch-all party, also called the 'big tent' party, is a term developed by German-American political scientist Otto Kirchheimer used to describe the parties that developed in the 1950s and 1960s from changes within the mass parties. Kirchheimer characterised the shift from the traditional mass parties to catch-all parties as a set of developments including the “drastic reduction of the party’s ideological baggage” and the "downgrading of the role of the individual party member". By broadening their central ideologies into more open-ended ones, catch-all parties seek to secure the support of a wider section of the population. Further, the role of members is reduced as catch-all parties are financed in part by the state or by donations. In Europe, the shift of Christian Democratic parties that were organised around religion into broader centre-right parties epitomises this type.
Cartel parties are a type of political party that emerged post-1970s and are characterised by heavy state financing and the diminished role of ideology as an organising principle. The cartel party thesis was developed by Richard Katz and Peter Mair who wrote that political parties have turned into "semi-state agencies", acting on behalf of the state rather than groups in society. The term 'cartel' refers to the way in which prominent parties in government make it difficult for new parties to enter, as such forming a cartel of established parties. As with catch-all parties, the role of members in cartel parties is largely insignificant as parties use the resources of the state to maintain their position within the political system.
Niche parties are a type of political party that developed on the basis of the emergence of new cleavages and issues in politics, such as immigration and the environment. In contrast to mainstream or catch-all parties, niche parties articulate an often limited set of interests in a way that does not conform to the dominant economic left-right divide in politics, emphasising issues that do not attain prominence within the other parties. Further, niche parties do not respond to changes in public opinion to the extent that mainstream parties do. Examples of niche parties include Green parties and extreme nationalist parties, such as the Front National in France. However, over time these parties may lose some of their niche qualities, instead adopting those of mainstream parties, for example after entering government. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23905 |
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, with a population of 202,110 in 2017. Historically part of Northamptonshire, it is north of London, on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea to the north-east. The railway station is an important stop on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh. Peterborough is also the largest city and borough in Cambridgeshire and the East Anglia area of England.
The local topography is flat, and in some places the land lies below sea level, for example in parts of the Fens to the east of Peterborough. Human settlement in the area began before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre, also with evidence of Roman occupation. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the establishment of a monastery, Medeshamstede, which later became Peterborough Cathedral.
The population grew rapidly after the railways arrived in the 19th century, and Peterborough became an industrial centre, particularly known for its brick manufacture. After the Second World War, growth was limited until designation as a New Town in the 1960s. Housing and population are expanding and a £1 billion regeneration of the city centre and immediately surrounding area is under way. Industrial employment has fallen since then, a significant proportion of new jobs being in financial services and distribution.
The original name of the town was Medeshamstede. The town's name changed to "Burgh" from the late tenth century, possibly after Abbot Kenulf had built a defensive wall around the abbey, and eventually developed into the form Peterborough; the town does not appear to have been a borough until the 12th century. The contrasting form "Gildenburgh" is also found in the 12th century history of the abbey, the Peterborough version of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (see Peterborough Chronicle below) and in a history of the abbey by the monk Hugh Candidus.
Present-day Peterborough is the latest in a series of settlements which have at one time or other benefited from its site where the Nene leaves large areas of permanently drained land for the fens. Remains of Bronze Age settlement and what is thought to be religious activity can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the city centre. The Romans established a fortified garrison town at Durobrivae on Ermine Street, five miles (8 km) to the west in Water Newton, around the middle of the 1st century AD. Durobrivae's earliest appearance among surviving records is in the Antonine Itinerary of the late 2nd century. There was also a large 1st century Roman fort at Longthorpe, designed to house half a legion, or about 3,000 soldiers; it may have been established as early as around AD 44–48. Peterborough was an important area of ceramic production in the Roman period, providing Nene Valley Ware that was traded as far away as Cornwall and the Antonine Wall, Caledonia.
Peterborough is shown by its original name Medeshamstede to have possibly been an Anglian settlement before AD 655, when Sexwulf founded a monastery on land granted to him for that purpose by Peada of Mercia, who converted to Christianity and was briefly ruler of the smaller Middle Angles sub-group. His brother Wulfhere murdered his own sons, similarly converted and then finished the monastery by way of atonement.
Hereward the Wake rampaged through the town in 1069 or 1070. Outraged, Abbot Turold erected a fort or castle, which, from his name, was called Mont Turold: this mound, or hill, is on the outside of the deanery garden, now called Tout Hill, although in 1848 Tot-hill or Toot Hill. The abbey church was rebuilt and greatly enlarged in the 12th century. The Peterborough Chronicle, a version of the Anglo-Saxon one, contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman conquest, written here by monks in the 12th century. This is the only known prose history in English between the conquest and the later 14th century. The burgesses received their first charter from "Abbot Robert" – probably Robert of Sutton (1262–1273). The place suffered materially in the war between King John and the confederate barons, many of whom took refuge in the monastery here and in Crowland Abbey, from which sanctuaries they were forced by the king's soldiers, who plundered the religious houses and carried off great treasures. The abbey church became one of Henry VIII's retained, more secular, cathedrals in 1541, having been assessed at the Dissolution (in the King's Books) as having revenue of £1,972.7s.0¾d per annum.
When civil war broke out, Peterborough was divided between supporters of King Charles I and the Long Parliament. The city lay on the border of the Eastern Association of counties which sided with Parliament, and the war reached Peterborough in 1643 when soldiers arrived in the city to attack Royalist strongholds at Stamford and Crowland. The Royalist forces were defeated within a few weeks and retreated to Burghley House, where they were captured and sent to Cambridge. While the Parliamentary soldiers were in Peterborough, however, they ransacked the cathedral, destroying the Lady Chapel, chapter house, cloister, high altar and choir stalls, as well as mediaeval decoration and records.
Housing and sanitary improvements were effected under the provisions of an Act of Parliament passed in 1790; and an Act was passed in 1839 to build a gaol to replace the two that previously stood. After the dissolution the dean and chapter, who succeeded the abbot as lords of the manor, appointed a high bailiff and the constables and other borough officers were elected at their court leet; but this ended when the municipal borough was incorporated in 1874 under the government of a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Among the privileges claimed by the abbot as early as the 13th century was that of having a prison for felons taken in the Soke of Peterborough. In 1576 Bishop Edmund Scambler sold the lordship of the hundred of "Nassaburgh", which was coextensive with the Soke, to Queen Elizabeth I, who gave it to Lord Burghley, and from that time until the 19th century he and his descendants, the Earls and Marquesses of Exeter, had a separate gaol for prisoners arrested in the Soke. The abbot formerly held four fairs, of which two, St. Peter's Fair, granted in 1189 and later held on the second Tuesday and Wednesday in July, and the Brigge Fair, granted in 1439 and later held on the first Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in October, were purchased by the corporation from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1876. The Bridge Fair, as it is now known, granted to the abbey by King Henry VI, survives. Prayers for the opening of the fair were once said at the morning service in the cathedral, followed by a civic proclamation and a sausage lunch at the town hall which still takes place. The mayor traditionally leads a procession from the town hall to the fair where the proclamation is read, asking all persons to "behave soberly and civilly, and to pay their just dues and demands according to the laws of the realm and the rights of the City of Peterborough".
Railway lines began operating locally during the 1840s, but it was the 1850 opening of the Great Northern Railway's line from London to York that transformed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre. Lord Exeter had opposed the railway passing through Stamford, so Peterborough, situated between two main terminals at London and Doncaster, increasingly developed as a regional hub.
Coupled with vast local clay deposits, the railway enabled large-scale brick-making and distribution to take place. The area was the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the twentieth century. Brick-making had been a small seasonal craft since the early nineteenth century, but during the 1890s successful experiments at Fletton using the harder clays from a lower level had resulted in a much more efficient process. The market dominance during this period of the London Brick Company, founded by the prolific Scottish builder and architect John Cathles Hill, gave rise to some of the country's most well-known landmarks, all built using the ubiquitous Fletton Brick. Perkins Engines was established in Peterborough in 1932 by Frank Perkins, creator of the Perkins diesel engine. Thirty years later it employed more than a tenth of the population of Peterborough, mainly at Eastfield. Baker Perkins had relocated from London to Westwood, now the site of HM Prison Peterborough, in 1903, followed by Peter Brotherhood to Walton in 1906; both manufacturers of industrial machinery, they too became major employers in the city. British Sugar remains headquartered in Woodston, although the beet sugar factory, which opened there in 1926, was closed in 1991.
The Norwich and Peterborough (N&P) was formed by the merger of the Norwich Building Society and the Peterborough Building Society in 1986. It was the ninth largest building society at the time of its merger into the Yorkshire Group in 2011. N&P continued to operate under its own brand administered at Lynch Wood until 2018. Prior to merger with the Midlands Co-op in 2013, Anglia Regional, the UK's fifth largest co-operative society, was also based in Peterborough, where it was established in 1876. The combined society began trading as Central England Co-operative in 2014.
Designated a New Town in 1967, Peterborough Development Corporation was formed in partnership with the city and county councils to house London's overspill population in new townships sited around the existing urban area. There were to be four townships, one each at Bretton (originally to be called Milton, a hamlet in the Middle Ages), Orton, Paston/ Werrington and Castor. The last of these was never built, but a fourth, called Hampton, is now taking shape south of the city. It was decided that the city should have a major indoor shopping centre at its heart. Planning permission was received in late summer 1976 and Queensgate, containing over 90 stores and including parking for 2,300 cars, was opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1982. 34 miles (55 km) of urban roads were planned and a network of high-speed landscaped thoroughfares, known as parkways, was constructed.
Peterborough's population grew by 45.4% between 1971 and 1991. New service-sector companies like Thomas Cook and Pearl Assurance were attracted to the city, ending the dominance of the manufacturing industry as employers. An urban regeneration company named Opportunity Peterborough, under the chairmanship of Lord Mawhinney, was set up by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2005 to oversee Peterborough's future development. Between 2006 and 2012 a £1 billion redevelopment of the city centre and surrounding areas was planned. The master plan provided guidelines on the physical shaping of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. Proposals are still progressing for the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter, where Network Rail is preparing a major mixed use development. Whilst recognising that the reconfiguration of the relationship between the city and station was critical, English Heritage found the current plans for Westgate unconvincing and felt more thought should be given to the vitality of the historic core.
With the city expanding, in July 2005 the council adopted a new statutory development plan. Its aim is to accommodate an additional 22,000 homes, 18,000 jobs and over 40,000 people living in Peterborough by 2020. The newly developing Hampton township will be completed, there will be a 1,500-home development at Stanground and a further 1,200-home development at Paston.
The city formed a parliamentary borough returning two members from 1541, with the rest of the Soke being part of Northamptonshire parliamentary county. The Great Reform Act did not affect the borough, although the remaining, rural portion of the Soke was transferred to the northern division of Northamptonshire. In 1885, the borough's representation was reduced to one member, and in 1918, the boundaries were adjusted to include the whole Soke. Recent Members of Parliament for Peterborough have included the Conservative Sir Harmar Nicholls (1950–1974), Labour's Michael Ward (1974–1979), Conservative Brian Mawhinney (1979–1997), Labour's Helen Clark (1997–2005) and Conservative Stewart Jackson, from 2005. Fiona Onasanya won the 2017 general election for Labour; Onasanya was then expelled from the Labour party in December 2018, but kept her seat as an independent until being ejected on 1 May 2019 after a recall petition, triggering a by-election, which won by Labour's Lisa Forbes (June - November 2019). The current incumbent is Conservative Paul Bristow, who won the seat in the 2019 general election.
In 1997, the North West Cambridgeshire constituency was formed, incorporating parts of the city and neighbouring Huntingdonshire. The sitting member is the Conservative Shailesh Vara, who succeeded Sir Brian Mawhinney, former Secretary of State for Transport and Chairman of the Conservative Party, in 2005. Mawhinney, who had previously served as Member of Parliament for Peterborough from 1979, was created Baron Mawhinney of Peterborough in the county of Cambridgeshire later that year.
From 1889, the ancient Soke of Peterborough formed an administrative county in its own right with boundaries similar, although not identical, to the current unitary authority. The area however remained geographically part of Northamptonshire until 1965, when the Soke was merged with Huntingdonshire to form the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough. Following a review of local government in 1974, Huntingdon and Peterborough was abolished and the current district created by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Peterborough with Peterborough Rural District, Barnack Rural District, Thorney Rural District, Old Fletton Urban District and part of the Norman Cross Rural District, which had each existed since 1894. This became part of the non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire. Letters patent were granted continuing the status of city over the greater area. In 1998, the city became autonomous of Cambridgeshire county council as a unitary authority, but it continues to form part of that county for ceremonial purposes. The leader and cabinet model of decision-making, first adopted by the city council in 2001, is similar to national government.
Policing in the city remains the responsibility of Cambridgeshire Constabulary; and firefighting, the responsibility of Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service. Nowadays the Peterborough Volunteer Fire Brigade, one of few of its kind, effectively functions as a retained fire station. The Royal Anglian Regiment serves as the county regiment for Cambridgeshire. Peterborough formed its first territorial army unit, the 6th Northamptonshire Rifle Volunteer Corps, in 1860.
Following the Health and Social Care Act 2012, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group became the main commissioner of health services in the city. Adult social care functions of NHS Peterborough transferred back to the city council in 2012 and public health transferred in 2013. The responsibility of guided primary care services (general practitioners, dentists, opticians and pharmacists) transferred to NHS England. In 2017 the responsibility for commissioning Primary Care Services transferred back to the CCG. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is one of the largest CCGs in the England with over 984,000 registered patients, 91 GP practices and a budget of £1.16bn in 2017/18. Although predominately providing health services in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough the CCG also has practices in both Hertfordshire and Northamptonshire.
Previously, NHS Peterborough (the public-facing name of Peterborough Primary Care Trust) guided primary care services in the city, directly provided adult social care and services in the community such as health visiting and physiotherapy and also funded hospital care and other specialist treatments. Prior to the formation of the PCT, the North West Anglia Healthcare NHS Trust provided health functions within the city and before that, Peterborough Health Authority.
Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust became one of the first ten English NHS foundation trusts in 2004 and in 2017, merged with Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust to form North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust. Although a £300 million health investment plan has seen the transfer of the city's two hospitals into a single site, the Trust has been plagued by financial problems since the move. The full planning application for the redevelopment of the former Edith Cavell Hospital was approved by the council in 2006. Planning permission for the development of an integrated care centre on the site of the former Fenland Wing at Peterborough District Hospital was granted in 2003. The City Care Centre finally opened in 2009 and the first patients were treated at the new Peterborough City Hospital in 2010. The private Fitzwilliam Hospital run by Ramsay Health Care UK is situated in the landscaped grounds of the Milton Estate. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, a designated University of Cambridge teaching trust, provides services to those who suffer from mental health problems. Following merger of the Cambridgeshire Ambulance Service in 1994, then the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust in 2006, the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust is responsible for the provision of statutory emergency medical services (EMS) in Peterborough. The East Anglian Air Ambulance provides helicopter EMS across the region.
The council's budget for the financial year 2018/19 is £418.7 million. The main source of non-school funding is the formula grant, which is paid by central government to local authorities based on the services they provide. This was reduced by nearly 40% during the course of the 2010-15 parliament. The remainder, to which the police and fire authorities (and parish council where this exists) set a precept, is raised from council tax and business rates. This amounts to £59.5 million in 2015/16. Mains water and sewerage services are provided by Anglian Water, a former nationalised industry and natural monopoly, privatised in 1989 and now regulated by OFWAT.
Following deregulation, the consumer has a choice of energy supplier. Electricity was formerly provided by Eastern Electricity, which was privatised in 1990. In 2002, the supply business was sold to Powergen (now E.ON UK) and the distribution rights to EDF Energy who sold them to UK Power Networks in 2010. Natural gas was (and still is) supplied by British Gas, which was privatised in 1986; distribution (and gas and electricity transmission) is the responsibility of the National Grid, having been demerged as Transco in 1997. These industries are regulated by OFGEM. Peterborough Power Station is a 367 MWe gas-fired plant in Fengate operated by Centrica Energy.
British Telecommunications, privatised in 1984, provides fixed ADSL enabled (8 Mbit/s) telephone lines. Local loop unbundling, giving other internet service providers direct access, is completed at four out of 12 exchanges. The city is cabled by Virgin Media (previously Peterborough Cablevision, Cable & Wireless and NTL). These businesses are regulated by OFCOM. Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council are embarking on a superfast broadband project to deliver access to improved connectivity to areas where it is acknowledged that the market is unlikely to deliver.
Peterborough has a history of successful economic growth and continues to act as an attractor for investment and an engine of growth. The overarching ambition is to achieve sustainable growth, which can be maintained without creating significant economic problems.
The city has experienced an economic boom compared to the rest of the country, believed in part to be due to the regeneration plan which ran to 2012. In 2005, growth was on average 5.5%, whilst in Peterborough it was 6.9%, the highest in the UK. The city has also led in business population growth, with a 3.78% increase between April and September 2006, according to Royal Mail's Business Barometer.
Figures plotting growth from 1995 to 2004, revealed that Peterborough had become the most successful economy among unitary authorities in the East of England. They also revealed that the city's economy had grown faster than the regional average and any other economy in the region. It has a strong economy in the environmental goods and services sector and has the largest cluster of environmental businesses in the UK.
In 1994, Peterborough was designated one of four environment cities in the UK and began working to become the country's acknowledged environment capital. Peterborough Environment City Trust, an independent charity, was set up at the same time to work towards this goal, delivering projects promoting healthier and sustainable living in the city. The council and regional development agency have taken advice on regeneration issues from a number of internationally recognised experts, including Benjamin Barber (formerly an adviser to President Bill Clinton), Jan Gustav Strandenaes (United Nations adviser on environmental issues) and Patama Roorakwit (a Thai "community architect").
According to the 2001 census, the workplace population of 90,656 is divided into 60,118 people who live in Peterborough and 30,358 people who commute in. A further 13,161 residents commute out of the city to work. Earnings in Peterborough are lower than average. Median earnings for full-time workers were £11.93 per hour in 2014, less than the regional median for the East of England of £13.62 and the median hourly rate of £13.15 for Great Britain as a whole. As part of the government's M11 corridor, Peterborough is committed to creating 17,500 jobs with the population growing to 200,000 by 2020.
Future employment will also be created through the plan for the city centre launched by the council in 2003. Predictions of the levels and types of employment created were published in 2005. These include 1,421 jobs created in retail; 1,067 created in a variety of leisure and cultural developments; 338 in three hotels; and a further 4,847 jobs created in offices and other workspaces. Recent relocations of large employers include both Tesco (1,070 employees) and Debenhams (850 employees) distribution centres. A further 2,500 jobs were to be created in the £140 million Gateway warehouse and distribution park. This was expected to compensate for the 6,000 job losses as a result of the decline in manufacturing, anticipated in a report cited by the cabinet member for economic growth and regeneration in 2006.
With traditionally low levels of unemployment, Peterborough is a popular destination for workers and has seen significant growth through migration since the post-war period. The leader of the council said in August 2006 that he believed that 80% of the 65,000 people who had arrived in East Anglia from the states that joined the European Union in 2004 were living in Peterborough. To help cope with this influx, the council put forward plans to construct an average of 1,300 homes each year until 2021. Demand for short term employees remains high and the market supports up to 20 high street recruitment agencies at any given time. Peterborough Trades Council, formed in 1898, is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress.
Peterborough is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line, 45–50 minutes' journey time from central London, with high-speed intercity services from King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley operated by the London North Eastern Railway at around a 20-minute frequency, and slower commuter services terminating at Peterborough operated by Great Northern. It is a major railway junction where a number of cross-country routes converge. East Midlands Railway operates the Peterborough to Lincoln Line and a route from Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street via the main line north of Peterborough, CrossCountry operates the Birmingham to Peterborough Line through to Cambridge and Stansted Airport while Greater Anglia operates the Ely to Peterborough Line with a service to Ipswich. Peterborough has a business airport with a paved runway at Holme and a recreational airfield hosting a parachute school at Sibson.
The River Nene, made navigable from the port at Wisbech to Northampton by 1761, passes through the city centre. The Nene Viaduct carries the railway over the river. It was built in 1847 by Sir William and Joseph Cubitt. William Cubitt was the chief engineer of Crystal Palace erected at Hyde Park in 1851. Apart from some minor repairs in 1910 and 1914 (the steel bands and cross braces around the fluted legs) the bridge remains as Cubitts built it. Now a Grade II* listed structure, it is the oldest surviving cast iron railway bridge in the UK. By the Town Bridge, the Customs House, built in the early eighteenth century, is a visible reminder of the city's past function as an inland port. The Environment Agency navigation starts at the junction with the Northampton arm of the Grand Union Canal and extends for 91 miles (147 km) ending at Bevis Hall just upstream of Wisbech. The tidal limit used to be Woodston Wharf until the Dog-in-a-Doublet lock was built five miles (8 km) downstream in 1937.
The A1/A1(M) primary route (part of European route E15) broadly follows the path of the historic Great North Road from St Paul's Cathedral in the heart of London, through Peterborough (Junction 17), continuing north a further 335 miles (539 km) to central Edinburgh. In 1899 the British Electric Traction Company sought permission for a tramway joining the northern suburbs with the city centre. The system, which operated under the name Peterborough Electric Traction Company, opened in 1903 and was abandoned in favour of motor buses in 1930, when it was merged into the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company. Today, bus services in the city are operated by several companies including Stagecoach (formerly Cambus and Viscount) and Delaine Buses. Despite its large-scale growth, Peterborough has the fastest peak and off-peak travel times for a city of its size in the UK, due to the construction of the parkways. The Local Transport Plan anticipated expenditure totalling around £180 million for the period up to 2010 on major road schemes to accommodate development.
The combination of rail connections to the Port of Felixstowe and to the East Coast Main Line as well as a road connection via the A1(M) has led to Peterborough being proposed as the site of a rail-road logistics and distribution centre to be known as "Magna Park".
The Peterborough Millennium Green Wheel is a 50-mile (80 km) network of cycleways, footpaths and bridleways which provide safe, continuous routes around the city with radiating spokes connecting to the city centre. The project has also created a sculpture trail, which provides functional, landscape artworks along the Green Wheel route and a Living Landmarks project involving the local community in the creation of local landscape features such as mini woodlands, ponds and hedgerows. Another long-distance footpath, the Hereward Way, runs from Oakham in Rutland, through Peterborough, to East Harling in Norfolk.
Peterborough has a population of (). It is forecast to reach 200,000 in 2018/9 and 220,000 by around 2031.
Peterborough's population growth was reportedly the second fastest of any British city over the ten years from 2004 to 2013, driven partly by immigration.
According to the 2011 Census, 82.5% of Peterborough's residents categorised themselves as white, 2.8% of mixed ethnic groups, 11.7% Asian, 2.3 per cent black and 0.8% other. Amongst the white population, the largest categories were English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British (70.9%) and other white (10.6%). Those of Pakistani ethnicity accounted for 6.6% of the population and those of Indian ethnicity 2.5.%. The largest black group were those of African ethnicity (1.4%).
Peterborough is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian immigrants in the UK. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Apulia and Campania. By 1960, approximately 3,000 Italian men were employed by London Brick, mostly at the Fletton works. In 1962, the Scalabrini Fathers, who first arrived in 1956, purchased an old school and converted it into a mission church named after the patron saint of workers Saint Joseph (San Giuseppe). By 1991, over 3,000 christenings of second-generation Italians had been carried out there. In 1996, it was estimated that the Italian community of Peterborough numbered 7,000, making it the third largest in the UK after London and Bedford. The 2011 Census recorded 1,179 residents born in Italy.
In the late twentieth century the main source of immigration was from new Commonwealth countries. The 2011 Census showed that a total of 24,166 migrants moved to Peterborough between 2001 and 2011. The city has experienced significant immigration from the A8 countries that joined the European Union in 2004, and in 2011, 14,134 residents of the city were people born in Central and Eastern Europe.
According to a report published by the police in 2007, recent migration had resulted in increased translation costs and a change in the nature of crime in the county, with an increase in drink-driving offences, knife crime and an international dimension added to activities such as running cannabis factories and human trafficking. The number of foreign nationals arrested in the north of the county rose from 894 in 2003, to 2,435 in 2006, but the report also said that "inappropriately negative" community perceptions about migrant workers often complicate routine incidents, raising tensions and turning them "critical". It also noted there was "little evidence that the increased numbers of migrant workers have caused significant or systematic problems in respect of community safety or cohesion". In 2007, Julie Spence, the then Chief Constable emphasised that the fact that the demographic profile of Cambridgeshire had changed dramatically from one where 95% of teenagers were white four years previously to one of the country's fastest growing diverse populations, had had a positive impact on jobs and economic development. In 2008, the BBC broadcast "The Poles are Coming!", a controversial documentary on the impact of Polish migration to Peterborough by Tim Samuels, as part of its "White Season".
The number of languages in use is growing where previously few languages other than English were spoken. , Peterborough offered classes in Italian, Urdu and Punjabi in its primary schools.
Christianity has the largest following in Peterborough, in particular the Church of England, with a significant number of parish churches and a cathedral. 56.7% of Peterborough's residents classified themselves as Christian in the 2011 Census. Recent immigration to the city has also seen the Roman Catholic population increase substantially. Other denominations are also in evidence; the latest church to be constructed is a £7 million "superchurch," KingsGate, formerly Peterborough Community Church, which can seat up to 1,800 worshippers. In comparison with the rest of England, Peterborough has a lower proportion of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Sikhs. The city has a higher percentage of Muslims than England as a whole (9.4% compared to 5% nationally). The majority of Muslims reside in the Millfield, West Town and New England areas of the city, where two large mosques (including the Faidhan-e-Madina Mosque) are based. Peterborough also has both Hindu (Bharat Hindu Samaj) and Sikh (Singh Sabha Gurdwara) temples in these areas.
The Anglican Diocese of Peterborough covers roughly 1,200 square miles (3,100 km²), including the whole of Northamptonshire, Rutland and the Soke of Peterborough. The parts of the city that lie south of the river, which were historically in Huntingdonshire, fall within the Diocese of Ely, which covers the remainder of Cambridgeshire and western Norfolk. The current Bishop of Peterborough has been appointed Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely, with pastoral care for these parishes delegated to him by the Bishop of Ely. The city falls wholly within the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia (which has its seat at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Baptist, Norwich) and is served by Saint Peter and All Souls Church, built in 1896 and decorated in the Gothic style. The Greek Orthodox Community of Saint Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem was established in 1991 under the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.
Peterborough has one independent boarding school: The Peterborough School at Westwood House, founded in 1895. The school caters for girls and now boys up to the age of 18. Peterborough's state schools have recently undergone immense change. Five of the city's 15 secondary schools were closed in July 2007, to be demolished over the coming years. John Mansfield (now an adult learning centre), Hereward (formerly Eastholm, now City of Peterborough Academy, sponsored by the Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust) and Deacon's were replaced with the flagship Thomas Deacon Academy, designed by Lord Foster of Thames Bank which opened in September 2007.
The Voyager School, which has specialist media arts status, replaced Bretton Woods and Walton comprehensive. In September 2017 the school reopened as Queen Katharine Academy, part of the Thomas Deacon Education Trust. The schools that remain have been extended and enlarged. Over £200 million was spent and the changes on-going to 2010. The King's School is one of seven schools established, or in some cases re-endowed and renamed, by King Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries to pray for his soul. In 2006, 39.4% of Peterborough local education authority pupils attained five grades A* to C, including English and Mathematics, in the General Certificate of Secondary Education, lower than the national average of 45.8%.
The city has two colleges of further and higher education, Peterborough Regional College (established in 1946 as Peterborough Technical College) and City College Peterborough (known as Peterborough College of Adult Education until 2010). By 2004, Peterborough Regional College attracted over 15,000 students each year from the UK and abroad and was ranked in the top five per cent of colleges in the UK. Greater Peterborough University Technical College is a new education facility set to open in September 2015.
The city is currently without a university, after Loughborough University closed its Peterborough campus in 2003. Consequently, it became the second largest centre of population in the UK (after Swindon) without its own higher education institution. In 2006, however, Peterborough Regional College began talks with Anglia Ruskin University to develop a new university campus for the city. The college and the university completed the legal contracts for the creation of a new joint venture company in 2007, marking the culmination of legal negotiations and securing of funds required in order to build the new higher education centre. University Centre Peterborough opened to the first 850 students in 2009.
The former public library on Broadway was funded by Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1906; Carnegie was made first freeman of the city on the day of the opening ceremony.
Peterborough enjoys a wide range of events including the annual East of England Show, Peterborough Festival and CAMRA beer festival, which takes place on the river embankment in late August.
The Key Theatre, built in 1973, is situated on the embankment, next to the River Nene. The theatre aims to provide entertainment, enlightenment and education by reflecting the rich culture Peterborough has to offer. The programme is made up of home-grown productions, national touring shows, local community productions and one-off concerts. There is disabled access, an infrared hearing system for the deaf and hard of hearing and there are also regular signed performances.
In 1937, the Odeon Cinema opened on Broadway, where it operated successfully for more than half a century. In 1991, the Odeon showed its last film to the public and was left to fall into a state of disrepair, until 1997, when a local entrepreneur purchased the building as part of a larger project, including a restaurant and art gallery. The Broadway, designed by Tim Foster Architects, was one of the largest theatres in the region and offered a selection of live entertainment, including music, comedy and films. In 2009, it was severely damaged by arsonists, resulting in closure when its insurers refused to pay the claim due to faulty fire detection systems. The Embassy Theatre, a large Art Deco building designed by David Evelyn Nye, also opened on Broadway in 1937. Nye was usually a cinema architect, and this was his only theatre. The Embassy was converted into a cinema in 1953, becoming the ABC and later the Cannon Cinema, before it was closed in 1989. Since 1996, the premises have been occupied by the Edwards bar chain.
The John Clare Theatre within the new central library, again on Broadway, is home to the Peterborough Film Society. One of the region's leading venues, the Cresset in Bretton, provides a wide range of events for the residents of the city and beyond, including theatre, comedy, music and dance. Peterborough has a 13-screen Showcase Cinema, an ice rink and two indoor swimming pools open to the general public. A diverse range of restaurants can be found throughout the city, including Chinese & Cantonese, Indian & Nepalese, Thai and many Italian restaurants. Peterborough has recently been used as the setting in popular literature: "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka, "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon and, the first in a projected series, "Long Way Home", a debut novel by Eva Doran.
Peterborough United Football Club, known as "The Posh", has been the local football team since 1934. The ground is situated at London Road on the south bank of the River Nene. Peterborough United have a history of cup giant-killings. They set the record for the highest number of league goals (134, Terry Bly alone scoring 52) in the 1960-61 season, which was their first season in the Football League, in which they won the Fourth Division title. The club's highest finish position to date was tenth place in Division One, then the second tier of English football, in the 1992-93 season. Irish property developer Darragh MacAnthony was appointed chairman in 2006 and is now owner, having undertaken a lengthy purchase from Barry Fry who remains director of football, having also been manager of the club from 1996 to 2005. Peterborough also has two non-league football teams. Peterborough Northern Star FC, play at Chestnut Avenue, Dogsthorpe and compete in the United Counties League. Peterborough Sports FC play at Lincoln Road and compete one division above Peterborough Northern Star in the Northern Premier League.
As well as football, Peterborough has teams competing in rugby, cricket, hockey, ice hockey, rowing, athletics, American and Australian rules football. Although Cambridgeshire is not a first-class cricket county, Northamptonshire staged some home matches in the city between 1906 and 1974. Peterborough Town Cricket Club and the City of Peterborough Hockey Club compete at their shared ground in Westwood.
After reforming in 2005, rugby union club Peterborough Lions RFC now compete in National League 3 Midlands. Meanwhile, the city's oldest rugby team, Peterborough RUFC, play at Second Drove (otherwise known as "Fortress Fengate"), and have struggled in recent seasons. Relegation in 2013/14 season, from Midlands 1 East, has been followed by a season in the lower-mid table of the Midlands 2 East (South).
Peterborough City Rowing Club moved from its riverside setting to the current Thorpe Meadows location in 1983. The spring and summer regattas held there attract rowers and scullers from competing clubs all over the country. Every February the adjacent River Nene is host to the head of the river race, which again attracts hundreds of entries. Peterborough Athletic Club train and compete at the embankment athletics arena. In 2006, after 10 years, the Great Eastern Run returned to the racing calendar. Around 3,000 runners raced through the flat streets of Peterborough for the half-marathon, supported by thousands of spectators along the course.
Peterborough Phantoms are the city's ice hockey team, playing in the NIHL at Planet Ice Peterborough, located on Mallard Way in Bretton. Motorcycle speedway is also a popular sport in Peterborough, with race meetings held at the East of England Showground. The team, known as the Peterborough Panthers, have operated regularly in the Elite League. The Showground hosts the annual British Motorcycle Federation Rally each May. In 2009, Peterborough hosted one of the first rounds of the Tour Series, a new series of televised town and city centre cycling races. , the city has hosted a round of the Tour Series each year since, with the exception of 2013.
In March 2017 the first bandy session in England for over a century was held in Peterborough, in the form of rink bandy.
In 2018 Peterborough Bandy Club was founded.
There is a major radio transmitter at Morborne, approximately eight miles (13 km) west of Peterborough, for national FM radio (BBC Radios 1–4 and Classic FM) and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. This facility includes a 154-metre (505 ft) high guyed radio mast which collapsed in 2004 after a fire and has since been re-built. Another transmission site at Gunthorpe in the north east of the city transmits AM/MW and local FM radio. The site is only 3 metres (10 ft) above sea level and has an 83-metre (270 ft) high active insulated guyed mast situated on it.
Peterborough is covered by six local radio stations and one regional station, though only two community stations broadcast from the city. These are Salaam FM, catering for the local Muslim population, which started broadcasting on 106.2 MHz in 2016 and Peterborough Community Radio (PCR FM), a station formed as a result of a merger between former Internet stations Peterborough FM and Radio Peterborough, which started broadcasting on 103.2 MHz in 2017.
Heart Cambridgeshire, the original independent local radio station launched as Hereward Radio in 1980 and becoming Heart Peterborough in 2009, still holds a large section of the market on 102.7 MHz but relocated to Cambridge in 2012, where it began sharing the localised programming (of mainly national output) with Heart Cambridge. Hereward's sister station, WGMS, was launched on the old 1332 kHz (225 meters) frequency in 1992; known as Classic Gold from 1994 to 2007, it is now part of Heart's sister Gold Radio network, but has no programming made in Peterborough. Connect Radio (from 1999 to 2010, known as Lite FM), was the city's second commercial station on 106.8;MHz, but is now broadcast partly from Kettering and partly from Southend. Connect Radio was again sold and rebranded as Smooth East Midlands on 1 October 2019.
Radio Cambridgeshire, the BBC local radio station, began broadcasting on 1 May 1982 on 95.7 MHz (and, originally, 1449 kHz) in the north of the county; it maintains a studio in Priestgate, having moved from Broadway in 2012. Kiss 105-108 is the regional station for the East of England, broadcasting, since 2006, on 107.7 MHz in Peterborough. NOW Peterborough is the local DAB multiplex; BBC National DAB and the national commercial multiplex, Digital One, are also available in the city. Peterborough is in the Anglia Television transmission area for Independent Television, with a small studio in the city (although it borders ITV Central). This is broadcast with BBC One and Two (East), Channel 4 and Channel 5 from Sandy Heath. The digital switchover in the East of England took place in 2011. Shopping channel Ideal World is broadcast nationwide on Freeview from studios in Newark Road, Fengate.
The "Peterborough Telegraph" (established 1948) is the city's newspaper, published on Thursdays and, until 2012, six days a week as the Evening Telegraph, with jobs, property, motors and entertainment supplements. The Telegraph is now owned by East Midlands Newspapers, part of Johnston Press of Edinburgh. Its website, Peterborough Today, is updated six days a week. The "PT's" sister paper, the "Peterborough Citizen" (1898), is a weekly paper delivered free to many homes in the city. The "Peterborough Herald and Post" (1989, a replacement for the "Peterborough Standard", established 1872) ceased publication in 2008. The publisher Emap, which specialises in the production of magazines and the organisation of business events and conferences, traces its origins back to Peterborough in 1854. The 33rd Mayor of Peterborough, Sir Richard Winfrey JP, founder of what would become the East Midland Allied Press, was perhaps the last person to read the Riot Act in 1914.
Peterborough has been used as a location for various television programmes and films. The 1982 BBC production of "The Barchester Chronicles" was filmed largely in and around Peterborough. In 1983 opening scenes for the 13th James Bond film, "Octopussy", starring Sir Roger Moore, were filmed at Orton Mere. A music video for the song "BreakThru" by the band Queen was also shot on the preserved Nene Valley Railway in 1989. In 1995 Pierce Brosnan filmed train crash sequences for the 17th Bond film, "GoldenEye", at the former sugar beet factory. A scene for the film "The Da Vinci Code" was filmed at Burghley House during five weeks secret filming in 2006; and actor, Lee Marvin, found himself camping in Ferry Meadows during the filming of "" in 1985. In October 2008 Hollywood returned to Wansford for the filming of the musical "Nine", starring Penélope Cruz and Daniel Day-Lewis.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the West Front, was founded as a monastery in AD 655 and re-built in its present form between 1118 and 1238. It has been the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough since the diocese was created in 1541, when the last abbot was made the first bishop and the abbot's house was converted into the episcopal palace. Peterborough Cathedral is one of the most intact large Norman buildings in England and is renowned for its imposing early English Gothic West Front which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The cathedral has the distinction of having had two queens buried beneath its paving: Katherine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots. The remains of Queen Mary were removed to Westminster Abbey by her son James I when he became King of England.
The general layout of Peterborough is attributed to Martin de Vecti who, as abbot from 1133 to 1155, rebuilt the settlement on dry limestone to the west of the monastery, rather than the often-flooded marshlands to the east. Abbot Martin was responsible for laying out the market place and the wharf beside the river. Peterborough's 17th-century Guildhall was built in 1671 by John Lovin, who also restored the bishop's palace shortly after the restoration of King Charles II. It stands on columns, providing an open ground floor for the butter and poultry markets which used to be held there. The Market Place was renamed Cathedral Square and the adjacent Gates Memorial Fountain moved to Bishop's Road Gardens in 1963, when the (then weekly) market was transferred to the site of the old cattle market.
Peterscourt on City Road was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1864, housing St. Peter's Teacher Training College for men until 1938. The building is mainly listed for the 18th century doorway, brought from the London Guildhall following war damage. Nearby Tout Hill, the site of a castle bailey, is a scheduled monument. The city has a large Victorian park containing formal gardens, children's play areas, an aviary, bowling green, tennis courts, pitch and putt course and tea rooms. The Park has been awarded the Green Flag Award, the national standard for parks and green spaces, by the Civic Trust. A Cross of Sacrifice was erected in Broadway cemetery by the Imperial War Graves Commission in the early 1920s. The Lido, a striking building with elements of art deco design, was opened in 1936 and is one of the few survivors of its type still in use.
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, built in 1816, housed the city's first infirmary from 1857 to 1928. The museum has a collection of some 227,000 objects, including local archaeology and social history, from the products of the Roman pottery industry to Britain's oldest known murder victim; a collection of marine fossil remains from the Jurassic period of international importance; the manuscripts of John Clare, the "Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" as he was commonly known in his own time; and the Norman Cross collection of items made by French prisoners of war. These prisoners were kept at Norman Cross on the outskirts of Peterborough from 1797 to 1814, in what is believed to be the world's first purpose built prisoner of war camp. The art collection contains an impressive variety of paintings, prints and drawings dating from the 1600s to the present day. Peterborough Museum also holds regular temporary exhibitions, weekend events and guided tours.
Burghley House to the north of Peterborough, near Stamford, was built and mostly designed by Sir William Cecil, later 1st Baron Burghley, who was Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign. The country house, with a park laid out by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown in the 18th century, is one of the principal examples of 16th-century English architecture. The estate, still home to his descendants, hosts the Burghley Horse Trials, an annual three-day event. Another Grade I listed building, Milton Hall near Castor, ancestral home of the Barons and later Earls Fitzwilliam, also dates from the same period. For two centuries following the restoration the city was a pocket borough of this family.
The John Clare Cottage in the village of Helpston was purchased by the John Clare Trust in 2005. The cottage, home of John Clare from his birth in 1793 until 1832, has been restored using traditional building methods to create a resource where visitors can learn about the poet, his works and how rural people lived in the early 19th century. The John Clare Cottage and Thorney Heritage Museum form part of the Greater Fens Museum Partnership, along with Peterborough Museum and Flag Fen.
Longthorpe Tower, a 14th-century three-storey tower and fortified manor house in the care of English Heritage, is situated about west of the city centre. It is a scheduled monument, and contains the finest and most complete set of domestic paintings of their period in northern Europe. Nearby Thorpe Hall is one of the few mansions built in the Commonwealth period. A maternity hospital from 1943 to 1970, it was acquired by the Sue Ryder Foundation in 1986 and is currently in use as a hospice.
Flag Fen, the Bronze Age archaeological site, was discovered in 1982, when a team led by Dr Francis Pryor carried out a survey of dykes in the area. Probably religious, it comprises a large number of poles arranged in five long rows, connecting Whittlesey with Peterborough across the wet fenland. The museum exhibits many of the artefacts found, including what is believed to be the oldest wheel in Britain. An exposed section of the Roman road known as the Fen Causeway also crosses the site.
The Nene Valley Railway, which is now a 7.5-mile (12 km) heritage railway, was one of the last passenger lines to fall under the Beeching Axe in 1966, although it remained open for freight traffic until 1972. In 1974, the former development corporation bought the line, which runs from the city centre to Yarwell Junction just west of Wansford via Orton Mere and the 500 acre (202 ha) Ferry Meadows country park, and leased it to the Peterborough Railway Society. Railworld is a railway museum located beside Peterborough Nene Valley railway station.
The Nene Park, which opened in 1978, covers a site long, from slightly west of Castor to the centre of Peterborough. The park has three lakes, one of which houses a watersports centre. Ferry Meadows, one of the major destinations and attractions signposted on the Green Wheel, occupies a large portion of Nene Park. Orton Mere provides access to the east of the park.
Southey Wood, once included in the Royal Forest of Rockingham, is a mixed woodland maintained by the Forestry Commission between the villages of Upton and Ufford. Nearby, Castor Hanglands, Barnack Hills and Holes and Bedford Purlieus national nature reserves are each sites of special scientific interest. In 2002, the Hills and Holes, one of Natural England's 35 spotlight reserves, was designated a special area of conservation as part of the Natura 2000 network of sites throughout the European Union.
Peterborough is the birthplace of many notable people, the astronomer George Alcock, one of the most successful visual discoverers of novas and comets; John Clare, from Helpston, the nineteenth century poet; artist, Christopher Perkins – brother of Frank; and Sir Henry Royce, 1st Baronet of Seaton, engineer and co-founder of Rolls-Royce. Physician, actor and author, "Sir" John Hill, credited with 76 separate works in the "Dictionary of National Biography", the most valuable of which dealing with botany, is also said to have been born here. The socialist writer and illustrator, Frank Horrabin, who was born in the city, and was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament in 1929.
The utilitarian philosopher, Dr Richard Cumberland, was 14th Lord Bishop of Peterborough from 1691 until his death in 1718; and Norfolk-born nurse and humanitarian, Edith Cavell, who received part of her education at Laurel Court in the Minster Precinct, is commemorated by a plaque in the Cathedral and by the name of the hospital. Two prominent historical figures were born locally, Hereward the Wake, an outlaw who led resistance to the Norman Conquest and now lends his name to several places and businesses in the city; and St. John Payne, one of the group of prominent Catholics martyred between 1535 and 1679 and later designated the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, who was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised with the other 39 by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Musicians include Sir Thomas Armstrong, organist, conductor and former principal of the Royal Academy of Music; Andy Bell, lead vocalist of the electronic pop duo Erasure; Barrie Forgie, leader of the BBC Big Band; Don Lusher, trombonist and former professor of the Royal College of Music and the Royal Marines School of Music; Paul Nicholas, actor and singer; Maxim Reality and Gizz Butt of dance act The Prodigy and Aston Merrygold of Brit Award-winning pop group JLS. Comedian Ernie Wise lived on Thorpe Avenue for many years, next door to Canadian baritone and actor Edmund Hockridge. Jimmy Savile also lived in the city in the early 1990s.
Other media personalities include actors Simon Bamford, known for the 'Hellraiser' franchise, Adrian Lyne, director of "Fatal Attraction", Oscar Jacques, known for playing Tom Tupper in the CBBC Series "M.I. High", Luke Pasqualino, known for his roles in "Skins" and "The Musketeers"; television presenter, Sarah Cawood, who grew up in Maxey; BBC Formula One presenter, Jake Humphrey; football journalist and Talksport radio presenter, Adrian Durham; and the biologist, author and broadcaster, Prof. Brian J. Ford, who attended the King's School and still lives in Eastrea near Whittlesey. Local businessman, Peter Boizot, founder of the Pizza Express restaurant chain and Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, has supported the cultural and sporting life of Peterborough and received its highest accolade, the freedom of the city. The thalidomide victim Terry Wiles, subject of the 1979 film "On Giant's Shoulders", was born in the city.
In the sporting world, Tottenham Hotspur and England footballer, David Bentley, was born in the city., as was Louis Smith, who at the 2008 games became Great Britain's first gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal in a century. Chelsea Football player, currently on loan at Luton Town footballer Isaiah Brown, was born in Peterborough, before joining Leicester City and later West Bromwich Albion, becoming the second youngest player to play in the Premier League.
According to the Köppen classification the British Isles experience a maritime climate characterised by relatively cool summers and mild winters. Compared with other parts of the country, East Anglia is slightly warmer and sunnier in the summer and colder and frostier in the winter. Owing to its inland position, furthest from the landfall of most Atlantic depressions, Cambridgeshire is one of the driest counties in the UK, receiving, on average, around 600 mm (2 ft) of rain per year. The Met Office weather station at Wittering, within the unitary authority of Peterborough, recorded a maximum temperature of on 25 July 2019. The lowest temperature in recent years was during February 2012.
East Anglia is most notable for being almost flat. During the Ice Age much of the region was covered by ice sheets and this has influenced the topography and nature of the soils. Much of Cambridgeshire is low-lying, in some places below present-day mean sea level. The lowest point on land is supposedly just to the south of the city at Holme Fen, which is 2.75 metres (9 ft) below sea level. The largest of the many settlements along the Fen edge, Peterborough has been called the "Gateway to the Fens". Before they were drained the Fens were liable to periodic flooding so arable farming was limited to the higher areas of the Fen edge, with the rest of the Fenland dedicated to pastoral farming. In this way, the mediaeval and early modern Fens stood in contrast to the rest of southern England, which was primarily arable. Since the advent of modern drainage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Fens have been radically transformed such that arable farming has almost entirely replaced pastoral. The unitary authority extends north west to the settlements of Wothorpe and Wittering and east beyond Thorney into the historic Isle of Ely and includes the Ortons, south of the River Nene. It borders Northamptonshire to the west, Lincolnshire to the north, and the Cambridgeshire districts of Fenland and Huntingdonshire to the south and east. The city centre is located at 52°35'N latitude 0°15'W longitude or Ordnance Survey national grid reference TL 185 998.
Urban areas
"Townships are in bold type. In addition to the surrounding villages, Bretton, Orton Longueville and Orton Waterville are parished. The city council also works closely with Werrington neighbourhood association which operates on a similar basis to a parish council."
Bretton – Dogsthorpe – Eastfield – Eastgate – Fengate – Fletton – Gunthorpe – The Hamptons – Longthorpe – Millfield – Netherton – Newark – New England – The Ortons – Parnwell – Paston – Ravensthorpe – Stanground – Walton – Werrington – West Town – Westwood – Woodston
Rural areas
"Civil parishes do not cover the whole of England and mostly exist in rural hinterland. They are usually administered by parish councils which have various local responsibilities."
Ailsworth – Bainton – Barnack – Borough Fen – Castor – Deeping Gate – Etton – Eye – Eye Green – Glinton – Helpston – Marholm – Maxey – Newborough – Northborough – Peakirk – Southorpe – St. Martin's Without – Sutton – Thorney – Thornhaugh – Ufford – Upton – Wansford – Wittering – Wothorpe
These are further arranged into 24 electoral wards for the purposes of local government. 15 wards comprise the Peterborough constituency for elections to the House of Commons, while the remaining nine fall within the North West Cambridgeshire constituency.
Peterborough lies in the middle of several distinct regional accent groups and as such has a hybrid of Fenland East Anglian, East Midland and London Estuary English features. The city falls just north of the A vowel isogloss and as such most native speakers will use the flat A, as found in "cat", in words such as "last". "Yod"-dropping is often heard from Peterborians, as in the rest of East Anglia, for example "new" as . However, the large number of newcomers has impacted greatly on the English spoken by the younger generation. Common so-called Estuary English features such as "L"-vocalisation, T glottalisation and "Th"-fronting give today's Peterborough accent a definite south-eastern sound.
Town twinning started in Europe after the Second World War. Its purpose was to promote friendship and greater understanding between the people of different European cities. A twinning link is a formal, long-term friendship agreement involving co-operation between two communities in different countries and endorsed by both local authorities. The two communities organise projects and activities addressing a range of issues and develop an understanding of historical, cultural, lifestyle similarities and differences. Peterborough is twinned with the following municipalities:
Bourges and Forlì are also twinned with each other. The city also has more informal friendship links with Foggia, Italy; Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe; Pécs, Hungary; and all Peterboroughs around the world. The county of Cambridgeshire has been twinned with Kreis Viersen, Germany since 1983.
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the City of Peterborough. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23906 |
Polyphemus
Polyphemus (; "Polyphēmos") is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's "Odyssey". His name means "abounding in songs and legends". Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the "Odyssey". The satyr play of Euripides is dependent on this episode apart from one detail; for comic effect, Polyphemus is made a pederast in the play. Later Classical writers presented him in their poems as heterosexual and linked his name with the nymph Galatea. Often he was portrayed as unsuccessful in these, and as unaware of his disproportionate size and musical failings. In the work of even later authors, however, he is presented as both a successful lover and skilled musician. From the Renaissance on, art and literature reflect all of these interpretations of the giant.
In Homer's epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclopes during his journey home from the Trojan War and, together with some of his men, enters a cave filled with provisions. When the giant Polyphemus returns home with his flocks, he blocks the entrance with a great stone and, scoffing at the usual custom of hospitality, eats two of the men. Next morning, the giant kills and eats two more and leaves the cave to graze his sheep.
After the giant returns in the evening and eats two more of the men, Odysseus offers Polyphemus some strong and undiluted wine given to him earlier on his journey. Drunk and unwary, the giant asks Odysseus his name, promising him a guest-gift if he answers. Odysseus tells him "Οὖτις", which means "nobody" and Polyphemus promises to eat this "Nobody" last of all. With that, he falls into a drunken sleep. Odysseus had meanwhile hardened a wooden stake in the fire and drives it into Polyphemus' eye. When Polyphemus shouts for help from his fellow giants, saying that "Nobody" has hurt him, they think Polyphemus is being afflicted by divine power and recommend prayer as the answer.
In the morning, the blind Cyclops lets the sheep out to graze, feeling their backs to ensure that the men are not escaping. However, Odysseus and his men have tied themselves to the undersides of the animals and so get away. As he sails off with his men, Odysseus boastfully reveals his real name, an act of hubris that was to cause problems for him later. Polyphemus prays to his father, Poseidon, for revenge and casts huge rocks towards the ship, which Odysseus barely escapes.
The story reappears in later Classical literature. In "Cyclops", the 5th-century BC play by Euripides, a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief from the grisly story of how Polyphemus is punished for his impious behaviour in not respecting the rites of hospitality. In his Latin epic, Virgil describes how Aeneas observes blind Polyphemus as he leads his flocks down to the sea. They have encountered Achaemenides, who re-tells the story of how Odysseus and his men escaped, leaving him behind. The giant is described as descending to the shore, using a "lopped pine tree" as a walking staff. Once Polyphemus reaches the sea, he washes his oozing, bloody eye socket and groans painfully. Achaemenides is taken aboard Aeneas’ vessel and they cast off with Polyphemus in chase. His great roar of frustration brings the rest of the Cyclopes down to the shore as Aeneas draws away in fear.
The vivid nature of the Polyphemus episode made it a favorite theme of ancient Greek painted pottery, on which the scenes most often illustrated are the blinding of the Cyclops and the ruse by which Odysseus and his men escape. One such episode, on a vase featuring the hero carried beneath a sheep, was used on a 27 drachma Greek postage stamp in 1983.
The blinding was depicted in life-size sculpture, including a giant Polyphemus, in the Sperlonga sculptures probably made for the Emperor Tiberius. This may be an interpretation of an existing composition, and was apparently repeated in variations in later Imperial palaces by Claudius, Nero and at Hadrian's Villa.
Of the European painters of the subject, the Flemish Jacob Jordaens depicted Odysseus escaping from the cave of Polyphemus in 1635 (see gallery below) and others chose the dramatic scene of the giant casting boulders at the escaping ship. In Guido Reni's painting of 1639/40 (see below), the furious giant is tugging a boulder from the cliff as Odysseus and his men row out to the ship far below. Polyphemus is portrayed, as it often happens, with two empty eye sockets and his damaged eye located in the middle on his forehead. This convention goes back to Greek statuary and painting, and is reproduced in Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein's 1802 head and shoulders portrait of the giant (see below).
Arnold Bocklin pictures the giant as standing on rocks onshore and swinging one of them back as the men row desperately over a surging wave (see below), while Polyphemus is standing at the top of a cliff in Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting of 1902. He stands poised, having already thrown one stone, which barely misses the ship. The reason for his rage is depicted in J. M. W. Turner's painting, "Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" (1829). Here the ship sails forward as the sun breaks free of clouds low on the horizon. The giant himself is an indistinct shape barely distinguished from the woods and smoky atmosphere high above.
Folktales similar to that of Homer's Polyphemus are a widespread phenomenon throughout the ancient world. In 1857, Wilhelm Grimm collected versions in Serbian, Romanian, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, German, and others; versions in Basque, Lappish, Lithuanian, Gascon, Syrian, and Celtic are also known. More than two hundred different versions have been identified, from around twenty five nations, covering a geographic region extending from Iceland, Ireland, England, Portugal and Africa to Arabia, Turkey, Russia, and Korea. The consensus of current modern scholarship is that these "Polyphemus legends" preserve traditions predating Homer.
An example of a such a story is one from Georgia, in the Caucasus, which describes several brothers held prisoner by a giant one-eyed shepherd called "One-eye". After all but two of the brothers are roasted on a spit and eaten, the remaining two take the spit, heat it red hot, and stab it into the giant's eye. As One-eye let his flock out of their pen, he felt each sheep as it passed between his legs, but the two brothers were able to escape by covering themselves with a sheepskin.
Writing more than three centuries after the Odyssey is thought to have been composed, Philoxenus of Cythera took up the myth of Polyphemus in his poem "Cyclops" or "Galatea". The poem was written to be performed as a dithyramb, of which only fragments have survived, and was perhaps the first to provide a female love interest for the Cyclops. The object of Polyphemus’ romantic desire is a sea nymph named Galatea. In the poem, Polyphemus is not a cave dwelling, monstrous brute, as in the "Odyssey", but instead he is rather like Odysseus himself in his vision of the world: He has weaknesses, he is adept at literary criticism, and he understands people.
The date of composition for the "Cyclops" is not precisely known, but it must be prior to 388 BC, when Aristophanes parodied it in his comedy "Plutus" ("Wealth"); and probably after 406 BC, when Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse. Philoxenus lived in that city and was the court poet of Dionysius I. According to ancient commentators, either because of his frankness regarding Dionysius' poetry, or because of a conflict with the tyrant over a female aulos player named Galatea, Philoxenus was imprisoned in the quarries and had there composed his "Cyclops" in the manner of a "Roman à clef", where the poem's characters, Polyphemus, Odysseus and Galatea, were meant to represent Dionysius, Philoxenus, and the aulos-player. Philoxenus had his Polyphemus perform on the cithara, a professional lyre requiring great skill. The Cyclops playing such a sophisticated and fashionable instrument would have been quite a surprising juxtaposition for Philoxenus' audience.
Philoxenus' "Cyclops" is also referred to in Aristotle’s "Poetics" in a section that discusses representations of people in tragedy and comedy, citing as comedic examples the "Cyclops" of both Timotheus and Philoxenus.
The text of Aristophanes' last extant play "Plutus" ("Wealth") has survived with almost all of its choral odes missing. What remains shows Aristophanes (as he does to some extent in all his plays) parodying a contemporary literary work — in this case Philoxenus’ "Cyclops". While making fun of literary aspects of Philoxenus' dithyramb, Aristophanes is at the same time commenting on musical developments occurring in the fourth century BC, developing themes that run through the whole play. It also contains lines and phrases taken directly from the "Cyclops".
The slave Cario, tells the chorus that his master has brought home with him the god Wealth, and because of this they will all now be rich. The chorus wants to dance for joy, so Cario takes the lead by parodying Philoxenus' "Cyclops". As a solo performer leading a chorus that sings and dances, Cario recreates the form of a dithyramb. He first casts himself in the role of Polyphemus while assigning to the chorus the roles of sheep and goats, at the same time imitating the sound of a lyre: "And now I wish — threttanello! — to imitate the Cyclops and, swinging my feet to and fro like this, to lead you in the dance. But come on, children, shout and shout again the songs of bleating sheep and smelly goats." The chorus, however, does not want to play sheep and goats, they would rather be Odysseus and his men, and they threaten to blind Cario (as had Odysseus the drunken Cyclops) with a wooden stake.
The romantic element, originated by Philoxenus, was revived by later Hellenistic poets, including Theocritus, Callimachus, Hermesianax, and Bion of Smyrna.
Theocritus is credited with creating the genre of pastoral poetry. His works are titled "Idylls" and of these Idyll XI tells the story of the Cyclops' love for Galatea. Though the character of Polyphemus derives from Homer, there are notable differences. Where Homer's Cyclops was beastly and wicked, Theocritus' is absurd, lovesick and comic. Polyphemus loves the sea nymph Galatea, but she rejects him because of his ugliness. However, in a borrowing from Philoxenus’ poem, Polyphemus has discovered that music will heal lovesickness, and so he plays the panpipes and sings of his woes, for "I am skilled in piping as no other Cyclops here”. His longing is to overcome the antithetic elements that divide them, he of earth and she of water:
The love of the mismatched pair was later taken up by other pastoral poets. The same trope of music being the cure for love was introduced by Callimachus in his Epigram 47: "How excellent was the charm that Polyphemus discovered for the lover. By Earth, the Cyclops was no fool!" A fragment of a lost idyll by Bion also portrays Polyphemus declaring his undying love for Galatea. Referring back to this, an elegy on Bion's death that was once attributed to Moschus takes the theme further in a piece of hyperbole. Where Polyphemus had failed, the poet declares, Bion's greater artistry had won Galatea's heart, drawing her from the sea to tend his herds. This reflected the situation in Idyll VI of Theocritus. There two herdsmen engage in a musical competition, one of them playing the part of Polyphemus, who asserts that since he has adopted the ruse of ignoring Galatea, she has now become the one who pursues him.
The successful outcome of Polyphemus' love was also alluded to in the course of a 1st-century BC love elegy on the power of music by the Latin poet Propertius. Listed among the examples he mentions is that "Even Galatea, it’s true, below wild Etna, wheeled her brine-wet horses, Polyphemus, to your songs." The division of contrary elements between the land-based monster and the sea nymph, lamented in Theocritus’ Idyll 11, is brought into harmony by this means.
While Ovid’s treatment of the story that he introduced into the "Metamorphoses" is reliant on the idylls of Theocritus, it is complicated by the introduction of Acis, who has now become the focus of Galatea’s love.
There is also a reversion to the Homeric vision of the hulking monster, whose attempt to play the tender shepherd singing love songs is made a source of humour by Galatea:
In his own character, too, Polyphemus mentions the transgression of heavenly laws that once characterised his actions and is now overcome by Galatea: "I, who scorn Jove and his heaven and his piercing lightning bolt, submit to you alone."
Galatea listens to the love song of Polyphemus while she and Acis lie hidden by a rock. In his song, Polyphemus scolds her for not loving him in return, offers her rustic gifts and points out what he considers his best feature — the single eye that is, he boasts, the size of a great shield. But when Polyphemus discovers the hiding place of the lovers, he becomes enraged with jealousy. Galatea, terrified, dives into the ocean, while the Cyclops wrenches off a piece of the mountain and crushes Acis with it. But on her return, Galatea changes her dead lover into the spirit of the Sicilian river Acis.
That the story sometimes had a more successful outcome for Polyphemus is also attested in the arts. In one of the murals rescued from the site of Pompeii, Polyphemus is pictured seated on a rock with a cithara (rather than a syrinx) by his side, holding out a hand to receive a love letter from Galatea, which is carried by a winged Cupid riding on a dolphin.
In another fresco, also dating from the 1st century AD, the two stand locked in a naked embrace (see below). From their union came the ancestors of various wild and war-like races. According to some accounts, the Celts (Galati in Latin, Γάλλοi in Greek) were descended from their son Galatos, while Appian credited them with three children, Celtus, Illyrius and Galas, from whom descend the Celts, the Illyrians and the Gauls respectively.
There are indications that Polyphemus’ courtship also had a more successful outcome in one of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata. There Doris, one of Galatea's sisters, spitefully congratulates her on her love conquest and she defends Polyphemus. From the conversation, one understands that Doris is chiefly jealous that her sister has a lover. Galatea admits that she does not love Polyphemus but is pleased to have been chosen by him in preference to all her companions.
That their conjunction was fruitful is also implied in a later Greek epic from the turn of the 5th century AD. In the course of his "Dionysiaca", Nonnus gives an account of the wedding of Poseidon and Beroe, at which the Nereid "Galatea twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses, for she had learnt well how to sing, being taught by Polyphemos with a shepherd’s syrinx."
During Renaissance and Baroque times Ovid's story emerged again as a popular theme. In Spain Luis de Góngora y Argote wrote the much admired narrative poem, "Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea", published in 1627. It is particularly noted for its depiction of landscape and for the sensual description of the love of Acis and Galatea. It was written in homage to an earlier and rather shorter narrative with the same title by Luis Carillo y Sotomayor (1611). The story was also given operatic treatment in the very popular zarzuela of Antoni Lliteres Carrió (1708). The atmosphere here is lighter and enlivened by the inclusion of the clowns Momo and Tisbe.
In France the story was condensed to the fourteen lines of Tristan L'Hermite's sonnet "Polyphème en furie" (1641). In it the giant expresses his fury upon viewing the loving couple, ultimately throwing the huge rock that kills Acis and even injures Galatea. Later in the century, Jean-Baptiste Lully composed his opera Acis et Galatée (1686) on the theme.
In Italy Giovanni Bononcini composed the one-act opera "Polifemo" (1703). Shortly afterwards George Frideric Handel worked in that country and composed the cantata "Aci, Galatea e Polifemo" (1708), laying as much emphasis on the part of Polifemo as on the lovers. Written in Italian, Polifemo's deep bass solo "Fra l'ombre e gl'orrori" (From horrid shades) establishes his character from the start. After Handel's move to England, he gave the story a new treatment in his pastoral opera "Acis and Galatea" with an English libretto provided by John Gay. Initially composed in 1718, the work went through many revisions and was later to be given updated orchestrations by both Mozart and Mendelssohn.* As a pastoral work it is suffused with Theocritan atmosphere but largely centres on the two lovers. When Polyphemus declares his love in the lyric “O ruddier than the cherry”, the effect is almost comic. Handel's rival for a while on the London scene, Nicola Porpora, also made the story the subject of his opera "Polifemo" (1735).
Later in the century Joseph Haydn composed "Acide e Galatea" (1763) as his first opera while in Vienna. Designed for an imperial wedding, it was given a happy ending centred on the transformation scene after the murder of Acis as the pair declare their undying love. Johann Gottlieb Naumann was to turn the story into a comic opera, "Aci e Galatea", with the subtitle "i ciclopi amanti" (the amorous cyclops). The work was first performed in Dresden in 1801 and its plot was made more complicated by giving Polifemo a companion, Orgonte. There were also two other lovers, Dorinda and Lisia, with Orgonte Lisia's rival for Dorinda's love.
After John Gay's libretto in Britain, it was not until the 19th century that the subject was given further poetical treatment. In 1819 appeared "The Death of Acis" by Bryan Procter, writing under the name of Barry Cornwall. A blank verse narrative with lyric episodes, it celebrates the musicianship of Polyphemus, which draws the lovers to expose themselves from their hiding place in a cave and thus brings about the death of Acis. At the other end of the century, there was Alfred Austin's dramatic poem "Polyphemus", which is set after the murder and transformation of the herdsman. The giant is tortured by hearing the happy voices of Galatea and Acis as they pursue their love duet. Shortly afterwards Albert Samain wrote the 2-act verse drama "Polyphème" with the additional character of Lycas, Galatea's younger brother. In this the giant is humanised; sparing the lovers when he discovers them, he blinds himself and wades to his death in the sea. The play was first performed posthumously in 1904 with incidental music by Raymond Bonheur. On this the French composer Jean Cras based his operatic ‘lyric tragedy’, composed in 1914 and first performed in 1922. Cras took Samain's text almost unchanged, subdividing the play's two acts into four and cutting a few lines from Polyphemus' final speech.
There have also been two Spanish musical items that reference Polyphemus' name. Reginald Smith Brindle's four fragments for guitar, "El Polifemo de Oro" (1956), takes its title from Federico García Lorca's poem, “The riddle of the guitar”. That speaks of six dancing maidens (the guitar strings) entranced by ‘a golden Polyphemus’ (the one-eyed sound-hole). The Spanish composer Andres Valero Castells takes the inspiration for his "Polifemo i Galatea" from Gongora's work. Originally written for brass band in 2001, he rescored it for orchestra in 2006.
Paintings that include Polyphemus in the story of Acis and Galatea can be grouped according to their themes. Most notably the story takes place within a pastoral landscape in which the figures are almost incidental. This is particularly so in Nicholas Poussin's 1649 "Landscape with Polyphemus" (see gallery below) in which the lovers play a minor part in the foreground. To the right, Polyphemus merges with a distant mountain top on which he plays his pipes. In an earlier painting by Poussin from 1630 (now housed at the Dublin National Gallery) the couple are among several embracing figures in the foreground, shielded from view of Polyphemus, who is playing his flute higher up the slope. Another variation on the theme was painted by Pietro Dandini during this period.
An earlier fresco by Giulio Romano from 1528 seats Polyphemus against a rocky foreground with a lyre in his raised right hand. The lovers can just be viewed through a gap in the rock that gives onto the sea at the lower right. (1681) represents a seated Polyphemus in his sculpture, except that in his version it is pipes that the giant holds in his lowered hand. Otherwise he has a massive club held across his body and turns to the left to look over his shoulder.
Other paintings take up the Theocritan theme of the pair divided by the elements with which they are identified, land and water. There are a series of paintings, often titled "The Triumph of Galatea", in which the nymph is carried through the sea by her Nereid sisters, while a minor figure of Polyphemus serenades her from the land. Typical examples of this were painted by François Perrier, Giovanni Lanfranco and Jean-Baptiste van Loo.
A whole series of paintings by Gustave Moreau make the same point in a variety of subtle ways. The giant spies on Galatea through the wall of a sea grotto or emerges from a cliff to adore her sleeping figure (see below). Again, Polyphemus merges with the cliff where he meditates in the same way that Galatea merges with her element within the grotto in the painting at Musée d'Orsay. The visionary interpretation of the story also finds its echo in Odilon Redon's 1913 painting "The Cyclops" in which the giant towers over the slope on which Galatea sleeps.
French sculptors have also been responsible for some memorable versions. Auguste Ottin's separate figures are brought together in an 1866 fountain in the Luxembourg Garden. Above is crouched the figure of Polyphemus in weathered bronze, peering down at the white marble group of Acis and Galatea embracing below (see above). A little later Auguste Rodin made a series of statues, centred on Polyphemus. Originally modelled in clay around 1888 and later cast in bronze, they may have been inspired by Ottin's work.
A final theme is the rage that succeeds the moment of discovery. That is portrayed in earlier paintings of Polyphemus casting a rock at the fleeing lovers, such as those by Annibale Carracci, Lucas Auger and Carle van Loo. Jean-Francois de Troy's 18th-century version combines discovery with aftermath as the giant perched above the lovers turns to wrench up a rock.
Polyphemus and Odysseus
Polyphemus as lover
Polyphemus is mentioned in the "Apprentice" chapter of Albert Pike's "Morals and Dogma" (1871), as, within Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Polyphemus is regarded as a symbol for a civilization that harms itself using ill directed blind force.
The Polyphemus moth is so named because of the large eyespots in the middle of the hind wings.
A species of burrowing tortoise, "Gopherus polyphemus", is named after Polyphemus because of their both using subterranean retreats.
A number of ships and English steam locomotives have also been named after the giant.
The Polyphemus episode was featured in the 1905 short film "Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus" by Georges Méliès. This combines with the Calypso episode and employs special effects. Other films that include it have been the 1911 "Odissea" and the 1955 "Ulysses" (see external links below).
Specific artworks discussed above
Specific opera and filmworks discussed above | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23914 |
Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a Western Romance language originating in the Iberian Peninsula. It is the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. A Portuguese-speaking person or nation is referred to as "Lusophone" ("Lusófono"). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese and Portuguese creole speakers are also found around the world (e.g., Cape Verdean Creole, and Papiamento the most widely spoken of these).
Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology and lexicon. With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 270 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the sixth most natively spoken language in the world, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers. Being the most widely spoken language in South America and all of the Southern Hemisphere, it's also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa and is an official language of the European Union, Mercosur, OAS, ECOWAS and the African Union. The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations.
When the Romans arrived at the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought the Latin language with them, from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason, the language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture and Celtic culture, part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages.
Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period. The occupiers, mainly Suebi, Visigoths and Buri who originally spoke Germanic languages, quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. After the Moorish invasion beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak a form of Romance commonly known as Mozarabic, which lasted three centuries longer in Spain. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek, mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia and County of Portugal.It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, which had by then assumed reign over Galicia.
In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania, much as Occitan was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs "lh" and "nh", used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese, presumably by Gerald of Braga, a monk from Moissac, who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal. In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created the first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the "Estudos Gerais", which later moved to Coimbra) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially.
In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. By the mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a "lingua franca" in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities.
Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to the formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word "cristão", "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal.
The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the "Cancioneiro Geral" by Garcia de Resende, in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing – and eventually speech – in Portuguese.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as ("the last flower of Latium, naive and beautiful. Portuguese is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem "The Lusiads".
In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in the world. The museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire, but restored and reopened in 2020.
Portuguese is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal, Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%). Perhaps 75% of the population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively, while approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside. Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census. Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole. Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board was charged with promoting and ensuring respect.
There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many countries including Andorra (15.4%), Bermuda, Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census), France (900,000 people), Japan (400,000 people), Jersey, Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in the north of the country), Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people), Macau (0.6% or 12,000 people), Switzerland (196,000 nationals in 2008), Venezuela (554,000). and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey).
In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa.
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries
(in Portuguese "Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa", with the Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the eight independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language. In 2011, Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French) and, in July 2014, the country was accepted as a member of the CPLP.
Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese) and of several international organizations, including Mercosur, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of American States, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Southern African Development Community and the European Union.
According to The World Factbook country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order):
Notes:
The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 279 million in July 2017. This number does not include the Lusophone diaspora, estimated at approximately 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, and half a million Cape Verdeans, among others), although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally, a large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil.
The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from the only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese.
Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay. Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela, Zambia, the Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Namibia, Eswatini (Swaziland), South Africa, Ivory Coast, and Mauritius. In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe. Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020. In the countries listed below, Portuguese is spoken either as anative language by minorities due to the Portuguese colonial past or as a "lingua franca" in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the border between Brazil and Uruguay, as well as Angola and Namibia.
According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to the newspaper "The Portugal News" publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America. Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide.
Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Portuguese is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries.
Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and Brazilian immigration to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, etc.) in the world.
, a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs followed by second person verbs, formal language retains the formal , followed by the third person conjugation.
Conjugation of verbs in has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": , in the traditional second person, , in the third person, and , in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person, the kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools.
The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of has been expanding ever since the end of the 20th century, being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects.
Modern Standard European Portuguese ( or ) is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon, in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with the Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa.
Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation.
Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary, but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are independent languages.
Portuguese, like Catalan, preserved the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. "pedra" ; Fr. ', Sp. ', It. ', Ro. ', from Lat. ' ("stone"); or Port. ', Cat. ', Sard. '; Sp. ', It. ', Fr. ', Ro. ', from Lat. ' ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese was the loss of intervocalic "l" and "n", sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. ' ("to jump"), ' ("to hold"), ' ("chain"), Port. ', ', "".
When the elided consonant was "n", it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. ' ("hand"), ' ("frog"), ' ("good"), Old Portuguese ', ', ' (Portuguese: ', ', '). This process was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings "-anem", ' and ' became ' in most cases, cf. Lat. ' ("dog"), ' ("brother"), ' ("reason") with Modern Port. ', ', ', and their plurals "-anes", "-anos", "-ones" normally became "-ães", "-ãos", "-ões", cf. "cães", "irmãos", "razões".
The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that has preserved the clitic case mesoclisis: cf. (I'll give thee), (I'll love you), (I'll contact them). Like Galician, it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: (I had been), (I had lived), (you had lived). Romanian also has this tense, but uses the -s- form.
Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world.
A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes. Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish. Altogether these are over 2,000 words, some verbs and toponymic names of towns, rivers, utensils and plants.
In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) was conquered by the Germanic Suebi and Visigoths. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500
Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to warfare – such as 'spur', 'stake', and 'war', from Gothic "*spaúra", "*stakka", and "*wirro" respectively; the natural world i.e. 'swine' from "*sweina", 'hawk' from "*gabilans", 'wave' from "*vigan"' human emotions such as or ('pride', 'proud') from Old Germanic "*urguol" or verbs like 'to craft, record, graft' from "*graba" or 'to squeeze, quash, grind' from Suebian "*magōn" or 'to shred' from "*harpō". The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde, Esposende and Resende where "sinde" and "sende" are derived from the Germanic "sinths" (military expedition) and in the case of Resende, the prefix "re" comes from Germanic "reths" 'council'. Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques, Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia.
Between the 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article "a(l)-", and include common words such as 'village' from الضيعة "alḍai`a" 'lettuce' from الخس "alkhass", 'warehouse' from المخزن "almakhzan", and 'olive oil' from الزيت "azzait".
Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, 'cutlass' from Japanese "katana", 'tea' from Chinese "chá", and 'chicken-soup, piece of cake' from Malay.
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu, for example, came "kifumate" > 'head caress' (Brazil), "kusula" > 'youngest child' (Brazil), 'tropical wasp' (Brazil), and "kubungula" > 'to dance like a wizard' (Angola). From South America came 'potato', from Taino; and , from Tupi–Guarani "naná" and Tupi "ibá cati", respectively (two species of pineapple), and 'popcorn' from Tupi and 'toucan' from Guarani "tucan".
Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English. These are by far the most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: / 'bracket'/'crochet', 'jacket', 'lipstick', and / 'steak'/'slice', 'street' respectively, from French , , , , ; and 'steak', , , /, , from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore".
Examples from other European languages: 'pasta', 'pilot', 'carriage', and 'barrack', from Italian , , , and ; 'hair lock', 'wet-cured ham' (in Portugal, in contrast with "presunto" 'dry-cured ham' from Latin "prae-exsuctus" 'dehydrated') or 'canned ham' (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured "presunto cozido" and dry-cured "presunto cru"), or "castelhano" 'Castilian', from Spanish "melena" 'mane', "fiambre" and "castellano."
Portuguese belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages, and it has special ties with the following members of this group:
Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian) are moderately mutually intelligible, and share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are mutually intelligible, and Spanish is asymmetrically comprehensible to Portuguese speakers. Given that Portuguese has a larger phonemic inventory than Spanish, Portuguese is still considerably intelligible (if spoken slowly and without jargon) to most Spanish speakers, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian (Ibero-Romance languages), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them.
Portuñol/Portunhol, a form of code-switching, has a more lively use and is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay () and Paraguay (), and of Portugal with Spain (), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish.
Portuguese and Spanish are the only Ibero-Romance languages, and perhaps the only Romance languages with such thriving inter-language forms, in which visible and lively bilingual contact dialects and code-switching have formed, in which functional bilingual communication is achieved through attempting an approximation to the target foreign language (known as 'Portuñol') without a learned acquisition process, but nevertheless facilitates communication. There is an emerging literature focused on such phenomena (including informal attempts of standardization of the linguistic continua and their usage).
The closest relative of Portuguese is Galician, which is spoken in the autonomous community (region) and historical nationality of Galicia (northwestern Spain). The two were at one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but they have diverged especially in pronunciation and vocabulary due to the political separation of Portugal from Galicia. There is, however, still a linguistic continuity consisting of the variant of Galician referred to as "galego-português baixo-limiao", which is spoken in several Galician villages between the municipalities of Entrimo and Lobios and the transborder region of the natural park of Peneda-Gerês/Xurês. It is "considered a rarity, a living vestige of the medieval language that ranged from Cantabria to Mondego [...]".
As reported by UNESCO, due to the pressure of the Spanish language on the standard official version of the Galician language, the Galician language was on the verge of disappearing. According to the UNESCO philologist Tapani Salminen, the proximity to Portuguese protects Galician.
Nevertheless, the core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are still noticeably closer to Portuguese than to those of Spanish. In particular, like Portuguese, it uses the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic pluperfect. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 90% by R. A. Hall, Jr., 1989) is excellent between Galicians and northern Portuguese. Many linguists consider Galician to be a co-dialect of the Portuguese language.
Another member of the Galician-Portuguese group, most commonly thought of as a Galician dialect, is spoken in the Eonavian region in a western strip in Asturias and the westernmost parts of the provinces of León and Zamora, along the frontier with Galicia, between the Eo and Navia rivers (or more exactly Eo and Frexulfe rivers). It is called "eonaviego" or "gallego-asturiano" by its speakers.
The Fala language, known by its speakers as "xalimés", "mañegu", "a fala de Xálima" and "chapurráu" and in Portuguese as "a fala de Xálima", "a fala da Estremadura", "o galego da Estremadura", "valego" or "galaico-estremenho", is another descendant of Galician-Portuguese, spoken by a small number of people in the Spanish towns of Valverde del Fresno ("Valverdi du Fresnu"), Eljas ("As Ellas") and San Martín de Trevejo ("Sa Martín de Trevellu") in the autonomous community of Extremadura, near the border with Portugal.
There are a number of other places in Spain in which the native language of the common people is a descendant of the Galician-Portuguese group, such as La Alamedilla, Cedillo ("Cedilho"), Herrera de Alcántara ("Ferreira d'Alcântara") and Olivenza ("Olivença"), but in these municipalities, what is spoken is actually Portuguese, not disputed as such in the mainstream.
It should be noticed that the diversity of dialects of the Portuguese language is known since the time of medieval Portuguese-Galician language when it coexisted with the Lusitanian-Mozarabic dialect, spoken in the south of Portugal. The dialectal diversity becomes more evident in the work of Fernão d'Oliveira, in the "Grammatica da Lingoagem Portuguesa", (1536), where he remarks that the people of Portuguese regions of Beira, Alentejo, Estremadura, and Entre Douro e Minho, all speak differently from each other. Also Contador d'Argote (1725) distinguishes three main varieties of dialects: the local dialects, the dialects of time, and of profession (work jargon). Of local dialects he highlights five main dialects: the dialect of Estremadura, of Entre-Douro e Minho, of Beira, of Algarve and of Trás-os-Montes. He also makes reference to the overseas dialects, the rustic dialects, the poetic dialect and that of prose.
In the kingdom of Portugal, "Ladinho" (or "Lingoagem Ladinha") was the name given to the pure Portuguese language romance, without any mixture of Aravia or Gerigonça Judenga. While the term "língua vulgar" was used to name the language before D. Dinis decided to call it "Portuguese language", the erudite version used and known as Galician-Portuguese (the language of the Portuguese court) and all other Portuguese dialects were spoken at the same time. In a historical perspective the Portuguese language was never just one dialect. Just like today there is a standard Portuguese (actually two) among the several dialects of Portuguese, in the past there was Galician-Portuguese as the "standard", coexisting with other dialects.
Portuguese has provided loanwords to many languages, such as Indonesian, Manado Malay, Malayalam, Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala, Malay, Bengali, English, Hindi, Swahili, Afrikaans, Konkani, Marathi, Punjabi, Tetum, Xitsonga, Japanese, Lanc-Patuá, Esan, Bandari (spoken in Iran) and Sranan Tongo (spoken in Suriname). It left a strong influence on the "língua brasílica", a Tupi–Guarani language, which was the most widely spoken in Brazil until the 18th century, and on the language spoken around Sikka in Flores Island, Indonesia. In nearby Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers in Holy Week rituals.
The Japanese–Portuguese dictionary "Nippo Jisho" (1603) was the first dictionary of Japanese in a European language, a product of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan. Building on the work of earlier Portuguese missionaries, the "Dictionarium Anamiticum, Lusitanum et Latinum" (Annamite–Portuguese–Latin dictionary) of Alexandre de Rhodes (1651) introduced the modern orthography of Vietnamese, which is based on the orthography of 17th-century Portuguese. The Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the Portuguese language (among others), particularly regarding Chinese surnames; one example is "Mei". During 1583–88 Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci created a Portuguese–Chinese dictionary – the first ever European–Chinese dictionary.
For instance, as Portuguese merchants were presumably the first to introduce the sweet orange in Europe, in several modern Indo-European languages the fruit has been named after them. Some examples are Albanian "portokall", Bosnian (archaic) "portokal", "prtokal", Bulgarian портокал ("portokal"), Greek πορτοκάλι ("portokáli"), Macedonian "", Persian پرتقال ("porteghal"), and Romanian "portocală". Related names can be found in other languages, such as Arabic البرتقال ("burtuqāl"), Georgian ფორთოხალი ("p'ort'oxali"), Turkish "portakal" and Amharic "birtukan". Also, in southern Italian dialects (e.g. Neapolitan), an orange is "portogallo" or "purtuallo", literally "(the) Portuguese (one)", in contrast to standard Italian "arancia".
Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African and Asian slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts of Portuguese influence. As each of these pidgins became the mother tongue of succeeding generations, they evolved into fully fledged creole languages, which remained in use in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America until the 18th century. Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles are still spoken today, by over 3 million people worldwide, especially people of partial Portuguese ancestry.
Portuguese phonology is similar to those of languages such as French (especially that of Quebec), the Gallo-Italic languages, Occitan, Catalan and Franco-Provençal, unlike that of Spanish, which is similar to those of Sardinian and the Southern Italian dialects. Some would describe the phonology of Portuguese as a blend of Spanish, Gallo-Romance (e.g. French) and the languages of northern Italy (especially Genoese), but with a deeper Celtic substratum.
There is a maximum of 9 oral vowels, 2 semivowels and 21 consonants; though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes. There are also five nasal vowels, which some linguists regard as allophones of the oral vowels.
Like Catalan and German, Portuguese uses vowel quality to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables. Unstressed isolated vowels tend to be raised and sometimes centralized.
Phonetic notes
A notable aspect of the grammar of Portuguese is the verb. Morphologically, more verbal inflections from classical Latin have been preserved by Portuguese than by any other major Romance language. Portuguese and Spanish share very similar grammar. Portuguese also has some grammatical innovations not found in other Romance languages (except Galician and Fala):
Portuguese is written with 26 letters of the Latin script, making use of five diacritics to denote stress, vowel height, contraction, nasalization, and etymological assibilation (acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, tilde, and cedilla). The trema was also formerly used in Brazilian Portuguese, and can still be encountered in words derived from proper names in other languages, such as Anhangüera and mülleriano., though 'Anhangüera' and 'mülleriano' are a classical example of Estrangeirismo (), a systematical usage of foreign Loanwords; in this case from Guarani and German origin, respectively. Accented characters and digraphs are not counted as separate letters for collation purposes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23915 |
Paul Reubens
Paul Reubens (; né Rubenfeld; born August 27, 1952) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for his character Pee-wee Herman. Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s, and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. In 1982, Reubens began appearing in a show about a character he had been developing for years. The show was called "The Pee-wee Herman Show", and ran for five sold-out months; HBO also produced a successful special about it. Pee-wee became an instant cult figure and, for the next decade, Reubens was completely committed to his character, doing all of his public appearances and interviews as Pee-wee. His feature film, "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985), directed by Tim Burton, was a financial and critical success, and soon developed into a cult film. Its sequel, "Big Top Pee-wee" (1988), was less successful. Between 1986 and 1990, Reubens starred as Pee-wee in the CBS Saturday-morning children's program "Pee-wee's Playhouse".
Thereafter, Reubens decided to take a sabbatical from Pee-wee. In July 1991, Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida. The arrest set off a chain reaction of national media attention that changed the general public's view of Reubens and Pee-wee. The arrest postponed Reubens' involvement in major projects until 1999, when he appeared in several big-budget projects including "Mystery Men" (1999) and "Blow" (2001), and Reubens started giving interviews as himself rather than as Pee-wee.
Since 2006, Reubens has been making cameos and appearances in numerous projects, such as "Reno 911!" (2006), "30 Rock" (2007), "Pushing Daisies" (2007), "The Blacklist" (2014–2015), "Accidental Love" (2015) and "Mosiac" (2018). He also played the voice role of Pavel in the Disney XD television series "" (2012–2013). Since the 1990s, Reubens has worked on two possible Pee-wee films: one dark and adult, dubbed "The Pee-wee Herman Story", the other a family-friendly epic adventure called "Pee-wee’s Playhouse: The Movie". In 2010, he starred on Broadway in "The Pee-wee Herman Show". In 2016, Reubens co-wrote and starred in the Netflix original film "Pee-wee's Big Holiday", reprising his role as Pee-wee Herman.
Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy (Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. His mother was a teacher. His father was an automobile salesperson who had flown for Britain's Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and later became one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Reubens' two younger siblings are Luke (born 1958), who is a dog trainer, and Abby (born 1953), who is an attorney and a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
Reubens spent a significant amount of his childhood in Oneonta, New York. As a child, Reubens frequented the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose winter headquarters was in Sarasota. The circus' atmosphere sparked Reubens' interest in entertainment and influenced his later work. Reubens also loved to watch reruns of "I Love Lucy", which made him want to make people laugh. At age 5, Reubens asked his father to build him a stage, where he and his siblings would put on plays.
Reubens attended Sarasota High School, where he was named president of the National Thespian Society. He was accepted into Northwestern University's summer program for gifted high-school students, joined the local Asolo Theater and Players of Sarasota Theater, and appeared in several plays. After graduation, he attended Boston University and began auditioning for acting schools. He was turned down by several schools, including Juilliard, and twice by Carnegie-Mellon, before being accepted at the California Institute of the Arts and moving to California, where he worked in restaurant kitchens and as a Fuller Brush salesman.
In the 1970s, Reubens performed at local comedy clubs and made four guest appearances on "The Gong Show" as part of a boy–girl act he had developed with Charlotte McGinnis, called "The Hilarious Betty and Eddie". He soon joined the Los Angeles–based improvisational comedy team The Groundlings and remained a member for six years, working with Bob McClurg, John Paragon, Susan Barnes, and Phil Hartman. Hartman and Reubens became friends, and often wrote and worked on material together. In 1980, Reubens had a small part as a waiter in "The Blues Brothers".
The character of "Pee-wee Herman" originated during a 1978 improvisation exercise with The Groundlings, where Reubens came up with the idea of a man who wanted to be a comic but was so inept at telling jokes that it was obvious to the audience that he would never make it. Fellow Groundling Phil Hartman would afterwards help Reubens develop the character while another Groundling, John Paragon, would help write the show. Despite having been compared to other famous characters, such as Hergé's Tintin and Collodi's Pinocchio, Reubens says that there is no specific source for "Pee-wee" but rather a collection of ideas. Pee-wee's voice originated in 1970 when Reubens appeared in a production of "Life with Father", where he was cast as one of the most obnoxious characters in the play, for which Reubens adopted a cartoon-like way of speaking that would become Pee-wee's. Pee-wee's name resulted from a one-inch Pee Wee brand harmonica Reubens had as a child, and Herman was the surname of an energetic boy Reubens knew from his youth. The first small gray suit Pee-wee ever wore had been handmade for director and founder of the Groundlings Gary Austin, who passed it on to Reubens, while "someone" handed him the "little kid bow tie" before a show.
Reubens auditioned for "Saturday Night Live" for the 1980–1981 season, but Gilbert Gottfried, who was a close friend of the show's producer and had the same acting style as Reubens, got the job. (In 1991, while presenting at the Emmy Awards, Gottfried ironically got in trouble for joking about Reubens' indecent exposure arrest.) Reubens was so angry and bitter that he decided he would borrow money and start his own show in Los Angeles using the character he had been developing during the last few years, "Pee-wee Herman".
With the help of other Groundlings like John Paragon, Phil Hartman and Lynne Marie Stewart, Pee-wee acquired a small group of followers and Reubens took his show to The Roxy Theatre where ""The Pee-wee Herman Show"" ran for five sellout months, doing midnight shows for adults and weekly matinees for children, moving into the mainstream when HBO aired "The Pee-wee Herman Show" in 1981 as part of their series "On Location". Reubens also appeared as Pee-wee in the 1980 film "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie". Although it was Reubens in the role of Pee-Wee, the end credits of the movie billed him as "Hamburger Dude". Reubens' act had mainly positive reactions and quickly acquired a group of fans, despite being described as "bizarre", and Reubens being described as "the weirdest comedian around". Pee-wee was both "corny" and "hip", "retrograde" and "avant-garde".
When Pee-wee's fame started growing, Reubens started to move away from the spotlight, keeping his name under wraps and making all his public appearance and interviews in character while billing Pee-wee as playing himself; Reubens was trying to "get the public to think that that was a real person". Later on he would even prefer his parents be known only as Honey Herman and Herman Herman. In the early and mid-1980s, Reubens made several guest appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman" as Pee-wee Herman which gave Pee-wee an even bigger following. During the mid-1980s, Reubens traveled the United States with a whole new "The Pee-wee Herman Show", playing notably at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Caroline's in New York City and, in 1984, in front of a full Carnegie Hall.
The success of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" prompted Warner Bros. to hire Reubens to write a script for a full-length Pee-wee Herman film. Reubens' original idea was to do a remake of "Pollyanna", which Reubens claims is his favorite film. Halfway through writing the script, Reubens noticed everyone at Warner Bros. had a bike with them, which inspired Reubens to start on a new script with Phil Hartman. When Reubens and the producers of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" saw Tim Burton's work on "Vincent" and "Frankenweenie", they chose Burton to be the film's director. The film tells the story of Pee-wee Herman embarking on nationwide adventure in search of his stolen bicycle. The movie went on to gross $40,940,662 domestically, recouping almost six times its $7 million budget. At the time of release in 1985, the film received mixed reviews, but "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" developed into a cult film.
After seeing the success of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure", the CBS network approached Reubens with an ill-received cartoon series proposal. In 1986, CBS agreed to sign Reubens to act, produce, and direct his live-action children's program, "Pee-wee's Playhouse", with a budget of $325,000 per episode, the same price as a prime-time sitcom, and no creative interference from CBS; although CBS did request a few minor changes throughout the years. After casting actors like Laurence Fishburne and S. Epatha Merkerson, production began in New York City. The opening credits of the show were sung by Cyndi Lauper.
"Playhouse" was designed as an educational yet entertaining and artistic show for children and, despite being greatly influenced by 1950s shows Reubens watched as a child like "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", "The Mickey Mouse Club", "Captain Kangaroo" and "Howdy Doody", it quickly acquired a dual audience of kids and grownups. Reubens, always trying to make Pee-wee a positive role model, created a consciously moral show, one that would teach children the ethics of reciprocity. Reubens believed that children liked the "Playhouse" because it was fast-paced, colorful and "never talked them down"; while parents liked the "Playhouse" because it reminded them of the past.
In 1986, Reubens (billed as Paul Mall) was the voice of the ship's computer in "Flight of the Navigator". In 1987, Reubens provided the voice of REX, the main robot in the George Lucas produced Disneyland attraction, Star Tours, and reprised the role of Pee-wee Herman in cameo appearances in the film "Back to the Beach" and TV show "Sesame Street", the latter of which made a cameo in "Playhouse".
Right after the success of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure", Reubens began working with Paramount Pictures on a sequel entitled "Big Top Pee-wee". Reubens and George McGrath's script was directed by "Grease" director Randal Kleiser. The film was not as successful as its predecessor, receiving mild reviews and doing just over one third as well in the box office, earning only $15 million.
Reubens attended 1988 Academy Awards with "Top" co-star Valeria Golino, which stirred rumors that the two were dating. The following year Reubens exchanged vows with Doris Duke's adopted daughter, Chandi Heffner, at a mock wedding over which Imelda Marcos presided, in Shangri-La, Doris Duke's mansion in Honolulu, Hawaii.
"Pee-wee's Playhouse" aired from September 13, 1986, until November 10, 1990. Reubens had originally agreed to do two more seasons after the third, and when CBS asked Reubens about the possibility of a sixth season he declined, wanting to take a sabbatical. Reubens had been suffering from burnout from playing Pee-wee full-time and had been warning that Pee-wee was temporary and that he had other ideas he would like to work on. The parties agreed to end the show after five seasons, which included 45 episodes and a Christmas Special. "Playhouse" garnered 15 Emmy Awards, all of them in the Creative Arts Emmy Award category.
Reubens had not always thought of his character as one for children, but sometime during the mid-1980s, he started forming Pee-wee into the best role model he possibly could, making of his show a morally positive show that cared about issues like racial diversity. Reubens was also careful of what should and should not be associated with Pee-wee. Being a heavy smoker, he went to great lengths never to be photographed with a cigarette in his mouth, even refusing to endorse candy bars and other kinds of junk food, all the while trying to release his own sugar-free cereal "Ralston Purina Pee-wee Chow cereal", a project that died after a blind test.
With his positive attitude and quirkiness, Pee-wee became an instant cult figure, earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by 1989, and successfully building a Pee-wee franchise, with toys, clothes and other items generating more than $25 million at its peak in 1988. Reubens also published a book as Pee-wee in 1989 called "Travels with Pee-Wee". CBS aired reruns of "Playhouse" until July 1991, when Reubens was arrested, pulling from their schedule the last two remaining reruns. Fox Family Channel briefly aired reruns of the "Playhouse" in 1998. In early July 2006, Cartoon Network began running a teaser promo during its Adult Swim lineup. A later press release and many other promos confirmed that the show's 45 original episodes would nightly air from Monday to Thursday starting on that date. "Playhouse" attracted 1.5 million viewers nightly. In 2007, "TV Guide" named "Playhouse" one of the top 10 TV cult classics of all time. Several children's television personas cite Pee-wee Herman as an inspiration, including Blue's Clues' Steve Burns and SpongeBob SquarePants' Stephen Hillenburg.
In November 2004, all 45 episodes of the "Playhouse", plus six episodes that had never before been released on home video, were released on DVD split between two box set collections. On July 3, 2013, Shout! Factory announced that they had acquired the rights to the entire series from Reubens, which was released on Blu-ray on October 21, 2014. In addition, the entire series was digitally remastered from the original 35mm film elements and original audio tracks.
Pee-wee's small glen plaid suits seemed ridiculous during the 1980s, but since the late 1990s have made him a "style icon", with fashion houses and designers like Christopher Bailey, Ennio Capasa, Miuccia Prada, Viktor & Rolf, and Thom Browne creating tightly cut suits with high armholes and short trousers that have been compared to Pee-wee's. In early 2007 Nike released a collection of Nike SB sneakers called "Fallen Heroes". The collection was loosely inspired by Milli Vanilli, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, and Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee's sneakers use a gray and white color scheme with red detail, with an illustration on the insole of a man in a suit sitting alone in a theatre with his hand on his lap suggesting Reubens' 1991 theatre arrest.
Reubens has mentioned he has plans for a museum, which would contain many of the "Playhouse" sets and props he still owns.
In July 1991, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida, for masturbating during a film at an adult movie theater. During a random police inspection, a detective who had observed Reubens detained him as he was readying to leave. (This sweep also resulted in three other arrests). When detectives examined his driver's license, Reubens told them, "I'm Pee-wee Herman", and offered to do a children's benefit for the sheriff's office, "to take care of this". The next day, after a local reporter recognized Reubens' name, Reubens' attorney made the same offer to the "Sarasota Herald-Tribune" in exchange for withholding the story. In 1971, Reubens had been arrested in the same county for loitering and prowling near an adult theater, though charges were dropped. His second arrest was in 1983 when Reubens was placed on two years' probation for possession of marijuana, although adjudication was withheld. On the night of the arrest, Reubens went to Nashville, where his sister and lawyer lived, and then to New Jersey, where he would stay for the following months at his friend Doris Duke's estate.
The 1991 arrest was widely covered, and Reubens and his character both became the subject of ridicule. Disney-MGM Studios suspended a video that showed Pee-wee explaining how voice-over tracks were made from its studio tour. Toys "R" Us removed Pee-wee toys from its stores. It was commonly thought that "Pee-wee's Playhouse" got cancelled due to the arrest; in reality the show was already retired as Reubens, claiming an overworked crew and fear of decline of quantity and quality in material, had decided against a sixth season. However, the popularity of the show had put it into syndication, which CBS revoked on July 29, 1991. Reubens released a statement denying the charges.
On November 7, 1991, Reubens pleaded no contest. The plea kept the charge off Reubens' record and obligated him to spend 75 hours performing community service, where he made two anti-drug public service announcements that were self-produced and financed. One PSA had Pee-Wee explaining the dangers of crack cocaine, and a lesser-known one featured a claymation character called "Penny" who had been a staple of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse". Both PSAs were praised for showing the dangers of drugs in a manner kids could understand.
Despite the negative publicity, many artists who knew Reubens, such as Cyndi Lauper, Annette Funicello, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Valeria Golino, spoke out in his support. Bill Cosby defended Reubens, saying, "Whatever [Reubens has] done, this is being blown all out of proportion." Other people who knew Reubens, such as "Playhouse" production designer Gary Panter, S. Epatha Merkerson, and "Big Top Pee-wee" director Randal Kleiser, also spoke in support. Reubens' fans organized support rallies after CBS canceled the reruns, picketing in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The TV news magazine "A Current Affair" received "tens of thousands" of responses to a Pee-wee telephone survey, in which callers supported Reubens by nine-to-one.
Reubens, who for years would not give interviews or appear on talk shows, did make a subsequent public appearance as Pee-wee at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards on September 5, where he asked the audience, "Heard any good jokes lately?" He received a standing ovation. Reubens then appeared as Pee-wee once in 1992, when he participated in a Grand Ole Opry tribute to Minnie Pearl.
During the 1990s, Reubens kept a low profile, dedicating himself to writing and collecting a variety of things, "everything from fake food, to lamps", although he did do some dubbing and took small parts in films such as 1992's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" (Reubens portrayed the Penguin's father) and 1996's "Matilda" and "Dunston Checks In". In 1993, he voiced for a character in another one of Burton's productions, "The Nightmare Before Christmas". (Reubens would later voice Lock for the video game "" in 2004.)
Reubens dated actress Debi Mazar in 1993 after he started attending film premieres with her. Reubens has since credited Mazar with ending his depression from his arrest.
During the mid-1990s, Reubens played a recurring role on the TV series "Murphy Brown". The role earned him positive reviews and his first and only non-Pee-wee Emmy nomination, for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He appeared six times on the show between 1995 and 1997. Afterward, Reubens began working on an NBC pilot entitled "Meet the Muckles", a show that would be based on "You Can't Take It with You". The project got stuck in development hell, and was later dropped when Reubens' ideas grew too elaborate and expensive, although Philip Rosenthal blamed NBC's negative response on Reubens being on a "blacklist".
By 1999, Reubens had given several interviews as himself and made public appearances while promoting the movie "Mystery Men", the first being on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in 1999. He also starred in Dwight Yoakam's Western "South of Heaven, West of Hell", playing as a rapist and killer. In 2001, Reubens had his first extended television role since "Playhouse", as the host of the short-lived ABC game show "You Don't Know Jack", based on the game of the same name. It was cancelled after six episodes due to low ratings.
Reubens played a flamboyant hairdresser turned drug dealer in Ted Demme's 2001 drama "Blow", which starred Penélope Cruz and Johnny Depp. His performance was praised and he began receiving scripts for potential movie projects.
In November 2002, while filming David LaChapelle's video for Elton John's "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore", Reubens learned that police were at his home with a search warrant, acting on a tip from a witness in the pornography case against actor Jeffrey Jones, finding among over 70,000 items of kitsch memorabilia, two grainy videotapes and dozens of photographs that the city attorney's office characterized as a collection of child pornography. Kelly Bush, Reubens' personal representative at the time, said the description of the items was inaccurate and claimed the objects were "Rob Lowe's sex videotape, and a few 30- to 100-year-old kitsch collectible images." Reubens turned himself in to the Hollywood division of the LAPD and was charged with possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The district attorney looked at Reubens' collection and computer and found no grounds for bringing any felony charges against him, while the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo brought misdemeanor charges against Reubens on the last day allowed by the statute. Reubens was represented by Hollywood criminal defense lawyer Blair Berk. In December he pleaded not guilty through Berk, who also complained that the city attorney failed to turn over evidence to the defense, which City Attorney Richard Katz countered that prosecutors were not required to do until after arraignment, after which they did; neither side disclosed the contents.
In March 2004, child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for Reubens' guilty plea to a lesser charge. For the next three years, he was required to register his address with the sheriff's office and he could not be in the company of minors without the permission of a parent or legal guardian. Reubens later stated that he was a collector of erotica, including films, muscle magazines and a sizable collection of mostly homosexual vintage erotica, such as photographic studies of teen nudes. Reubens said that what the city attorney's office viewed as pornography, he considered to be innocent art and that what they described as people underage engaged in masturbation or oral copulation was, in fact, a judgmental point of view of the nudes that Reubens described as people "one hundred percent not" performing sexual acts. Being an avid collector, Reubens had often purchased bulk lots, and one of his vintage magazine dealers declared that "there's no way" he could have known the content of each page in the publications he bought and that he recalled Reubens asking for "physique magazines, vintage 1960s material, but not things featuring kids".
He spent the next two years in Florida caring for his terminally ill father, who died in February 2004 of cancer.
Reubens has made cameos and guest appearances in numerous projects. He played Rick of the citizen's patrol on the popular Comedy Central series "Reno 911!", which gained him a small role in the 2007 film "". That same year he appeared in the second music video version of The Raconteurs song "Steady, As She Goes". The video has the band engaging in a comical soapbox car race, with Reubens playing the bad guy who sabotages the race.
In 2007, Reubens attended his own tribute at the SF Sketchfest, where he talked about his career with Ben Fong-Torres. He also signed with NBC to make a pilot on a show called "Area 57", a sitcom about a passive-aggressive alien, but it was not picked up for the 2007–2008 season. Reubens did, however, appear on the hit NBC series "30 Rock" as an inbred Austrian prince, a character Tina Fey created for him. He also made three guest appearances on FX's series "Dirt". This time he was recommended for the role by "Dirt" star and close friend Courteney Cox. Cox's husband, David Arquette, would then cast Reubens for his directorial debut, the 2007 film "The Tripper".
Reubens has also had small parts dubbing or making cameos in a series of Cartoon Network projects such as the 2006 television film "Re-Animated", the animated cartoon series "Chowder", "Tom Goes to the Mayor", and "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!".
In 2008, Reubens was slated to appear as homeopathic antidepressant salesman Alfredo Aldarisio in the third episode of "Pushing Daisies", but the role was recast with Raúl Esparza. Reubens instead appeared in the role of Oscar Vibenius in the series' 7th and 9th episodes.
Also during 2008, Reubens did a PSA for Unscrew America, a website that aims to get people to change regular light bulbs for more energy-efficient ones in the form of CFLs and LED. He also appeared in Todd Solondz's "Life During Wartime".
In 2009, Reubens voiced Bat-Mite in the "" episode "Legends of the Dark Mite".
In January 2009, Reubens hinted that negotiations were under way for his stage show to come back, and in August the return of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" was announced. Reubens said he felt Pee-wee calling, "I just got up one day and felt like I'm gonna come back, that was it." The show is also a way to "introduce Pee-wee to the new generation that didn't know about it", preparing the way for Reubens' main project, the "Playhouse" movie. Before this comeback, Reubens' present age and shape had been pointed out as a possible issue, since Pee-wee's slim figure and clean skin have been one of his trademarks. But after appearing for the first time since 1992 as Pee-wee at Spike TV's 2007 Guys' Choice Awards, Reubens had remained optimistic and had jokingly said he's no longer nervous about being young Pee-wee again thanks to digital retouching.
The show was originally scheduled to begin November 8 and continue until the 29th at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood. Due to high demand, the show moved to Club Nokia @ LA Live and was scheduled to run between January 12, 2010, and February 7. To promote the show Reubens once again gave interviews in character, appearing as a guest on "The Jay Leno Show", "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" (as well as O'Brien's subsequent Legally Prohibited Tour) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" among others. A Twitter account, a Facebook account and a new website were made for Pee-wee after the show changed venues.
On November 1, 2010, Reubens was a special guest star on a "WWE Raw" episode as Pee-wee.
On November 11, 2010, the show relocated to New York for a limited run at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, selling over $3 million in advance tickets. An extra performance was taped for the HBO network on January 6, 2011, and debuted March 19.
On January 15, 2011, Reubens appeared on "Saturday Night Live" as Pee-Wee in an extended and well received segment depicting Andy Samberg and Pee-wee getting drunk, taking a ride on a mechanical bull, doing the tequila dance and ambushing Anderson Cooper in an alley way with a chair.
From 2012 to 2013 Reubens contributed his voice talents to the animated series "" as Pavel.
In 2014, Reubens appeared in TV on the Radio's music video for Happy Idiot.
Ever since Reubens started giving interviews again after his 2002 arrest, he has talked about the two scripts he has written for future Pee-wee Herman films.
Reubens once called his first script "The Pee-wee Herman Story", describing it as a black comedy. He has also referred to the script as "dark Pee-wee" or "adult Pee-wee", with the plot involving Pee-wee becoming famous as a singer after making a hit single and moving to Hollywood, where "he does everything wrong and becomes a big jerk". Reubens further explained the film has many ""Valley of the Dolls" moments". Reubens thought this script would be the first one to start production, but in 2006 Reubens announced he was to start filming his second script in 2007.
The second film, a family-friendly adventure, is called "Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Movie" by Reubens, and follows Pee-wee and his "Playhouse" friends on a road-trip adventure, meaning that they would leave the house for the first time and go out into "Puppetland". All of the original characters of the show, live-action and puppets are included in Reubens' script. The story happens in a fantasy land that would be reminiscent of "H.R. Pufnstuf" and "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". In January 2009, Reubens told Gary Panter that the rejected first script of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (which they co-wrote) could have a movie deal very soon and that it would be "90 minutes of incredible beauty". In December 2009, while in character, Reubens said this film is "already done, the script is already fully written; It's ready to shoot." Most of the film will take place in Puppetland and claymation might be used.
Although he hasn't revealed much about the scripts, he has said that one of the two films opens in prison. He has also said that using CGI for "updating" the puppets' looks could be an option, but it all depended on the budget the films would have. Reubens once mentioned the possibility of doing one of the two as an animated film along the lines of "The Polar Express", which uses performance capture technology, incorporating the movements of live actors into animated characters.
Reubens approached "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" director Tim Burton with one of the scripts and talked to Johnny Depp about the possibility of having him portray Pee-wee, but Burton was too busy, and Depp said he would have to think about it.
In January 2010, Reubens reprised his role as Pee-wee and reused the set of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" (albeit slightly modified) for a short sketch on Funny or Die. In the sketch, Pee-wee comes home and shows off a brand-new iPad given to him by Steve Jobs. This leads to a long argument between him and his puppet friends, who point out all of the iPad's disadvantages – even Conky himself points out its flaws by stating that "it looks like a giant iPhone". In the end, Pee-wee uses the iPad as a serving tray to hold glasses of milk and lemonade during a party being held at the Playhouse hours later. All the voices of the puppet characters are dubbed in by different actors than the TV series, except for Globey whose voice is still done by George McGrath.
In June 2010, various film news sites reported that Paul Reubens was working with Judd Apatow on a new Pee-wee Herman feature film.
In February 2015, Netflix acquired the rights to produce a new Pee-wee film entitled "Pee-wee's Big Holiday" with Apatow and Reubens producing the film, John Lee directing, and Reubens and Paul Rust writing the screenplay. The film released on March 18, 2016 on Netflix to positive reception.
Reubens will reportedly reprise his role as RX-24 in , a "Star Wars"-themed land set to open at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios in 2019. Reubens previously portrayed the character in the original Star Tours attraction in 1987, and "Star Wars Rebels" in 2014. In Galaxy's Edge, the character will be featured as the house DJ of a bar and restaurant called Oga's Cantina. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23916 |
Prismatoid
In geometry, a prismatoid is a polyhedron whose vertices all lie in two parallel planes. Its lateral faces can be trapezoids or triangles. If both planes have the same number of vertices, and the lateral faces are either parallelograms or trapezoids, it is called a prismoid.
If the areas of the two parallel faces are A1 and A3, the cross-sectional area of the intersection of the prismatoid with a plane midway between the two parallel faces is A2, and the height (the distance between the two parallel faces) is h, then the volume of the prismatoid is given by formula_1 or formula_2(This formula follows immediately by integrating the area parallel to the two planes of vertices by Simpson's rule, since that rule is exact for integration of polynomials of degree up to 3, and in this case the area is at most a quadratic function in the height.)
Families of prismatoids include:
In general, a polytope is prismatoidal if its vertices exist in two hyperplanes. For example, in four dimensions, two polyhedra can be placed in two parallel 3-spaces, and connected with polyhedral sides.
A tetrahedral-cuboctahedral cupola. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23917 |
Phantom kangaroo
A phantom kangaroo is a report of kangaroos, wallabies, or their accompanying footprints in areas where there is no native population. Some explanations put forth are escaped zoo or circus animals (as in the UK), or publicity stunts by local businesses using photographs from Australia. Others suggest outbreaks of such sightings are a form of mass hysteria.
It is sometimes said there is a population of kangaroos living in the wild in the township of Émancé, about southwest of Paris. In fact, they are red-necked wallabies. These wallabies are descended from a breeding population which escaped a zoological reserve in the 1970s.
Between 2003 and 2010, there was a series of phantom kangaroo sightings in the Mayama mountain district of Ōsaki, Miyagi city in Miyagi Prefecture.
In 1831, two men off the Sydney Packet reported to the Collector of Customers in Australia that they had seen a giant kangaroo (nine meters in standing) at a small cove in Dusky Sound. They observed it on the bushline from a small boat and when they came too close it leapt into the water and ploughed through the water, leaving a wake extending from one end of the sound to the other.
Kawau Island in the Hauraki Gulf has a colony of three species of wallabies descending from a deliberate introduction by Sir George Grey, a 19th century Governor.
New Zealand also has a wild population of Wallabies in the Waimate District of South Island that were introduced for hunting in the late 19th century.
Documented colonies of red-necked wallabies exist in the United Kingdom. In Staffordshire, a breeding colony established itself after breaking loose from a private zoo in Leek, Staffordshire in the 1930s. Their population seems to have peaked in the 1970s, reaching numbers between 60 and 70. There were no confirmed sightings of the wallabies between 2000 and 2007, with some locals believing they must have died out. In 2009, newspapers reported wallaby sightings (including clear pictures) that made reference to sightings in 2008. Other wallaby colonies exist in the UK, including reliable reports from the Fenland on the Norfolk/Lincolnshire border; and there are a few in Ashdown Forest, Sussex.
Subsequent sightings have been made including a report of a Bennett’s wallaby filmed by zoologist Maurice Melzak in Highgate Cemetery, Hampstead, London in October 2013, and an albino wallaby in Northamptonshire in 2015.
In Scotland, Inchconnachan, an island in Loch Lomond has a population of wallabies as well. Lady Arran Colquhoun introduced them in the 1920s.
In 1934 near South Pittsburg, Tennessee, an atypical kangaroo or "kangaroo-like beast" was reported by several witnesses over a five-day period, and to have killed and partially devoured several animals, including ducks, geese, a German Shepherd police dog and other dogs. Kangaroos are typically unaggressive and vegetarian. A witness described the animal as looking "like a large kangaroo, running and leaping across a field." A search party followed the animal's tracks to a mountainside cave where they stopped. The animal was never found, and national news coverage drew widespread ridicule.
In 1974 in Chicago, Illinois, two Chicago police officers were called to investigate a report that a kangaroo was standing in someone's porch. After a brief search, the officers located the animal in an alleyway, but were unable to capture it. Over the next month, numerous kangaroo sightings were reported in Illinois and the neighboring states of Indiana and Wisconsin, with timing suggesting more than one animal if reports were accurate. A kangaroo was seen the next day by a paperboy, the next week in , Illinois, and the week after that just outside Plano, Illinois, reported by a police officer who said it jumped eight feet from a field into the road. Thirty minutes later, a kangaroo was reported back in Chicago, then reported on the following three days in the surrounding countryside. A few days later, there were a rash of sightings in Indiana. Reports ceased about a month after the original story.
In 1978 in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, two men photographed a large kangaroo beside the highway. Author Loren Coleman, described as the "leading authority on North American kangaroo sightings", suggested the animal looked like a Bennett's wallaby.
In 2013 in Oklahoma, a kangaroo was reportedly recorded by hunters in a field. The video was published on the website YouTube, and prompted speculation that the animal may be a pet kangaroo who went missing in the state just over a year earlier.
Also in 2013, "The Ridgefield Press" reported that a motorist in North Salem, New York captured on video what he thought was a kangaroo, and published the video on their website. The newspaper noted that escaped wallabies, smaller than kangaroos, were known in Westchester County, which encompasses North Salem. Several people in the county had kept wallabies as pets. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23920 |
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later. It was renamed to Princeton University in 1896.
Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. It offers professional degrees through the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Architecture and the Bendheim Center for Finance. The university also manages the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Princeton has the largest endowment per student in the United States.
As of March 2020, 68 Nobel laureates, 15 Fields Medalists and 14 Turing Award laureates have been affiliated with Princeton University as alumni, faculty members or researchers. In addition, Princeton has been associated with 21 National Medal of Science winners, 5 Abel Prize winners, 5 National Humanities Medal recipients, 209 Rhodes Scholars, 139 Gates Cambridge Scholars and 126 Marshall Scholars. Two U.S. Presidents, twelve U.S. Supreme Court Justices (three of whom currently serve on the court) and numerous living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princeton's alumni body. Princeton has also graduated many prominent members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Cabinet, including eight Secretaries of State, three Secretaries of Defense and the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
New Light Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Its purpose was to train ministers. The college was the educational and religious capital of Scottish Presbyterian America. In 1754, trustees of the College of New Jersey suggested that, in recognition of Governor Jonathan Belcher's interest, Princeton should be named as Belcher College. Belcher replied: "What a name that would be!" In 1756, the college moved its campus to Princeton, New Jersey. Its home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal House of Orange-Nassau of William III of England.
Following the untimely deaths of Princeton's first five presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that post until his death in 1794. During his presidency, Witherspoon shifted the college's focus from training ministers to preparing a new generation for secular leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards and solicited investment in the college. Witherspoon's presidency constituted a long period of stability for the college, interrupted by the American Revolution and particularly the Battle of Princeton, during which British soldiers briefly occupied Nassau Hall; American forces, led by George Washington, fired cannon on the building to rout them from it.
In 1812, the eighth president of the College of New Jersey, Ashbel Green (1812–23), helped establish the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. The plan to extend the theological curriculum met with "enthusiastic approval on the part of the authorities at the College of New Jersey." Today, Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary maintain separate institutions with ties that include services such as cross-registration and mutual library access.
Before the construction of Stanhope Hall in 1803, Nassau Hall was the college's sole building. The cornerstone of the building was laid on September 17, 1754. During the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the country's capital for four months. Over the centuries and through two redesigns following major fires (1802 and 1855), Nassau Hall's role shifted from an all-purpose building, comprising office, dormitory, library, and classroom space; to classroom space exclusively; to its present role as the administrative center of the University. The class of 1879 donated twin lion sculptures that flanked the entrance until 1911, when that same class replaced them with tigers. Nassau Hall's bell rang after the hall's construction; however, the fire of 1802 melted it. The bell was then recast and melted again in the fire of 1855.
James McCosh became the college's president in 1868 and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the American Civil War. During his two decades of service, he overhauled the curriculum, oversaw an expansion of inquiry into the sciences, and supervised the addition of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic style to the campus. McCosh Hall is named in his honor.
In 1879, the first thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) was submitted by James F. Williamson, Class of 1877.
In 1896, the college officially changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University to honor the town in which it resides. During this year, the college also underwent large expansion and officially became a university. In 1900, the Graduate School was established.
In 1902, Woodrow Wilson, graduate of the Class of 1879, was elected the 13th president of the university. Under Wilson, Princeton introduced the preceptorial system in 1905, a then-unique concept in the United States that augmented the standard lecture method of teaching with a more personal form in which small groups of students, or precepts, could interact with a single instructor, or preceptor, in their field of interest.
In 1906, the reservoir Lake Carnegie was created by Andrew Carnegie. A collection of historical photographs of the building of the lake is housed at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library on Princeton's campus. On October 2, 1913, the Princeton University Graduate College was dedicated. In 1919 the School of Architecture was established. In 1933, Albert Einstein became a lifetime member of the Institute for Advanced Study with an office on the Princeton campus. While always independent of the university, the Institute for Advanced Study occupied offices in Jones Hall for 6 years, from its opening in 1933, until its own campus was finished and opened in 1939. This helped start an incorrect impression that it was part of the university, one that has never been completely eradicated.
In 1969, Princeton University first admitted women as undergraduates. In 1887, the university actually maintained and staffed a sister college, Evelyn College for Women, in the town of Princeton on Evelyn and Nassau streets. It was closed after roughly a decade of operation. After abortive discussions with Sarah Lawrence College to relocate the women's college to Princeton and merge it with the University in 1967, the administration decided to admit women and turned to the issue of transforming the school's operations and facilities into a female-friendly campus. The administration had barely finished these plans in April 1969 when the admissions office began mailing out its acceptance letters. Its five-year coeducation plan provided $7.8 million for the development of new facilities that would eventually house and educate 650 women students at Princeton by 1974. Ultimately, 148 women, consisting of 100 freshmen and transfer students of other years, entered Princeton on September 6, 1969 amidst much media attention. Princeton enrolled its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meservey, as a PhD candidate in Turkish history in 1961. A handful of undergraduate women had studied at Princeton from 1963 on, spending their junior year there to study "critical languages" in which Princeton's offerings surpassed those of their home institutions. They were considered regular students for their year on campus, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree.
As a result of a 1979 lawsuit by Sally Frank, Princeton's eating clubs were required to go coeducational in 1991, after Tiger Inn's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied. In 1987, the university changed the gendered lyrics of "Old Nassau" to reflect the school's co-educational student body. From 2009–2011, Princeton professor Nannerl O. Keohane chaired a committee on undergraduate women's leadership at the university, appointed by President Shirley M. Tilghman.
In 2017, Princeton University unveiled a large-scale public history and digital humanities investigation into its historical involvement with slavery, following slavery studies produced by other institutions of higher education such as Brown University and Georgetown University. The Princeton & Slavery Project began in 2013, when history professor Martha A. Sandweiss and a team of undergraduate and graduate students started researching topics such as the slaveholding practices of Princeton's early presidents and trustees, the southern origins of a large proportion of Princeton students during the 18th and 19th centuries, and racial violence in Princeton during the antebellum period.
The Princeton & Slavery Project published its findings online in November 2017, on a website that included more than 80 scholarly essays and a digital archive of hundreds of primary sources. The website launched in conjunction with a scholarly conference, the premiere of seven short plays based on project findings and commissioned by the McCarter Theatre, and a public art installation by American artist Titus Kaphar commemorating a slave sale that took place at the historic President's House in 1766.
In April 2018, university trustees announced that they would name two public spaces for James Collins Johnson and Betsey Stockton, enslaved people who lived and worked on Princeton's campus and whose stories were publicized by the Princeton & Slavery Project. The project has also served as a model for institutional slavery studies at the Princeton Theological Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The main campus sits on about in Princeton. In 2011, the main campus was named by Travel+Leisure as one of the most beautiful in the United States. The James Forrestal Campus is split between nearby Plainsboro and South Brunswick. The University also owns some property in West Windsor Township. The campuses are situated about one hour from both New York City and Philadelphia.
The first building on campus was Nassau Hall, completed in 1756 and situated on the northern edge of campus facing Nassau Street. The campus expanded steadily around Nassau Hall during the early and middle 19th century. The McCosh presidency (1868–88) saw the construction of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles; many of them are now gone, leaving the remaining few to appear out of place. At the end of the 19th century much of Princeton's architecture was designed by the Cope and Stewardson firm (same architects who designed a large part of Washington University in St. Louis and University of Pennsylvania) resulting in the Collegiate Gothic style for which it is known today. Implemented initially by William Appleton Potter and later enforced by the University's supervising architect, Ralph Adams Cram, the Collegiate Gothic style remained the standard for all new building on the Princeton campus through 1960. A flurry of construction in the 1960s produced a number of new buildings on the south side of the main campus, many of which have been poorly received. Several prominent architects have contributed some more recent additions, including Frank Gehry (Lewis Library), I. M. Pei (Spelman Halls), Demetri Porphyrios (Whitman College, a Collegiate Gothic project), Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (Frist Campus Center, among several others), and Rafael Viñoly (Carl Icahn Laboratory).
A group of 20th-century sculptures scattered throughout the campus forms the Putnam Collection of Sculpture. It includes works by Alexander Calder ("Five Disks: One Empty"), Jacob Epstein ("Albert Einstein"), Henry Moore ("Oval with Points"), Isamu Noguchi ("White Sun"), and Pablo Picasso ("Head of a Woman"). Richard Serra's "The Hedgehog and The Fox" is located between Peyton and Fine halls next to Princeton Stadium and the Lewis Library.
At the southern edge of the campus is Lake Carnegie, an artificial lake named for Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie financed the lake's construction in 1906 at the behest of a friend who was a Princeton alumnus. Carnegie hoped the opportunity to take up rowing would inspire Princeton students to forsake football, which he considered "not gentlemanly." The Shea Rowing Center on the lake's shore continues to serve as the headquarters for Princeton rowing.
Buried in the ground at the center of the lawn south of Nassau Hall is the "Big Cannon," which was left in Princeton by British troops as they fled following the Battle of Princeton. It remained in Princeton until the War of 1812, when it was taken to New Brunswick. In 1836 the cannon was returned to Princeton and placed at the eastern end of town. It was removed to the campus under cover of night by Princeton students in 1838 and buried in its current location in 1840.
A second "Little Cannon" is buried in the lawn in front of nearby Whig Hall. This cannon, which may also have been captured in the Battle of Princeton, was stolen by students of Rutgers University in 1875. The theft ignited the Rutgers-Princeton Cannon War. A compromise between the presidents of Princeton and Rutgers ended the war and forced the return of the Little Cannon to Princeton. The protruding cannons are occasionally painted scarlet by Rutgers students who continue the traditional dispute.
In years when the Princeton football team beats the teams of both Harvard University and Yale University in the same season, Princeton celebrates with a bonfire on Cannon Green. This occurred in 2012, ending a five-year drought. The next bonfire happened on November 24, 2013, and was broadcast live over the Internet.
Princeton's grounds were designed by Beatrix Farrand between 1912 and 1943. Her contributions were most recently recognized with the naming of a courtyard for her. Subsequent changes to the landscape were introduced by Quennell Rothschild & Partners in 2000.
In 2005, Michael Van Valkenburgh was hired as the new consulting landscape architect for the campus. Lynden B. Miller was invited to work with him as Princeton's consulting gardening architect, focusing on the 17 gardens that are distributed throughout the campus.
Nassau Hall is the oldest building on campus. Begun in 1754 and completed in 1756, it was the first seat of the New Jersey Legislature in 1776, was involved in the battle of Princeton in 1777, and was the seat of the Congress of the Confederation (and thus capitol of the United States) from June 30, 1783, to November 4, 1783. It now houses the office of the university president and other administrative offices, and remains the symbolic center of the campus. The front entrance is flanked by two bronze tigers, a gift of the Princeton Class of 1879. Commencement is held on the front lawn of Nassau Hall in good weather. In 1966, Nassau Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Princeton has six undergraduate residential colleges, each housing approximately 500 freshmen, sophomores, some juniors and seniors, and a handful of junior and senior resident advisers. Each college consists of a set of dormitories, a dining hall, a variety of other amenities—such as study spaces, libraries, performance spaces, and darkrooms—and a collection of administrators and associated faculty. Two colleges, First College and Forbes College (formerly Woodrow Wilson College and Princeton Inn College, respectively), date to the 1970s; three others, Rockefeller, Mathey, and Butler Colleges, were created in 1983 following the Committee on Undergraduate Residential Life (CURL) report, which suggested the institution of residential colleges as a solution to an allegedly fragmented campus social life. The construction of Whitman College, the university's sixth residential college, was completed in 2007.
Rockefeller and Mathey are located in the northwest corner of the campus; Princeton brochures often feature their Collegiate Gothic architecture. Like most of Princeton's Gothic buildings, they predate the residential college system and were fashioned into colleges from individual dormitories.
Wilson and Butler, located south of the center of the campus, were built in the 1960s. Wilson served as an early experiment in the establishment of the residential college system. Butler, like Rockefeller and Mathey, consisted of a collection of ordinary dorms (called the "New New Quad") before the addition of a dining hall made it a residential college. Widely disliked for their edgy modernist design, including "waffle ceilings," the dormitories on the Butler Quad were demolished in 2007. Butler is now reopened as a four-year residential college, housing both under- and upperclassmen.
Forbes is located on the site of the historic Princeton Inn, a gracious hotel overlooking the Princeton golf course. The Princeton Inn, originally constructed in 1924, played regular host to important symposia and gatherings of renowned scholars from both the university and the nearby Institute for Advanced Study for many years. Forbes currently houses nearly 500 undergraduates in its residential halls.
In 2003, Princeton broke ground for a sixth college named Whitman College after its principal sponsor, Meg Whitman, who graduated from Princeton in 1977. The new dormitories were constructed in the Collegiate Gothic architectural style and were designed by architect Demetri Porphyrios. Construction finished in 2007, and Whitman College was inaugurated as Princeton's sixth residential college that same year.
The precursor of the present college system in America was originally proposed by university president Woodrow Wilson in the early 20th century. For over 800 years, however, the collegiate system had already existed in Britain at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Wilson's model was much closer to Yale's present system, which features four-year colleges. Lacking the support of the trustees, the plan languished until 1968. That year, Wilson College was established to cap a series of alternatives to the eating clubs. Fierce debates raged before the present residential college system emerged. The plan was first attempted at Yale, but the administration was initially uninterested; an exasperated alumnus, Edward Harkness, finally paid to have the college system implemented at Harvard in the 1920s, leading to the oft-quoted aphorism that the college system is a Princeton idea that was executed at Harvard with funding from Yale.
Princeton has one graduate residential college, known simply as the Graduate College, located beyond Forbes College at the outskirts of campus. The far-flung location of the GC was the spoil of a squabble between Woodrow Wilson and then-Graduate School Dean Andrew Fleming West. Wilson preferred a central location for the College; West wanted the graduate students as far as possible from the campus. Ultimately, West prevailed. The Graduate College is composed of a large Collegiate Gothic section crowned by Cleveland Tower, a local landmark that also houses a world-class carillon. The attached New Graduate College provides a modern contrast in architectural style.
The Tony-award-winning McCarter Theatre was built by the Princeton Triangle Club, a student performance group, using club profits and a gift from Princeton University alumnus Thomas McCarter. Today, the Triangle Club performs its annual freshmen revue, fall show, and Reunions performances in McCarter. McCarter is also recognized as one of the leading regional theaters in the United States.
The Princeton University Art Museum was established in 1882 to give students direct, intimate, and sustained access to original works of art that complement and enrich instruction and research at the university. This continues to be a primary function, along with serving as a community resource and a destination for national and international visitors.
Numbering over 92,000 objects, the collections range from ancient to contemporary art and concentrate geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, China, the United States, and Latin America. There is a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, including ceramics, marbles, bronzes, and Roman mosaics from faculty excavations in Antioch. Medieval Europe is represented by sculpture, metalwork, and stained glass. The collection of Western European paintings includes examples from the early Renaissance through the 19th century, with masterpieces by Monet, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, and features a growing collection of 20th-century and contemporary art, including iconic paintings such as Andy Warhol's Blue Marilyn.
One of the best features of the museums is its collection of Chinese art, with important holdings in bronzes, tomb figurines, painting, and calligraphy. Its collection of pre-Columbian art includes examples of Mayan art, and is commonly considered to be the most important collection of pre-Columbian art outside of Latin America. The museum has collections of old master prints and drawings and a comprehensive collection of over 27,000 original photographs. African art and Northwest Coast Indian art are also represented. The Museum also oversees the outdoor Putnam Collection of Sculpture.
The Princeton University Chapel is located on the north side of campus, near Nassau Street. It was built between 1924 and 1928, at a cost of $2.3 million, approximately $ million in 2019 dollars. Ralph Adams Cram, the University's supervising architect, designed the Chapel, which he viewed as the crown jewel for the Collegiate Gothic motif he had championed for the campus. At the time of its construction, it was the second largest university chapel in the world, after King's College Chapel, Cambridge. It underwent a two-year, $10 million restoration campaign between 2000 and 2002.
Measured on the exterior, the Chapel is long, wide at its transepts, and high. The exterior is Pennsylvania sandstone, with Indiana limestone used for the trim. The interior is mostly limestone and Aquia Creek sandstone. The design evokes an English church of the Middle Ages. The extensive iconography, in stained glass, stonework, and wood carvings, has the common theme of connecting religion and scholarship.
The Chapel seats almost 2,000. It hosts weekly ecumenical Christian services, daily Roman Catholic mass, and several annual special events.
Murray-Dodge Hall houses the Office of Religious Life (ORL), the Murray Dodge Theater, the Murray-Dodge Café, the Muslim Prayer Room and the Interfaith Prayer Room. The ORL houses the office of the Dean of Religious Life, Alison Boden, and a number of university chaplains, including the country's first Hindu chaplain, Vineet Chander; and one of the country's first Muslim chaplains, Sohaib Sultan.
Princeton university has several apartment facilities for graduate students and their dependents. They are Lakeside Apartments, Lawrence Apartments, and Stanworth Apartments.
Published in 2008, Princeton's Sustainability Plan highlights three priority areas for the University's Office of Sustainability: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; conservation of resources; and research, education, and civic engagement. Princeton has committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, without the purchase of offsets. The University published its first Sustainability Progress Report in November 2009. The University has adopted a green purchasing policy and recycling program that focuses on paper products, construction materials, lightbulbs, furniture, and electronics. Its dining halls have set a goal to purchase 75% sustainable food products by 2015. The student organization "Greening Princeton" seeks to encourage the University administration to adopt environmentally friendly policies on campus.
The Trustees of Princeton University, a 40-member board, is responsible for the overall direction of the University. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the University's endowment and oversees campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies, such as those in instructional programs and admission, as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members.
With an endowment of $26.1 billion, Princeton University is among the wealthiest universities in the world. Ranked in 2010 as the third largest endowment in the United States, the university had the greatest per-student endowment in the world (over $2 million for undergraduates) in 2011. Such a significant endowment is sustained through the continued donations of its alumni and is maintained by investment advisers. Some of Princeton's wealth is invested in its art museum, which features works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol among other prominent artists.
Undergraduates fulfill general education requirements, choose among a wide variety of elective courses, and pursue departmental concentrations and interdisciplinary certificate programs. Required independent work is a hallmark of undergraduate education at Princeton. Students graduate with either the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) or the Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.).
The graduate school offers advanced degrees spanning the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Doctoral education is available in most disciplines. It emphasizes original and independent scholarship whereas master's degree programs in architecture, engineering, finance, and public affairs and public policy prepare candidates for careers in public life and professional practice.
The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University.
Undergraduate courses in the humanities are traditionally either seminars or lectures held 2 or 3 times a week with an additional discussion seminar that is called a "precept." To graduate, all A.B. candidates must complete a senior thesis and, in most departments, one or two extensive pieces of independent research that are known as "junior papers." Juniors in some departments, including architecture and the creative arts, complete independent projects that differ from written research papers. A.B. candidates must also fulfill a three or four semester foreign language requirement and distribution requirements (which include, for example, classes in ethics, literature and the arts, and historical analysis) with a total of 31 classes. B.S.E. candidates follow a parallel track with an emphasis on a rigorous science and math curriculum, a computer science requirement, and at least two semesters of independent research including an optional senior thesis. All B.S.E. students must complete at least 36 classes. A.B. candidates typically have more freedom in course selection than B.S.E. candidates because of the fewer number of required classes. Nonetheless, in the spirit of a liberal arts education, both enjoy a comparatively high degree of latitude in creating a self-structured curriculum.
Undergraduates agree to adhere to an academic integrity policy called the Honor Code, established in 1893. Under the Honor Code, faculty do not proctor examinations; instead, the students proctor one another and must report any suspected violation to an Honor Committee made up of undergraduates. The Committee investigates reported violations and holds a hearing if it is warranted. An acquittal at such a hearing results in the destruction of all records of the hearing; a conviction results in the student's suspension or expulsion. The signed pledge required by the Honor Code is so integral to students' academic experience that the Princeton Triangle Club performs a song about it each fall. Out-of-class exercises fall under the jurisdiction of the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline. Undergraduates are expected to sign a pledge on their written work affirming that they have not plagiarized the work.
Princeton's undergraduate program is highly selective, admitting 6.4% of undergraduate applicants in the 2016–2017 admissions cycle (for the Class of 2021). The middle 50% range of SAT scores was 1430–1570 and the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 31–35.
In September 2006, the university announced that all applicants for the Class of 2012 would be considered in a single pool, effectively ending the school's early decision program. In February 2011, following decisions by the University of Virginia and Harvard University to reinstate their early admissions programs, Princeton announced it would institute an early action program, starting with applicants for the Class of 2016. In 2011, "The Business Journal" rated Princeton as the most selective college in the Eastern United States.
In 2001, expanding on earlier reforms, Princeton became the first university to eliminate the use of loans in financial aid, replacing them with grants. In addition, all admissions are need-blind. "Kiplinger" magazine in 2016 ranked Princeton as the best value among private universities, noting that the average graduating debt is $8,557.
In 2004, Nancy Weiss Malkiel, the Dean of the College, implemented a grade deflation policy to curb the number of A-range grades undergraduates received. Malkiel's argument was that an A was beginning to lose its meaning as a larger percentage of the student body received them. While the number of A's has indeed decreased under the policy, many argue that this is hurting Princeton students when they apply to jobs or graduate school. Malkiel has said that she sent pamphlets to inform institutions about the policy so that they consider Princeton students equally, but students argue that Princeton graduates can apply to other institutions that know nothing about it. They argue further that as other schools purposefully inflate their grades, Princeton students' GPAs will look low by comparison. Further, studies have shown that employers prefer high grades even when they are inflated. The policy remained in place even after Malkiel stepped down at the end of the 2010–2011 academic term. The policy deflates grades only relative to their previous levels; indeed, as of 2009, or five years after the policy was instituted, the average graduating GPA saw a marginal decrease, from 3.46 to 3.39.
In August 2014, a faculty committee tasked by Dean of the College Valerie Smith to review the effectiveness of grade deflation found not only that the 35% target was both often misinterpreted as a hard quota and applied inconsistently across departments, but also that grades had begun to decline in 2003, the year before the policy was implemented. The committee concluded that the observed lower grades since 2003 were the result of discussions and increased awareness during and since the implementation of the deflation policy, and not the deflation targets themselves, so recommended removing the numerical targets while charging individual departments with developing consistent standards for grading. In October 2014, following a faculty vote, the numerical targets were removed as recommended by the committee.
The Graduate School has about 2,600 students in 42 academic departments and programs in social sciences, engineering, natural sciences, and humanities. These departments include the Department of Psychology, Department of History, and Department of Economics.
In 2017–2018, it received nearly 11,000 applications for admission and accepted around 1,000 applicants. The University also awarded 319 Ph.D. degrees and 170 final master's degrees. Princeton has no medical school, law school, business school, or school of education. (A short-lived Princeton Law School folded in 1852.) It offers professional graduate degrees in architecture, engineering, finance, and public policy, the last through the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, founded in 1930 as the School of Public and International Affairs, renamed in 1948 after university president (and U.S. President) Woodrow Wilson, and most recently renamed in 2020.
The Princeton University Library system houses over eleven million holdings including seven million bound volumes. The main university library, Firestone Library, which houses almost four million volumes, is one of the largest university libraries in the world. Additionally, it is among the largest "open stack" libraries in existence. Its collections include the autographed manuscript of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" and George F. Kennan's Long Telegram. In addition to Firestone library, specialized libraries exist for architecture, art and archaeology, East Asian studies, engineering, music, public and international affairs, public policy and university archives, and the sciences. In an effort to expand access, these libraries also subscribe to thousands of electronic resources. In February 2007, Princeton became the 12th major library system to join Google's ambitious project to scan the world's great literary works and make them searchable over the Web.
From 2001 through 2019, Princeton University was ranked either first or second among national universities by "U.S. News & World Report", holding the top spot for 17 of those 19 years (sole #1 twelve times, tied with Harvard for #1 five times). Princeton was ranked first in the 2019 "U.S. News" rankings. Princeton also was ranked #1 in the 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 rankings for "best undergraduate teaching." In the 2020 "Times Higher Education" assessment of the world's greatest universities, Princeton was ranked 6th. In the 2020 "QS World University Rankings", it was ranked 13th overall in the world.
In the 2015 "U.S. News & World Report" "Graduate School Rankings," all thirteen of Princeton's doctoral programs evaluated were ranked in their respective top 20, 8 of them in the top 5, and 4 of them in the top spot (Economics, History, Mathematics, Sociology).
Princeton was ranked 6th among 300 Best World Universities in 2018 compiled by Human Resources & Labor Review (HRLR).
Princeton University has an IBM BlueGeneL supercomputer, called "Orangena", which was ranked as the 89th fastest computer in the world in 2005 (LINPACK performance of 4713 compared to 12250 for other U.S. universities and 280600 for the top-ranked supercomputer, belonging to the U.S. Department of Energy).
The Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) is an "interdisciplinary center of environmental research, education, and outreach" at the university. PEI was started in 1994. About 90 faculty members at Princeton University are affiliated with it.
The Princeton Environmental Institute has the following research centers:
University housing is guaranteed to all undergraduates for all four years. More than 98% of students live on campus in dormitories. Freshmen and sophomores must live in residential colleges, while juniors and seniors typically live in designated upperclassman dormitories. The actual dormitories are comparable, but only residential colleges have dining halls. Nonetheless, any undergraduate may purchase a meal plan and eat in a residential college dining hall. Recently, upperclassmen have been given the option of remaining in their college for all four years. Juniors and seniors also have the option of living off-campus, but high rent in the Princeton area encourages almost all students to live in university housing. Undergraduate social life revolves around the residential colleges and a number of coeducational eating clubs, which students may choose to join in the spring of their sophomore year. Eating clubs, which are not officially affiliated with the university, serve as dining halls and communal spaces for their members and also host social events throughout the academic year.
Princeton's six residential colleges host a variety of social events and activities, guest speakers, and trips. The residential colleges also sponsor trips to New York for undergraduates to see ballets, operas, Broadway shows, sports events, and other activities.
The eating clubs, located on Prospect Avenue, are co-ed organizations for upperclassmen. Most upperclassmen eat their meals at one of the eleven eating clubs. Additionally, the clubs serve as evening and weekend social venues for members and guests. The eleven clubs are Cannon, Cap and Gown, Charter, Cloister, Colonial, Cottage, Ivy, Quadrangle, Terrace, Tiger, and Tower.
Princeton hosts two Model United Nations conferences, PMUNC in the fall for high school students and PDI in the spring for college students. It also hosts the Princeton Invitational Speech and Debate tournament each year at the end of November. Princeton also runs Princeton Model Congress, an event that is held once a year in mid-November. The four-day conference has high school students from around the country as participants.
Although the school's admissions policy is need-blind, Princeton, based on the proportion of students who receive Pell Grants, was ranked as a school with little economic diversity among all national universities ranked by "U.S. News & World Report". While Pell figures are widely used as a gauge of the number of low-income undergraduates on a given campus, the rankings article cautions "the proportion of students on Pell Grants isn't a perfect measure of an institution's efforts to achieve economic diversity," but goes on to say that "still, many experts say that Pell figures are the best available gauge of how many low-income undergrads there are on a given campus."
Princeton has made significant progress in expanding the diversity of its student body in recent years. The 2016 freshman class was the most diverse in the school's history, with over 43% of students identifying as students of color. Undergraduate and master's students were 51% male and 49% female for the 2018–19 academic year.
In 1999, 10% of the student body was Jewish, a percentage lower than those at other Ivy League schools. Sixteen percent of the student body was Jewish in 1985; the number decreased by 40% from 1985 to 1999. This decline prompted "The Daily Princetonian" to write a series of articles on the decline and its reasons. Caroline C. Pam of "The New York Observer" wrote that Princeton was "long dogged by a reputation for anti-Semitism" and that this history as well as Princeton's elite status caused the university and its community to feel sensitivity towards the decrease of Jewish students. At the time many Jewish students at Princeton dated Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia because they perceived Princeton as an environment where it was difficult to find romantic prospects; Pam stated that there was a theory that the dating issues were a cause of the decline in Jewish students.
In 1981, the population of African Americans at Princeton University made up less than 10%. Bruce M. Wright was admitted into the university in 1936 as the first African American, however, his admission was a mistake and when he got to campus he was asked to leave. Three years later Wright asked the dean for an explanation on his dismissal and the dean suggested to him that "a member of your race might feel very much alone" at Princeton University.
Princeton supports organized athletics at three levels: varsity intercollegiate, club intercollegiate, and intramural. It also provides "a variety of physical education and recreational programs" for members of the Princeton community. According to the athletics program's mission statement, Princeton aims for its students who participate in athletics to be "'student athletes' in the fullest sense of the phrase." Most undergraduates participate in athletics at some level.
Princeton's colors are orange and black. The school's athletes are known as "Tigers", and the mascot is a tiger. The Princeton administration considered naming the mascot in 2007, but the effort was dropped in the face of alumni opposition.
Princeton is an NCAA Division I school. Its athletic conference is the Ivy League. Princeton hosts 38 men's and women's varsity sports. The largest varsity sport is rowing, with almost 150 athletes.
Princeton's football team has a long and storied history. Princeton played against Rutgers University in the first intercollegiate football game in the U.S. on Nov 6, 1869. By a score of 6–4, Rutgers won the game, which was played by rules similar to modern rugby. Today Princeton is a member of the Football Championship Subdivision of NCAA Division I. As of the end of the 2010 season, Princeton had won 26 national football championships, more than any other school.
The men's basketball program is noted for its success under Pete Carril, the head coach from 1967 to 1996. During this time, Princeton won 13 Ivy League titles and made 11 NCAA tournament appearances. Carril introduced the Princeton offense, an offensive strategy that has since been adopted by a number of college and professional basketball teams. Carril's final victory at Princeton came when the Tigers beat UCLA, the defending national champion, in the opening round of the 1996 NCAA tournament, in what is considered one of the greatest upsets in the history of the tournament. Recently Princeton tied the record for the fewest points in a Division I game since the institution of the three-point line in 1986–87, when the Tigers scored 21 points in a loss against Monmouth University on Dec 14, 2005.
Princeton women's soccer team advanced to the NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship semi-finals in 2004, the only Ivy League team to do so in a 64-team tournament. The season was led by former U.S. National Team member, Esmeralda Negron, Olympic medalist Canadian National Team member Diana Matheson, and coach Julie Shackford. The Tigers men's soccer team was coached for many years by Princeton alumnus and future United States men's national team manager Bob Bradley.
The men's water polo team is currently a dominant force in the Collegiate Water Polo Association, having reached the Final Four in two of the last three years. Similarly, the men's lacrosse program enjoyed a period of dominance 1992–2001, during which time it won six national championships.
In addition to varsity sports, Princeton hosts about 35 club sports teams. Princeton's rugby team is organized as a club sport.
Each year, nearly 300 teams participate in intramural sports at Princeton. Intramurals are open to members of Princeton's faculty, staff, and students, though a team representing a residential college or eating club must consist only of members of that college or club. Several leagues with differing levels of competitiveness are available.
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement, convocation, and athletic games is Princeton Cannon Song, the Princeton University fight song.
Bob Dylan wrote "Day of The Locusts" (for his 1970 album "New Morning") about his experience of receiving an honorary doctorate from the University. It is a reference to the negative experience he had and it mentions the Brood X cicada infestation Princeton experienced that June 1970.
"" has been Princeton University's anthem since 1859. Its words were written that year by a freshman, Harlan Page Peck, and published in the March issue of the "Nassau Literary Review" (the oldest student publication at Princeton and also the second oldest undergraduate literary magazine in the country). The words and music appeared together for the first time in "Songs of Old Nassau", published in April 1859. Before the Langlotz tune was written, the song was sung to "Auld Lang Syne"'s melody, which also fits.
However, Old Nassau does not only refer to the university's anthem. It can also refer to Nassau Hall, the building that was built in 1756 and named after William III of the House of Orange-Nassau. When built, it was the largest college building in North America. It served briefly as the capitol of the United States when the Continental Congress convened there in the summer of 1783. By metonymy, the term can refer to the university as a whole. Finally, it can also refer to a chemical reaction that is dubbed "Old Nassau reaction" because the solution turns orange and then black.
U.S. Presidents James Madison and Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Aaron Burr graduated from Princeton, as did Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States. Former Chief Justice of the United States Oliver Ellsworth was an alumnus, as are current U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Alumnus Jerome Powell was appointed as Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in 2018.
Princeton graduates played a major role in the American Revolution, including the first and last Colonels on the Patriot side Philip Johnston and Nathaniel Scudder, as well as the highest ranking civilian leader on the British side David Mathews.
Notable graduates of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science include Apollo astronaut and commander of Apollo 12 Pete Conrad, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, former Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Eric Schmidt, and Lisa P. Jackson, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Actors Jimmy Stewart, Wentworth Miller, José Ferrer, David Duchovny, Brooke Shields, and Graham Phillips graduated from Princeton as did composer and pianist Richard Aaker Trythall. Soccer-player alumna, Diana Matheson, scored the game-winning goal that earned Canada their Olympic bronze medal in 2012.
Writers Booth Tarkington, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Eugene O'Neill attended but did not graduate. Selden Edwards and Will Stanton graduated with English degrees. American novelist Jodi Picoult graduated in 1987. Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize in Literature, received an honorary degree in 2015 and has been a visiting lecturer at the Spanish Department.
William P. Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and founding editor of the "Cherokee Advocate", graduated in 1844.
Notable graduate alumni include Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Richard Feynman, Lee Iacocca, John Nash, Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, Terence Tao, Edward Witten, John Milnor, John Bardeen, Steven Weinberg, John Tate, and David Petraeus. Royals such as Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, and Queen Noor of Jordan also have attended Princeton.
Notable faculty members include P. Adams Sitney, Angus Deaton, Daniel Kahneman, Joyce Carol Oates, Cornel West, Robert Keohane, Anthony Grafton, Peter Singer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Mullen, Robert P. George, and Andrew Wiles. Notable former faculty members include John Witherspoon, Walter Kaufmann, John von Neumann, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Joseph Henry, Toni Morrison, John P. Lewis, and alumnus Woodrow Wilson, who also served as president of the University 1902–1910.
Albert Einstein, though on the faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study rather than at Princeton, came to be associated with the university through frequent lectures and visits on the campus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23922 |
Passenger pigeon
The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon ("Ectopistes migratorius") is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word "passager", meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits of the species. The scientific name also refers to its migratory characteristics. The morphologically similar mourning dove ("Zenaida macroura") was long thought to be its closest relative, and the two were at times confused, but genetic analysis has shown that the genus "Patagioenas" is more closely related to it than the "Zenaida" doves.
The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. The male was in length, mainly gray on the upperparts, lighter on the underparts, with iridescent bronze feathers on the neck, and black spots on the wings. The female was , and was duller and browner than the male overall. The juvenile was similar to the female, but without iridescence. It mainly inhabited the deciduous forests of eastern North America and was also recorded elsewhere, but bred primarily around the Great Lakes. The pigeon migrated in enormous flocks, constantly searching for food, shelter, and breeding grounds, and was once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering around 3 billion, and possibly up to 5 billion. A very fast flyer, the passenger pigeon could reach a speed of . The bird fed mainly on mast, and also fruits and invertebrates. It practiced communal roosting and communal breeding, and its extreme gregariousness may be linked with searching for food and predator satiation.
Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. The last confirmed wild bird is thought to have been shot in 1901. The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of this species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.
Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus coined the binomial name "Columba macroura" for both the mourning dove and the passenger pigeon in the 1758 edition of his work "Systema Naturae" (the starting point of biological nomenclature), wherein he appears to have considered the two identical. This composite description cited accounts of these birds in two pre-Linnean books. One of these was Mark Catesby's description of the passenger pigeon, which was published in his 1731 to 1743 work "Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands", which referred to this bird as "Palumbus migratorius", and was accompanied by the earliest published illustration of the species. Catesby's description was combined with the 1743 description of the mourning dove by George Edwards, who used the name "C. macroura" for that bird. There is nothing to suggest Linnaeus ever saw specimens of these birds himself, and his description is thought to be fully derivative of these earlier accounts and their illustrations. In his 1766 edition of "Systema Naturae", Linnaeus dropped the name "C. macroura", and instead used the name "C. migratoria" for the passenger pigeon, and "C. carolinensis" for the mourning dove. In the same edition, Linnaeus also named "C. canadensis", based on "Turtur canadensis", as used by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. Brisson's description was later shown to have been based on a female passenger pigeon.
In 1827 William John Swainson moved the passenger pigeon from the genus "Columba" to the new monotypic genus "Ectopistes", due in part to the length of the wings and the wedge shape of the tail. In 1906 Outram Bangs suggested that because Linnaeus had wholly copied Catesby's text when coining "C. macroura", this name should apply to the passenger pigeon, as "E. macroura". In 1918 Harry C. Oberholser suggested that "C. canadensis" should take precedence over "C. migratoria" (as "E. canadensis"), as it appeared on an earlier page in Linnaeus' book. In 1952 Francis Hemming proposed that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) secure the specific name "macroura" for the mourning dove, and the name "migratorius" for the passenger pigeon, since this was the intended use by the authors on whose work Linnaeus had based his description. This was accepted by the ICZN, which used its plenary powers to designate the species for the respective names in 1955.
The passenger pigeon was a member of the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. The oldest known fossil of the genus is an isolated humerus (USNM 430960) known from the Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina in sediments belonging to the Yorktown Formation, dating to the Zanclean stage of the Pliocene, between 5.3 and 3.6 million years ago. Its closest living relatives were long thought to be the "Zenaida" doves, based on morphological grounds, particularly the physically similar mourning dove (now "Z. macroura"). It was even suggested that the mourning dove belonged to the genus "Ectopistes" and was listed as "E. carolinensis" by some authors, including Thomas Mayo Brewer. The passenger pigeon was supposedly descended from "Zenaida" pigeons that had adapted to the woodlands on the plains of central North America.
The passenger pigeon differed from the species in the genus "Zenaida" in being larger, lacking a facial stripe, being sexually dimorphic, and having iridescent neck feathers and a smaller clutch. In a 2002 study by American geneticist Beth Shapiro et al., museum specimens of the passenger pigeon were included in an ancient DNA analysis for the first time (in a paper focusing mainly on the dodo), and it was found to be the sister taxon of the cuckoo-dove genus "Macropygia". The "Zenaida" doves were instead shown to be related to the quail-doves of the genus "Geotrygon" and the "Leptotila" doves.
A more extensive 2010 study instead showed that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to the New World "Patagioenas" pigeons, including the band-tailed pigeon ("P. fasciata") of western North America, which are related to the Southeast Asian species in the genera "Turacoena", "Macropygia" and "Reinwardtoena". This clade is also related to the "Columba" and "Streptopelia" doves of the Old World (collectively termed the "typical pigeons and doves"). The authors of the study suggested that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon may have colonized the New World from South East Asia by flying across the Pacific Ocean, or perhaps across Beringia in the north.
In a 2012 study, the nuclear DNA of the passenger pigeon was analyzed for the first time, and its relationship with the "Patagioenas" pigeons was confirmed. In contrast to the 2010 study, these authors suggested that their results could indicate that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon and its Old World relatives may have originated in the Neotropical region of the New World.
The cladogram below follows the 2012 DNA study showing the position of the passenger pigeon among its closest relatives:
DNA in old museum specimens is often degraded and fragmentary, and passenger pigeon specimens have been used in various studies to discover improved methods of analyzing and assembling genomes from such material. DNA samples are often taken from the toe pads of bird skins in museums, as this can be done without causing significant damage to valuable specimens. The passenger pigeon had no known subspecies. Hybridization occurred between the passenger pigeon and the Barbary dove ("Streptopelia risoria") in the aviary of Charles Otis Whitman (who owned many of the last captive birds around the turn of the 20th century, and kept them with other pigeon species) but the offspring were infertile.
The genus name, "Ectopistes", translates as "moving about" or "wandering", while the specific name, "migratorius", indicates its migratory habits. The full binomial can thus be translated as "migratory wanderer". The English common name "passenger pigeon" derives from the French word "", which means "to pass by" in a fleeting manner. While the pigeon was extant, the name passenger pigeon was used interchangeably with "wild pigeon". The bird also gained some less-frequently used names, including blue pigeon, merne rouck pigeon, wandering long-tailed dove, and wood pigeon. In the 18th century, the passenger pigeon was known as "tourte" in New France (in modern Canada), but to the French in Europe it was known as "tourtre". In modern French, the bird is known as "tourte voyageuse" or "pigeon migrateur", among other names.
In the Native American Algonquian languages, the pigeon was called "amimi" by the Lenape, ' by the Ojibwe, and ' by the Kaskaskia Illinois. Other names in indigenous American languages include ' in Mohawk, and ', or "lost dove", in Choctaw. The Seneca people called the pigeon ', meaning "big bread", as it was a source of food for their tribes. Chief Simon Pokagon of the Potawatomi stated that his people called the pigeon ', and that the Europeans did not adopt native names for the bird, as it reminded them of their domesticated pigeons, instead calling them "wild" pigeons, as they called the native peoples "wild" men.
The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. It weighed between . The adult male was about in length. It had a bluish-gray head, nape, and hindneck. On the sides of the neck and the upper mantle were iridescent display feathers that have variously been described as being a bright bronze, violet or golden-green, depending on the angle of the light. The upper back and wings were a pale or slate gray tinged with olive brown, that turned into grayish-brown on the lower wings. The lower back and rump were a dark blue-gray that became grayish-brown on the upper tail-covert feathers. The greater and median wing-covert feathers were pale gray, with a small number of irregular black spots near the end. The primary and secondary feathers of the wing were a blackish-brown with a narrow white edge on the outer side of the secondaries. The two central tail feathers were brownish gray, and the rest were white.
The tail pattern was distinctive as it had white outer edges with blackish spots that were prominently displayed in flight. The lower throat and breast were richly pinkish-rufous, grading into a paler pink further down, and into white on the abdomen and undertail covert feathers. The undertail coverts also had a few black spots. The bill was black, while the feet and legs were a bright coral red. It had a carmine-red iris surrounded by a narrow purplish-red eye-ring. The wing of the male measured , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .
The adult female passenger pigeon was slightly smaller than the male at in length. It was duller than the male overall, and was a grayish-brown on the forehead, crown, and nape down to the scapulars, and the feathers on the sides of the neck had less iridescence than those of the male. The lower throat and breast were a buff-gray that developed into white on the belly and undertail-coverts. It was browner on the upperparts and paler buff brown and less rufous on the underparts than the male. The wings, back, and tail were similar in appearance to those of the male except that the outer edges of the primary feathers were edged in buff or rufous buff. The wings had more spotting than those of the male. The tail was shorter than that of the male, and the legs and feet were a paler red. The iris was orange red, with a grayish blue, naked orbital ring. The wing of the female was , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .
The juvenile passenger pigeon was similar in plumage to the adult female, but lacked the spotting on the wings, and was a darker brownish-gray on the head, neck, and breast. The feathers on the wings had pale gray fringes (also described as white tips), giving it a scaled look. The secondaries were brownish-black with pale edges, and the tertial feathers had a rufous wash. The primaries were also edged with a rufous-brown color. The neck feathers had no iridescence. The legs and feet were dull red, and the iris was brownish, and surrounded by a narrow carmine ring. The plumage of the sexes was similar during their first year.
Of the hundreds of surviving skins, only one appears to be aberrant in coloran adult female from the collection of Walter Rothschild, Natural History Museum at Tring. It is a washed brown on the upper parts, wing covert, secondary feathers, and tail (where it would otherwise have been gray), and white on the primary feathers and underparts. The normally black spots are brown, and it is pale gray on the head, lower back, and upper-tail covert feathers, yet the iridescence is unaffected. The brown mutation is a result of a reduction in eumelanin, due to incomplete synthesis (oxidation) of this pigment. This sex-linked mutation is common in female wild birds, but it is thought the white feathers of this specimen are instead the result of bleaching due to exposure to sunlight.
The passenger pigeon was physically adapted for speed, endurance, and maneuverability in flight, and has been described as having a streamlined version of the typical pigeon shape, such as that of the generalized rock dove ("Columba livia"). The wings were very long and pointed, and measured from the wing-chord to the primary feathers, and to the secondaries. The tail, which accounted for much of its overall length, was long and wedge-shaped (or graduated), with two central feathers longer than the rest. The body was slender and narrow, and the head and neck were small.
The internal anatomy of the passenger pigeon has rarely been described. Robert W. Shufeldt found little to differentiate the bird's osteology from that of other pigeons when examining a male skeleton in 1914, but Julian P. Hume noted several distinct features in a more detailed 2015 description. The pigeon had particularly large breast muscles that indicate powerful flight (musculus pectoralis major for downstroke and the smaller musculus supracoracoideus for upstroke). The coracoid bone (which connects the scapula, furcula, and sternum) was large relative to the size of the bird, , with straighter shafts and more robust articular ends than in other pigeons. The furcula had a sharper V-shape and was more robust, with expanded articular ends. The scapula was long, straight, and robust, and its distal end was enlarged. The sternum was very large and robust compared to that of other pigeons; its keel was deep. The overlapping uncinate processes, which stiffen the ribcage, were very well developed. The wing bones (humerus, radius, ulna, carpometacarpus) were short but robust compared to other pigeons. The leg bones were similar to those of other pigeons.
The noise produced by flocks of passenger pigeons was described as deafening, audible for miles away, and the bird's voice as loud, harsh, and unmusical. It was also described by some as clucks, twittering, and cooing, and as a series of low notes instead of actual song. The birds apparently made croaking noises when building nests, and bell-like sounds when mating. During feeding, some individuals would give alarm calls when facing a threat, and the rest of the flock would join the sound while taking off.
In 1911 American behavioral scientist Wallace Craig published an account of the gestures and sounds of this species as a series of descriptions and musical notations, based on observation of C. O. Whitman's captive passenger pigeons in 1903. Craig compiled these records to assist in identifying potential survivors in the wild (as the physically similar mourning doves could otherwise be mistaken for passenger pigeons), while noting this "meager information" was likely all that would be left on the subject. According to Craig, one call was a simple harsh "keck" that could be given twice in succession with a pause in between. This was said to be used to attract the attention of another pigeon. Another call was a more frequent and variable scolding. This sound was described as "kee-kee-kee-kee" or "tete! tete! tete!", and was used to call either to its mate or towards other creatures it considered to be enemies. One variant of this call, described as a long, drawn-out "tweet", could be used to call down a flock of passenger pigeons passing overhead, which would then land in a nearby tree. "Keeho" was a soft cooing that, while followed by louder "keck" notes or scolding, was directed at the bird's mate. A nesting passenger pigeon would also give off a stream of at least eight mixed notes that were both high and low in tone and ended with "keeho". Overall, female passenger pigeons were quieter and called infrequently. Craig suggested that the loud, strident voice and "degenerated" musicality was the result of living in populous colonies where only the loudest sounds could be heard.
The passenger pigeon was found across most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, from the Great Plains to the Atlantic coast in the east, to the south of Canada in the north, and the north of Mississippi in the southern United States, coinciding with its primary habitat, the eastern deciduous forests. Within this range, it constantly migrated in search of food and shelter. It is unclear if the birds favored particular trees and terrain, but they were possibly not restricted to one type, as long as their numbers could be supported. It originally bred from the southern parts of eastern and central Canada south to eastern Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia in the United States, but the primary breeding range was in southern Ontario and the Great Lakes states south through states north of the Appalachian Mountains. Though the western forests were ecologically similar to those in the east, these were occupied by band-tailed pigeons, which may have kept out the passenger pigeons through competitive exclusion.
The passenger pigeon wintered from Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina south to Texas, the Gulf Coast, and northern Florida, though flocks occasionally wintered as far north as southern Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It preferred to winter in large swamps, particularly those with alder trees; if swamps were not available, forested areas, particularly with pine trees, were favored roosting sites. There were also sightings of passenger pigeons outside of its normal range, including in several Western states, Bermuda, Cuba, and Mexico, particularly during severe winters. It has been suggested that some of these extralimital records may have been due to the paucity of observers rather than the actual extent of passenger pigeons; North America was then unsettled country, and the bird may have appeared anywhere on the continent except for the far west. There were also records of stragglers in Scotland, Ireland, and France, although these birds may have been escaped captives, or the records incorrect.
More than 130 passenger pigeon fossils have been found scattered across 25 US states, including in the La Brea Tar Pits of California. These records date as far back as 100,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era, during which the pigeon's range extended to several western states that were not a part of its modern range. The abundance of the species in these regions and during this time is unknown.
The passenger pigeon was nomadic, constantly migrating in search of food, shelter, or nesting grounds. In his 1831 "Ornithological Biography", American naturalist and artist John James Audubon described a migration he observed in 1813 as follows:
These flocks were frequently described as being so dense that they blackened the sky and as having no sign of subdivisions. The flocks ranged from only above the ground in windy conditions to as high as . These migrating flocks were typically in narrow columns that twisted and undulated, and they were reported as being in nearly every conceivable shape. A skilled flyer, the passenger pigeon is estimated to have averaged during migration. It flew with quick, repeated flaps that increased the bird's velocity the closer the wings got to the body. It was equally as adept and quick at flying through a forest as through open space. A flock was also adept at following the lead of the pigeon in front of it, and flocks swerved together to avoid a predator. When landing, the pigeon flapped its wings repeatedly before raising them at the moment of landing. The pigeon was awkward when on the ground, and moved around with jerky, alert steps.
The passenger pigeon was one of the most social of all land birds. Estimated to have numbered three to five billion at the height of its population, it may have been the most numerous bird on Earth; researcher Arlie W. Schorger believed that it accounted for between 25 and 40 percent of the total land bird population in the United States. The passenger pigeon's historic population is roughly the equivalent of the number of birds that overwinter in the United States every year in the early 21st century. Even within their range, the size of individual flocks could vary greatly. In November 1859, Henry David Thoreau, writing in Concord, Massachusetts, noted that “quite a little flock of [passenger] pigeons bred here last summer,” while only seven years later, in 1866, one flock in southern Ontario was described as being wide and long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. Such a number would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time, or perhaps all of it. Most estimations of numbers were based on single migrating colonies, and it is unknown how many of these existed at a given time. American writer Christopher Cokinos has suggested that if the birds flew single file, they would have stretched around the earth 22 times.
A 2014 genetic study (based on coalescent theory and on “sequences from most of the genome” of three individual passenger pigeons) suggested that the passenger pigeon population experienced dramatic fluctuations across the last million years, due to their dependence on availability of mast (which itself fluctuates). The study suggested the bird was not always abundant, mainly persisting at around 1/10,000 the amount of the several billions estimated in the 1800s, with vastly larger numbers present during outbreak phases. Some early accounts also suggest that the appearance of flocks in great numbers was an irregular occurrence. These large fluctuations in population may have been the result of a disrupted ecosystem and have consisted of outbreak populations much larger than those common in pre-European times. The authors of the 2014 genetic study note that a similar analysis of the human population size arrives at an “effective population size” of between 9,000 and 17,000 individuals (or approximately 1/550,000th of the peak total human population size of 7 billion cited in the study).
For a 2017 genetic study, the authors sequenced the genomes of two additional passenger pigeons, as well as analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of 41 individuals. This study found evidence that the passenger-pigeon population had been stable for at least the previous 20,000 years. The study also found that the size of the passenger pigeon population over that time period had been larger than the 2014 genetic study had found. However, the 2017 study's "conservative" estimate of an "effective population size" of 13 million birds is still only about 1/300th of the bird's estimated historic population of approximately 3–5 billion before their "19th century decline and eventual extinction." A similar study inferring human population size from genetics (published in 2008, and using human mitochondrial DNA and Bayesian coalescent inference methods) showed considerable accuracy in reflecting overall patterns of human population growth as compared to data deduced by other means — though the study arrived at a human effective population size (as of 1600 AD, for Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas combined) that was roughly 1/1000 of the census population estimate for the same time and area based on anthropological and historical evidence.
The 2017 passenger-pigeon genetic study also found that, in spite of its large population size, the genetic diversity was very low in the species. The authors suggested that this was a side-effect of natural selection, which theory and previous empirical studies suggested could have a particular great impact on species with very large and cohesive populations. Natural selection can reduce genetic diversity over extended regions of a genome through 'selective sweeps' or 'background selection'. The authors found evidence of a faster rate of adaptive evolution and faster removal of harmful mutations in passenger pigeons compared to band-tailed pigeons, which are some of passenger pigeons' closest living relatives. They also found evidence of lower genetic diversity in regions of the passenger pigeon genome that have lower rates of genetic recombination. This is expected if natural selection, via selective sweeps or background selection, reduced their genetic diversity, but not if population instability did. The study concluded that earlier suggestion that population instability contributed to the extinction of the species was invalid. Evolutionary biologist A. Townsend Peterson said of the two passenger-pigeon genetic studies (published in 2014 and 2017) that, though the idea of extreme fluctuations in the passenger-pigeon population was “deeply entrenched,” he was persuaded by the 2017 study's argument, due to its “in-depth analysis” and “massive data resources.”
A communally roosting species, the passenger pigeon chose roosting sites that could provide shelter and enough food to sustain their large numbers for an indefinite period. The time spent at one roosting site may have depended on the extent of human persecution, weather conditions, or other, unknown factors. Roosts ranged in size and extent, from a few acres to or greater. Some roosting areas would be reused for subsequent years, others would only be used once. The passenger pigeon roosted in such numbers that even thick tree branches would break under the strain. The birds frequently piled on top of each other's backs to roost. They rested in a slumped position that hid their feet. They slept with their bills concealed by the feathers in the middle of the breast while holding their tail at a 45-degree angle. Dung could accumulate under a roosting site to a depth of over .
If the pigeon became alert, it would often stretch out its head and neck in line with its body and tail, then nod its head in a circular pattern. When aggravated by another pigeon, it raised its wings threateningly, but passenger pigeons almost never actually fought. The pigeon bathed in shallow water, and afterwards lay on each side in turn and raised the opposite wing to dry it.
The passenger pigeon drank at least once a day, typically at dawn, by fully inserting its bill into lakes, small ponds, and streams. Pigeons were seen perching on top of each other to access water, and if necessary, the species could alight on open water to drink. One of the primary causes of natural mortality was the weather, and every spring many individuals froze to death after migrating north too early. In captivity, a passenger pigeon was capable of living at least 15 years; Martha, the last known living passenger pigeon, was at least 17 and possibly as old as 29 when she died. It is undocumented how long a wild pigeon lived.
The bird is believed to have played a significant ecological role in the composition of pre-Columbian forests of eastern North America. For instance, while the passenger pigeon was extant, forests were dominated by white oaks. This species germinated in the fall, therefore making its seeds almost useless as a food source during the spring breeding season, while red oaks produced acorns during the spring, which were devoured by the pigeons. The absence of the passenger pigeon's seed consumption may have contributed to the modern dominance of red oaks. Due to the immense amount of dung present at roosting sites, few plants grew for years after the pigeons left. Also, the accumulation of flammable debris (such as limbs broken from trees and foliage killed by excrement) at these sites may have increased both the frequency and intensity of forest fires, which would have favored fire-tolerant species, such as bur oaks, black oaks, and white oaks over less fire-tolerant species, such as red oaks, thus helping to explain the change in the composition of eastern forests since the passenger pigeon's extinction (from white oaks, bur oaks, and black oaks predominating in presettlement forests, to the “dramatic expansion” of red oaks today).
A study released in 2018 concluded that the “vast numbers” of passenger pigeons present for “tens of thousands of years” would have influenced the evolution of the tree species that they ate the seeds of — specifically, that masting trees that produced seeds during the spring nesting season (such as red oaks) evolved so that some portion of their seeds would be too large for passenger pigeons to swallow (thus allowing some of their seeds to escape predation and grow new trees), while white oaks, with its seeds sized consistently in the edible range, evolved an irregular masting pattern that took place in the fall, when fewer passenger pigeons would have been present. The study further concluded that this allowed white oaks to be the dominant tree species in regions where passenger pigeons were commonly present in the spring.
With the large numbers in passenger pigeon flocks, the excrement they produced was enough to destroy surface-level vegetation at long-term roosting sites, while adding high quantities of nutrients to the ecosystem. Because of this — along with the breaking of tree limbs under their collective weight and the great amount of mast they consumed — passenger pigeons are thought to have influenced both the structure of eastern forests and the composition of the species present there. Due to these influences, some ecologists have considered the passenger pigeon a keystone species, with the disappearance of their vast flocks leaving a major gap in the ecosystem. Their role in creating forest disturbances has been linked to greater vertebrate diversity in forests by creating more niches for animals to fill, as well as contributing to a healthy forest fire cycle in the forests, as it has been found that forest fires have increased in prevalence since the extinction of the passenger pigeon, which seems to go against the idea that the tree limbs and branches they would bring down served as fuel for the fires. To help fill that ecological gap, it has been proposed that modern land managers attempt to replicate some of their effects on the ecosystem by creating openings in forest canopies to provide more understory light.
The American chestnut trees that provided much of the mast on which the passenger pigeon fed was itself almost driven to extinction by an imported Asian fungus (chestnut blight) around 1905. As many as thirty billion trees are thought to have died as a result in the following decades, but this did not affect the passenger pigeon, which was already extinct in the wild at the time.
After the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, the population of another acorn feeding species, the white-footed mouse, grew exponentially because of the increased availability of the seeds of the oak, beech and chestnut trees. It has been speculated that the extinction of passenger pigeons may have increased the prevalence of tick-borne lyme disease in modern times as white-footed mice are the reservoir hosts of "Borrelia burgdorferi".
Beeches and oaks produced the mast needed to support nesting and roosting flocks. The passenger pigeon changed its diet depending on the season. In the fall, winter, and spring, it mainly ate beechnuts, acorns, and chestnuts. During the summer, berries and softer fruits, such as blueberries, grapes, cherries, mulberries, pokeberries, and bunchberry, became the main objects of its consumption. It also ate worms, caterpillars, snails, and other invertebrates, particularly while breeding. It took advantage of cultivated grains, particularly buckwheat, when it found them. It was especially fond of salt, which it ingested either from brackish springs or salty soil.
Mast occurs in large quantities in different places at different times, and rarely in consecutive years, which is one of the reasons why the large flocks were constantly on the move. As mast is produced during autumn, there would have to be a large amount of it left by the summer, when the young were reared. It is unknown how they located this fluctuating food source, but their eyesight and flight powers helped them survey large areas for places that could provide food enough for a temporary stay.
The passenger pigeon foraged in flocks of tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals that overturned leaves, dirt, and snow with their bills in search of food. One observer described the motion of such a flock in search of mast as having a rolling appearance, as birds in the back of the flock flew overhead to the front of the flock, dropping leaves and grass in flight. The flocks had wide leading edges to better scan the landscape for food sources.
When nuts on a tree loosened from their caps, a pigeon would land on a branch and, while flapping vigorously to stay balanced, grab the nut, pull it loose from its cap, and swallow it whole. Collectively, a foraging flock was capable of removing nearly all fruits and nuts from their path. Birds in the back of the flock flew to the front in order to pick over unsearched ground; however, birds never ventured far from the flock and hurried back if they became isolated. It is believed that the pigeons used social cues to identify abundant sources of food, and a flock of pigeons that saw others feeding on the ground often joined them. During the day, the birds left the roosting forest to forage on more open land. They regularly flew away from their roost daily in search of food, and some pigeons reportedly traveled as far as , leaving the roosting area early and returning at night.
The passenger pigeon had a very elastic mouth and throat, allowing for increased capacity, and a joint in the lower bill enabled it to swallow acorns whole. It could store large quantities of food in its crop, which could expand to about the size of an orange, causing the neck to bulge and allowing a bird quickly to grab any food it discovered. The crop was described as being capable of holding at least 17 acorns or 28 beechnuts, 11 grains of corn, 100 maple seeds, plus other material; it was estimated that a passenger pigeon needed to eat about of food a day to survive. If shot, a pigeon with a crop full of nuts would fall to the ground with a sound described as like the rattle of a bag of marbles. After feeding, the pigeons perched on branches and digested the food stored in their crop overnight.
The pigeon could eat and digest of acorns per day. At the historic population of three billion passenger pigeons, this amounted to of food a day. The pigeon could regurgitate food from its crop when more desirable food became available. A 2018 study found that the dietary range of the passenger pigeon was restricted to certain sizes of seed, due to the size of its gape. This would have prevented it from eating some of the seeds of trees such as red oaks, the black oak, and the American chestnut. Specifically, the study found that between 13% and 69% of red oak seeds were too large for passenger pigeons to have swallowed, that only a “small proportion” of the seeds of black oaks and American chestnuts were too large for the birds to consume, and that all white oak seeds were sized within an edible range. They also found that seeds would be completely destroyed during digestion, which therefore hindered dispersal of seeds this way. Instead, passenger pigeons may have spread seeds by regurgitation, or after dying.
Other than finding roosting sites, the migrations of the passenger pigeon were connected with finding places appropriate for this communally breeding bird to nest and raise its young. It is not certain how many times a year the birds bred; once seems most likely, but some accounts suggest more. The nesting period lasted around four to six weeks. The flock arrived at a nesting ground around March in southern latitudes, and some time later in more northern areas. The pigeon had no site fidelity, often choosing to nest in a different location each year. The formation of a nesting colony did not necessarily take place until several months after the pigeons arrived on their breeding grounds, typically during late March, April, or May.
The colonies, which were known as "cities", were immense, ranging from to thousands of hectares in size, and were often long and narrow in shape (L-shaped), with a few areas untouched for unknown reasons. Due to the topography, they were rarely continuous. Since no accurate data was recorded, it is not possible to give more than estimates on the size and population of these nesting areas, but most accounts mention colonies containing millions of birds. The largest nesting area ever recorded was in central Wisconsin in 1871; it was reported as covering , with the number of birds nesting there estimated to be around 136,000,000. As well as these "cities", there were regular reports of much smaller flocks or even individual pairs setting up a nesting site. The birds do not seem to have formed as vast breeding colonies at the periphery of their range.
Courtship took place at the nesting colony. Unlike other pigeons, courtship took place on a branch or perch. The male, with a flourish of the wings, made a "keck" call while near a female. The male then gripped tightly to the branch and vigorously flapped his wings up and down. When the male was close to the female, he then pressed against her on the perch with his head held high and pointing at her. If receptive, the female pressed back against the male. When ready to mate, the pair preened each other. This was followed by the birds billing, in which the female inserted its bill into and clasped the male's bill, shook for a second, and separated quickly while standing next to each other. The male then scrambled onto the female's back and copulated, which was then followed by soft clucking and occasionally more preening. John James Audubon described the courtship of the passenger pigeon as follows:
After observing captive birds, Wallace Craig found that this species did less charging and strutting than other pigeons (as it was awkward on the ground), and thought it probable that no food was transferred during their brief billing (unlike in other pigeons), and he therefore considered Audubon's description partially based on analogy with other pigeons as well as imagination.
Nests were built immediately after pair formation and took two to four days to construct; this process was highly synchronized within a colony. The female chose the nesting site by sitting on it and flicking its wings. The male then carefully selected nesting materials, typically twigs, and handed them to the female over her back. The male then went in search of more nesting material while the female constructed the nest beneath herself. Nests were built between above the ground, though typically above , and were made of 70 to 110 twigs woven together to create a loose, shallow bowl through which the egg could easily be seen. This bowl was then typically lined with finer twigs. The nests were about wide, high, and deep. Though the nest has been described as crude and flimsy compared to those of many other birds, remains of nests could be found at sites where nesting had taken place several years prior. Nearly every tree capable of supporting nests had them, often more than 50 per tree; one hemlock was recorded as holding 317 nests. The nests were placed on strong branches close to the tree trunks. Some accounts state that ground under the nesting area looked as if it had been swept clean, due to all the twigs being collected at the same time, yet this area would also have been covered in dung. As both sexes took care of the nest, the pairs were monogamous for the duration of the nesting.
Generally, the eggs were laid during the first two weeks of April across the pigeon's range. Each female laid its egg immediately or almost immediately after the nest was completed; sometimes the pigeon was forced to lay it on the ground if the nest was not complete. The normal clutch size appears to have been a single egg, but there is some uncertainty about this, as two have also been reported from the same nests. Occasionally, a second female laid its egg in another female's nest, resulting in two eggs being present. The egg was white and oval shaped and averaged in size. If the egg was lost, it was possible for the pigeon to lay a replacement egg within a week. A whole colony was known to re-nest after a snowstorm forced them to abandon their original colony. The egg was incubated by both parents for 12 to 14 days, with the male incubating it from midmorning to midafternoon and the female incubating it for the rest of the time.
Upon hatching, the nestling (or squab) was blind and sparsely covered with yellow, hairlike down. The nestling developed quickly and within 14 days weighed as much as its parents. During this brooding period both parents took care of the nestling, with the male attending in the middle of the day and the female at other times. The nestlings were fed crop milk (a substance similar to curd, produced in the crops of the parent birds) exclusively for the first days after hatching. Adult food was gradually introduced after three to six days. After 13 to 15 days, the parents fed the nestling for a last time and then abandoned it, leaving the nesting area "en masse". The nestling begged in the nest for a day or two, before climbing from the nest and fluttering to the ground, whereafter it moved around, avoided obstacles, and begged for food from nearby adults. It was another three or four days before it fledged. The entire nesting cycle lasted about 30 days. It is unknown whether colonies re-nested after a successful nesting. The passenger pigeon sexually matured during its first year and bred the following spring.
Nesting colonies attracted large numbers of predators, including American minks, American weasels, American martens, and raccoons that preyed on eggs and nestlings, birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, and eagles that preyed on nestlings and adults, and wolves, foxes, bobcats, bears, and mountain lions that preyed on injured adults and fallen nestlings. Hawks of the genus "Accipiter" and falcons pursued and preyed upon pigeons in flight, which in turn executed complex aerial maneuvers to avoid them; Cooper's hawk was known as the "great pigeon hawk" due to its successes, and these hawks allegedly followed migrating passenger pigeons. While many predators were drawn to the flocks, individual pigeons were largely protected due to the sheer size of the flock, and overall little damage could be inflicted on the flock by predation. Despite the number of predators, nesting colonies were so large that they were estimated to have a 90% success rate if not disturbed. After being abandoned and leaving the nest, the very fat juveniles were vulnerable to predators until they were able to fly. The sheer number of juveniles on the ground meant that only a small percentage of them were killed; predator satiation may therefore be one of the reasons for the extremely social habits and communal breeding of the species.
Two parasites have been recorded on passenger pigeons. One species of phtilopterid louse, "Columbicola extinctus", was originally thought to have lived on just passenger pigeons and to have become coextinct with them. This was proven inaccurate in 1999 when "C. extinctus" was rediscovered living on band-tailed pigeons. This, and the fact that the related louse "C. angustus" is mainly found on cuckoo-doves, further supports the relation between these pigeons, as the phylogeny of lice broadly mirrors that of their hosts. Another louse, "Campanulotes defectus", was thought to have been unique to the passenger pigeon, but is now believed to have been a case of a contaminated specimen, as the species is considered to be the still-extant "Campanulotes flavus" of Australia. There is no record of a wild pigeon dying of either disease or parasites.
For fifteen-thousand years or more before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, passenger pigeons and Native Americans coexisted in the forests of what would later become the eastern part of the continental United States. A study published in 2008 found that, throughout most of the Holocene, Native American land-use practices greatly influenced forest composition. The regular use of prescribed fire, the girdling of unwanted trees, and the planting and tending of favored trees suppressed the populations of a number of tree species that did not produce nuts, acorns, or fruit, while increasing the populations of numerous tree species that did. In addition, the burning away of forest-floor litter made these foods easier to find, once they had fallen from the trees. Some have argued that such Native American land-use practices increased the populations of various animal species, including the passenger pigeon, by increasing the food available to them, while elsewhere it has been claimed that, by hunting passenger pigeons and competing with them for some kinds of nuts and acorns, Native Americans suppressed their population size. Genetic research may shed some light on this question. A 2017 study of passenger-pigeon DNA found that the passenger-pigeon population size had been stable for 20,000 years prior to its 19th-century decline and subsequent extinction, while a 2016 study of ancient Native-American DNA found that the Native-American population went through a period of rapid expansion, increasing 60-fold, starting about 13–16 thousand years ago. If both of these studies are correct, then a great change in the size of the Native-American population had no apparent impact on the size of the passenger-pigeon population. This suggests that the net effect of Native-American activities on passenger-pigeon population size was neutral.
The passenger pigeon played a religious role for some northern Native American tribes. The Wyandot people (or Huron) believed that every twelve years during the Feast of the Dead, the souls of the dead changed into passenger pigeons, which were then hunted and eaten. Before hunting the juvenile pigeons, the Seneca people made an offering of wampum and brooches to the old passenger pigeons; these were placed in a small kettle or other receptacle by a smoky fire. The Ho-Chunk people considered the passenger pigeon to be the bird of the chief, as they were served whenever the chieftain gave a feast. The Seneca people believed that a white pigeon was the chief of the passenger pigeon colony, and that a Council of Birds had decided that the pigeons had to give their bodies to the Seneca because they were the only birds that nested in colonies. The Seneca developed a pigeon dance as a way of showing their gratitude.
French explorer Jacques Cartier was the first European to report on passenger pigeons, during his voyage in 1534. The bird was subsequently observed and noted by historical figures such as Samuel de Champlain and Cotton Mather. Most early accounts dwell on the vast number of pigeons, the resulting darkened skies, and the enormous amount of hunted birds (50,000 birds were reportedly sold at a Boston market in 1771). The early colonists thought that large flights of pigeons would be followed by ill fortune or sickness. When the pigeons wintered outside of their normal range, some believed that they would have "a sickly summer and autumn." In the 18th and 19th centuries, various parts of the pigeon were thought to have medicinal properties. The blood was supposed to be good for eye disorders, the powdered stomach lining was used to treat dysentery, and the dung was used to treat a variety of ailments, including headaches, stomach pains, and lethargy. Though they did not last as long as the feathers of a goose, the feathers of the passenger pigeon were frequently used for bedding. Pigeon feather beds were so popular that for a time in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, every dowry included a bed and pillows made of pigeon feathers. In 1822, one family in Chautauqua County, New York, killed 4,000 pigeons in a day solely for this purpose.
The passenger pigeon was featured in the writings of many significant early naturalists, as well as accompanying illustrations. Mark Catesby's 1731 illustration, the first published depiction of this bird, is somewhat crude, according to some later commentators. The original watercolor that the engraving is based on was bought by the British royal family in 1768, along with the rest of Catesby's watercolors. The naturalists Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon both witnessed large pigeon migrations first hand, and published detailed accounts wherein both attempted to deduce the total number of birds involved. The most famous and often reproduced depiction of the passenger pigeon is Audubon's illustration (handcolored aquatint) in his book "The Birds of America", published between 1827 and 1838. Audubon's image has been praised for its artistic qualities, but criticized for its supposed scientific inaccuracies. As Wallace Craig and R. W. Shufeldt (among others) pointed out, the birds are shown perched and billing one above the other, whereas they would instead have done this side by side, the male would be the one passing food to the female, and the male's tail would not be spread. Craig and Shufeldt instead cited illustrations by American artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Japanese artist K. Hayashi as more accurate depictions of the bird. Illustrations of the passenger pigeon were often drawn after stuffed birds, and Charles R. Knight is the only "serious" artist known to have drawn the species from life. He did so on at least two occasions; in 1903 he drew a bird possibly in one of the three aviaries with surviving birds, and some time before 1914, he drew Martha, the last individual, in the Cincinnati Zoo.
The bird has been written about (including in poems, songs, and fiction) and illustrated by many notable writers and artists, and is depicted in art to this day, for example in Walton Ford's 2002 painting "Falling Bough", and National Medal of Arts winner John A. Ruthven's 2014 mural in Cincinnati, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of Martha's death. The centennial of its extinction was used by the "Project Passenger Pigeon" outreach group to spread awareness about human-induced extinction, and to recognize its relevance in the 21st century. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon could be used as a "flagship" species to spread awareness of other threatened, but less well-known North American birds.
The passenger pigeon was an important source of food for the people of North America. Native Americans ate pigeons, and tribes near nesting colonies would sometimes move to live closer to them and eat the juveniles, killing them at night with long poles. Many Native Americans were careful not to disturb the adult pigeons, and instead ate only the juveniles as they were afraid that the adults might desert their nesting grounds; in some tribes, disturbing the adult pigeons was considered a crime. Away from the nests, large nets were used to capture adult pigeons, sometimes up to 800 at a time. Low-flying pigeons could be killed by throwing sticks or stones. At one site in Oklahoma, the pigeons leaving their roost every morning flew low enough that the Cherokee could throw clubs into their midst, which caused the lead pigeons to try to turn aside and in the process created a blockade that resulted in a large mass of flying, easily hit pigeons. Among the game birds, passenger pigeons were second only to the wild turkey ("Meleagris gallopavo") in terms of importance for the Native Americans living in the southeastern United States. The bird's fat was stored, often in large quantities, and used as butter. Archaeological evidence supports the idea that Native Americans ate the pigeons frequently prior to colonization.
What may be the earliest account of Europeans hunting passenger pigeons dates to January 1565, when the French explorer René Laudonnière wrote of killing close to 10,000 of them around Fort Caroline in a matter of weeks: There came to us a manna of wood pigeons in such great numbers, that over a span of about seven weeks, each day we killed more than two hundred with arquebuses in the woods around our fort.
This amounted to about one passenger pigeon per day for each person in the fort.
After European colonization, the passenger pigeon was hunted more intensively and with more sophisticated methods than the more sustainable methods practiced by the natives. Yet it has also been suggested that the species was rare prior to 1492, and that the subsequent increase in their numbers may be due to the decrease in the Native American population (who, as well as hunting the birds, competed with them for mast) caused by European immigration, and the supplementary food (agricultural crops) the immigrants imported (a theory for which Joel Greenberg offered a detailed rebuttal in his book, "A Feathered River Across the Sky"). The passenger pigeon was of particular value on the frontier, and some settlements counted on its meat to support their population. The flavor of the flesh of passenger pigeons varied depending on how they were prepared. In general, juveniles were thought to taste the best, followed by birds fattened in captivity and birds caught in September and October. It was common practice to fatten trapped pigeons before eating them or storing their bodies for winter. Dead pigeons were commonly stored by salting or pickling the bodies; other times, only the breasts of the pigeons were kept, in which case they were typically smoked. In the early 19th century, commercial hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell as food in city markets, and even as pig fodder. Once pigeon meat became popular, commercial hunting started on a prodigious scale.
Passenger pigeons were shot with such ease that many did not consider them to be a game bird, as an amateur hunter could easily bring down six with one shotgun blast; a particularly good shot with both barrels of a shotgun at a roost could kill 61 birds. The birds were frequently shot either in flight during migration or immediately after, when they commonly perched in dead, exposed trees. Hunters only had to shoot toward the sky without aiming, and many pigeons would be brought down. The pigeons proved difficult to shoot head-on, so hunters typically waited for the flocks to pass overhead before shooting them. Trenches were sometimes dug and filled with grain so that a hunter could shoot the pigeons along this trench. Hunters largely outnumbered trappers, and hunting passenger pigeons was a popular sport for young boys. In 1871, a single seller of ammunition provided three tons of powder and 16 tons (32,000 lb) of shot during a nesting. In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as "trap-shooting", the controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down as many birds as possible in a passing flock. The pigeon was considered so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one competition.
There were a wide variety of other methods used to capture and kill passenger pigeons. Nets were propped up to allow passenger pigeons entry, then closed by knocking loose the stick that supported the opening, trapping twenty or more pigeons inside. Tunnel nets were also used to great effect, and one particularly large net was capable of catching 3,500 pigeons at a time. These nets were used by many farmers on their own property as well as by professional trappers. Food would be placed on the ground near the nets to attract the pigeons. Decoy or "stool pigeons" (sometimes blinded by having their eyelids sewn together) were tied to a stool. When a flock of pigeons passed by, a cord would be pulled that made the stool pigeon flutter to the ground, making it seem as if it had found food, and the flock would be lured into the trap. Salt was also frequently used as bait, and many trappers set up near salt springs. At least one trapper used alcohol-soaked grain as bait to intoxicate the birds and make them easier to kill. Another method of capture was to hunt at a nesting colony, particularly during the period of a few days after the adult pigeons abandoned their nestlings, but before the nestlings could fly. Some hunters used sticks to poke the nestlings out of the nest, while others shot the bottom of a nest with a blunt arrow to dislodge the pigeon. Others cut down a nesting tree in such a way that when it fell, it would also hit a second nesting tree and dislodge the pigeons within. In one case, of large trees were speedily cut down to get birds, and such methods were common. A severe method was to set fire to the base of a tree nested with pigeons; the adults would flee and the juveniles would fall to the ground. Sulfur was sometimes burned beneath the nesting tree to suffocate the birds, which fell out of the tree in a weakened state.
By the mid-19th century, railroads had opened new opportunities for pigeon hunters. While previously it had proved too difficult to ship masses of pigeons to eastern cities, the access provided by the railroad permitted pigeon hunting to become commercialized. An extensive telegraph system was introduced in the 1860s, which improved communication across the United States, making it easier to spread information about the whereabouts of pigeon flocks. After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized. Large commission houses employed trappers (known as "pigeoners") to follow the flocks of pigeons year-round. A single hunter is reported to have sent three million birds to eastern cities during his career. In 1874, at least 600 people were employed as pigeon trappers, a number which grew to 1,200 by 1881. Pigeons were caught in such numbers that by 1876, shipments of dead pigeons were unable to recoup the costs of the barrels and ice needed to ship them. The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when the birds were killed, and sold once their market value had increased again. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.
Hunting of passenger pigeons was documented and depicted in contemporaneous newspapers, wherein various trapping methods and uses were featured. The most often reproduced of these illustrations was captioned "Winter sports in northern Louisiana: shooting wild pigeons", and published in 1875. Passenger pigeons were also seen as agricultural pests, since entire crops could be destroyed by feeding flocks. The bird was described as a "perfect scourge" by some farming communities, and hunters were employed to "wage warfare" on the birds to save grain, as shown in another newspaper illustration from 1867 captioned as "Shooting wild pigeons in Iowa". When comparing these "pests" to the bison of the Great Plains, the valuable resource needed was not the species of animals but the agriculture which was consumed by said animal. The crops that were eaten were seen as marketable calories, proteins, and nutrients all grown for the wrong species.
The notion that the species could be driven to extinction was alien to the early colonists, because the number of birds did not appear to diminish, and also because the concept of extinction was yet to be defined. The bird seems to have been slowly pushed westwards after the arrival of Europeans, becoming scarce or absent in the east, though there were still millions of birds in the 1850s. The population must have been decreasing in numbers for many years, though this went unnoticed due to the apparent vast number of birds, which clouded their decline. In 1856 Bénédict Henry Révoil may have been one of the first writers to voice concern about the fate of the passenger pigeon, after witnessing a hunt in 1847:
By the 1870s, the decrease in birds was noticeable, especially after the last large-scale nestings and subsequent slaughters of millions of birds in 1874 and 1878. By this time, large nestings only took place in the north, around the Great Lakes. The last large nesting was in Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878 (following one in Pennsylvania a few days earlier), where 50,000 birds were killed each day for nearly five months. The surviving adults attempted a second nesting at new sites, but were killed by professional hunters before they had a chance to raise any young. Scattered nestings are reported into the 1880s, but the birds were now wary, and commonly abandoned their nests if persecuted.
By the time of these last nestings, laws had already been enacted to protect the passenger pigeon, but these proved ineffective, as they were unclearly framed and hard to enforce. H. B. Roney, who had witnessed the Petoskey slaughter, led campaigns to protect the pigeon, but was met with resistance, and accusations that he was exaggerating the severity of the situation. Few offenders were prosecuted, mainly some poor trappers, but the large enterprises were not affected. In 1857, a bill was brought forth to the Ohio State Legislature seeking protection for the passenger pigeon, yet a Select Committee of the Senate filed a report stating that the bird did not need protection, being "wonderfully prolific", and dismissing the suggestion that the species could be destroyed. Public protests against trap-shooting erupted in the 1870s, as the birds were badly treated before and after such contests. Conservationists were ineffective in stopping the slaughter. A bill was passed in the Michigan legislature making it illegal to net pigeons within of a nesting area. In 1897, a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a 10-year closed season on passenger pigeons. Similar legal measures were passed and then disregarded in Pennsylvania. The gestures proved futile, and by the mid-1890s, the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared, and was probably extinct as a breeding bird in the wild. Small flocks are known to have existed at this point, since large numbers of birds were still being sold at markets. Thereafter, only small groups or individual birds were reported, many of which were shot on sight.
The last recorded nest and egg in the wild were collected in 1895 near Minneapolis. The last wild individual in Louisiana was discovered among a flock of mourning doves in 1896, and subsequently shot. Many late sightings are thought to be false or due to confusion with mourning doves. The last fully authenticated record of a wild passenger pigeon was near Oakford, Illinois, on March 12, 1901, when a male bird was killed, stuffed, and placed in Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where it remains today. This was not discovered until 2014, when writer Joel Greenberg found out the date of the bird's shooting while doing research for his book "A Feathered River Across the Sky." Greenberg also pointed out a record of a male shot near Laurel, Indiana, on April 3, 1902, that was stuffed but later destroyed.
For many years, the last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was thought to have been shot near Sargents, Pike County, Ohio, on March 24, 1900, when a female bird was killed by a boy named Press Clay Southworth with a BB gun. The boy had not recognized the bird as a passenger pigeon, but his parents identified it, and sent it to a taxidermist. The specimen, nicknamed "Buttons" due to the buttons used instead of glass eyes, was donated to the Ohio Historical Society by the family in 1915. The reliability of accounts after the Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana birds are in question. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed to have seen a bird in Michigan in 1907. Ornithologist Alexander Wetmore claimed that he saw a pair flying near Independence, Kansas, in April 1905. In 1910, the American Ornithologists' Union offered a reward of $3,000 for discovering a nest – the equivalent of $76,990 in 2015.
Most captive passenger pigeons were kept for exploitative purposes, but some were housed in zoos and aviaries. Audubon alone claimed to have brought 350 birds to England in 1830, distributing them among various noblemen, and the species is also known to have been kept at London Zoo. Being common birds, these attracted little interest, until the species became rare in the 1890s. By the turn of the 20th century, the last known captive passenger pigeons were divided in three groups; one in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, and one in Cincinnati. There are claims of a few further individuals having been kept in various places, but these accounts are not considered reliable today. The Milwaukee group was kept by David Whittaker, who began his collection in 1888, and possessed fifteen birds some years later, all descended from a single pair.
The Chicago group was kept by Charles Otis Whitman, whose collection began with passenger pigeons bought from Whittaker beginning in 1896. He had an interest in studying pigeons, and kept his passenger pigeons with other pigeon species. Whitman brought his pigeons with him from Chicago to Massachusetts by railcar each summer. By 1897, Whitman had bought all of Whittaker's birds, and upon reaching a maximum of 19 individuals, he gave seven back to Whittaker in 1898. Around this time, a series of photographs were taken of these birds; 24 of the photos survive. Some of these images have been reproduced in various media, copies of which are now kept at the Wisconsin Historical Society. It is unclear exactly where, when, and by whom these photos were taken, but some appear to have been taken in Chicago in 1896, others in Massachusetts in 1898, the latter by a J. G. Hubbard. By 1902, Whitman owned sixteen birds. Many eggs were laid by his pigeons, but few hatched, and many hatchlings died. A newspaper inquiry was published that requested "fresh blood" to the flock which had now ceased breeding. By 1907, he was down to two female passenger pigeons that died that winter, and was left with two infertile male hybrids, whose subsequent fate is unknown. By this time, only four (all males) of the birds Whitman had returned to Whittaker were alive, and these died between November 1908 and February 1909.
The Cincinnati Zoo, one of the oldest zoos in the United States, kept passenger pigeons from its beginning in 1875. The zoo kept more than twenty individuals, in a ten-by-twelve-foot cage. Passenger pigeons do not appear to have been kept at the zoo due to their rarity, but to enable guests to have a closer look at a native species. Recognizing the decline of the wild populations, Whitman and the Cincinnati Zoo consistently strove to breed the surviving birds, including attempts at making a rock dove foster passenger pigeon eggs. In 1902, Whitman gave a female passenger pigeon to the zoo; this was possibly the individual later known as Martha, which would become the last living member of the species. Other sources argue that Martha was hatched at the Cincinnati Zoo, had lived there for 25 years, and was the descendant of three pairs of passenger pigeons purchased by the zoo in 1877. It is thought this individual was named Martha because her last cage mate was named George, thereby honoring George Washington and his wife Martha, though it has also been claimed she was named after the mother of a zookeeper's friends.
In 1909, Martha and her two male companions at the Cincinnati Zoo became the only known surviving passenger pigeons. One of these males died around April that year, followed by George, the remaining male, on July 10, 1910. It is unknown whether the remains of George were preserved. Martha soon became a celebrity due to her status as an endling, and offers of a $1,000 reward for finding a mate for her brought even more visitors to see her. During her last four years in solitude (her cage was ), Martha became steadily slower and more immobile; visitors would throw sand at her to make her move, and her cage was roped off in response. Martha died of old age on September 1, 1914, and was found lifeless on the floor of her cage. It was claimed that she died at 1 p.m., but other sources suggest she died some hours later. Depending on the source, Martha was between 17 and 29 years old at the time of her death, although 29 is the generally accepted figure. At the time, it was suggested that Martha might have died from an apoplectic stroke, as she had suffered one a few weeks before dying. Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where it was skinned, dissected, photographed, and mounted. As she was molting when she died, she proved difficult to stuff, and previously shed feathers were added to the skin. Martha was on display for many years, but after a period in the museum vaults, she was put back on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 2015. A memorial statue of Martha stands on the grounds of the Cincinnati Zoo, in front of the "Passenger Pigeon Memorial Hut", formerly the aviary wherein Martha lived, now a National Historic Landmark. Incidentally, the last specimen of the extinct Carolina parakeet, named "Incus," died in Martha's cage in 1918; the stuffed remains of that bird are exhibited in the "Memorial Hut".
The main reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon were the massive scale of hunting, the rapid loss of habitat, and the extremely social lifestyle of the bird, which made it highly vulnerable to the former factors. Deforestation was driven by the need to free land for agriculture and expanding towns, but also due to the demand for lumber and fuel. About 728,000 km2 (180 million acres) were cleared for farming between 1850 and 1910. Though there are still large woodland areas in eastern North America, which support a variety of wildlife, it was not enough to support the vast number of passenger pigeons needed to sustain the population. In contrast, very small populations of nearly extinct birds, such as the kakapo ("Strigops habroptilus") and the takahe ("Porphyrio hochstetteri"), have been enough to keep those species extant to the present. The combined effects of intense hunting and deforestation has been referred to as a "Blitzkrieg" against the passenger pigeon, and it has been labeled one of the greatest and most senseless human-induced extinctions in history. As the flocks dwindled in size, the passenger pigeon population decreased below the threshold necessary to propagate the species.
The 2014 genetic study that found natural fluctuations in population numbers prior to human arrival also concluded that the species routinely recovered from lows in the population, and suggested that one of these lows may have coincided with the intensified exploitation by humans in the 1800s, a combination which would have led to the rapid extinction of the species. A similar scenario may also explain the rapid extinction of the Rocky Mountain locust ("Melanoplus spretus") during the same period. It has also been suggested that after the population was thinned out, it would be harder for few or solitary birds to locate suitable feeding areas. In addition to the birds killed or driven away by hunting during breeding seasons, many nestlings were also orphaned before being able to fend for themselves. Other, less convincing contributing factors have been suggested at times, including mass drownings, Newcastle disease, and migrations to areas outside their original range.
The extinction of the passenger pigeon aroused public interest in the conservation movement, and resulted in new laws and practices which prevented many other species from becoming extinct. The rapid decline of the passenger pigeon has influenced later assessment methods of the extinction risk of endangered animal populations. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has used the passenger pigeon as an example in cases where a species was declared "at risk" for extinction even though population numbers are high.
Today, more than 1,532 passenger pigeon skins (along with 16 skeletons) are in existence, spread across many institutions all over the world. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon should be revived when available technology allows it (a concept which has been termed "de-extinction"), using genetic material from such specimens. In 2003, the Pyrenean ibex ("Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica", a subspecies of the Spanish ibex) was the first extinct animal to be cloned back to life; the clone lived for only seven minutes before dying of lung defects. A hindrance to cloning the passenger pigeon is the fact that the DNA of museum specimens has been contaminated and fragmented, due to exposure to heat and oxygen. American geneticist George M. Church has proposed that the passenger pigeon genome can be reconstructed by piecing together DNA fragments from different specimens. The next step would be to splice these genes into the stem cells of rock pigeons (or band-tailed pigeons), which would then be transformed into egg and sperm cells, and placed into the eggs of rock pigeons, resulting in rock pigeons bearing passenger pigeon sperm and eggs. The offspring of these would have passenger pigeon traits, and would be further bred to favor unique features of the extinct species.
The general idea of re-creating extinct species has been criticized, since the large funds needed could be spent on conserving currently threatened species and habitats, and because conservation efforts might be viewed as less urgent. In the case of the passenger pigeon, since it was very social, it is unlikely that enough birds could be created for revival to be successful, and it is unclear whether there is enough appropriate habitat left for its reintroduction. Furthermore, the parent pigeons that would raise the cloned passenger pigeons would belong to a different species, with a different way of rearing young. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23924 |
PHP-Nuke
PHP-Nuke is a web-based automated news publishing and content management system based on PHP and MySQL originally written by Francisco Burzi. The system is controlled using a web-based user interface. PHP-Nuke was originally a fork of the Thatware news portal system by David Norman.
PHP-Nuke was originally released under the GNU General Public License as free software. Versions after 7.5 required a license fee; from version 8.3 it became free again. This is permitted under the GNU GPL (providing the source code is included), and the purchaser of the software has the right to freely distribute the source code of the product. Burzi no longer owns the PHP-Nuke site.
As of version 5.6, the display of a copyright message on webpages is required in accordance with the GPL section 2(c).
PHP-Nuke requires a web server which supports the PHP extension, as well as an SQL database.
PHP-Nuke is a content management system allowing webmasters to create community-based portals (websites), allowing users and editors to post news items (user-submitted news items are selected by editors) or other types of articles. Registered users can then comment on these articles.
Modules can be added to the PHP-Nuke system allowing additional features such as an Internet forum, Calendar, News Feed, FAQs, Private Messaging and others. The site is maintained through an administration interface.
PHP-Nuke includes the following standard modules:
PHP-Nuke supports many languages and its look and feel can be customized using the "Themes" system, but major changes requires knowledge of PHP, HTML and CSS.
Several security holes have been discovered in PHP-Nuke, including SQL injection via unchecked PHP code. PHP-Nuke may have issues with some search engine indexes. PHP-Nuke does not use simple URLs or unique titles for pages.
PHP-Nuke is distributed for free and licensed under the GNU/GPL license; however, current versions must be purchased and can then be distributed for free.
The PHP-Nuke website is now owned by Bibado Investments S.L. which is also a distributor of unwanted programs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23929 |
Palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name "palātium", for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences. Most European languages have a version of the term ("palais", "palazzo", "palacio", etc.), and many use it for a wider range of buildings than English. In many parts of Europe, the equivalent term is also applied to large private houses in cities, especially of the aristocracy; often the term for a large country house is different. Many historic palaces are now put to other uses such as parliaments, museums, hotels, or office buildings. The word is also sometimes used to describe a lavishly ornate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions, such as a movie palace.
The word "palace" comes from Old French "palais" (imperial residence), from Latin "Palātium", the name of one of the seven hills of Rome. The original "palaces" on the Palatine Hill were the seat of the imperial power while the "capitol" on the Capitoline Hill was the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills the Palatine remained a desirable residential area. Emperor Caesar Augustus lived there in a purposely modest house only set apart from his neighbours by the two laurel trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants, especially Nero, with his "Golden House", enlarged the house and grounds over and over until it took up the hill top. The word "Palātium" came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighbourhood on top of the hill.
"Palace" meaning "government" can be recognized in a remark of Paul the Deacon, writing c. AD 790 and describing events of the 660s: "When Grimuald set out for Beneventum, he entrusted his palace to Lupus" ("Historia Langobardorum", V.xvii). At the same time, Charlemagne was consciously reviving the Roman expression in his "palace" at Aachen, of which only his chapel remains. In the 9th century, the "palace" indicated the housing of the government too, and the constantly travelling Charlemagne built fourteen. In the early Middle Ages, the "palas" was usually that part of an imperial palace (or "Kaiserpfalz"), that housed the Great Hall, where affairs of state were conducted; it continued to be used as the seat of government in some German cities. In the Holy Roman Empire the powerful independent Electors came to be housed in palaces ("Paläste"). This has been used as evidence that power was widely distributed in the Empire; as in more centralized monarchies, only the monarch's residence would be a "palace".
In modern times, the term has been applied by archaeologists and historians to large structures that housed combined ruler, court and bureaucracy in "palace cultures". In informal usage, a "palace" can be extended to a grand residence of any kind.
Early ancient palaces include the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh, the Minoan palace at Knossos, and the Persian palaces at Persepolis and Susa. Palaces in East Asia, such as the imperial palaces of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and large wooden structures in China's Forbidden City, consist of many low pavilions surrounded by vast, walled gardens, in contrast to the single building palaces of Medieval Western Europe.
Palaces were also built by post-classical African kingdoms such as the Ashanti Empire. The Palace of the Asantehene before its destruction by the British was described by Thomas Edward Bowdich and Winwood Reade as having entablatures, many courtyards, coffers, Bohemian glass, a collection of books in many languages as well as clocks.
The Brazilian new capital, Brasília, hosts modern palaces, most designed by the city's architect Oscar Niemeyer. The Alvorada Palace is the official residence of Brazil's president. The Planalto Palace is the official workplace. The Jaburu Palace is the official residence of Brazil's vice-president. Also Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of the Portuguese Empire and the Empire of Brazil, houses numerous royal and imperial palaces as the Imperial Palace of São Cristóvão, former official residence of the Brazil's Emperors, the Paço Imperial, its official workplace and the Guanabara Palace, former residence of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil besides palaces of the nobility and aristocracy. The city of Petropolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, is particularly known for its palaces of the imperial period such as the Petrópolis Palace and the Grão-Pará Palace.
In Canada, Government House is a title given to the official residences of the Canadian monarchy and various viceroys (the governor generals and the lieutenant governors). Though not universal, in most cases the title is also the building's sole name; for example, the sovereign's and governor general's principal residence in Ottawa is known as Government House only in formal contexts, being more generally referred to as Rideau Hall. The use of the term Government House is an inherited custom from the British Empire, where there were and are many government houses.
Rideau Hall is, since 1867, the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the Governor General of Canada, and has been described as "Canada's house". It stands in Canada's capital on a 0.36 km2 (88 acre) estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main building consisting of approximately 175 rooms across 9,500 m2 (102,000 sq ft), and 27 outbuildings around the grounds. While the equivalent building in many countries has a prominent, central place in the national capital, Rideau Hall's site is relatively unobtrusive within Ottawa, giving it more the character of a private home.
Along with Rideau Hall, the Citadelle of Quebec, also known as La Citadelle, is an active military installation and official residence of both the Canadian monarch and the Governor General. It is located atop Cap Diamant, adjoining the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Quebec. The citadel is the oldest military building in Canada, and forms part of the fortifications of Quebec City, which is one of only two cities in North America still surrounded by fortifications. The fortress is located within the historic district of Old Québec, which was designated a World Heritage Site in 1985.
In addition to the federal residences, most provinces maintain a residence for the Canadian monarch, as well as their provincial viceroys lieutenant-governors. There is no government house for the Lieutenant Governors of Ontario (repurposed in 1937 and demolished in 1961), Quebec (destroyed by fire in 1966), or Alberta (closed in 1938 and repurchased and repurposed in 1964).
The capital of Mexico, Mexico City, is traditionally nicknamed the "City of Palaces"; a nickname usually attributed to Alexander von Humboldt after he visited the city in the late 18th century and early 19th century, but originally coined by Charles Latrobe, an English traveller who visited Mexico City in 1834 and "got the feeling of living a dream".
In Central Mexico, the Aztec emperors built many palaces in the capital of their empire, Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City), some of which may still be seen. On observing the great city Hernán Cortés wrote, "There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or palaces... They are all very beautiful buildings. Amongst these temples there is one, the principal one, whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe... All round inside this wall there are very elegant quarters with very large rooms and corridors. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville..."
The National Palace, or "Palacio Nacional", located in Mexico City's main square, the Plaza de la Constitución (El Zócalo), first built in 1563, is in the heart of the Mexican capital. In 1821, the palace was given its current name and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government were housed in the palace; the latter two branches would eventually reside elsewhere. During the Second Mexican Empire, its name was changed, for a time, to the Imperial Palace. The National Palace continues to be the official seat of the executive authority, though it is no longer the official residence of the President.
Also in Mexico City is the "Castillo de Chapultepec", or Chapultepec Castle, located in the middle of Chapultepec Park which currently houses the Mexican National Museum of History. It is the only castle, or palace, in North America that was occupied by sovereigns – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, a member of the House of Habsburg and his consort, Empress Carlota of Mexico, daughter of Leopold I of Belgium. The palace features many "objets d'art" ranging from gifts of Napoleon III to paintings by Franz Xaver Winterhalter and Mexican painter Santiago Rebull.
Palaces in the United States include the White House, the official residence of the President, and the official residences of many governors and Roman Catholic bishops. Some palaces of former heads of state or their representatives, such English and Spanish Royal Governors and the Hawaiian Royal Family still exist.
Examples include: ʻIolani Palace and Hānaiakamalama, the former homes of the Hawaiian monarchs in Honolulu; Hulihee Palace in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii; The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, a modern reconstruction of the official residence of the Royal governors of the Colony of Virginia; Tryon Palace in New Bern, a modern reconstruction of the historical colonial governors' palace of the Province of North Carolina; and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico as well as the Spanish Governor's Palace in San Antonio, Texas, which were residences of both Spanish and Mexican governors.
There are many private buildings or mansions in the United States, which, though not called "palaces", have the grandeur typical of a palace, and which have been used as residences. Hearst Castle and the Biltmore Estate are examples.
The Palacio Legislativo (Legislative Palace) is the house of the Uruguayan Parliament.
The Palacio de Miraflores is the setting for the offices of the president of the country.
Afghanistan's capital Kabul is well known for its sheer number of palaces. Many had been built in the 19th century but perhaps the most famous is the Darul Aman Palace. Many palaces were damaged by the civil war, including Darul Aman, but others have survived or have been rebuilt.
Azerbaijan has a number of palaces and they belong to different ages, you can find palaces of BC or AD ages, or 10th century. For example, "Goyalp" Palace of Eldiguzids Empire Atabeg — located in Nakhchivan city and was built in 1130s.
Baku Khans' Palace is a complex of several houses belonged to members of ruling family of Baku Khanate in 17th century. The palace complex is in ruins and used as warehouse by workers. Official Administration of State Historical-Architectural Reserve "Icheri Sheher" informed media that they have no whatsoever intentions to repair the palace
The Palace of Happiness (Azerbaijani: Səadət Sarayı), currently also called Palace of Marriage Registrations and previously called Mukhtarov Palace, is a historic building in the center of Baku, Azerbaijan, built in Neo-Gothic style in the early 19th century.
Shahbulag Castle Palace (Azerbaijani: Şahbulaq qalası "Spring of the Shah"), is an 18th-century fortress in near Aghdam. After the death of Turkic ruler Nadir Shah, the territory that is nowadays Azerbaijan split into several Caucasian khanates one of which was the Karabakh Khanate founded by Panah Ali Khan. The first capital of the khanate was the Bayat Castle built in 1748
Haji Gayib’s Palace – is an ancient fortress construction near a coastal side of Icheri Sheher. It is located in Baku quarter of Icheri Sheher, opposite the Maiden Tower. History of the palace is dated back to the 15th century. Intake portal of the bathhouse is rectangular shaped
The Palace of Shaki Khans (Azerbaijani: Şəki xanlarının sarayı) in Shaki, Azerbaijan was a summer residence of Shaki Khans. It was built in 1797 by Muhammed Hasan Khan. Along with its pool and plane trees, the summer residence is the only remaining structure from the larger palatial complex inside the Sheki Khans' Fortress, which once included a winter palace, residences for the Khan's family and servants' quarters. It features decorative tiles, fountains and several stained-glass windows. The exterior was decorated with dark blue, turquoise and ochre tiles in geometric patterns and the murals were coloured with tempera and were inspired by the works of Nizami Ganjavi.
These are located in various regions and capital of Azerbaijan – the palace of government:
Istana Nurul Iman is the world's largest residential palace and is the official residence of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, and the seat of the Brunei government. The palace is located on a leafy sprawl of hills on the banks of the Brunei River, a few kilometres south of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei's capital.
Most of the Palaces in Bangladesh are built by the Zamindars and Nawabs of British Bengal. Many magnificent palaces are found across the country. Among them Ahsan Manzil (also known as Pink Palace) built by the Nawabs of Dhaka, Tajhat Palace of Rangpur, Natore Palace, Puthia Rajbari of Rajshahi, Rose Garden Palace of Old Dhaka, Baliati Palace of Manikganj, Shashi Lodge of Mymensingh and Bangabhaban (Presidential Palace) are notable one.
A famed example of Chinese palaces is the Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Chinese Empire from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It is the largest palace complex currently in existence in the world and is located in the middle of Beijing, China. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture. Another example is the Summer Palace located in the northern suburb of Beijing and the Mukden Palace in Shenyang. The Presidential Palace in Nanjing displays European architectural influences.
The Weiyang Palace built during the Han dynasty was the largest palace complex ever built in the world, but it was destroyed during the Tang dynasty.
Chinese palaces are designed in regular square grids and arranged in a formal layout consisting of main buildings and a number of pavilions enclosed within walls. Unlike massive single-structured European palaces or castles, Chinese palaces are a multitude of complexes containing several larger and smaller structures with parks and courtyards.
India is home to many palaces and vast empires. Its history is full of numerous dynasties that have ruled over various parts of the country. While most monuments of the ancient period have been destroyed or lie in ruins, some medieval buildings have been maintained or restored to good condition. Several medieval forts and palaces still stand all over India. These are examples of the achievements of the architects and engineers of that age. The palaces of India offer an insight into the life of the royalty of the country. While some royal palaces have been maintained as museums or hotels over the last decades, some are still homes for the members of the erstwhile royal families. These forts and palaces are the largest illustrations and legacy of the princely states of India. They feature floats of flowers in grand fountains, shimmering blue water of magnificent baths and private pools, doric pillars, ornamental brackets, decorative staircases, and light streaming in through large windows. India possesses some of the most fascinating forts and palaces, a true royal retreat. It is not just a romantic longing for a royal experience, but also the search for the truly authentic Indian experience that brings thousands of heritage lovers to India's palaces.
Rajasthan has many forts and palaces that are major tourist destinations in North India. (See List of palaces in Rajasthan.) The Rajputs (collective term for the rulers of the region) were known as brave soldiers who preferred to die than be taken prisoners. They were also great connoisseurs of art and brilliant builders. The most famous forts and palaces in Rajasthan are located in Chittor, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur, Saphieree, Amber and Nahargarh. Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces manages some of the most iconic palaces of the region, Lake Palace, Udaipur; Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur; Fort Madhogarh, Jaipur and Rambagh Palace, Jaipur; and offer authentic royal retreats to the guests in all its grandeur, splendour and magnificence.
Kolkata is known as the City of Palaces within the Indian context, referring to the numerous grand residential buildings that dotted the city from the end of the 18th century onwards, as it grew to become one of the largest cities of the British Raj.
Karnataka is famous for the Amba Vilas Palace (commonly known as Mysore Palace) in Mysuru / Mysore, which was the palace of the Wodeyar kings. It was said to have been built of wood until it had to be rebuilt after a fire that burned down the entire palace complex.
In Indonesia, palaces are known as "istana" (Malay and Indonesian), or "kraton" (Javanese and Sundanese). In Bali the royal palace compound is called "puri". The palaces reflect the long history and diverse culture of the Indonesian archipelago.
Although Indonesia is now a republic, some of its parts and provinces still retain and preserve their traditional royal heritage, for example the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Mangkunegaran princedom, Kasepuhan palace in Cirebon, and Kutai in East Kalimantan. Remnants of palaces and royal houses still can be found in Banten, Medan, Ternate, Bima, Bali and Sumenep.
The layout of traditional Balinese and Javanese kratons is similar to the Chinese concept of walled compounds of royal pavilions, squares and gardens. Most of these kratons took the form of wooden pavilions called pendopo, while the istana of Sumatra usually consist of a single large structure. Typical Minangkabau vernacular architecture can be found in Pagaruyung Palace, West Sumatra. An example of Malay palace is Istana Maimun in Medan.
During VOC and the colonial era of the Dutch East Indies, the colonial government built several European stately palaces as the residence of the Governor General. Most of these European palaces have now become the state palace of the Republic of Indonesia. Indonesian state palaces are the neoclassic Merdeka Palace and Bogor Palace.
Niavarān Palace Complex is a historical complex situated in the northern part of Tehran, Iran. It consists of several buildings and a museum. The Sahebqraniyeh Palace, from the time of Naser al-Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty, is also inside this complex. The main Niavaran Palace, completed in 1968, was the primary residence of the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Imperial family until the Iranian Revolution. The main palace was designed by the Iranian architect Mohsen Foroughi.
The pre-Israelite Canaanite site of Tel Kabri, destroyed ca 1600 BCE, was built around a palace core. Though palace culture of ancient Israel and Judea can be inferred through the Hebrew Bible, no palace of Solomon or David has been securely identified. In Israel there are many ancient palaces like the Masada. In Roman Judaea palaces of the Herodian line of client-kings have been identified at several sites, including the main palace at Jerusalem and a winter palace at Herodium, in the Judean desert. Herod's palace at Caesarea Maritima preserved its palatial function as the official residence of the Roman procurators and governors of Judaea. There are other palaces in the Old City of Jerusalem, such as the Lady Tonsok Palace.
In Israel there are a number of magnificent buildings that are not considered "palaces", but they have the grandeur of a typical palace, and serve as residences, such as the House of Yehudayoff Hefetz, and the Sergei courtyard in Jerusalem.
Of the palaces in Japan, many of them are located in Tokyo, such as the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which houses Japan’s royal family. The Imperial palace was built on the site of Edo Castle.
Palaces have existed in Lebanon since the time of the Phoenicians. Almost all of the palaces of Ancient Phoenicia have been destroyed.
During the Renaissance palaces were built in Lebanon, especially in the Chouf region of Mount Lebanon. Lebanese palaces are very diverse architecturally, being influenced by Arabs, Italians, French, Persians, Turkish and East Asians. This is seen in the Beiteddine Palace, which is a mixture of traditional Lebanese, Italian, Arabic and Persian architecture.
Today in Lebanon there are at least ten buildings that can be classified as palaces, including the Beiteddine Palace, Grand Serail (one of the largest in the world), Baabda Palace, Sursock Museum, and Fakhreddine Palace.
Malaysia, a constituent of nine states, is ruled by hereditary sultans. Every five years, one sultan is elected as Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Supreme King), the head of state of Malaysia. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong has a palace, referred to as an istana. Each of the other sultans has their own istana, located in their state. Throughout the country they are sometimes called Istana Hinggap.
The Yang di-Pertuan Agong's official residences are the Istana Negara, Jalan Duta, the Royal Museum, and Istana Melawati, a palace and retreat, located in Putrajaya. Some of the other official palaces are the Istana Besar, Istana Anak Bukit, Istana Pekan, Istana Maziah, Istana Alam Shah, Istana Balai Besar, Istana Besar Seri Menanti, Istana Iskandariah and Istana Arau. Several appointed governors, or Yang di-Pertua Negeri, are also assigned to have their official seat and residence such as The Astana, Istana Negeri Sabah and Seri Mutiara.
Singha Durbar (literally, "Lion Palace") in Kathmandu is the official seat of government of Nepal and the largest Palace in Asia.
Narayanhiti Palace Museum was a residence and principal workplace of the reigning Monarch of the Kingdom of Nepal. It was built by king Mahendra in 1961 under the design of Californian architect Benjamin Polk. After the 2006 revolution, this royal palace is turned into a public museum.
Older palaces include the Durbar Squares, which are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They are located in Kathmandu Valley in districts of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur. In Kathmandu is Kathmandu Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square in Bhaktapur, Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur.
Kathmandu Durbar Square (Basantapur Darbar Kshetra) in front of the old royal palace of the former Kathmandu Kingdom is one of three Durbar (royal palace) Squares in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Several buildings in the Square collapsed due to a major earthquake on 25 April 2015. Durbar Square was surrounded with spectacular architecture and vividly showcases the skills of the Newar artists and craftsmen over several centuries. The Royal Palace was originally at Dattaraya square and was later moved to Durbar square.
The Kathmandu Durbar Square held the palaces of the Malla and Shah kings who ruled over the city. Along with these palaces, the square surrounds quadrangles, revealing courtyards and temples. It is known as Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square, a name derived from a statue of Hanuman, the monkey devotee of Lord Ram, at the entrance of the palace.
Bhaktapur Durbar Square is the plaza in front of the royal palace of the old Bhaktapur Kingdom. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Bhaktapur Durbar Square is located in the current town of Bhaktapur, also known as Bhadgaon, which lies 13 km east of Kathmandu. While the complex consists of at least four distinct squares (Durbar Square, Taumadhi Square, Dattatreya Square and Pottery Square), the whole area is informally known as the Bhakapur Durbar Square and is a highly visited site in the Kathmandu Valley. This palace consists of 55 windows so it is also known as '55 Windowed Palace'.
Patan Durbar Square is situated at the centre of the city of Lalitpur in Nepal. It is also one of the three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of its attraction is the ancient royal palace where the Malla Kings of Lalitpur resided.
The Durbar Square is a marvel of Newa architecture. The Square floor is tiled with red bricks. There are many temples and idols in the area. The main temples are aligned opposite of the western face of the palace. The entrance of the temples faces east, towards the palace. There is also a bell situated in the alignment beside the main temples. The Square also holds old Newari residential houses. There are various other temples and structures in and around Patan Durbar Square built by the Newa People.
In pre-Hispanic Philippines, Filipinos built large wooden residences for the ancient nobility and royalty (such as Lakans, Wangs, rajahs and datus) called "Torogan" or "Bahay Lakan" ("king's house").The windows of torogan are slits and richly framed in wood panels with okir designs located in front of the house. The communal kitchen is half a meter lower than the main house is both used for cooking and eating. The distinct high gable roof of the torogan, thin at the apex and gracefully flaring out to the eaves, sits on a huge structures enclosed by slabs of timber and lifted more than two meters above the ground by a huge trunk of a tree that was set on a rock. The end floor beams lengthen as panolongs the seemed to lift up the whole house. The torogan is suffused with decorations. There were diongal at the apex of the roof, also an intricately carved tinai a walai, okir designs in the floor, on windows and on panolongs.
The people in the Southern part of Philippines, built the same wooden palaces such as "langgal" of Tausug. In the Sultanate of Sulu, a palace was built for the Sultans which has the name Astana Darul Jambangan (white adobe) which has been destroyed by a typhoon in 1912. A replica of the royal palace was rebuilt as an attraction in Mt. Bayug Eco-Cultural Park in the town of Talipao, Sulu.
The "Yakan" or "ranggar" in Maranao, specially when Islam was established in Sulu (14th century) and in Mindanao (15th century).
During the Spanish Era, the government of the Spanish East Indies built a succession of palaces in and around Manila for high colonial officials and religious authorities. The most famous of these is the 18th-century Malacañang Palace, which originally housed Spanish and American Governors-General and, since the Commonwealth, the President of the Philippines.
Former president and strongman Ferdinand Marcos had Coconut Palace constructed in 1978 to showcase the country's varied uses for the coconut. It serves as the home and office of the vice-president. In 2004, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo converted the former "Aduana" (customs house) in Cebu City into a small palace, called Malacañang sa Sugbo.
The Gruuthusemuseum is a museum of applied arts in Bruges, located in the medieval Gruuthuse, the Palace of Louis de Gruuthuse. The collection ranges from the 15th to the 19th century.
Presumably in the 13th century, a rich family from Bruges received the monopoly to levy taxes on gruit, and built a storage for it. The building was changed in the early fifteenth century by Jan IV van der Aa to a luxury house for his family, which subsequently changes its name to "Van Gruuthuse" ("From the Gruit house"). His son Louis de Gruuthuse adds a second wing to the house, and in 1472 a chapel. This connects the house to the adjacent Church of Our Lady, Bruges.
In France there has been a clear distinction between a château and a "palais". The palace has always been urban, like the "Palais de la Cité" in Paris, which was the royal palace of France and is now the supreme court of justice of France, or the palace of the Popes at Avignon.
The château, by contrast, has always been in rural settings, supported by its demesne, even when it was no longer actually fortified. Speakers of English think of the "Palace of Versailles" because it was the residence of the king of France, and the king was the source of power, though the building has always remained the "Château de Versailles" for the French, and the seat of government under the "Ancien Régime" remained the Palais du Louvre. The Louvre had begun as a fortified "Château du Louvre" on the edge of Paris, but as the seat of government and shorn of its fortified architecture and then completely surrounded by the city, it developed into the "Palais du Louvre".
The "hôtel particulier" remains the term for an urban residence sited "entre cour et jardin", behind a forecourt and opening onto a garden; when fronting directly on streets, they are "maisons", "houses". Bishops always had a "palais" in the town of their diocese, an "hôtel" in other towns, though they might possess "chateaux".
The usage is essentially the same in Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as the former Austrian Empire. In Vienna, Austria, all large mansions belonging to aristocratic or very wealthy families were traditionally called "palais", but this never applied to imperial palaces themselves which were called "Burg" within the city and "Schloss" when outside it. In Germany, the wider term was a relatively recent importation and was used rather more restrictively.
The German term for "palace" is "Palast", which is used especially for large palatial complexes and gardens. Large country houses are typically called "schloss" ("chateaux" or "castle" in English).
Germany offers a variety of more than 25,000 castles and palaces and thousands of manor houses. The country is known for its fairy tale-like scenery palatial buildings, such as Sanssouci, Linderhof Palace, Herrenchiemsee, Schwetzingen, Nordkirchen and Schwerin Palace. Many of these buildings have a history of over 1000 years, ranging from fortifications to royal residences. Many German castles after the middle ages were mainly built as royal or ducal palaces rather than as a fortified building.
The best examples of the Bronze Age Greece palace are seen in the excavations at Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos. That these were administrative centers is shown by the records found there. From an architectural point of view, they were the heirs of the Minoan palaces and also of other palaces built earlier on the Greek mainland. They were ranged around a group of courtyards each opening upon several rooms of different dimensions, such as storerooms and workshops, as well as reception halls and living quarters. The heart of the palace was the megaron. This was the throne room, laid out around a circular hearth surrounded by four columns, the throne generally being found on the right-hand side upon entering the room. The staircases found in the palace of Pylos indicate palaces had two stories. Located on the top floor were probably the private quarters of the royal family and some storerooms. These palaces have yielded a wealth of artifacts and fragmentary frescoes.
In Hungary distinction is made between urban and rural residencies. Only the urban residencies of the higher aristocracy were called "palota" (palace), rural stately homes were named "kastély" (mansion), or in case of smaller country houses "kúria". Noble landowner families, like the House of Esterházy, often had several mansions in the countryside and palaces in towns. The office of the President of the Republic of Hungary, Sándor Palace was the residence of the Sándor family in the 19th century. Royal residencies were also called palaces, for example, the Early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias Corvinus in Visegrád or Buda Castle which was called "Királyi-palota" (Royal Palace). In the second half of the 19th century splendid new townhouses of the bourgeoisie on Andrássy út and elsewhere in Budapest were named palaces. A typical example is the Art Nouveau Gresham Palace which was built by an insurance company. Grand public buildings and even blocks of flats of higher standard were regularly called palaces (the contemporary term of the latter were "bérpalota" meaning rent palace). For contemporary buildings the term is seldom used with the notable exemption of the Palace of Arts.
In Italy, any urban building built as a grand residence is a "palazzo"; these are often no larger than a Victorian townhouse. It was not necessary to be a nobleman for one's house to be considered a "palazzo"; the hundreds of "palazzi" in Venice nearly all belonged to the patrician class of the city. In the Middle Ages these also functioned as warehouses and places of business, as well as homes. Each family's "palazzo" was a hive that contained all the family members, though it might not always show a grand architectural public front. In the 20th century, "palazzo" in Italian came to apply by extension to any large fine apartment building, as many old "palazzi" were converted to this use.
Bishop's townhouses were always "palazzi", and the seat of a localized regime would also be so called. Many former capitals display a Ducal Palace, the seat of the local duke or lord. In Florence (just as for other strong communal governments), the seat of government was known as Palazzo della Signoria. When the Medici were made Grand Dukes of Tuscany, however, the centre of power shifted to their new residence in Palazzo Pitti, and the old centre of power began to be referred to as the Palazzo Vecchio.
Shops on the ground floor and flats at the top of a modern "palazzo" are not at all incongruous: historically, the ground floors of even a great family's "palazzo" could be trade and domestic offices often open to servants, tradesmen, customers and the public, while the smartest and most prestigious floor (known as the "piano nobile") was kept for the family along with the upper floors and apartments, all of which were considered cleaner and safer than those on the ground floor. There were (and are) often separate, sometimes external, stairs to the humblest attic rooms and roofs used by the staff.
The most important royal "palazzi" in Italy are those in Caserta, Naples, Palermo, Turin, as well as the Quirinale Palace in Rome.
Until the sixteenth century, Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily, and the capital Mdina housed many palaces for the nobility, such as Palazzo Falson and Palazzo Santa Sofia. After the arrival of the Order of Saint John in 1530, the knights settled in Birgu, where part of Fort St Angelo was used as a palace for the Grand Master. The knights themselves lived in auberges, but these were more large houses rather than palaces.
When the Order began to build a new capital Valletta in 1566, a new Grandmaster's Palace and a series of new auberges were built. The auberges in Valletta are much larger than their counterparts in Birgu, and can be considered as palaces. The most important auberge still standing is Auberge de Castille, which currently houses the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta. Over the years, the Grand Masters also built a number of large residences in the countryside, such as Verdala Palace and San Anton Palace. Both of these now serve as official residences of the President of Malta.
The Archbishop of Malta has a palace in Mdina. The inquisitor also had a palace in Birgu and another in Girgenti until the abolition of the inquisition in 1798. The nobility, upper classes and individual knights of the Order built a number of private palaces, especially in Valletta, but also in the countryside. There are other palaces built by the nobility, such as, most notably Palazzo Parisio in Valletta and Palazzo Dragonara in St Julians.
The former Kingdom of Poland, known as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, once spanned over 1,153,465 km², which allowed the nobles to construct their residences anywhere from modern-day Poland to as far as southern Estonia. The Polish aristocracy (szlachta) greatly favoured Baroque and Rococo architecture of the period. Most notable architect specializing in those styles was Dutch-born Tylman van Gameren (also Tylman Gamerski), who designed several renowned palaces, for both kings and nobles, throughout the Commonwealth. Tylman also left behind a lifelong legacy of buildings that are regarded as gems of Polish Baroque architecture. His most famous works include Krasiński Palace and Łazienki Palace, both in Warsaw, and Branicki Palace in Białystok. Other palatial architects in Poland at the time were Chrystian Piotr Aigner, Szymon Bogumił Zug, Domenico Merlini and Johann Christian Schuch.
At present, Poland possesses hundreds of varied-style palaces and residences designed by architects from all over the world. Some best examples are Wilanów Palace, Presidential Palace, Oliwa Abbot's Palace, Copper-Roof Palace, Palace of the Ministry of Revenues and Treasury, Rogalin, Jabłonowski Palace, Zamoyski Palace in Kozłówka, Lanckoroński Palace in Kurozwęki, Nieborów Palace and the Palace in Otwock Wielki. There are also several palaces resembling castles or medieval Gothic residences, most notably Moszna Castle, Książ Castle and the Warsaw Royal Castle.
Due to its relatively small geography, most of Portugal's palaces are former royal residences. Some examples of Portuguese palaces are Mafra National Palace, Pena National Palace, Belém Palace, Ajuda National Palace, Palácio das Necessidades, Mateus Palace, Palace Hotel of Bussaco, Palácio da Regaleira, and Palácio da Brejoeira.
Palaces in Romania, as elsewhere in Europe, were originally built for royalty, nobles and bishops. Three former royal palaces in Romania are the Cotroceni Palace (now the Presidential residence); the Royal Palace in Bucharest, which now houses the National Museum of Art of Romania; and the Elisabeta Palace. Although Romania is no longer a constitutional monarchy, the current holder of the Romanian crown, HM Princess Margareta of Romania continues to reside at Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest.
Other palaces include the Crețulescu Palace in Bucharest, built for the Crețulescu family, Peles palace, built by King Carol I of Romania as a royal residence.
The Palace of the Parliament (Casa Poporului) from Bucharest and the Palace of Culture in Iași (Palatul Culturii) are large government buildings, both purpose-built solely for government and public use.
The first palaces in Russia were built about a thousand years ago for the Grand Dukes of Kiev. These are not preserved, having been destroyed by the Mongols. The first palaces in European style were built during the reign of Tsar Peter the Great and his immediate successors. Examples of Russian palaces include:
The three Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden all have long monarchic histories, and possess several palaces. In Denmark Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen was built as a royal palace, but is now only used for royal receptions; Amalienborg Palace has been the Danish royal residence since 1794. In Norway the Royal Palace in Oslo has been used as the royal residence since 1849. In Sweden the large Stockholm Palace was built in 1760, and remains the official royal residence, but at the current time is only used for official purposes while the Swedish royal family resides in the more modest Drottningholm Palace.
The two dynasties of post-Ottoman Serbia, Karađorđević and Obrenović built numerous residences throughout their domain. The most prominent and official palaces are the Stari Dvor and the Novi Dvor (Old and New Court, respectively) in the center of Belgrade and the Royal Compound which includes the Beli Dvor and Kraljevski Dvor (Royal Palace) in the Belgrade suburb, Dedinje.
With over a thousand years of monarchic history, Spain has many palaces of its own that were built for different monarchs or nobles. Among these palaces are the Royal Palace of Madrid, also referred to as the Palacio Real. The palace is the largest palace in Europe with over 2,800 rooms but at the current time is of use for only governmental business while the royal family resides in the smaller Palacio de la Zarzuela.
In addition to the Royal Palace of Madrid, Alcázar of Seville (which mixes, with the delicate Moorish filigree, European Christian architectural styles), the Alhambra, the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, fine baroque palace is surrounded by gardens. Currently, the royal family and prime minister live in the more modest Palace of Zarzuela and Palace of Moncloa respectively.
In the United Kingdom, by tacit agreement, there have been no "palaces" other than those used as official residences by royalty or bishops, regardless of whether located in town or country. However, not all palaces use the term in their name – see Holyrood Palace. Thus the Palace of Beaulieu gained its name precisely when Thomas Boleyn sold it to Henry VIII in 1517. Previously, it had been known as Walkfares, but like several other palaces, the name stuck even once the royal connection ended.
Blenheim Palace was built, on a different site, in the grounds of the disused royal Palace of Woodstock, and the name was also part of the extraordinary honour when the house was given by a grateful nation to a great general, the Duke of Marlborough. Along with several royal and episcopal palaces in the countryside, Blenheim does demonstrate that "palace" has no specific urban connotation in English. On the use of the term "palace" in the UK, it is notable that Buckingham Palace was known as Buckingham House before it was acquired by the monarchy.
Blenheim Palace (in England) and Hamilton Palace (in Scotland, demolished in 1927) are the only non-royal and non-episcopal residences to have the word "palace" in their name, other than Dalkeith Palace in Scotland, which used to be the seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch (who descend from Charles II of England).
After the conquest of Istanbul by Mehmed the Conqueror at 1453, construction of the Topkapı Palace was started in the year 1460 and completed in 1478. The palace was built upon a 700,000 square meter area on an Eastern Roman Acropolis located on the Istanbul Peninsula between the Sea of Marmara, Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Topkapı Palace was the administrative, educational, and art center of the Empire for nearly four hundred years from Mehmed the Conqueror until Sultan Abdulmecid who was the thirty-first Sultan. Although Topkapi Palace was abandoned by the Ottoman Dynasty by moving to the Dolmabahçe Palace in the middle of the 19th century, Topkapı Palace retained its importance.
After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Topkapı Palace was transformed into a museum on 3 April 1924. It was also the first museum of the Republic of Turkey. Topkapı Palace Museum covers approximately 400,000 square meters at the present day. Topkapı Palace is separated from the city on the land-side by the Imperial Walls, which were constructed by Mehmed the Conqueror. It is separated from the city on the sea-side by the Byzantine Walls. Topkapı Palace is one of the largest palace-museums with its architectural structures, collections, and approximately 300,000 archive papers.
In Continental Europe royal and episcopal palaces were not merely residences; the clerks who administered the realm or the diocese laboured there as well. (To this day many bishops' palaces house both their family apartments and their official offices.) However, unlike the "Palais du Justice" which is often encountered in the French-speaking world, modern British public administration buildings are never called "palaces"; although the formal name for the "Houses of Parliament" is the Palace of Westminster, this reflects Westminster's former role as a royal residence and centre of administration.
In more recent years, the word has been used in a more informal sense for other large, impressive buildings, such as The Crystal Palace of 1851 (an immensely large, glazed hall erected for The Great Exhibition) and modern arenas-convention centers like Alexandra Palace.
The largest in the world is the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. Built during the socialist regime, no effort or expense was spared to raise this colossal neo-classic building.
The Palace of the Olowo, ruler of the Yoruba Owo clan of Nigeria, is acknowledged to be the largest palace in all of Africa. It consists of more than 100 courtyards, each with a unique traditional usage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23931 |
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian writer who published 12 novels, three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987.
White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative vantage points and stream of consciousness techniques. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature", as it says in the Swedish Academy's citation, the only Australian to have been awarded the prize. White was also the inaugural recipient of the Miles Franklin Award.
White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to Victor Martindale White and Ruth (née Withycombe), both Australians, in their apartment overlooking Hyde Park, London on 28 May 1912. His family returned to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. As a child he lived in a flat with his sister, a nanny, and a maid while his parents lived in an adjoining flat. In 1916 they moved to a house in Elizabeth Bay that many years later became a nursing home, Lulworth House, the residents of which included Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran, and White's partner Manoly Lascaris.
At the age of four, White developed asthma, a condition that had taken the life of his maternal grandfather. White's health was fragile throughout his childhood, which precluded his participation in many childhood activities.
He loved the theatre, which he first visited at an early age (his mother took him to see "The Merchant of Venice" at the age of six). This love was expressed at home when he performed private rites in the garden and danced for his mother's friends.
At the age of five, he attended kindergarten at Sandtoft in Woollahra, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
At the age of ten, White was sent to Tudor House School, a boarding school in Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, in an attempt to abate his asthma. It took him some time to adjust to the presence of other children. At boarding school, he started to write plays. Even at this early age, White wrote about palpably adult themes. In 1924, the boarding school ran into financial trouble, and the headmaster suggested for White to be sent to a public school in England, a suggestion that his parents accepted.
White struggled to adjust to his new surroundings at Cheltenham College, England. He later described it as "a four-year prison sentence". White withdrew socially and had a limited circle of acquaintances. Occasionally, he would holiday with his parents at European locations, but their relationship remained distant. However he did spend time with his cousin Jack Withycombe during this period, and Jack's daughter Elizabeth Withycombe became a mentor to him while he was writing his first book of poems, "Thirteen Poems" between the years 1927–29.
While at school in London, White made one close friend, Ronald Waterall, an older boy who shared similar interests. White's biographer, David Marr, wrote that "the two men would walk, arm-in-arm, to London shows; and stand around stage doors crumbing for a glimpse of their favourite stars, giving a practical demonstration of a chorus girl's high kick... with appropriate vocal accompaniment". When Waterall left school, White withdrew again. He asked his parents if he could leave school to become an actor. The parents compromised and allowed him to finish school early if he came home to Australia to try life on the land. His parents felt that he should work on the land rather than become a writer and hoped that his work as a jackaroo would temper his artistic ambitions.
White spent two years working as a stockman at Bolaro, a station near Adaminaby, on the edge of the Snowy Mountains, in southeastern Australia. Although he grew to respect the land and his health improved, it was clear that he was not cut out for this life.
From 1932 to 1935, White lived in England, studying French and German literature at King's College, Cambridge University. During his time at Cambridge he developed a romantic attraction to a young man who had come to King's College to become an Anglican priest. White dared not speak of his feelings for fear of losing the friendship and, like many other gay men of that period, he feared that his sexuality would doom him to a lonely life. Then, one night, the student priest, after an awkward liaison with two women, admitted to White that women meant nothing to him sexually. That became White's first love affair.
During White's time at Cambridge he published a collection of poetry entitled "The Ploughman and Other Poems", and wrote a play named "Bread and Butter Women", which was later performed by an amateur group (which included his sister Suzanne) at the tiny Bryant's Playhouse in Sydney. After being admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1935, White briefly settled in London, where he lived in an area that was frequented by artists. There, the young author thrived creatively for a time, writing several unpublished works and reworking "Happy Valley", a novel that he had written while jackarooing. In 1937, White's father died, leaving him ten thousand pounds in inheritance. The fortune enabled him to write full-time in relative comfort. Two more plays followed before he succeeded in finding a publisher for "Happy Valley". The novel was received well in London but poorly in Australia. He began writing another novel, "Nightside", but abandoned it before its completion after receiving negative comments, a decision that he later admitted regretting.
In 1936, White met the painter Roy De Maistre, 18 years his senior, who became an important influence in his life and work. The two men never became lovers but remained firm friends. In White's own words, "He became what I most needed, an intellectual and aesthetic mentor". They had many similarities: they were both gay and they both felt like outsiders in their own families; as a result they both had ambivalent feelings about their families and backgrounds, yet both maintained close and lifelong links with their families, particularly their mothers. They also both appreciated the benefits of social standing and connections and Christian symbolism and biblical themes are common in both artists' work.
White dedicated his first novel "Happy Valley" to De Maistre and acknowledged De Maistre's influence on his writing. In 1947, De Maistre's painting "Figure in a Garden (The Aunt)" was used as the cover for the first edition of White's "The Aunt's Story". White bought many of De Maistre's paintings. In 1974 White gave all his paintings by De Maistre to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Towards the end of the 1930s, White spent time in the United States, including Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and New York City, which were artistic hotbeds at the time, where he wrote "The Living and the Dead". By the time World War II broke out, he had returned to London and joined the British Royal Air Force. He was accepted as an intelligence officer, and was posted to the Middle East. He served in Egypt, Palestine, and Greece before the war was over. While in the Middle East, he had an affair with a Greek army officer, Manoly Lascaris, who was to become his life partner.
White and Lascaris lived together in Cairo for six years before moving to a small farm purchased by White at Castle Hill, near Sydney, in 1948. After the death of White's mother in 1963, they moved into a large house, Highbury, in Centennial Park, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
After the war, White once again returned to Australia, buying an old house in Castle Hill, now a Sydney suburb but then semi-rural. He named the house "The Dogwoods," after trees he planted there. In this house, he settled down with Lascaris, the Greek he had met during the war. They lived there for 18 years, selling flowers, vegetables, milk, and cream as well as pedigreed puppies. During these years he started to make a reputation for himself as a writer, publishing "The Aunt's Story" and "The Tree of Man" in the United States in 1955 and shortly after in the United Kingdom. "The Tree of Man" was released to rave reviews in the United States, but in what had become a typical pattern, it was panned in Australia. White had doubts about whether to continue writing after his books were largely dismissed in Australia (three of them having been called 'un-Australian' by critics), but, in the end, he decided to persevere. His first breakthrough in Australia came when his next novel, "Voss", won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award.
In 1961, White published "Riders in the Chariot". It was to become both a bestseller and a prizewinner, gaining him a second Miles Franklin Award. In 1963, White and Lascaris decided to sell the house at Castle Hill that they had named "Dogwoods". A number of White's works from the 1960s depict the fictional town of Sarsaparilla, including his collection of short stories, "The Burnt Ones", and the play, "The Season at Sarsaparilla". By now, he had clearly established his reputation as one of the world's great authors, but remained an essentially private person, resisting opportunities for interviews and public appearances although his circle of friends had widened significantly.
In 1968, White wrote "The Vivisector", a searing character portrait of an artist. Many people drew links to the Sydney painter John Passmore (1904–84) and White's friend, the painter Sidney Nolan, but White denied the connections. Patrick White was an art collector who had, as a young man, been deeply impressed by his friends Roy De Maistre and Francis Bacon, and later said he wished he had been an artist. By the mid-1960s, he had also become interested in encouraging dozens of young and less established artists, such as James Clifford, Erica McGilchrist, and Lawrence Daws. White was later friends with Brett Whiteley, the young star of Australian painting, in the 1970s. That friendship ended when White felt that Whiteley, a heroin addict, was deceitful and pushy about selling his paintings. A portrait of White by Louis Kahan won the 1962 Archibald Prize.
White decided not to accept any more prizes for his work, and he declined both the $10,000 Britannia Award and another Miles Franklin Award. White was approached by Harry M. Miller to work on a screenplay for "Voss" but nothing came of it. He became an active opponent of literary censorship and joined a number of other public figures in signing a statement of defiance against Australia's decision to participate in the Vietnam War. His name had sometimes been mentioned as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but in 1971, after losing to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he wrote to a friend: "That Nobel Prize! I hope I never hear it mentioned again. I certainly don't want it; the machinery behind it seems a bit dirty, when we thought that only applied to Australian awards. In my case to win the prize would upset my life far too much, and it would embarrass me to be held up to the world as an Australian writer when, apart from the accident of blood, I feel I am temperamentally a cosmopolitan Londoner".
Nevertheless, in 1973, White did accept the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature". His cause was said to have been championed by a Scandinavian diplomat resident in Australia. White enlisted Nolan to travel to Stockholm to accept the prize on his behalf. The award had an immediate impact on his career, as his publisher doubled the print run for "The Eye of the Storm" and gave him a larger advance for his next novel. White used the money from the prize to establish a trust to fund the Patrick White Award, given annually to established creative writers who have received little public recognition. He was invited by the House of Representatives to be seated on the floor of the House in recognition of his achievement. White declined, explaining that his nature could not easily adapt itself to such a situation. The last time such an invitation had been extended was in 1928, to Bert Hinkler.
White was made Australian of the Year for 1974, but in a typically rebellious fashion, his acceptance speech encouraged Australians to spend the day reflecting on the state of the country. Privately, he was less than enthusiastic about it. In a letter to Marshall Best on 27 January 1974, he wrote: "Something terrible happened to me last week. There is an organisation which chooses an Australian of the Year, who has to appear at an official lunch in Melbourne Town Hall on Australia Day. This year I was picked on as they had run through all the swimmers, tennis players, yachtsmen".
White and Lascaris hosted many dinner parties at Highbury, their Centennial Park home, in a leafy part of the affluent Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. In "Patrick White, A Life", his biographer David Marr portrays White as a genial host but one who easily fell out with friends.
White supported the conservative, business oriented Liberal Party of Australia until the election of Gough Whitlam's Labor government and, following the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, he became particularly antiroyalist, making a rare appearance on national television to broadcast his views on the matter. White also publicly expressed his admiration for the historian Manning Clark, satirist Barry Humphries, and unionist Jack Mundey.
During the 1970s, White's health began to deteriorate: his teeth were crumbling, his eyesight was failing, and he had chronic lung problems - however, he also became a more openly political person, and began sometimes commenting on current issues. He was among the first group of Companions of the Order of Australia in 1975 but resigned in June 1976 in protest at the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975 by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr. In 1979, his novel "The Twyborn Affair" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but White requested that it to be removed to give younger writers a chance to win. (The prize was won by Penelope Fitzgerald, who ironically was just four years younger than White.) Soon after, White announced that he had written his last novel, and from then on, he would write only for radio or the stage.
Director Jim Sharman introduced himself to White while walking down a Sydney street, some time after White had seen a politically loaded stage revue by Sharman, "Terror Australis", which had been panned by Sydney newspaper critics, and had written a letter to the editor of a newspaper defending the show. White felt somewhat cautious at first, not least due to the gulf in age between them, but after a while the two men became friends and Sharman and his theatrical circle, as well as his visual style as a director, would inspire White to a couple of new plays, notably "Big Toys" with its satirical portrayal of a posh and vulgar upper-class Sydney society. A few years later, Sharman asked White if he could make a film of "The Night the Prowler". White agreed and wrote the screenplay for the film.
In 1981, White published his autobiography, "Flaws in the Glass: a self-portrait", which explored issues about which he had publicly said little such as his homosexuality, his dislike of the "subservient" attitude of Australian society towards Britain and the Royal family, and also the distance he had felt towards his mother. On Palm Sunday, 1982, White addressed a crowd of 30,000 people, calling for a ban on uranium mining and for the destruction of nuclear weapons.
In 1986 White released one last novel, "Memoirs of Many in One", but it was published under the pen name "Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray" with White named as editor. In the same year, "Voss" was turned into an opera, with music by Richard Meale and the libretto adapted by David Malouf. White refused to see it when it was first performed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts, because Queen Elizabeth II had been invited, and chose instead to see it later in Sydney. In 1987, White wrote "Three Uneasy Pieces", with his musings on ageing and society's efforts to achieve aesthetic perfection. When David Marr finished his biography of White in July 1990, his subject spent nine days going over the details with him.
White died in Sydney on 30 September 1990.
In 2009, The Sydney Theatre Company staged White's play "The Season at Sarsaparilla". In 2010 White received posthumous recognition for his novel "The Vivisector", which was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize for 1970.
In 2011 Fred Schepisi's film of "The Eye of the Storm" was released with screenplay adaptation by Judy Morris, Geoffrey Rush playing the son Basil, Judy Davis as the daughter Dorothy, and Charlotte Rampling as the dying matriarch Elizabeth Hunter. This is the first screen realisation of a White novel, fittingly the one that played a key role in the Swedish panel's choice of White as Nobel prize winner.
Novels
Short story collections
Poetry
Thirteen Poems / under the pseudonym Patrick Victor Martindale. – Sydney : Privately printed, (ca. 1929)
The Ploughman and Other Poems. – Sydney : Beacon Press, (1935)
Plays
Screenplay
Autobiography
In 1970, White was offered a knighthood but declined it.
Both White and Nugget Coombs were members of the first group of six people appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the civil division, (now called the general division). The awards were announced in the 1975 Queen's Birthday Honours List. They both resigned from the order in 1976, when the Knight of the Order of Australia (AK) was created.
White is commemorated by the Patrick White Lawns adjacent to the National Library of Australia in Canberra. The lawns are on two levels, with the part nearest the library about wide from the approximately retaining wall of the main library entrance esplanade and higher than the lower lawn. The lawns extend from the library north to Lake Burley Griffin and provide a venue for concerts and other large scale public events under the auspices of the National Capital Authority. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23932 |
Pope Martin IV
Pope Martin IV (; c. 1210/1220 – 6 March 1285), born Simon de Brion, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1281 to his death. He was the last French pope to have held court in Rome; all subsequent French popes held court in Avignon (the Avignon Papacy).
Simon de Brion, son of Jean, sieur de Brion, was born at the château of Meinpincien, Île-de-France, France, in the decade following 1210. He had a brother named Gilo, who was a knight in diocese of Sens. The seigneurial family of Brion, who took their name from Brion near Joigny, flourished in the "Brie français". He spent time at the University of Paris, and is said to have then studied law at Padua and Bologna. Through papal favour he received a canonry at Saint-Quentin in 1238 and spent the period 1248–1259 as a canon of the cathedral chapter in Rouen, finally as archdeacon. At the same time he was appointed treasurer of the church of St. Martin in Tours by King Louis IX of France, an office he held until he was elected pope in 1281. In 1255-1259, King Louis IX founded the French royal convent at Longchamps for the Poor Clares (Minoresses); the King's sister Isabelle was the patroness (though she never entered the cloister herself), and Simon de Brion was the Guardian. In 1259, he was appointed to the council of the king, who made him keeper of the great seal, chancellor of France, one of the great officers in the household of the king. He became Chancellor of Louis IX of France (1260-1261).
On December 17, 1261, the new French Pope, Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon), made Chancellor de Brion cardinal-priest, with the "titulus" of the church of St. Cecilia. This would have entailed Simon de Brion's residence in Rome, but the affairs of Pope Urban required that he send a representative of the highest level to France to deal personally with King Louis IX and his brother Charles of Anjou and Provence. Simon's previous experience at the French Court made him the perfect choice as Legate.
Cardinal Simon therefore returned to France as Papal Legate for Urban IV and also for his successor Pope Clement IV in 1264–1268. In 1264, on the eve of S. Bartholomew, he held a general synod at Paris. He was appointed again, by Pope Gregory X on 1 August 1274, and he served continuously in France until 1279. His first task was to raise support and money for a Crusade against Manfred, the Hohenstaufen candidate for the Imperial Crown. He immediately became deeply involved in the negotiations for papal support for the assumption of the crown of Sicily by Charles of Anjou. As Legate he presided over several synods on reform, and on the raising of funds for Pope Gregory's crusade. The most important of these was held at Bourges on 13 September 1276.
Signatures on papal bulls indicate that Cardinal Simon was back in Viterbo by 11 January 1268. In a letter of 14 or 15 January 1268, Pope Clement IV wrote to Cardinal Simon de Brion that he had heard that the Cardinal had fallen from his horse and in the accident had injured his leg. He also wrote that Conradin and Ludwig Duke of Bavaria were at Verona, and were pressing for Pavia. A general war was likely. Cardinal Simon's injury must not have been severe, since, on April 3, 1268, the Pope wrote to him with the request (not an order) that he undertake a legation to Germany (Teutonia), if he wished and if it were possible. The Pope needed a prudent and faithful man, who had clean hands and eyes wide open, who could stay centered on the business and let himself stray neither right nor left, who could preserve the Empire, keep the Apostolic See free from scandal, and the neighboring kingdoms free from danger. In vetting names, Simon seemed the most suitable.
Pope Clement IV (Guy Foulques) fell ill on the Feast of S. Cecilia (November 22), and died at Viterbo on 29 November 1268. He had governed the Church for three years, nine months, and twenty-four days. The See of Peter was vacant for two years and nine months. Cardinal Simon de Brion came from France to attend the Conclave, which took place in the Episcopal Palace, next to the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo in Viterbo. He was the senior cardinal-priest. Around Pentecost of 1270 (June 1), Cardinal Simon and Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi of S. Angelo had to leave the Conclave and retire to their residences for the sake of their health. 20213]. On 22 August 1270, he was one of the signatories to the letter of protest sent by the Cardinals to Raynerius Gatti, Captain of the City of Viterbo, to cease and desist from their harassment of the Cardinals and their suites. He was one of the cardinals who signed the electoral compact on September, 1270, to leave the election of a new pope to a committee of six, promising to accept the committee's decision. He was not, however, one of the six cardinals elected to the Compromise Committee that selected Archdeacon Teobaldo Visconti as pope on 1 September 1270. The newly elected pope was not present in Viterbo, but was serving on Crusade with King Edward I of England. He arrived in Italy on 1 January 1271, and travelled to Viterbo, where he arrived early in February. He accepted the election, and chose to be called Gregory X. He and the Curia travelled to Rome, arriving on 13 March. On 19 March he was ordained a priest, and on 27 March he was consecrated bishop, and then crowned by Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.
Simon de Brion's appointment as Legate in France, made by Pope Gregory on 1 August 1274 continued throughout 1276. He was unable to be present for the Conclave of 1 January 1276, which elected Peter of Tarantaise as Pope Innocent V. Nor was he present for the Conclave of 2–11 July, which elected Ottobono Fieschi as Pope Adrian V. Nor was he present at the September Conclave, which, on 8 September, elected Peter Julian as Pope John XXI. In each case the election was completed before he could have been notified, and before he could have travelled from France to central Italy. This was one of the defects of Gregory X's regulations on the holding of a Conclave.
Pope John XXI was in contact with Cardinal Simon. He had written to him on 3 March 1277, ordering him to speak with the king of France about matters connected with Alfonso of Castile. But the Pope died rather suddenly, after a reign of only eight months. He was still living in the Episcopal Palace in Viterbo, where Adrian V (Fieschi) had died and where he had been elected. The palace was still under construction, when suddenly the roof of one of the chambers collapsed. The Pope was in the room at the time, and he was severely injured. He died three (or six) days later, on 20 May 1277. Cardinal Simon de Brion was still in France when the Conclave began, but he was unable to predict that the Conclave would last until 25 November, and therefore he was not present. There were only seven cardinals in Viterbo, since neither Innocent V, nor Adrian V, nor John XXI had named any new cardinals. They argued on and on, trying to choose a pope. There were three cardinals who favored the Angevin Charles I and his designs. There were three who opposed him. Cardinal Bertrand de Saint Martin, Bishop of Sabina, the only surviving Cardinal Bishop, held a middle course, or perhaps one should say he saw too clearly to be willing to commit to either party. Finally, they chose Cardinal Giovanni Gaetani (Orsini), a native Roman, the Deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere and senior Deacon, and Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica.
Nicholas III immediately set out for Rome, where he was ordained a priest on December 18, 1277, and consecrated Bishop of Rome on December 19. He was crowned on the Feast of S. Stephen, December 26, 1277 at the Vatican Basilica. One person, at least, was deeply unhappy about the outcome of this Conclave, King Charles I of Sicily. The new Orsini pope was an enemy of the Angevins, and Charles knew he would have nothing but trouble from Nicholas III.
A week after the election of Nicholas III, the new pope wrote to Simon, who was still Legate in France, urging him to effect a reconciliation between the King of France, Philip III, and the King of Leon and Castile, Alfonso the Wise. Since the King of Aragon, Peter III (who was married to Constance of Sicily) was involved in the struggle over Sicily with Charles I, this peace initiative threatened King Charles directly. On 22 April 1279, Pope Nicholas wrote to Cardinal Simon about King Philip. The Pope had issued a prohibition on tournaments, and King Philip and his barons were flagrantly violating the prohibition. Cardinal Simon was ordered to excommunicate the King of France.
To ensure that his victory against the Angevins would stand, Nicholas III decided to go forward with a much needed addition to the Sacred College of Cardinals. At his first opportunity, on 12 March 1278, he created ten cardinals. Five cardinal bishops were named: Latino Frangipani Malabranca, OP, of Rome (Nicholas III's nephew by his sister Mabilia); Erhard de Lessines (Lesigny), of Langres, son of Guillaume, Marshal of Champagne; Bentivenga de Bentivengis, O.Min., of Aquasparta; Robert Kilwardby, OP, Archbishop of Canterbury; and Ordoño (Ordeonio) Álvarez, Bishop of Braga. Two cardinal-priests were named: Gerardo Bianchi of Parma, and Girolamo Masci d' Ascoli, O.Min., of Picenum. He also appointed three cardinal-deacons: Giordano Orsini, brother of Pope Nicholas III, of Rome; Giacomo Colonna of Rome; and Gerardo Cupalates, O.Min., of Piacenza. The effect of these creations was to seriously dilute the Angevin influence in the Sacred College, and to considerably increase the monastic element, especially the Franciscan one. It needs to be recalled that Nicholas III was the Governor, Corrector, and Protector of the Franciscans. The Roman influence was also strengthened. The inevitable consequence would be that the next pope too would not be a creature of Charles I of Sicily.
Eventually, though, by 19 October 1279, Pope Nicholas recalled Cardinal Simon de Brion.
Pope Nicholas III (Giovanni Caetano Orsini) died at Castro Soriano in the diocese of Viterbo on August 22, 1280 of an apoplectic stroke which had left him without speech. A story was circulated nonetheless that he had been poisoned. At the time of his death on 22 August 1280, there were thirteen cardinals. This would be the fifth Conclave in five years. King Charles had taken the trouble to make friends with the Annibaldi faction, led by Riccardo Annibaldi, who were enemies of the Orsini and who had been driven out of Rome in street fighting following the death of Nicholas III. They had taken refuge in Viterbo, and now, by coincidence, they were present and entrenched and ready to make trouble on behalf of Charles I and themselves. Annibaldi led a coup in Viterbo, which drove out the governor of the city, Orso Orsini, the dead pope's nephew. The Angevins thereupon dominated the Conclave, in which the regulations of Gregory X were still in abayence. But the Conclave still required a two-thirds vote to elect a pope, in according with the Constitution of Alexander III, which was still in effect. Neither the Orsini faction nor the French faction had sufficient votes to elect, but each had sufficient votes to block an election. The stalemate continued throughout the winter. On 2 February 1280, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a mob broke into the Episcopal palace, where the Conclave was in progress, and abducted two of the cardinals, Matteo Rosso Orsini and Giordano Orsini (the late pope's brother). Without their opposition, Simon de Brion was unanimously elected to the papacy on 22 February 1281, taking the name Martin IV,
For the third time in fifteen years Viterbo had hosted a papal conclave. And for the third time there were disorders which had threatened the validity of the election and the lives of the participants. Viterbo was placed under the ban of excommunication and of the interdict for the imprisonment of the cardinals. It was not possible, therefore, for the Coronation to take place in Viterbo. But Rome was not at all inclined to accept a hated Frenchman as Pope. Martin IV sent two cardinals, Latino Orsini and Goffredo da Alatri, to Rome with a letter, proposing that he be crowned in Rome on Quadragesima Sunday. The Romans positively refused to allow the Coronation to take place in Rome. But they did hold a public meeting, and elected Giovanni Caetani Orsini in his purely personal capacity as their Senator, and authorized him to appoint anyone he chose as his substitute. So Martin IV was crowned instead at Orvieto on 23 March 1281. He never visited Rome during his Pontificate. Instead he immediately sent his Vicar, Peter of Lavagna, to Rome. But on 30 April 1281, Pope Martin handed the senatorial power over to King Charles for the rest of his reign.
Dependent on Charles of Anjou in nearly everything, the new Pope quickly appointed him to the position of Senator of Rome. At the insistence of Charles, Martin IV excommunicated the Eastern Roman Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, who stood in the way of Charles's plans to restore the Latin Empire of the East that had been established in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. He thus broke the tenuous union which had been reached between the Greek and the Latin Churches at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 and further compromise was rendered impossible.
In 1282, Charles lost control of the island of Sicily in the violent massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. The Sicilians had elected Peter III of Aragon as their king and sought papal confirmation, in vain, though they were willing to reconfirm Sicily as a vassal state of the papacy. Martin IV used all the spiritual and material resources at his command against the Aragonese in order to preserve Sicily for the House of Anjou. He excommunicated Peter III, declared his kingdom of Aragon forfeit, and ordered a crusade against him, but it was all in vain.
Due to the hostility of Raynerius, the Captain of Orvieto, in the repeated struggles between Guelphs and Ghibbelines, Pope Martin was unable to remain at Orvieto. He removed himself and the Papal Curia from Orvieto on 26 June 1284, and arrived in Perugia on 4 October. He died at Perugia on 28 March 1285.
Following the example of Nicholas III, Pope Martin IV created new cardinals at his first opportunity, on the Quattuor Tempora of Lent, April 12, 1281. His new cardinals included: Bernardus de Languissello of Nîmes, the Archbishop of Arles since 1273; Hugh of Evesham, Canon of York and Archdeacon of Worcester; Gervasius de Glincamp of Mans, Archdeacon of Paris; Comes Giusianus, Conte de Casate, of Milan, Auditor of the Rota; Gaufridus (Geoffroy) de Barro or Barbeau, of Burgundy, Dean of the Cathedral of Paris; Johannes Chauleti (Cholet), of the village of Nointre in the diocese of Beauvais, a personal friend of Philip III, Philip IV, and Pope Martin IV; and Benedetto Gaetano of Anagni, who was elected Pope Boniface VIII on 24 December 1295. The French influence is strongly in evidence, and only Cardinal Gaetano came from the neighborhood of Rome.
Pope Martin IV celebrated a solemn Mass in the Cathedral at Perugia on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1285, which was also the Feast of the Annunciation. After his usual lunch with his chaplains he was stricken with a sudden illness. On the following Wednesday, March 28, around the fifth hour of the night, he died. He was buried in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Perugia. He had reigned four years and one month. His successor was elected four days later, on April 2.
In the "Divine Comedy", Dante sees Martin IV in Purgatory, where the reader is reminded of the former pontiff's fondness for Lake Bolsena eels and Vernaccia wine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23936 |
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was officially changed to Raku in October 2019.
Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions. Raku, which began as a redesign of Perl 5 in 2000, eventually evolved into a separate language. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different development teams and liberally borrow ideas from one another.
The Perl languages borrow features from other programming languages including C, shell script (sh), AWK, and sed; Wall also alludes to BASIC and Lisp in the introduction to "Learning Perl" (Schwartz & Christiansen) and so on. They provide text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix command line tools, facilitating manipulation of text files. Perl 5 gained widespread popularity in the late 1990s as a CGI scripting language, in part due to its unsurpassed regular expression and string parsing abilities.
In addition to CGI, Perl 5 is used for system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications, such as for GUIs. It has been nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages" because of its flexibility and power, and also its ugliness. In 1998, it was also referred to as the "duct tape that holds the Internet together," in reference to both its ubiquitous use as a glue language and its perceived inelegance.
Larry Wall began work on Perl in 1987, while working as a programmer at Unisys, and released version 1.0 to the comp.sources.misc newsgroup on December 18, 1987. The language expanded rapidly over the next few years.
Perl 2, released in 1988, featured a better regular expression engine. Perl 3, released in 1989, added support for binary data streams.
Originally, the only documentation for Perl was a single lengthy man page. In 1991, "Programming Perl", known to many Perl programmers as the "Camel Book" because of its cover, was published and became the "de facto" reference for the language. At the same time, the Perl version number was bumped to 4, not to mark a major change in the language but to identify the version that was well documented by the book.
Perl 4 went through a series of maintenance releases, culminating in Perl 4.036 in 1993, whereupon Wall abandoned Perl 4 to begin work on Perl 5. Initial design of Perl 5 continued into 1994. The "perl5-porters" mailing list was established in May 1994 to coordinate work on porting Perl 5 to different platforms. It remains the primary forum for development, maintenance, and porting of Perl 5.
Perl 5.000 was released on October 17, 1994. It was a nearly complete rewrite of the interpreter, and it added many new features to the language, including objects, references, lexical (my) variables, and modules. Importantly, modules provided a mechanism for extending the language without modifying the interpreter. This allowed the core interpreter to stabilize, even as it enabled ordinary Perl programmers to add new language features. Perl 5 has been in active development since then.
Perl 5.001 was released on March 13, 1995. Perl 5.002 was released on February 29, 1996 with the new prototypes feature. This allowed module authors to make subroutines that behaved like Perl builtins. Perl 5.003 was released June 25, 1996, as a security release.
One of the most important events in Perl 5 history took place outside of the language proper and was a consequence of its module support. On October 26, 1995, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) was established as a repository for the Perl language and Perl modules; as of May 2017, it carries over 185,178 modules in 35,190 distributions, written by more than 13,071 authors, and is mirrored worldwide at more than 245 locations.
Perl 5.004 was released on May 15, 1997, and included, among other things, the UNIVERSAL package, giving Perl a base object to which all classes were automatically derived and the ability to require versions of modules. Another significant development was the inclusion of the CGI.pm module, which contributed to Perl's popularity as a CGI scripting language.
Perl 5.004 also added support for Microsoft Windows and several other operating systems.
Perl 5.005 was released on July 22, 1998. This release included several enhancements to the regex engine, new hooks into the backend through the codice_1 modules, the codice_2 regex quote operator, a large selection of other new core modules, and added support for several more operating systems, including BeOS.
Perl 5.6 was released on March 22, 2000. Major changes included 64-bit support, Unicode string representation, support for files over 2 GiB, and the "our" keyword. When developing Perl 5.6, the decision was made to switch the versioning scheme to one more similar to other open source projects; after 5.005_63, the next version became 5.5.640, with plans for development versions to have odd numbers and stable versions to have even numbers.
In 2000, Wall put forth a call for suggestions for a new version of Perl from the community. The process resulted in 361 RFC (request for comments) documents that were to be used in guiding development of Perl 6. In 2001, work began on the "Apocalypses" for Perl 6, a series of documents meant to summarize the change requests and present the design of the next generation of Perl. They were presented as a digest of the RFCs, rather than a formal document. At this point, Perl 6 existed only as a description of a language.
Perl 5.8 was first released on July 18, 2002, and had nearly yearly updates since then. Perl 5.8 improved Unicode support, added a new I/O implementation, added a new thread implementation, improved numeric accuracy, and added several new modules. As of 2013 this version still remains the most popular version of Perl and is used by Red Hat 5, Suse 10, Solaris 10, HP-UX 11.31 and AIX 5.
In 2004, work began on the "Synopses"documents that originally summarized the Apocalypses, but which became the specification for the Perl 6 language. In February 2005, Audrey Tang began work on Pugs, a Perl 6 interpreter written in Haskell. This was the first concerted effort towards making Perl 6 a reality. This effort stalled in 2006.
On December 18, 2007, the 20th anniversary of Perl 1.0, Perl 5.10.0 was released. Perl 5.10.0 included notable new features, which brought it closer to Perl 6. These included a switch statement (called "given"/"when"), regular expressions updates, and the "'smart match operator" (~~).
Around this same time, development began in earnest on another implementation of Perl 6 known as Rakudo Perl, developed in tandem with the Parrot virtual machine. As of November 2009, Rakudo Perl has had regular monthly releases and now is the most complete implementation of Perl 6.
A major change in the development process of Perl 5 occurred with Perl 5.11; the development community has switched to a monthly release cycle of development releases, with a yearly schedule of stable releases. By that plan, bugfix point releases will follow the stable releases every three months.
On April 12, 2010, Perl 5.12.0 was released. Notable core enhancements include new codice_3 syntax, the Yada Yada operator (intended to mark placeholder code that is not yet implemented), implicit strictures, full Y2038 compliance, regex conversion overloading, DTrace support, and Unicode 5.2. On January 21, 2011, Perl 5.12.3 was released; it contains updated modules and some documentation changes. Version 5.12.4 was released on June 20, 2011. The latest version of that branch, 5.12.5, was released on November 10, 2012.
On May 14, 2011, Perl 5.14 was released. JSON support is built-in as of 5.14.0. The latest version of that branch, 5.14.4, was released on March 10, 2013.
On May 20, 2012, Perl 5.16 was released. Notable new features include the ability to specify a given version of Perl that one wishes to emulate, allowing users to upgrade their version of Perl, but still run old scripts that would normally be incompatible. Perl 5.16 also updates the core to support Unicode 6.1.
On May 18, 2013, Perl 5.18 was released. Notable new features include the new dtrace hooks, lexical subs, more CORE:: subs, overhaul of the hash for security reasons, support for Unicode 6.2.
On May 27, 2014, Perl 5.20 was released. Notable new features include subroutine signatures, hash slices/new slice syntax, postfix dereferencing (experimental), Unicode 6.3, rand() using consistent random number generator.
Some observers credit the release of Perl 5.10 with the start of the Modern Perl movement. In particular, this phrase describes a style of development that embraces the use of the CPAN, takes advantage of recent developments in the language, and is rigorous about creating high quality code. While the book "Modern Perl" may be the most visible standard-bearer of this idea, other groups such as the Enlightened Perl Organization have taken up the cause.
In late 2012 and 2013, several projects for alternative implementations for Perl 5 started: Perl5 in Perl6 by the Rakudo Perl team, "moe" by Stevan Little and friends, "p2" by the Perl11 team under Reini Urban, "gperl" by goccy, and "rperl" a kickstarter project led by Will Braswell and affiliated with the Perll11 project.
In June 2020 Perl 7 was announced as the successor to Perl 5 . Perl 7 will initially be based on Perl 5.32 with release candidates expected later in 2020. . When Perl 7 is released, Perl 5 will go into long term maintenance. Supported Perl 5 versions however will continue to get important security and bug fixes .
PONIE is an acronym for Perl On New Internal Engine. The PONIE Project existed from 2003 until 2006 and was to be a bridge between Perl 5 and Perl 6. It was an effort to rewrite the Perl 5 interpreter to run on Parrot, the Perl 6 virtual machine. The goal was to ensure the future of the millions of lines of Perl 5 code at thousands of companies around the world.
The PONIE project ended in 2006 and is no longer being actively developed. Some of the improvements made to the Perl 5 interpreter as part of PONIE were folded into that project.
Perl was originally named "Pearl". Wall wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations; he claims that he considered every three- and four-letter word in the dictionary. He also considered naming it after his wife Gloria. Wall discovered the existing PEARL programming language before Perl's official release and changed the spelling of the name.
When referring to the language, the name is normally capitalized ("Perl") as a proper noun. When referring to the interpreter program itself, the name is often uncapitalized ("perl") because most Unix-like file systems are case-sensitive. Before the release of the first edition of "Programming Perl", it was common to refer to the language as "perl"; Randal L. Schwartz, however, capitalized the language's name in the book to make it stand out better when typeset. This case distinction was subsequently documented as canonical.
The name is occasionally expanded as "Practical Extraction and Report Language", but this is a backronym. Other expansions have been suggested as equally canonical, including Wall's own "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" which is in the manual page for perl. Indeed, Wall claims that the name was intended to inspire many different expansions.
"Programming Perl", published by O'Reilly Media, features a picture of a dromedary camel on the cover and is commonly called the "Camel Book". This image of a camel has become an unofficial symbol of Perl as well as a general hacker emblem, appearing on T-shirts and other clothing items.
O'Reilly owns the image as a trademark but licenses it for non-commercial use, requiring only an acknowledgement and a link to www.perl.com. Licensing for commercial use is decided on a case-by-case basis. O'Reilly also provides "Programming Republic of Perl" logos for non-commercial sites and "Powered by Perl" buttons for any site that uses Perl.
The Perl Foundation owns an alternative symbol, an onion, which it licenses to its subsidiaries, Perl Mongers, PerlMonks, Perl.org, and others. The symbol is a visual pun on pearl onion.
Sebastian Riedel, the creator of Mojolicious, has created a logo depicting a raptor dinosaur, which is available under a CC-SA License, Version 4.0. The logo is being remixed and used in different places and is symbolising Perl 5. The analogue of the raptor comes from a series of talks given by Matt S Trout beginning in 2010. The talks were aimed at being more Perl 5 community-centric, in a period where Perl 6 was a hot topic.
According to Wall, Perl has two slogans. The first is "There's more than one way to do it," commonly known as TMTOWTDI. The second slogan is "Easy things should be easy and hard things should be possible".
The overall structure of Perl derives broadly from C. Perl is procedural in nature, with variables, expressions, assignment statements, brace-delimited blocks, control structures, and subroutines.
Perl also takes features from shell programming. All variables are marked with leading sigils, which allow variables to be interpolated directly into strings. However, unlike the shell, Perl uses sigils on all accesses to variables, and unlike most other programming languages that use sigils, the sigil doesn't denote the type of the variable but the type of the expression. So for example, to access a list of values in a hash, the sigil for an array ("@") is used, not the sigil for a hash ("%").
Perl also has many built-in functions that provide tools often used in shell programming (although many of these tools are implemented by programs external to the shell) such as sorting, and calling operating system facilities.
Perl takes lists from Lisp, hashes ("associative arrays") from AWK, and regular expressions from sed. These simplify and facilitate many parsing, text-handling, and data-management tasks. Also shared with Lisp are the implicit return of the last value in a block, and the fact that all statements have a value, and thus are also expressions and can be used in larger expressions themselves.
Perl 5 added features that support complex data structures, first-class functions (that is, closures as values), and an object-oriented programming model. These include references, packages, class-based method dispatch, and lexically scoped variables, along with compiler directives (for example, the codice_4 pragma). A major additional feature introduced with Perl 5 was the ability to package code as reusable modules. Wall later stated that "The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core."
All versions of Perl do automatic data-typing and automatic memory management. The interpreter knows the type and storage requirements of every data object in the program; it allocates and frees storage for them as necessary using reference counting (so it cannot deallocate circular data structures without manual intervention). Legal type conversions — for example, conversions from number to string — are done automatically at run time; illegal type conversions are fatal errors.
The design of Perl can be understood as a response to three broad trends in the computer industry: falling hardware costs, rising labor costs, and improvements in compiler technology. Many earlier computer languages, such as Fortran and C, aimed to make efficient use of expensive computer hardware. In contrast, Perl was designed so that computer programmers could write programs more quickly and easily.
Perl has many features that ease the task of the programmer at the expense of greater CPU and memory requirements. These include automatic memory management; dynamic typing; strings, lists, and hashes; regular expressions; introspection; and an codice_5 function. Perl follows the theory of "no built-in limits," an idea similar to the Zero One Infinity rule.
Wall was trained as a linguist, and the design of Perl is very much informed by linguistic principles. Examples include Huffman coding (common constructions should be short), good end-weighting (the important information should come first), and a large collection of language primitives. Perl favors language constructs that are concise and natural for humans to write, even where they complicate the Perl interpreter.
Perl's syntax reflects the idea that "things that are different should look different." For example, scalars, arrays, and hashes have different leading sigils. Array indices and hash keys use different kinds of braces. Strings and regular expressions have different standard delimiters. This approach can be contrasted with a language such as Lisp, where the same basic syntax, composed of simple and universal symbolic expressions, is used for all purposes.
Perl does not enforce any particular programming paradigm (procedural, object-oriented, functional, or others) or even require the programmer to choose among them.
There is a broad practical bent to both the Perl language and the community and culture that surround it. The preface to "Programming Perl" begins: "Perl is a language for getting your job done." One consequence of this is that Perl is not a tidy language. It includes many features, tolerates exceptions to its rules, and employs heuristics to resolve syntactical ambiguities. Because of the forgiving nature of the compiler, bugs can sometimes be hard to find. Perl's function documentation remarks on the variant behavior of built-in functions in list and scalar contexts by saying, "In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency."
No written specification or standard for the Perl language exists for Perl versions through Perl 5, and there are no plans to create one for the current version of Perl. There has been only one implementation of the interpreter, and the language has evolved along with it. That interpreter, together with its functional tests, stands as a "de facto" specification of the language. Perl 6, however, started with a specification, and several projects aim to implement some or all of the specification.
Perl has many and varied applications, compounded by the availability of many standard and third-party modules.
Perl has chiefly been used to write CGI scripts: large projects written in Perl include cPanel, Slash, Bugzilla, RT, TWiki, and Movable Type; high-traffic websites that use Perl extensively include Priceline.com, Craigslist, IMDb, LiveJournal, DuckDuckGo, Slashdot and Ticketmaster.
It is also an optional component of the popular LAMP technology stack for Web development, in lieu of PHP or Python. Perl is used extensively as a system programming language in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
Perl is often used as a glue language, tying together systems and interfaces that were not specifically designed to interoperate, and for "data munging," that is, converting or processing large amounts of data for tasks such as creating reports. In fact, these strengths are intimately linked. The combination makes Perl a popular all-purpose language for system administrators, particularly because short programs, often called "one-liner programs," can be entered and run on a single command line.
Perl code can be made portable across Windows and Unix; such code is often used by suppliers of software (both COTS and bespoke) to simplify packaging and maintenance of software build- and deployment-scripts.
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) may be developed using Perl. For example, Perl/Tk and wxPerl are commonly used to enable user interaction with Perl scripts. Such interaction may be synchronous or asynchronous, using callbacks to update the GUI.
Perl is implemented as a core interpreter, written in C, together with a large collection of modules, written in Perl and C. , the interpreter is 150,000 lines of C code and compiles to a 1 MB executable on typical machine architectures. Alternatively, the interpreter can be compiled to a link library and embedded in other programs. There are nearly 500 modules in the distribution, comprising 200,000 lines of Perl and an additional 350,000 lines of C code (much of the C code in the modules consists of character encoding tables).
The interpreter has an object-oriented architecture. All of the elements of the Perl language—scalars, arrays, hashes, coderefs, file handles—are represented in the interpreter by C structs. Operations on these structs are defined by a large collection of macros, typedefs, and functions; these constitute the Perl C API. The Perl API can be bewildering to the uninitiated, but its entry points follow a consistent naming scheme, which provides guidance to those who use it.
The life of a Perl interpreter divides broadly into a compile phase and a run phase. In Perl, the phases are the major stages in the interpreter's life-cycle. Each interpreter goes through each phase only once, and the phases follow in a fixed sequence.
Most of what happens in Perl's compile phase is compilation, and most of what happens in Perl's run phase is execution, but there are significant exceptions. Perl makes important use of its capability to execute Perl code during the compile phase. Perl will also delay compilation into the run phase. The terms that indicate the kind of processing that is actually occurring at any moment are compile time and run time. Perl is in compile time at most points during the compile phase, but compile time may also be entered during the run phase. The compile time for code in a string argument passed to the codice_6 built-in occurs during the run phase. Perl is often in run time during the compile phase and spends most of the run phase in run time. Code in codice_7 blocks executes at run time but in the compile phase.
At compile time, the interpreter parses Perl code into a syntax tree. At run time, it executes the program by walking the tree. Text is parsed only once, and the syntax tree is subject to optimization before it is executed, so that execution is relatively efficient. Compile-time optimizations on the syntax tree include constant folding and context propagation, but peephole optimization is also performed.
Perl has a Turing-complete grammar because parsing can be affected by run-time code executed during the compile phase. Therefore, Perl cannot be parsed by a straight Lex/Yacc lexer/parser combination. Instead, the interpreter implements its own lexer, which coordinates with a modified GNU bison parser to resolve ambiguities in the language.
It is often said that "Only perl can parse Perl," meaning that only the Perl interpreter ("codice_8") can parse the Perl language ("Perl"), but even this is not, in general, true. Because the Perl interpreter can simulate a Turing machine during its compile phase, it would need to decide the halting problem in order to complete parsing in every case. It is a long-standing result that the halting problem is undecidable, and therefore not even perl can always parse Perl. Perl makes the unusual choice of giving the user access to its full programming power in its own compile phase. The cost in terms of theoretical purity is high, but practical inconvenience seems to be rare.
Other programs that undertake to parse Perl, such as source-code analyzers and auto-indenters, have to contend not only with ambiguous syntactic constructs but also with the undecidability of Perl parsing in the general case. Adam Kennedy's PPI project focused on parsing Perl code as a document (retaining its integrity as a document), instead of parsing Perl as executable code (that not even Perl itself can always do). It was Kennedy who first conjectured that "parsing Perl suffers from the 'halting problem'," which was later proved.
Perl is distributed with over 250,000 functional tests for core Perl language and over 250,000 functional tests for core modules. These run as part of the normal build process and extensively exercise the interpreter and its core modules. Perl developers rely on the functional tests to ensure that changes to the interpreter do not introduce software bugs; additionally, Perl users who see that the interpreter passes its functional tests on their system can have a high degree of confidence that it is working properly.
Perl is dual licensed under both the Artistic License 1.0 and the GNU General Public License. Distributions are available for most operating systems. It is particularly prevalent on Unix and Unix-like systems, but it has been ported to most modern (and many obsolete) platforms. With only six reported exceptions, Perl can be compiled from source code on all POSIX-compliant, or otherwise-Unix-compatible platforms.
Because of unusual changes required for the classic Mac OS environment, a special port called MacPerl was shipped independently.
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network carries a complete list of supported platforms with links to the distributions available on each. CPAN is also the source for publicly available Perl modules that are not part of the core Perl distribution.
Users of Microsoft Windows typically install one of the native binary distributions of Perl for Win32, most commonly Strawberry Perl or ActivePerl. Compiling Perl from source code under Windows is possible, but most installations lack the requisite C compiler and build tools. This also makes it difficult to install modules from the CPAN, particularly those that are partially written in C.
ActivePerl is a closed source distribution from ActiveState that has regular releases that track the core Perl releases. The distribution previously included the Perl package manager (PPM), a popular tool for installing, removing, upgrading, and managing the use of common Perl modules, however this tool was discontinued as of ActivePerl 5.28. Included also is PerlScript, a Windows Script Host (WSH) engine implementing the Perl language. Visual Perl is an ActiveState tool that adds Perl to the Visual Studio .NET development suite. A VBScript to Perl converter, as well as a Perl compiler for Windows, and converters of awk and sed to Perl have also been produced by this company and included on the "ActiveState CD for Windows", which includes all of their distributions plus the Komodo IDE and all but the first on the Unix/Linux/Posix variant thereof in 2002 and subsequently.
Strawberry Perl is an open source distribution for Windows. It has had regular, quarterly releases since January 2008, including new modules as feedback and requests come in. Strawberry Perl aims to be able to install modules like standard Perl distributions on other platforms, including compiling XS modules.
The Cygwin emulation layer is another way of running Perl under Windows. Cygwin provides a Unix-like environment on Windows, and both Perl and CPAN are available as standard pre-compiled packages in the Cygwin setup program. Since Cygwin also includes gcc, compiling Perl from source is also possible.
A perl executable is included in several Windows Resource kits in the directory with other scripting tools.
Implementations of Perl come with the MKS Toolkit, Interix (the base of earlier implementations of Windows Services for Unix, and UWIN.
Perl's text-handling capabilities can be used for generating SQL queries; arrays, hashes, and automatic memory management make it easy to collect and process the returned data. For example, in Tim Bunce's Perl DBI application programming interface (API), the arguments to the API can be the text of SQL queries; thus it is possible to program in multiple languages at the same time (e.g., for generating a Web page using HTML, JavaScript, and SQL in a here document). The use of Perl variable interpolation to programmatically customize each of the SQL queries, and the specification of Perl arrays or hashes as the structures to programmatically hold the resulting data sets from each SQL query, allows a high-level mechanism for handling large amounts of data for post-processing by a Perl subprogram.
In early versions of Perl, database interfaces were created by relinking the interpreter with a client-side database library. This was sufficiently difficult that it was done for only a few of the most-important and most widely used databases, and it restricted the resulting codice_8 executable to using just one database interface at a time.
In Perl 5, database interfaces are implemented by Perl DBI modules. The DBI (Database Interface) module presents a single, database-independent interface to Perl applications, while the DBD (Database Driver) modules handle the details of accessing some 50 different databases; there are DBD drivers for most ANSI SQL databases.
DBI provides caching for database handles and queries, which can greatly improve performance in long-lived execution environments such as mod perl, helping high-volume systems avert load spikes as in the Slashdot effect.
In modern Perl applications, especially those written using web frameworks such as Catalyst, the DBI module is often used indirectly via object-relational mappers such as , Class::DBI or Rose::DB::Object that generate SQL queries and handle data transparently to the application author.
The Computer Language Benchmarks Game compares the performance of implementations of typical programming problems in several programming languages. The submitted Perl implementations typically perform toward the high end of the memory-usage spectrum and give varied speed results. Perl's performance in the benchmarks game is typical for interpreted languages.
Large Perl programs start more slowly than similar programs in compiled languages because perl has to compile the source every time it runs. In a talk at the YAPC::Europe 2005 conference and subsequent article "A Timely Start," Jean-Louis Leroy found that his Perl programs took much longer to run than expected because the perl interpreter spent significant time finding modules within his over-large include path. Unlike Java, Python, and Ruby, Perl has only experimental support for pre-compiling. Therefore, Perl programs pay this overhead penalty on every execution. The run phase of typical programs is long enough that amortized startup time is not substantial, but benchmarks that measure very short execution times are likely to be skewed due to this overhead.
A number of tools have been introduced to improve this situation. The first such tool was Apache's mod perl, which sought to address one of the most-common reasons that small Perl programs were invoked rapidly: CGI Web development. ActivePerl, via Microsoft ISAPI, provides similar performance improvements.
Once Perl code is compiled, there is additional overhead during the execution phase that typically isn't present for programs written in compiled languages such as C or C++. Examples of such overhead include bytecode interpretation, reference-counting memory management, and dynamic type-checking.
Because Perl is an interpreted language, it can give problems when efficiency is critical; in such situations, the most critical routines can be written in other languages (such as C), which can be connected to Perl via simple Inline modules or the more complex but flexible XS mechanism.
Perl 5, the language usually referred to as "Perl", continues to be actively developed. Perl 5.12.0 was released in April 2010 with some new features influenced by the design of Perl 6, followed by Perl 5.14.1 (released on June 17, 2011), Perl 5.16.1 (released on August 9, 2012.), and Perl 5.18.0 (released on May 18, 2013). Perl 5 development versions are released on a monthly basis, with major releases coming out once per year.
The relative proportion of Internet searches for "Perl programming", as compared with similar searches for other programming languages, steadily declined from about 10% in 2005 to about 2% in 2011, to about 0.7% in 2020.
At the 2000 Perl Conference, Jon Orwant made a case for a major new language-initiative. This led to a decision to begin work on a redesign of the language, to be called Perl 6. Proposals for new language features were solicited from the Perl community at large, which submitted more than 300 RFCs.
Wall spent the next few years digesting the RFCs and synthesizing them into a coherent framework for Perl 6. He presented his design for Perl 6 in a series of documents called "apocalypses"numbered to correspond to chapters in "Programming Perl". , the developing specification of Perl 6 was encapsulated in design documents called Synopsesnumbered to correspond to Apocalypses.
Thesis work by Bradley M. Kuhn, overseen by Wall, considered the possible use of the Java virtual machine as a runtime for Perl. Kuhn's thesis showed this approach to be problematic. In 2001, it was decided that Perl 6 would run on a cross-language virtual machine called Parrot. This will mean that other languages targeting the Parrot will gain native access to CPAN, allowing some level of cross-language development.
In 2005, Audrey Tang created the Pugs project, an implementation of Perl 6 in Haskell. This acted as, and continues to act as, a test platform for the Perl 6 language (separate from the development of the actual implementation)allowing the language designers to explore. The Pugs project spawned an active Perl/Haskell cross-language community centered around the freenode #perl6 IRC channel. Many functional programming influences were absorbed by the Perl 6 design team.
In 2012, Perl 6 development was centered primarily around two compilers:
In 2013, MoarVM (“Metamodel On A Runtime”), a C language-based virtual machine designed primarily for Rakudo was announced.
In October 2019, Perl 6 was renamed to Raku.
Perl 7 was announced on 24 June 2020 at "The Perl Conference in the Cloud" as the successor to Perl 5. Based on Perl 5.32, Perl 7 is designed to be backwards compatible with Perl 5.
Perl's culture and community has developed alongside the language itself. Usenet was the first public venue in which Perl was introduced, but over the course of its evolution, Perl's community was shaped by the growth of broadening Internet-based services including the introduction of the World Wide Web. The community that surrounds Perl was, in fact, the topic of Wall's first "State of the Onion" talk.
State of the Onion is the name for Wall's yearly keynote-style summaries on the progress of Perl and its community. They are characterized by his hallmark humor, employing references to Perl's culture, the wider hacker culture, Wall's linguistic background, sometimes his family life, and occasionally even his Christian background.
Each talk is first given at various Perl conferences and is eventually also published online.
In the parlance of Perl culture, Perl programmers are known as Perl hackers, and from this derives the practice of writing short programs to print out the phrase "Just another Perl hacker". In the spirit of the original concept, these programs are moderately obfuscated and short enough to fit into the signature of an email or Usenet message. The "canonical" JAPH as developed by Schwartz includes the comma at the end, although this is often omitted.
In subsequent years, the term "code golf" has been applied to the pastime in other languages. A Perl Golf Apocalypse was held at Perl Conference 4.0 in Monterey, California in July 2000.
There are a number of IRC channels that offer support for the language and some modules.
There are also many examples of code written purely for entertainment on the CPAN. codice_10, for example, allows writing programs in Latin. Upon execution of such a program, the module translates its source code into regular Perl and runs it.
The Perl community has set aside the "Acme" namespace for modules that are fun in nature (but its scope has widened to include exploratory or experimental code or any other module that is not meant to ever be used in production). Some of the Acme modules are deliberately implemented in amusing ways. This includes codice_11, one of the first modules in the codice_12 namespace, which allows the program's source code to be "whitened" (i.e., all characters replaced with whitespace) and yet still work.
In older versions of Perl, one would write the Hello World program as:
print "Hello, World!\n";
Here is a more complex Perl program, that counts down the seconds up to a given threshold:
use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Handle;
my ( $remaining, $total );
$remaining = $total = shift(@ARGV);
STDOUT->autoflush(1);
while ( $remaining ) {
print "\n";
The perl interpreter can also be used for one-off scripts on the command line. The following example (as invoked from an sh-compatible shell, such as Bash) translates the string "Bob" in all files ending with .txt in the current directory to "Robert":
$ perl -i.bak -lp -e 's/Bob/Robert/g' *.txt
Perl has been referred to as "line noise" by some programmers who claim its syntax makes it a write-only language. The earliest such mention was in the first edition of the book "Learning Perl", a Perl 4 tutorial book written by Randal L. Schwartz, in the first chapter of which he states: "Yes, sometimes Perl looks like line noise to the uninitiated, but to the seasoned Perl programmer, it looks like checksummed line noise with a mission in life." He also stated that the accusation that Perl is a write-only language could be avoided by coding with "proper care". The Perl overview document "perlintro" states that the names of built-in "magic" scalar variables "look like punctuation or line noise". However, the English module provides both long and short English alternatives. "perlstyle" document states that line noise in regular expressions could be mitigated using the codice_13 modifier to add whitespace.
According to the "Perl 6 FAQ", Perl 6 was designed to mitigate "the usual suspects" that elicit the "line noise" claim from Perl 5 critics, including the removal of "the majority of the punctuation variables" and the sanitization of the regex syntax. The "Perl 6 FAQ" also states that what is sometimes referred to as Perl's line noise is "the actual syntax of the language" just as gerunds and prepositions are a part of the English language. In a December 2012 blog posting, despite claiming that "Rakudo Perl 6 has failed and will continue to fail unless it gets some adult supervision", chromatic stated that the design of Perl 6 has a "well-defined grammar" as well as an "improved type system, a unified object system with an intelligent metamodel, metaoperators, and a clearer system of context that provides for such niceties as pervasive laziness". He also stated that "Perl 6 has a coherence and a consistency that Perl 5 lacks." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23939 |
Proto-Human language
The Proto-Human language (also Proto-Sapiens, Proto-World) is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all the world's languages.
The concept is speculative and not amenable to analysis in historical linguistics. It presupposes a monogenetic origin of language, i.e. the derivation of all natural languages from a single origin, presumably at some point of the Middle Paleolithic. As the predecessor of all "extant" languages, it would not necessarily be ancestral to a hypothetical Neanderthal language.
There is no generally accepted term for this concept. Most treatments of the subject do not include a name for the language under consideration (e.g. Bengtson and Ruhlen). The terms "Proto-World" and "Proto-Human" are in occasional use. Merritt Ruhlen has been using the term "Proto-Sapiens".
The first serious scientific attempt to establish the reality of monogenesis was that of Alfredo Trombetti, in his book "L'unità d'origine del linguaggio", published in 1905. Trombetti estimated that the common ancestor of existing languages had been spoken between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago .
Monogenesis was dismissed by many linguists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the doctrine of the polygenesis of the human races and their languages was widely popular.
The best-known supporter of monogenesis in America in the mid-20th century was Morris Swadesh. He pioneered two important methods for investigating deep relationships between languages, lexicostatistics and glottochronology.
In the second half of the 20th century, Joseph Greenberg produced a series of large-scale classifications of the world's languages. These were and are controversial but widely discussed. Although Greenberg did not produce an explicit argument for monogenesis, all of his classification work was geared toward this end. As he stated: "The ultimate goal is a comprehensive classification of what is very likely a single language family."
Notable American advocates of linguistic monogenesis include Merritt Ruhlen, John Bengtson, and Harold Fleming.
The first concrete attempt to estimate the date of the hypothetical ancestor language was that of Alfredo Trombetti, who concluded it was spoken between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, or close to the first emergence of "Homo sapiens".
It is uncertain or disputed whether the earliest members of "Homo sapiens" had fully developed language. Some scholars link the emergence of language proper (out of a proto-linguistic stage that may have lasted considerably longer) to the development of behavioral modernity towards the end of the Middle Paleolithic or at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, roughly 50,000 years ago.
Thus, in the opinion of Richard Klein, the ability to produce complex speech only developed some 50,000 years ago (with the appearance of modern humans or Cro-Magnons).
Johanna Nichols (1998) argued that vocal languages must have begun diversifying in our species at least 100,000 years ago.
In a 2012 study, an estimate on the time of the first emergence of human language was based on
phonemic diversity. This is based on the assumption that phonemic diversity evolves much more slowly than grammar or vocabulary, slowly increasing over time (but reduced among small founding populations).
The largest phoneme inventories are found among African languages, while the smallest inventories are found in South America and Oceania, some of the last regions of the globe to be colonized.
The authors used data from the colonization of Southeast Asia to estimate the rate of increase in phonemic diversity.
Applying this rate to African languages, they arrived at an estimated age of 150,000 to 350,000 years, compatible with the emergence and early dispersal of "H. sapiens".
The validity of this approach has been criticized as flawed.
Speculation as to "characteristics" of Proto-World is limited to linguistic typology, i.e. the identification of universal features shared by all human languages, such as grammar (in the sense of "fixed or preferred sequences of linguistic elements"), and recursion ("clauses [or phrases] embedded in other clauses [or phrases]"), but that beyond this nothing can be known of it (Campbell and Poser 2008:391).
Christopher Ehret has hypothesized that Proto-Human had a very complex consonant system, including clicks.
A few linguists, such as Merritt Ruhlen, have suggested the application of mass comparison and internal reconstruction (cf. Babaev 2008). A number of linguists have attempted to reconstruct the language, while many others reject this as fringe science.
According to Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen (2011), the ancestral language would have had a basic order of Subject (S) - Object (O) - Verb (V) or SOV.
Ruhlen tentatively traces a number of words back to the ancestral language, based on the occurrence of similar sound-and-meaning forms in languages across the globe. Bengtson and Ruhlen identify 27 "global etymologies". The following table lists a selection of these forms:
Based on these correspondences, Ruhlen lists these roots for the ancestor language:
In a 2011 paper, Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen argued that the ancestral language had subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. The reason for thinking so is that in the world's natural language families, it is typical for the original language to have an SOV word order, and languages that evolve from it sometimes deviate. Their proposal develops an earlier one made by Talmy Givón (1979:271–309).
Languages with SOV word order have a strong tendency to have other word orders in common, such as:
For example, instead of saying "The man goes to the wide river", as in English, Ruhlen's Proto-Human speakers would have said "Man wide river to goes". However, half of all current languages have SOV order, and historically languages cycle between word orders, so finding evidence of this order in the reconstructions of many families may reflect no more than this general tendency, rather than reflecting a common ancestral form.
Many linguists reject the methods used to determine these forms. Several areas of criticism are raised with the methods Ruhlen and Gell-Mann employ. The essential basis of these criticisms is that the words being compared do not show common ancestry; the reasons for this vary. One is onomatopoeia: for example, the suggested root for 'smell' listed above, *"čuna", may simply be a result of many languages employing an onomatopoeic word that sounds like sniffing, snuffling, or smelling. Another is the taboo quality of certain words. Lyle Campbell points out that many established proto-languages do not contain an equivalent word for *"putV" 'vulva' because of how often such taboo words are replaced in the lexicon, and notes that it "strains credibility to imagine" that a proto-World form of such a word would survive in many languages.
Using the criteria that Bengtson and Ruhlen employ to find cognates to their proposed roots, Lyle Campbell finds seven possible matches to their root for woman *"kuna" in Spanish, including "cónyuge" 'wife, spouse', "chica" 'girl', and "cana" 'old woman (adjective)'. He then goes on to show how what Bengtson and Ruhlen would identify as reflexes of *"kuna" cannot possibly be related to a proto-World word for woman. "Cónyuge", for example, comes from the Latin root meaning 'to join', so its origin had nothing to do with the word 'woman'; "chica" is a feminine adjective coming from a Latin noun meaning 'worthless object'; "cana" comes from the Latin word for 'white', and again shows a history unrelated to the word 'woman' (Campbell and Poser 2008:370–372). Campbell's assertion is that these types of problems are endemic to the methods used by Ruhlen and others.
There are some linguists who question the very possibility of tracing language elements so far back into the past. Campbell notes that given the time elapsed since the origin of human language, every word from that time would have been replaced or changed beyond recognition in all languages today. Campbell harshly criticizes efforts to reconstruct a Proto-human language, saying "the search for global etymologies is at best a hopeless waste of time, at worst an embarrassment to linguistics as a discipline, unfortunately confusing and misleading to those who might look to linguistics for understanding in this area." (Campbell and Poser 2008:393) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23940 |
Palestinian Christians
Palestinian Christians () are Christian citizens of the State of Palestine. In the wider definition of Palestinian Christians, including the Palestinian refugees, diaspora and people with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry this can be applied to an estimated 500,000 people worldwide as of 2000. Palestinian Christians belong to one of a number of Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Catholicism (Eastern and Western rites), Anglicanism, Lutheranism, other branches of Protestantism and others. They number 20% of the 13 million Palestinians. 70% live outside Palestine and Israel. In both the local dialect of Palestinian Arabic and in Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, Christians are called "Nasrani" (the Arabic word Nazarene) or "Masihi" (a derivative of Arabic word "Masih", meaning "Messiah"). Hebrew-speakers call them "Notzri" (also spelt "Notsri"), which means Nazarene (originated from Nazareth).
, Palestinian Christians comprise approximately 1–2.5% of the population of the West Bank, and less than 1% in the Gaza Strip. According to official British Mandatory estimates, Palestine's Christian population in 1922 constituted 9.5% of the total Mandatory Palestine population (10.8% of the Palestinian Arab population), and 7.9% in 1946.
A large number of Arab Christians fled or were expelled from the Jewish-controlled areas of Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and a small number left during the period (1948–1967) of Jordanian control of the West Bank for economic reasons. From 1967, during the Israeli military rule, the Palestinian Christian population has increased in excess of the continued emigration.
There are also many Palestinian Christians who are descendants of Palestinian refugees from the post-1948 era who fled to Christian-majority countries and formed large diasporan Christian communities. Worldwide, there are nearly one million Palestinian Christians in these territories as well as in the Palestinian diaspora, comprising around 6–7% of the world's total Palestinian population. Palestinian Christians live primarily in Arab states surrounding historic Palestine and in the diaspora, particularly in Europe and the Americas.
In the 1922 census of Palestine there were approximately 73,000 Christian Palestinians: 46% Orthodox, 40% Catholic (20% Roman Catholic, and 20% Eastern Catholic (Uniate).
The census recorded over 200 localities with a Christian population. The totals by denomination for all of Mandatory Palestine were: Greek Orthodox 33,369, Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) 813, Roman Catholic 14,245, Greek Catholic (Melkite) 11,191, Syriac Catholic 323, Armenian Catholic 271, Maronite 2,382, Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian) 2,939, Coptic Church 297, Abyssinian Church 85, Church of England 4,553, Presbyterian Church 361, Protestants 826, Lutheran Church 437, Templars Community 724, others 208.
In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip. Of the total Christian population of 154,000 in Israel, about 80% are designated as Arabs, many of whom self-identify as Palestinian. The majority (56%) of Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian diaspora.
Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, one of the 15 churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. This community has also been known as the Arab Orthodox Christians. There are also Maronites, Melkite-Eastern Catholics, Jacobites, Chaldeans, Roman Catholics (locally known as Latins), Syriac Catholics, Orthodox Copts, Catholic Copts, Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholic, Quakers (Society of Friends), Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans (Episcopal), Lutherans, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Nazarene, Assemblies of God, Baptists and other Protestants; in addition to small groups of Jehovah's Witnesses, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.
The Patriarch Theophilos III is the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem since 2005. He replaced Irenaios (in office from 2001), who was deposed by the church synod after a term surrounded by controversy and scandal given that he sold Palestinian property to Israeli Orthodox Jews. The Israel government initially refused to recognize Theophilos's appointment but finally granted full recognition in December 2007, despite a legal challenge by his predecessor Irenaios.. Archbishop Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia the highest ranking Palestinian clergyman in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the leader of the Roman Catholics in Jerusalem, Palestine, Jordan, Israel and Cyprus. The office is vacant since the 2016 resignation of Patriarch Fouad Twal, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa acting as apostolic administrator. George Bacouni, of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, is Archbishop of Akka, with jurisdiction over Haifa, Acre and the Galilee, and replaced Elias Chacour, a Palestinian refugee, in 2014. Moussa El-Hage, of the Maronite Church, is since 2012 simultaneously Archbishop of the Archeparchy of Haifa and the Holy Land and Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem and Palestine.
The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem is Suheil Dawani, who replaced Bishop Riah Abou Al Assal. Bishop Dr. Munib Younan is the president of the Lutheran World Federation and the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL).
The first Christian communities in Roman Judea were Aramaic speaking Messianic Jews and Latin and Greek-speaking Romans and Greeks, who were in part descendants from previous settlers of the regions, such as Syro-Phoenicians, Arameans, Greeks, Persians, and Arabs such as Nabataeans.
Contrary to other groups of oriental Christians such as the largely Assyrian Nestorians, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians went under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Roman emperors after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD (which would be part of the Orthodox Church after the Great Schism), and were known by other Syrian Christians as Melkites (followers of the king). The Melkites were heavily Hellenised in the following centuries, abandoning their distinct Western Aramaic languages in favour of Greek. By the 7th century, Jerusalem and Byzantine Palestine became the epicentre of Greek culture in the Orient.
Soon after the Muslim conquests, the Melkites began abandoning Greek for Arabic, a process which made them the most Arabicised Christians in the Levant.
Most Palestinian Christians nowadays see themselves as culturally and linguistically Arab Christians with ancestors dating back to the first followers of Christ. They claim descent from Romans, Ghassanid Arabs, Byzantines, and Crusaders. The region consisting mainly of modern Israel and the State of Palestine is considered to be the Holy Land by Christians. Major Christian holy cities such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem are located in Israel and the State of Palestine.
That Christian Arabs in Palestine see themselves as Arab nationalistically reflects also the fact that, as of the beginning of the twentieth century, they shared many of the same customs as their Muslim neighbors. In some respects, this was a consequence of Christians adopting what were essentially Islamic practices, many of which were derived of "sharî'ah". In others, it was more the case that the customs shared by both Muslims and Christians derived from neither faith, but rather were a result of a process of syncretization, whereby what had once been pagan practices were later redefined as Christian and subsequently adopted by Muslims. This was especially evident in the fact that Palestine's Muslims and Christians shared many of the same feast days, in honor of the same saints, even if they referred to them by different names. "Shrines dedicated to St. George, for instance, were transformed into shrines honoring Khidr-Ilyas, a conflation of the Prophet Elijah and the mythical sprite Khidr.” Added to this, many Muslims viewed local Christian churches as saints’ shrines. Thus, for instance, a “Muslim women having difficulties conceiving, for instance, might travel to Bethlehem to pray for a child before the Virgin Mary.” It was even not uncommon for a Muslim to have his child baptized in a Christian church, in the name of Khaḍr.
The category of 'Palestinian Arab Christian' came to assume a political dimension in the 19th century as international interest grew and foreign institutions were developed there. The urban elite began to undertake the construction of a modern multi-religious Arab civil society. When the British received from the League of Nations a mandate to administer Palestine after World War I, many British dignitaries in London were surprised to discover so many Christian leaders in the Palestinian Arab political movements. The British authorities in the Mandate of Palestine had difficulty understanding the commitment of the Palestinian Christians to Palestinian nationalism.
Palestinian Christian owned Falastin was founded in 1911 in the then Arab-majority city of Jaffa. The newspaper is often described as one of the most influential newspapers in historic Palestine, and probably the nation's fiercest and most consistent critic of the Zionist movement. It helped shape Palestinian identity and nationalism and was shut down several times by the Ottoman and British authorities, most of the time due to complaints made by Zionists.
The Nakba left the multi-denominational Christian Arab communities in disarray. They had little background in theology, their work being predominantly pastoral, and their immediate task was to assist the thousands of homeless refugees. But it also sowed the seeds for the development of a Liberation Theology among Palestinian Arab Christians. There was a differential policy of expulsion. More lenience was applied to the Christians of the Galilee where expulsion mostly affected Muslims: at Tarshiha, Me'eliya, Dayr al-Qassi, and Salaban, Christians were allowed to remain while Muslims were driven out. At Iqrit and Bir'im the IDF ordered Christians to evacuate for a brief spell, an order that was then confirmed as a permanent expulsion. Sometimes In a mixed Druze-Christian village like al-Rama, only the Christians were initially expelled towards Lebanon, but, thanks to the intervention of the local Druze were permitted to return. Important Christian figures were sometimes allowed to return, on condition they help Israel among their communities. Archbishop Hakim, with many hundreds of Christians, was allowed reentry on expressing a willingness to campaign against Communists in Israel and among his flock.
After the war of 1948, the Christian population in the West Bank, under Jordanian control, dropped slightly, largely due to economic problems. This contrasts with the process occurring in Israel where Christians left "en masse" after 1948. Constituting 21% of Israel's Arab population in 1950, they now make up just 9% of that group. These trends accelerated after the 1967 war in the aftermath of Israel's takeover of the West Bank and Gaza.
Christians within the Palestinian Authority constituted around one in seventy-five residents. In 2009, Reuters reported that 47,000–50,000 Christians remained in the West Bank, with around 17,000 following the various Catholic traditions and most of the rest following the Orthodox church and other eastern denominations. Both Bethlehem and Nazareth, which were once overwhelmingly Christian, now have Muslim majorities. Today about three-quarters of all Bethlehem Christians live abroad, and more Jerusalem Christians live in Sydney, Australia than in Jerusalem. Christians now comprise 2.5 percent of the population of Jerusalem. Those remaining include a few born in the Old City when Christians there constituted a majority.
In a 2007 letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush, Hyde stated that "the Christian community is being crushed in the mill of the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community".
There have been reports of attacks on Palestinian Christians in Gaza from Muslim extremist groups. Gaza Pastor Manuel Musallam has voiced doubts that those attacks were religiously motivated. The Palestinian President, Prime Minister, Hamas and many other political and religious leaders condemned such attacks.
Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Custodian of the Holy Land, a senior Catholic spokesman, has stated that police inaction and an educational culture that encourages Jewish children to treat Christians with "contempt" has made life increasingly "intolerable" for many Christians. Fr Pizzaballa's statement came after pro-settler extremists attacked a Trappist monastery in the town of Latroun, setting fire to its door, and covering walls with anti-Christian graffiti. The incident followed a series of acts of arson and vandalism, in 2012, targeting places of Christian worship, including Jerusalem's 11th century Monastery of the Cross, where slogans such as "Death to Christians" and other offensive graffiti were daubed on its walls. According to an article in the Telegraph, Christian leaders feel that the most important issue that Israel has failed to address is the practice of some ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools to teach children that it is a religious obligation to abuse anyone in Holy Orders they encounter in public, such that Ultra-Orthodox Jews, including children as young as eight, spit at members of the clergy on a daily basis.
After Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam in September 2006, five churches not affiliated with either Catholicism or the Pope—among them an Anglican and an Orthodox church—were firebombed and shot at in the West Bank and Gaza. A Muslim extremist group called "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility. Former Palestinian Prime Minister and current Hamas leader Ismail Haniya condemned the attacks, and police presence was elevated in Bethlehem, which has a sizable Christian community.
Armenians in Jerusalem, identified as Palestinian Christians or Israeli-Armenians, have also been attacked and received threats from Jewish extremists; Christians and clergy have been spat at, and one Armenian Archbishop was beaten and his centuries old cross broken. In September 2009, two Armenian Christian clergy were expelled after a brawl erupted with a Jewish extremist for spitting on holy Christian objects.
In February 2009, a group of Christian activists within the West Bank wrote an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to postpone his scheduled trip to Israel unless the government changed its treatment. They highlighted improved access to places of worship and ending the taxation of church properties as key concerns. The Pope began his five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Sunday, 10 May, planning to express support for the region's Christians. In response to Palestinian public statements, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor criticized the political polarization of the papal visit, remarking that "[i]t will serve the cause of peace much better if this visit is taken for what it is, a pilgrimage, a visit for the cause of peace and unity".
In November 2009, Berlanty Azzam, a Palestinian Christian student from Gaza, was expelled from Bethlehem and was not allowed to continue her studying. She had two months left for the completion of her degree. Berlanty Azzam said the Israeli military handcuffed her, blindfolded her, and left her waiting for hours at a checkpoint on her way back from a job interview in Ramallah. She described the incident as "frightening" and claimed Israeli official treated her like a criminal and denied her an education because she is a Palestinian Christian from Gaza.
In April 2014, IDF began to send enlistment notices to Christian Arab youths of military age, informing them of the possibility of joining the military. During 2013, enlistment from the Christian population has been on the rise, with 84 new recruits between July and December that year. As of December 2013 there were approximately 140 Christians serving in the IDF, with another 400 in the reserves. Father Gabriel Naddaf from Nazareth, who established the Forum for Christian Enlistment to the IDF and one of the most active advocates of Christian-Arab enlistment, welcomed the step and said he was certain it would help increase the numbers of Christian youth volunteering for service. See also Christianity in Israel§Sons of the New Testament Party.
In July 2014, during operation Protective Edge an Israeli-Arab Christian demonstration was held in Haifa in a protest against Muslim extremism in the Middle East (concerning the rise of the Islamic State) and in support of Israel and the IDF.
Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Statistically, Christian Arabs in Israel have the highest rates of educational attainment among all religious communities, according to a data by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2010, 63% of Israeli Christian Arabs have had college or postgraduate education, the highest of any religious and ethno-religious group. Despite the fact that Arab Christians only represent 2.1% of the total Israeli population, in 2014 they accounted for 17.0% of the country's university students, and for 14.4% of its college students. There are more Christians who have attained a bachelor's degree or higher academic degrees than the median Israeli population. Also Christian Arabs have one of the highest rates of success in the matriculation examinations, (73.9%) in 2017 both in comparison to the Muslims and the Druze and in comparison to all students in the Jewish education system as a group. Arab Christians were also the vanguard in terms of eligibility for higher education, and they have attained a bachelor's degree and academic degree more than the median Israeli population. Christians schools in Israel went on strike in 2015 at the beginning of the 2015 academic year in protest at budget cuts aimed at them. The strike affected 33,000 pupils, 40 percent of them Muslim. In 2013, Israel covered 65% of the budget of Palestinian Christian schools in Israel, a figure cut that year to 34%. Christians say they now received a third of what Jewish schools receive, with a shortfall of $53 million.
The rate of students studying in the field of medicine was also higher among the Christian Arab students, compared with all the students from other sectors. The percentage of Arab Christian women who are higher education students is higher than other sectors.
In September 2014, Israel's interior minister signed an order that the Aramean Christian minority in Israel could register as Arameans rather than Arabs. The order will affect about 200 families.
The mayors of Ramallah, Birzeit, Bethlehem, Zababdeh, Jifna, Ein 'Arik, Aboud, Taybeh, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour are Christians. The Governor of Tubas, Marwan Tubassi, is a Christian. The former Palestinian representative to the United States, Afif Saffieh, is a Christian, as is the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in France, Hind Khoury. The Palestinian women's soccer team has a majority of Muslim girls, but the captain, Honey Thaljieh, is a Christian from Bethlehem. Many of the Palestinian officials such as ministers, advisers, ambassadors, consulates, heads of missions, PLC, PNA, PLO, Fateh leaders and others are Christians. Some Christians were part of the affluent segments of Palestinian society that left the country during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In West Jerusalem, over 50% of Christian Palestinians lost their homes to the Israelis, according to the historian Sami Hadawi.
Though numbering only a few hundred, there is a community of Christians who have converted from Islam. They are not centered in one particular city and mostly belong to various evangelical and charismatic communities. Due to the fact that official conversion from Islam to Christianity is illegal in accordance with Islamic sharia law in Palestine, these individuals tend to keep a low profile.
The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center is a Christian non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem; was founded in 1990 as an outgrowth of a conference regarding "Palestinian Liberation Theology." According to its web site, "Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. Inspired by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, this liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them toward social action. Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. The word "Sabeel" is Arabic for ‘the way‘ and also a ‘channel‘ or ‘spring‘ of life-giving water."
Sabeel has been criticized for its belief that "Israel is solely culpable for the origin and continuation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict," and for using "anti-Semitic deicide imagery against Israel, and of disparaging Judaism as 'tribal,' 'primitive,' and 'exclusionary,' in contrast to Christianity’s 'universalism' and 'inclusiveness.'" In addition, Daniel Fink, writing on behalf of NGO Monitor, shows that Sabeel leader Naim Ateek has described Zionism as a “step backward in the development of Judaism,” and Zionists as “oppressors and war makers.”
In December 2009, a number of prominent Palestinian Christian activists, both clergy and lay people, released the Kairos Palestine document, "A moment of truth." Among the authors of the document are Michel Sabbah, former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Attalah Hanna, Father Jamal Khader, Rev. Mitri Raheb, Rev. Naim Ateek and Rifat Kassis who is the coordinator and chief spokesperson of the group.
The document declares the Israeli occupation of Palestine a "sin against God" and against humanity. It calls on churches and Christians all over the world to consider it and adopt it and to call for the boycott of Israel. Section 7 calls for "the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel." It states that isolation of Israel will cause pressure on Israel to abolish all of what it labels as "apartheid laws" that discriminate against Palestinians and non-Jews.
The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) was founded in 1999 by an ecumenical group of American Christians to preserve the Christian presence in the Holy Land. HCEF stated goal is to attempt to continue the presence and well-being of Arab Christians in the Holy Land and to develop the bonds of solidarity between them and Christians elsewhere. HCEF offers material assistance to Palestinian Christians and to churches in the area. HCEF advocates for solidarity on the part of Western Christians with Christians in the Holy Land.
There are around 1,300 Christians in the Gaza Strip and the number of Christians is steadily declining. Gaza's Christian community mostly lives within the city, especially in areas neighbouring the three main churches: Church of Saint Porphyrius, The Holy Family Catholic Parish in Zeitoun Street, and the Gaza Baptist Church, in addition to an Anglican chapel in the Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Arab Evangelical Hospital. Saint Porphyrius is an Orthodox Church that dates back to the 12th century. Gaza Baptist Church is the city's only Evangelical Church; it lies close to the Legislative Council (parliamentary building). Christians in Gaza freely practice their religion. They also may observe all the religious holidays in accordance with the Christian calendars followed by their churches.
Those among them working as civil servants in the government and in the private sector are given an official holiday during the week, which some devote to communal prayer in churches. Christians are permitted to obtain any job, in addition to having their full rights and duties as their Muslim counterparts in accordance with the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the regime, and all the systems prevailing over the territories. Moreover, seats have been allocated to Christian citizens in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in accordance with a quota system that allocates based on a significant Christian presence.
A census revealed that 40 percent of the Christian community worked in the medical, educational, engineering and law sectors. Additionally, the churches in Gaza are renowned for the relief and educational services that they offer, and Muslim citizens participate in these services. Palestinian citizens as a whole benefit from these services. The Latin Patriarchate School, for example, offers relief in the form of medication and social and educational services. The school has been offering services for nearly 150 years.
In 1974, the idea of establishing a new school was proposed by Father Jalil Awad, a former parish priest in Gaza who recognized the need to expand the Latin Patriarchate School and build a new complex. In 2011, the Holy family school had 1,250 students and the Roman Catholic primary school, which is an extension of the Latin Patriarchate School, continues to enroll a rising number of young students. The primary school was established approximately 20 years ago. Aside from education, other services are offered to Muslims and Christians alike with no discrimination. Services include women's groups, students' groups and youth groups, such as those offered at the Baptist Church on weekdays. As of 2013, only 113 out of 968 of these Christian schools students were in fact Christians.
In October 2007, Rami Ayyad, the Baptist manager of The Teacher's Bookshop, the only Christian bookstore in the Gaza Strip, was murdered, following the firebombing of his bookstore and the receipt of death threats from Muslim extremists.
In addition to neighboring countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, many Palestinian Christians emigrated to countries in Latin America (notably Argentina and Chile), as well as to Australia, the United States and Canada. The Palestinian Authority is unable to keep exact tallies. The share of Christians in the population has also decreased due to the fact that Muslim Palestinians generally have much higher birth rates than the Christians.
The causes of this Christian exodus are hotly debated, with various possibilities put forth. Many of the Palestinian Christians in the diaspora are those who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war and their descendants. After discussion between Yosef Weitz and Moshe Sharett, Ben-Gurion authorized a project for the transference of the Christian communities of the Galilee to Argentina, but the proposal failed in the face of Christian opposition. Reuters has reported that the emigrants since then have left in pursuit of better living standards.
The BBC has also blamed the economic decline in the Palestinian Authority as well as pressure from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the exodus. A report on Bethlehem residents stated both Christians and Muslims wished to leave but the Christians possessed better contacts with people abroad and higher levels of education. The Vatican and the Catholic Church blamed the Israeli occupation and the conflict in the Holy Land for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land and the Middle East in general.
"The Jerusalem Post" (an Israeli newspaper) has stated that the "shrinking of the Palestinian Christian community in the Holy Land came as a direct result of its middle-class standards" and that Muslim pressure has not played a major role according to Christian residents themselves. It reported that the Christians have a public image of elitism and of class privilege as well as of non-violence and of open personalities, which leaves them more vulnerable to criminals than Muslims. Hanna Siniora, a prominent Christian Palestinian human rights activist, has attributed harassment against Christians to "little groups" of "hoodlums" rather than to the Hamas and Fatah governments. In his last novel, the Palestinian Christian writer Emile Habibi has a character affirm that:
"There is no difference between Christian and Muslim: we are all Palestinian in our predicament."
According to a report in "The Independent", thousands of Christian Palestinians "emigrated to Latin America in the 1920s, when Mandatory Palestine was hit by drought and a severe economic depression."
Today, Chile houses the largest Palestinian Christian community in the world outside of the Levant. As many as 350,000 Palestinian Christians reside in Chile, most of whom came from Beit Jala, Bethlehem, and Beit Sahur. Also, El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries have significant Palestinian Christian communities, some of whom immigrated almost a century ago during the time of Ottoman Palestine. During the 2008 Gaza War, Palestinian Christians in Chile demonstrated against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. They were hoping to move the government into altering its relations with Israel.
In a 2006 poll of Christians in Bethlehem by the Palestinian Centre for Research and Cultural Dialogue, 90% reported having Muslim friends, 73% agreed that the Palestinian Authority treats Christian heritage in the city with respect, and 78% attributed the ongoing exodus of Christians from Bethlehem to the Israeli occupation and travel restrictions on the area. Daniel Rossing, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs' chief liaison to Christians in the 1970s and 1980s, has stated that the situations for them in Gaza became much worse after the election of Hamas. He also stated that the Palestinian Authority, which counts on Christian westerners for financial support, treats the minority fairly. He blamed the Israeli West Bank barrier as the primary problem for the Christians.
The United States State Department's 2006 report on religious freedom criticized both Israel for its restrictions on travel to Christian holy sites and the Palestinian Authority for its failure to stamp out anti-Christian crime. It also reported that the former gives preferential treatment in basic civic services to Jews and the latter does so to Muslims. The report stated that, generally, ordinary Muslim and Christian citizens enjoy good relations in contrast to the "strained" Jewish and Arab relations. A 2005 BBC report also described Muslim and Christian relations as "peaceful".
The Arab Human Rights Association, an Arab NGO in Israel, has stated that Israeli authorities have denied Palestinian Christians in Israel access to holy places, prevented repairs needed to preserve historic holy sites, and carried out physical attacks on religious leaders.
Multiple factors, the internal dislocation of Palestinians in wars; the creation of three contiguous refugee camps for those displaced; emigration of Muslims from Hebron; hindrances to development under Israeli military occupation with its land confiscations, and a lax and corrupt judicial system under the PNA that is often incapable of enforcing laws, have all contributed to Christian emigration, which has been a tradition since the British Mandate period.
This has been contested, as the main cause of Christian emigration from Bethlehem, Kairos Palestine—an independent coalition Christian organisation, set up to help communicate to the Christian world what is happening in Palestine—sent a letter to "The Wall Street Journal" to explain that "In the case of Bethlehem, for instance, it is in fact the rampant construction of Israeli settlements, the chokehold imposed by the separation wall and the Israeli government's confiscation of Palestinian land that has driven many Christians to leave," the unprinted letter, quoted in "Haaretz", states. "At present, a mere 13 percent of Bethlehem-area land is left to its Palestinian inhabitants".
Christian families are the largest landowners in Bethlehem and have often been subject to theft of property. Bethlehem's core of traditional Christian and Muslim families speak of the rise of a 'foreign', more conservative, Islamic Hebronite class as changing the traditional regional identity of the town, as are the villages dominated by the Ta'amre Bedouin clans close to Bethlehem. Rising Muslim land purchase, said at times to be Saudi-financed, and incidents of land theft with forged documents, except in Beit Sahour where Christian and Muslims share a strong sense of local identity, are seen by Christians as making their demographic presence vulnerable. Christians are often described as of Yamani descent (as are some Muslim clans), vs the al-Qaysi Muslim clans, respectively from southern and northern Arabia. Christians are wary of the international media and of discussing these issues publicly, which involve criticism of fellow Palestinians, since there is a risk that their remarks may be manipulated by outsiders to undermine Palestinian claims to nationhood, distract attention from the crippling impact of Israel's occupation, and conjure up an image of a Muslim drive to oust Christians from Bethlehem.
The Christian Broadcasting Network (an American Protestant organization) claimed that Palestinian Christians suffer systematic discrimination and persecution at the hands of the predominantly Muslim population and Palestinian government aimed at driving their population out of their homeland. However, Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem and Beit Jala have claimed otherwise that it is the loss of agricultural land and expropriation from the Israeli military, the persecution of 1948 and violence from the military occupation that has led to a flight and major exodus of Christians.
On 26 September 2015, the Mar Charbel monastery in Bethlehem was set on fire, resulting in the burning of many rooms and damaging various parts of the building.
In September 2016, the Jerusalem-based Center for Jewish–Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC) established "Blessing Bethlehem", a charity fundraising initiative with the purpose of helping the persecuted Christians living in the city of Bethlehem and its surrounding areas. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23949 |
Pope Marinus II
Pope Marinus II (died May 946) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 30 October 942 to his death. He has also been mistakenly called Martinus. He ruled during the "Saeculum obscurum".
Marinus was born in Rome, and prior to becoming pope he was attached to the Church of Saint Cyriacus in the Baths of Diocletian. He was said to have encountered Ulrich of Augsburg on his visit to Rome in 909, and reportedly predicted Ulrich's eventual appointment as bishop of Augsburg.
Marinus was elevated to the papacy on 30 October 942 through intervention of Alberic II of Spoleto. This period is known as "Saeculum obscurum" due to the power of Alberic and his relatives over the popes. Marinus concentrated on administrative aspects of the papacy, and sought to reform both the secular and regular clergy. He extended the appointment of Archbishop Frederick of Mainz as papal vicar and missus dominicus throughout Germany and Francia. Marinus later intervened when the bishop of Capua seized without authorization a church which had been given to the local Benedictine monks. In fact, throughout his pontificate, Marinus favoured various monasteries, issuing a number of bulls in their favour.
Marinus occupied the palace built by Pope John VII atop the Palatine Hill in the ruins of the "Domus Gaiana". He died in May 946 and was succeeded by Agapetus II.
Because of the similarity of the names Marinus and Martinus, Marinus I and Marinus II were, in some sources, mistakenly called Martinus II and Martinus III. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23957 |
Pope Marcellus I
Pope Marcellus I (6 January 255 – 16 January 309) was the bishop of Rome from May or June 308 to his death. He succeeded Marcellinus after a considerable interval. Under Maxentius, he was banished from Rome in 309, on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. His relics are under the altar of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. His third-class feast day is kept on January 16.
For some time after the death of Marcellinus in 304, the Diocletian persecution continued with unabated severity. After the abdication of Diocletian in 305, and the accession in Rome of Maxentius to the throne of the Caesars in October of the following year, the Christians of the capital again enjoyed comparative peace. Nevertheless, nearly two years passed before a new bishop of Rome was elected. Then in 308, according to the "Catalogus Liberianus", Marcellus first entered on his office: "He was bishop in the time of Maxentius, from the 4th consulship of Maxentius when Maximus was his colleague, until after the consulship." At Rome, Marcellus found the Church in the greatest confusion. The meeting-places and some of the burial-places of the faithful had been confiscated, and the ordinary life and activity of the Church was interrupted. Added to this were the dissensions within the Church itself, caused by the large number of weaker members who had fallen away during the long period of active persecution and later, under the leadership of an apostate, violently demanded that they should be readmitted to communion without doing penance.
According to the "Liber Pontificalis", Marcellus divided the territorial administration of the Church into twenty-five districts (tituli), appointing over each a presbyter, who saw to the preparation of the catechumens for baptism and directed the performance of public penances. The presbyter was also made responsible for the burial of the dead and for the celebrations commemorating the deaths of the martyrs. The pope also had a new burial-place, the Cœmeterium Novellœ on the Via Salaria (opposite the Catacomb of St. Priscilla), laid out. The "Liber Pontificalis" says: "He established a cemetery on the Via Salaria, and he appointed 25 parish churches as dioceses in the city of Rome to provide baptism and penance for the many who were converted among the pagans and burial for the martyrs." At the beginning of the 7th century, there were probably twenty-five titular churches in Rome; even granting that, perhaps, the compiler of the "Liber Pontificalis" referred this number to the time of Marcellus, there is still a clear historical tradition in support of his declaration that the ecclesiastical administration in Rome was reorganized by this pope after the great persecution.
The work of the pope was, however, quickly interrupted by the controversies to which the question of the readmittance of the lapsi into the Church gave rise. As to this, we gather some light from the poetic tribute composed by Pope Damasus I in memory of his predecessor and placed over his grave (De Rossi, "Inscr. christ. urbis Romæ", II, 62, 103, 138; cf. Idem, "Roma sotterranea", II, 204–5). Damasus relates that Marcellus was looked upon as a wicked enemy by all the lapsed, because he insisted that they should perform the prescribed penance for their guilt. As a result, serious conflicts arose, some of which ended in bloodshed, and every bond of peace was broken. At the head of this band of dissenters was an apostate who had denied the Faith even before the outbreak of persecution. The tyrannical Maxentius had the pope seized and sent into exile. This took place at the end of 308 or the beginning of 309 according to the passages cited above from the "Catalogus Liberianus", which gives the length of the pontificate as no more than one year, six (or seven) months, and twenty days. Marcellus died shortly after leaving Rome, and was venerated as a saint.
His feast day was 16 January, according to the "Depositio episcoporum" of the Chronography of 354 and every other Roman authority. Nevertheless, it is not known whether this is the date of his death or that of the burial of his remains, after these had been brought back from the unknown quarter to which he had been exiled. He was buried in the catacomb of St. Priscilla where his grave is mentioned by the itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs as existing in the basilica of St. Silvester (De Rossi, "Roma sotterranea", I, 176).
A 5th-century "Passio Marcelli", which is included in the legendary account of the martyrdom of St. Cyriacus (cf. Acta Sanct., Jan., II, 10-14) and is followed by the "Liber Pontificalis", gives a different account of the end of Marcellus. According to this version, the pope was required by Maxentius, who was enraged at his reorganization of the Church, to lay aside his episcopal dignity and make an offering to the gods. On his refusal, he was condemned to work as a slave at a station on the public highway (catabulum). At the end of nine months he was set free by the clergy; but a matron named Lucina having had her house on the Via Lata consecrated by him as "titulus Marcelli" he was again condemned to the work of attending to the horses brought into the station, in which menial occupation he died.
All this is probably legendary, the reference to the restoration of ecclesiastical activity by Marcellus alone having an historical basis. The tradition related in the verses of Damasus seems much more worthy of belief. The feast of St. Marcellus, whose name is to this day borne by the church at Rome mentioned in the above legend, is still celebrated on January 16. There still remains to be mentioned Mommsen's peculiar view that Marcellus was not really a bishop, but a simple Roman presbyter to whom was committed the ecclesiastical administration during the latter part of the period of vacancy of the papal chair. According to this view, 16 January was really the date of Marcellus' death, the next occupant of the chair being Eusebius (Neues Archiv, 1896, XXI, 350–3). This hypothesis has, however, found no support. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23958 |
Pope Marcellus II
Pope Marcellus II (6 May 1501 – 1 May 1555), born Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 April 1555 until his death 22 days later on 1 May 1555.
He succeeded Pope Julius III. Before his accession as pope he had been Cardinal-Priest of "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme". He is the most recent pope to choose to retain his birth name as his regnal name upon his accession, as well as only the second and most recent pope to date to take the name "Marcellus" upon being elected. After his death, it would be 423 years before another pope would choose a name with an ordinal number less than IV (John Paul I).
Cervini was the maternal uncle of Robert Bellarmine. Cervini's father and Pope Clement VII were personal friends. Cervini served in the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. When Farnese became Pope, Cervini served as his secretary and was employed on some diplomatic missions. On 10 April, 1555, he was elected to succeed Pope Julius III. He died of a stroke twenty-two days later.
A native of Montefano, a small village near Macerata and Loreto he was the son of Ricardo Cervini who was the Apostolic Treasurer in Ancona. The family originated in Tuscany, in the town of Montepulciano, which had once been subject to Siena, but later was under the control of Florence. Marcello had two half-brothers, Alexander and Romulus. One of his sisters, Cinzia Cervini, married Vincenzo Bellarmino, and was the mother of Roberto Bellarmine.
Marcello was educated locally, and at Siena and Florence, where he became proficient in writing Latin, Greek, and Italian. He also received instruction in jurisprudence, philosophy, and mathematics. His father had an interest in astrology and upon discovering that his son's horoscope presaged high ecclesiastical honours, Riccardo set the young Cervini on a path to the priesthood.
After his period of study at Siena, Cervini traveled to Rome in the company of the Delegation sent by Florence to congratulate the new Pope on his election. His father and Pope Clement VII were personal friends, and Marcello was made "Scrittore Apostolico". He was set to work on astronomical and calendar studies, a project which was intended to bring the year back into synchronization with the seasons. In 1527, he fled home after the Sack of Rome, but eventually returned and was taken into the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese "senior". Cervini was ordained a priest in 1535.
In 1534, after Farnese had become pope Pope Paul III, Cervini was appointed a papal secretary (1534–49) and served as a close advisor to the pope's nephew Alessandro Farnese. He was made a papal Protonotarius. He travelled in the suite of the Pope during the papal visit to Nice, where Paul III was promoting a truce between François I and Charles V. He then accompanied the young Cardinal Farnese on a trip to Spain, France and the Spanish Netherlands to help implement the terms of the truce. Paul III later appointed him bishop of Nicastro, Italy in 1539. Cervini was not, however, consecrated bishop until the day he himself was elected pope. While he was still on the embassy to the Netherlands, Paul III created him the Cardinal-Priest of "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme" on 19 December 1539.
When, almost immediately after, Cardinal Farnese was recalled to Rome, Cervini stayed on as Nuntius. Over the course of next decade Cervini also became the apostolic administrator of the dioceses of Reggio and Gubbio. His house in Rome became a center of Renaissance culture, and he himself corresponded with most of the leading humanists
During the Council of Trent he was elected one of the council's three presidents, along with fellow cardinals Reginald Pole and Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (the future Pope Julius III). He continued to serve in that role throughout the remainder of Paul III's papacy after which he was replaced to placate the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519–56). He was credited not only with defending orthodoxy and Church discipline, but also the universal claims of the Papacy in spiritual and temporal affairs, and with such vigor that the Emperor was affronted. In 1548 (or 1550) he was granted the supervision of the Vatican Library, with the title of "Protettore della Biblioteca Apostolica".
The Apostolic Brief of his appointment, however, came from the new pope, Julius III, on 24 May 1550, and he was named not Vatican Librarian, but "Bibliothecarius Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae" because he was the first cardinal to be in charge of the library. During his administration, he employed the services of Marcello and Sirleto, as well as Onuphrio Panvinio (who was especially consulted in matters of Christian archaeology). He added more than 500 codices to the holdings of the Library, including 143 Greek codices, as his own entry book (which still survives as "Vaticanus Latinus" 3963) testifies.
In the conclave of 1549–50 to elect a successor to Paul III, fifty-one cardinals, including Marcello Cervini, participated at the opening on 3 December 1549. The initial candidates included Cardinals Pole, Sfondrati, Carpi and Ridolfi (who died on the night of 31 January). Pole, the favorite of the Emperor Charles V, came within two votes of being elected in the first scrutinies, but he could not attract any additional votes. Juan Álvarez de Toledo (Bishop of Burgos), another Imperial favorite, was proposed, and he too failed, because of strong opposition from the faction of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, nephew of the late Pope Paul III and from the French.
On 12 December, five more French voters arrived, and though they could not advance the candidacy of their favorite, Ippolito d' Este, they did have Cardinal Cervini on their list of possible candidates. Farnese and his faction were also positively inclined toward him. Unfortunately, the Imperial faction was not. Worst of all, on 22 December, Cardinal Cervini left the Conclave, suffering from a quartan fever. Finally, on 7 February 1550, the cardinals chose Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, who took the name Julius III.
The first conclave of 1555, following the death of Julius III (1550–55), involved a struggle between French interests in Italy (which had been favored by Julius III) and Imperial interests, which were intent on Church reform through a Church council, but with the Emperor controlling the outcome. On 9 April 1555, on the evening of the fourth day of the papal conclave, Cervini was "adored" as Pope, despite efforts by cardinals loyal to the Emperor Charles V to block his election. Next morning, a formal vote was taken in the Capella Paolina, in which all of the votes cast were for Cardinal Cervini except his own, which he cast for the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, Giampietro Carafa.
The new Pope chose to retain his birth name, the most recent Pope to do so, reigning as Marcellus II. He was both ordained [consecrated] as a bishop and crowned Pope on the next day in a subdued ceremony on account of it falling during the Lenten season.
Though Marcellus II desired to reform many of the inner workings of the church, his feeble constitution succumbed to the fatigues of the conclave, the exhausting ceremonies connected with his ascension, the anxieties arising from his high office, and overexertion in his performance of the pontifical functions of the Holy Week and Easter. He quickly fell ill.
He was bled, and appeared to begin to recover. In an audience he gave to the Cardinals, who wanted him to sign the Electoral Capitulations from the conclave and to guarantee that he would make no more cardinals than those agreements allowed, he refused to sign, stating that he would show his intent by deeds not words. In his first audience with the Ambassadors of France and Spain, he warned the Ambassadors that their monarchs should keep the peace that had been agreed upon, and that if they did not, not only would they be sent Nuncios and Legates, but that the Pope himself would come and admonish them. He wrote letters to the Emperor, to Queen Mary I of England, and to Cardinal Reginald Pole (in which he confirmed Pole's Legateship in England). When the Spanish Ambassador asked for pardon for having killed a man, the Pope replied that he did not want to start his reign with such auspices as absolution from homicide, and ordered the appropriate tribunals to observe the law.
He did not want his relatives descending on Rome, nor did he want them to be enriched beyond the station of a member of the nobility, and he did not allow his two nephews, Riccardo and Herennius (sons of his half-brother Alexander), who lived in Rome under his care, to have formal visits. He instituted immediate economies in Vatican expenditures. On 28 April, he was able to receive the Duke of Urbino in audience, and on 29 April, the Duke of Ferrara. He also gave audience to four cardinals, Farnese, D'Este, Louis de Guise and Ascanio Sforza, the leaders of the French faction in the recent conclave. That night he had difficulty sleeping. On the morning of the 30th he suffered a stroke ("hora XII apoplexi correptus") and slipped into a coma. That night he died, on the 22nd day after his election.
Palestrina's "Missa Papae Marcelli" (dating from 1565 or before), one of the glories of polyphonic sacred choral music, is traditionally believed to have been composed in his memory, ca. 1562. Having reigned for just 22 calendar days, Pope Marcellus II ranks sixth on the list of 10 shortest-reigning Popes. His successor was Giampietro Carafa, Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, who reigned as Pope Paul IV (1555–59). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23959 |
Pope Miltiades
Pope Miltiades (, "Miltiádēs") or Melchiades was the bishop of Rome from 311 to his death on 10 or 11 January 314. It was during his pontificate that Emperor Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan (313), giving Christianity legal status within the Roman Empire. The pope also received the palace of Empress Fausta where the Lateran Palace, the papal seat and residence of the papal administration, would be built. At the Lateran Council, during the schism with the Church of Carthage, Miltiades condemned the rebaptism of apostatised bishops and priests, teaching of Donatus Magnus.
The year of Miltiades' birth is unknown. According to the "Liber Pontificalis", compiled from the 5th century onwards, he was of North African and a citizen of Rome where contemporary scholars believe he was born. Miltiades and his successor, Sylvester I, were part of the clergy of Pope Marcellinus. It has been suggested that he was a party to the alleged apostasy of Pope Marcellinus, which was repudiated by Augustine of Hippo. This view originated from letters, dated to between 400 and 410, written by Donatist Bishop Petilianus of Constantine, who claimed that Marcellinus, along with Miltiades and Sylvester, surrendered sacred texts and offered incense to Roman deities.
In April 311, the Edict of Toleration was issued in Serdica (modern day Sofia, Bulgaria) by the Roman emperor Galerius, officially ending the Diocletianic Persecution of Christianity.
The election of Miltiades to the papacy on 2 July 311, according to the Liberian Catalogue, marked the end of a "sede vacante", the vacancy of the papacy, following the death of Pope Eusebius on 17 August 310 or 309 according to "Liber Pontificalis" not long after his exile to Sicily by the Emperor Maxentius. After his election, Church property that was confiscated during the Diocletianic Persecution was restored by Maxentius. This order, however, probably did not extend to all of the parts of Maxentius' jurisdiction.
The "Liber Pontificalis", attributed the introduction of several later customs to Miltiades, such as not fasting on Thursdays or Sundays, although subsequent scholarship now believes the customs likely pre-dated Miltiades. Miltades prescribed the distribution of portions of the bread consecrated by the pope at all of the churches around Rome, the fermentum, as a sign of unity.
In October 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge to become emperor. He later presented the pope with the palace of Empress Fausta, where the Lateran Palace, the papal residence and seat of central Church administration, would be built.
Being the first pope under Constantine, his pontificate coincided with the peace Constantine gave to the Church. In February 313, Constantine and Licinius, emperor of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, agreed to extend tolerance of Christianity to Licinius' territory, proclaimed by the Edict of Milan. Consequently, Christians not only attained the freedom of worship, but also all places of Christian worship were restored and all confiscated property returned.
During Miltiades' tenure as pontiff, a schism over the election of Bishop Caecilianus split the Church of Carthage. The opposing parties were those of Caecilianus, who was supported by Rome, and of Donatus, mainly clergymen from North Africa who demanded that schismatics, and heretics, be re-baptised and re-ordained before taking office, the central issue dividing Donatists and Catholics. The supporters of Donatus appealed to Constantine and requested that judges from Gaul be assigned to adjudicate. Constantine agreed and commissioned Miltiades together with three Gallic bishops to resolve the dispute, the first time an emperor had interfered in church affairs. Miltiades, unwilling to jeopardise his relationship with the Emperor, but also unwilling to preside over a council with an uncertain outcome, changed the proceedings into a regular church synod and appointed an additional 15 Italian bishops.
The Lateran Council was held for three days from 2–4 October 313. The process was modeled on Roman civil proceedings, with Miltiades insisting on strict rules of evidence and argument. This frustrated the Donatists who left the council without presenting their case, which led Miltiades to rule in favour of Caecilianus by default. The council thus ended after only three sessions. The pope retained Caecilianus as bishop of Carthage and condemned Donatus' teachings of rebaptism of bishops and priests. The adverse rulings failed to stop the continuing spread of Donatism across North Africa.
The Donatists again appealed to the Emperor, who responded by convening the Council of Arles in 314 but it too ruled against the Donatists. By the time the council was convened, Miltiades had died on 10 or 11 January 314. He was succeeded by Sylvester I. He was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus at the Appian Way and venerated as a saint. Licinius, who promulgated the Edict of Milan, violated the edict in 320 by persecuting Christians, sacking them from public offices, forbidding synods and condoning executions. A civil war broke out between him and Constantine, with Constantine eventually defeating him in 324.
The feast of Miltiades in the 4th century, according to the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum", was celebrated on 10 January. In the 13th century, the feast of Saint Melchiades (as he was then called) was included, with the mistaken qualification of "martyr", in the General Roman Calendar for celebration on 10 December. In 1969, the celebration was removed from that calendar of obligatory liturgical celebrations, and moved to the day of his death, 10 January, with his name given in the form "Miltiades" but without the indication "martyr". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23960 |
Phylogenetics
In biology, phylogenetics (Greek: φυλή, φῦλον – "phylé", "phylon" = tribe, clan, race + γενετικός – "genetikós" = origin, source, birth) is a part of systematics that addresses the inference of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms (e.g. species, or more inclusive taxa). These relationships are hypothesized by phylogenetic inference methods that evaluate observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences or morphology, often under a specified model of evolution of these traits. The result of such an analysis is a phylogeny (also known as a phylogenetic tree)—a diagrammatic hypothesis of relationships that reflects the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, and represent the 'end', or the present, in an evolutionary lineage. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor, or ancestral lineage, of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does not show the origin or "root" of the taxa in question or the direction of inferred evolutionary transformations. In addition to their proper use for inferring phylogenetic patterns among taxa, phylogenetic analyses are often employed to represent relationships among gene copies or individual organisms. Such uses have become central to understanding biodiversity, evolution, ecology, and genomes.
Taxonomy is the identification, naming and classification of organisms. Classifications are now usually based on phylogenetic data, and many systematists contend that only monophyletic taxa should be recognized as named groups. The degree to which classification depends on inferred evolutionary history differs depending on the school of taxonomy: phenetics ignores phylogenetic speculation altogether, trying to represent the similarity between organisms instead; cladistics (phylogenetic systematics) tries to reflect phylogeny in its classifications by only recognizing groups based on shared, derived characters (synapomorphies); evolutionary taxonomy tries to take into account both the branching pattern and "degree of difference" to find a compromise between them.
Usual methods of phylogenetic inference involve computational approaches implementing the optimality criteria and methods of parsimony, maximum likelihood (ML), and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. All these depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed.
Phenetics, popular in the mid-20th century but now largely obsolete, used distance matrix-based methods to construct trees based on overall similarity in morphology or similar observable traits (i.e. in the phenotype or the overall similarity of DNA, not the DNA sequence), which was often assumed to approximate phylogenetic relationships.
Prior to 1950, phylogenetic inferences were generally presented as narrative scenarios. Such methods are often ambiguous and lack explicit criteria for evaluating alternative hypotheses.
The term "phylogeny" derives from the German "Phylogenie", introduced by Haeckel in 1866, and the Darwinian approach to classification became known as the "phyletic" approach.
During the late 19th century, Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory, or "biogenetic fundamental law", was widely accepted. It was often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", i.e. the development of a single organism during its lifetime, from germ to adult, successively mirrors the adult stages of successive ancestors of the species to which it belongs. But this theory has long been rejected. Instead, ontogeny evolves – the phylogenetic history of a species cannot be read directly from its ontogeny, as Haeckel thought would be possible, but characters from ontogeny can be (and have been) used as data for phylogenetic analyses; the more closely related two species are, the more apomorphies their embryos share. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23962 |
Phenetics
In biology, phenetics ( - to appear) , also known as taximetrics, is an attempt to classify organisms based on overall similarity, usually in morphology or other observable traits, regardless of their phylogeny or evolutionary relation. It is closely related to numerical taxonomy which is concerned with the use of numerical methods for taxonomic classification. Many people contributed to the development of phenetics, but the most influential were Peter Sneath and Robert R. Sokal. Their books are still primary references for this sub-discipline, although now out of print.
Phenetics has largely been superseded by cladistics for research into evolutionary relationships among species. However, certain phenetic methods, such as neighbor-joining, have found their way into phylogenetics, as a reasonable approximation of phylogeny when more advanced methods (such as Bayesian inference) are too computationally expensive.
Phenetic techniques include various forms of clustering and ordination. These are sophisticated ways of reducing the variation displayed by organisms to a manageable level. In practice this means measuring dozens of variables, and then presenting them as two- or three-dimensional graphs. Much of the technical challenge in phenetics revolves around balancing the loss of information in such a reduction against the ease of interpreting the resulting graphs.
The method can be traced back to 1763 and Michel Adanson (in his "Familles des plantes") because of two shared basic principles — overall similarity and equal weighting — and modern pheneticists are sometimes called neo-Adansonians.
Phenetic analyses are unrooted, that is, they do not distinguish between plesiomorphies, traits that are inherited from an ancestor, and apomorphies, traits that evolved anew in one or several lineages. A common problem with phenetic analysis is that basal evolutionary grades, which retain many plesiomorphies compared to more advanced lineages, appear to be monophyletic. Phenetic analyses are also liable to be misled by convergent evolution and adaptive radiation. Cladistic methods have attempted to solve those problems.
Consider for example songbirds. These can be divided into two groups – Corvida, which retains ancient characters in phenotype and genotype, and Passerida, which has more modern traits. But only the latter are a group of closest relatives; the former are numerous independent and ancient lineages which are about as distantly related to each other as each single one of them is to the Passerida. In a phenetic analysis, the large degree of overall similarity found among the Corvida will make them appear to be monophyletic too, but their shared traits were present in the ancestors of "all" songbirds already. It is the loss of these ancestral traits rather than their presence that signifies which songbirds are more closely related to each other than to other songbirds. However, the requirement that taxa be monophyletic – rather than paraphyletic as in the case of the Corvida – is itself part of the cladistic view of Taxonomy, not necessarily followed to an absolute degree by other schools.
The two methodologies are not mutually exclusive. There is no reason why, e.g., species identified using phenetics cannot subsequently be subjected to cladistic analysis, to determine their evolutionary relationships. Phenetic methods can also be superior to cladistics when only the "distinctness" of related taxa is important, as the computational requirements are lower.
The history of pheneticism and cladism as rival taxonomic systems is analysed in David Hull's 1988 book "Science as a Process".
Traditionally there was a great deal of heated debate between pheneticists and cladists, as both methods were initially proposed to resolve evolutionary relationships. Perhaps the "high-water mark" of phenetics were the DNA-DNA hybridization studies by Charles G. Sibley, Jon E. Ahlquist and Burt L. Monroe Jr., from which resulted the 1990 Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy for birds. Highly controversial at its time, some of its findings (e.g. the Galloanserae) have been vindicated, while others (e.g. the all-inclusive "Ciconiiformes" or the "Corvida") have been rejected. However, with computers growing increasingly powerful and widespread, more refined cladistic algorithms became available and could put the suggestions of Willi Hennig to the test. The results of cladistic analyses turned out to be superior to those of phenetic methods – at least when it came to resolving phylogenies.
Many systematists continue to use phenetic methods, particularly in addressing species-level questions. While a major goal of taxonomy remains describing the 'tree of life' – the evolutionary path connecting all species – in fieldwork one needs to be able to separate one taxon from another. Classifying diverse groups of closely related organisms that differ very subtly is difficult using a cladistic approach. Phenetics provides numerical tools for examining overall patterns of variation, allowing researchers to identify discrete groups that can be classified as species.
Modern applications of phenetics are common in botany, and some examples can be found in most issues of the journal "Systematic Botany". Indeed, due to the effects of horizontal gene transfer, polyploid complexes and other peculiarities of plant genomics, phenetic techniques in botany – though less informative altogether – may, in these special cases, be less prone to errors compared with cladistic analysis of DNA sequences.
In addition, many of the techniques developed by phenetic taxonomists have been adopted and extended by community ecologists, due to a similar need to deal with large amounts of data. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23963 |
PlayStation (console)
The PlayStation (officially abbreviated as PS and commonly known as the PS1 or its codename PSX) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released on 3 December 1994 in Japan, on 9 September 1995 in North America, on 29 September 1995 in Europe, and on 15 November 1995 in Australia, and was the first of the PlayStation lineup of video game consoles. As a fifth generation console, the PlayStation primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn.
The PlayStation was the first "computer entertainment platform" to ship over 100 million units, which it had reached nine years after its initial launch. In July 2000, a redesigned, slim version called the PS one was released, replacing the original grey console and named appropriately to avoid confusion with its successor, the PlayStation 2.
The PlayStation 2, which is backwards compatible with the PlayStation's DualShock controller and games, was announced in 1999 and launched in 2000. The last PS one units were sold in late 2006 to early 2007 shortly after it was officially discontinued, for a total of 102 million units shipped since its launch eleven years earlier. Games for the PlayStation continued to sell until Sony ceased production of both the PlayStation and PlayStation games on 23 March 2006 – over eleven years after it had been released, and less than a year before the debut of the PlayStation 3.
On 19 September 2018, Sony unveiled the PlayStation Classic to mark the 24th anniversary of the original console. The new console is a miniature recreation of the original PlayStation, preloaded with 20 titles released on the original console, and was released on 3 December 2018, the exact date the console was released in Japan in 1994.
The inception of what became the released PlayStation dates back to 1986 with a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo had already produced floppy disk technology to complement cartridges, in the form of the Family Computer Disk System, and wanted to continue this complementary storage strategy for the Super Famicom. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "Play Station" or "SNES-CD". A contract was signed, and work began. Nintendo's choice of someone they had worked with before, Ken Kutaragi, who was later called "The Father of the PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.
Kutaragi was nearly fired by Sony because he was originally working with Nintendo on the side without Sony's knowledge (while still employed by Sony). It was then-CEO, Norio Ohga, who recognised the potential in Kutaragi's chip, and in working with Nintendo on the project. Ohga kept Kutaragi on at Sony, and it was not until Nintendo cancelled the project that Sony decided to develop its own console.
Sony also planned to develop a Super NES-compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super NES cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CDs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.
The product, under the name "Play Station", was to be announced at the May 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realised that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo–Sony SNES CD attachment. Instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, at 9 am the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknownst to Sony, flown to Philips' global headquarters in the Netherlands and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.
After the collapse of the joint-Nintendo project, Sony briefly considered allying itself with Sega to produce a stand-alone console. The Sega CEO at the time, Tom Kalinske, took the proposal to Sega's Board of Directors in Tokyo, who promptly vetoed the idea. Kalinske, in a 2013 interview recalled them saying "that's a stupid idea, Sony doesn't know how to make hardware. They don't know how to make software either. Why would we want to do this?". This prompted Sony into halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what it had developed so far with both Nintendo and Sega to make it into a complete console based upon the Super Famicom. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in US federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of what was originally christened the "Play Station", on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the aforementioned brand new game system was revealed. However, it is theorised that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.
By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached a deal whereby the "Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. However, Sony decided in early 1993 to begin reworking the "Play Station" concept to target a new generation of hardware and software. As part of this process the SNES cartridge port was dropped and the space between the names "Play Station" was removed becoming "PlayStation", thereby ending Nintendo's involvement with the project. According to a Sony engineer, all work on the console from the time of the partnership with Nintendo was eventually scrapped, and the PlayStation design was restarted from scratch. Sony's North American division, known as Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), originally planned to market the new console under the alternative branding "PSX" following the negative feedback regarding "PlayStation" in focus group studies. Early advertising prior to the console's launch in North America referenced PSX, but the term was scrapped before launch. The console was not marketed with Sony's name in contrast to Nintendo's consoles; according to Phil Harrison, much of Sony's upper management feared that the "Sony" brand would be tarnished by connecting it with the console which they considered to be a "toy".
According to SCE's producer Ryoji Akagawa and chairman Shigeo Maruyama, there was uncertainty over whether the console should primarily focus on 2D sprite graphics or 3D polygon graphics. It was only after witnessing the success of Sega's "Virtua Fighter" in Japanese arcades that "the direction of the PlayStation became instantly clear" and 3D polygon graphics became the console's primary focus.
Since Sony had no experience in game development and the managers knew about it, the company turned to third-party game developers. With support from Namco, Konami, and Williams, as well as 250 other development teams in Japan alone, the company secured the launch of new games such as "Ridge Racer" and "Mortal Kombat 3". In addition, Sony bought the European company Psygnosis for million, and renamed it Sony Interactive Entertainment, which began developing games for the future console, including "Wipeout" and "Destruction Derby".
The purchase of Psygnosis also brought other benefits to the company, including a dedicated game development kit for the console. With the help of Psygnosis, SN Systems was publishing software development tools called PSY-Q. Initially Sony planned to use its own game development kit based on the expensive R4000 processor; however, Andy Beveridge and Martin Day, owners of SN Systems, built a prototype of the development tool, which used an ordinary personal computer, and showed it to the representatives of Sony at the winter CES in 1994. Sony executives liked the alternative, and the company helped SN Systems with condensing the development kit on two PC extension boards.
Industry hype for the console spread quickly, and in early 1994 "GamePro" reported that "many video game companies [feel] that in the near future, the video game platforms to contend with will be from Nintendo, Sega... and "Sony"." [emphasis in original].
PlayStation went on sale in Japan on 3 December 1994, a week after the release of its rival Sega Saturn, at a price of . Sales in Japan began with a "stunning" success, with long lines in stores, and it sold 100,000 units on the first day, and then two million units after six months on the market. After a while, a gray market emerged for the consoles, which were shipped from Japan to the US and Europe, and buyers of such consoles paid large amounts of money in the range of .
Before the release in North America, Sega and Sony presented their game consoles at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo conference, held in May 1995. First, Sega announced its Saturn console, and announced that it will be released at a price of . Immediately after that, Olaf Olafsson, the head of the Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), summoned Steve Race, the head of development, to the conference stage, who said "" and left the audience with a round of applause. The attention to the Sony conference was also attracted by the appearance of Michael Jackson and the showcase of games for the console: "WipEout", "Ridge Racer" and "Tekken". In addition, Sony announced that "Ridge Racer" would not be bundled with the console as previously expected.
In North America, PlayStation went on sale on 9 September 1995 at the previously announced price of . There were over 100,000 pre-orders placed and 17 games available on the market by the time of launch. The launch was a success, and the stores reportedly were running out of consoles and accessories. In Europe, PlayStation was released on 29 September 1995, and finally in November 1995 in Oceania. During the first four months – from September to the end of 1995 – sales of the console in the U.S. amounted to 800,000 units, giving the PlayStation a commanding lead over the other fifth generation consoles, though the Super NES and Sega Genesis from the fourth generation still outsold it. At the same time, according to the president of SCEA, the attach rate of sold games and consoles was 4 to 1. The console was marketed with advertising slogans such as, ""Live in your world. Play in ours"", stylised as "LIVE IN YUR WRLD. PLY IN URS". The slogan "You Are Not Ready" was also used briefly, stylised as "U R NOT " (red E). Regarding the second one, Sony's CCO Lee Clow explained that "it's the ultimate challenge. Gamers love to respond to that tag line and say 'Bullshit. Let me show you how ready I am.'"
Critics generally welcomed the new console. The staff of "Next Generation" reviewed the PlayStation a few weeks after its North American launch, where they commented that, while the CPU is "fairly average", the supplementary custom hardware, such as the GPU and sound processor, is stunningly powerful. They praised the PlayStation's focus on 3D, and complemented on the comfort of its controller and the convenience of its memory cards. Giving the system 4 out of 5 stars, they concluded, "To succeed in this extremely cut-throat market, you need a combination of great hardware, great games, and great marketing. Whether by skill, luck, or just deep pockets, Sony has scored three out of three in the first salvo of this war." In a special Game Machine Cross Review in May 1995, "Famicom Tsūshin" scored the PlayStation console a 19 out of 40.
The PlayStation was immediately successful. Lee Hutchinson of Ars Technica, a Babbage's employee in 1995, recalled how PlayStation preorders greatly outnumbered Saturn sales at his store:
Hutchinson attributed PlayStation's success to third party developers:
While Sega and Nintendo took an isolationist approach, focusing primarily on first party development while generally ignoring the concerns of third party developers, Sony streamlined game production by providing a range of online programming libraries that were constantly updated. They also organised third party technical support teams, and in some cases gave direct development support to third parties. At the close of 1996, approximately 400 games were being developed for the PlayStation, compared to approximately 200 and 60 games being developed for the Saturn and the Nintendo 64 respectively.
While the Sega Saturn was marketed towards 18 to 34-year-olds, the PlayStation was marketed roughly, but not exclusively, towards 12 to 24-year-olds. Both Sony and Sega reasoned that because younger players typically look up to older, more experienced players, advertising targeted at teens and adults would draw them in too. Additionally, Sony found that adults react best to advertising geared towards teenagers; according to Lee Clow, "One of the first things we resolved early on was that everyone is 17 when they play video games. The young people look up to the best gamer who is usually a little older and more practiced and talented. Then there are people who start working and grow up, but when they go into their room and sit down with their video games, they're regressing and becoming 17 again." Initially, PlayStation demographics were skewed towards adults, but the audience broadened after the first price drop.
In 1996, Sony expanded their CD production facilities in Springfield, Oregon, due to the high demand for PlayStation games. This increased their monthly output from 4 million discs to 6.5 million discs. This was necessary because PlayStation sales were running at twice the rate of Saturn sales, and dramatically increased their lead when both the PlayStation and Saturn dropped in price to $199 in May; this was largely because some retailers (such as KB Toys) did not stock the Saturn. The PlayStation also outsold the Saturn at a similar ratio in Europe during 1996, with an accumulated 2.2 million consoles sold in the region by the end of the year. Sales figures for PlayStation hardware and software only increased following the launch of the Nintendo 64. Sony Computer Entertainment president Teruhisa Tokunaka speculated that the Nintendo 64 launch had actually helped PlayStation sales by raising public awareness of the gaming market through Nintendo's added marketing efforts.
However, the PlayStation took longer to achieve dominance in Japan. Tokunaka stated that, even after the PlayStation and Saturn had been on the market for nearly two years, the competition between them was still "very close", and that neither console had led in sales for any meaningful length of time.
In addition to playing games, select PlayStation models are equipped to play audio CDs; further, Asian model SCPH-5903 can also play Video CDs. Like most CD players, the PlayStation can play songs in a programmed order, shuffle the playback order of the disc and repeat one song or the entire disc. Later PlayStation models utilise a music visualisation function called SoundScope. This function, as well as a memory card manager, is accessed by starting the console without either inserting a game or closing the CD tray, thereby accessing a GUI for the PlayStation BIOS.
The GUI for the PS one and PlayStation differ depending on the firmware version: the original PlayStation GUI had a dark blue background with rainbow graffiti used as buttons, while the early PAL PlayStation and PS one GUI had a grey blocked background with 2 icons in the middle (these were different on each version). If the CD lid is closed with a game inside at any time while in the menu, the game will start.
As of 30 June 2007, 7,918 software titles had been released worldwide for the PlayStation (counting games released in multiple regions as separate titles). As of 31 March 2007, the cumulative software shipment was at 962 million units. "FIFA Football 2005" was the last game released for the system in the United States. However, several reprinted and remastered editions were released in later years. On 26 July 2007, Konami released "Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection", which contained "Metal Gear Solid" in the original PlayStation format. In 2011, Capcom released the "Resident Evil 15th Anniversary Collection", and in 2012, Square Enix released the "Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box" in Japan containing all of the "Final Fantasy" titles, a majority of which were in the original PlayStation format.
Initially, in the United States, PlayStation games were packaged in long cardboard boxes, similar to non-Japanese 3DO and Saturn games. Sony later switched to the jewel case format typically used for audio CDs and Japanese video games, as this format took up less retailer shelf space (which was at a premium due to the large number of PlayStation games being released), and focus testing showed that most consumers preferred this format.
The "OK" and "Cancel" buttons in most of the Japanese PlayStation games are reversed in their North American and European releases. In Japan, the button ("maru", right) is used as OK, while the button ("batsu", wrong) is used as Cancel. North American and European releases have the button or the buttons as OK, while either the or the button are used as Cancel (some titles, like "Xenogears," use the button for cancelling actions and selections, along with the PlayStation 2 system browser and the XrossMedia Bar on the PlayStation 3 and the PSP). However, a few games, such as Square's "Vagrant Story", "Final Fantasy VII" (which uses the button as cancel) and "Final Fantasy Tactics", Namco's "Ridge Racer Type 4", and Konami's "Metal Gear Solid", use the Japanese button layout worldwide. Other games, like the Japanese version of "Gran Turismo", use controls that are similar to North American games. These Japanese button layouts also apply to future PlayStation consoles. This is because in the early years Sony America (SCEA), Sony Europe (SCEE), and Sony Japan (SCEJ) had different development and testing documents (TRCs) for their respective territories.
In regard to the PlayStation's hardware, its designer Ken Kutaragi said, "The technology came from an original idea to create a synthesizer for graphics, something that takes a basic graphic and then adds various effects to it quickly and easily." Kutaragi saw the biggest challenge in developing the system to be balancing the conflicting goals of high performance, low cost, and being easy to program for, and felt he and his team were successful in this regard: "Sure, it would have been nice to, say, double the size of the RAM memory. This would have been very easy. But ... it would have cost more at retail level, and we probably would not have sold as many. Sure, Nintendo 64 now has a faster clock speed, but the ratio of clock speed to price typically doubles every two years, so it's no surprise that it is faster. But PlayStation was the cutting-edge technology of its time, and I am happy with it."
The PlayStation utilises a proprietary video compression unit called MDEC, which is integrated into the CPU, allowing for the presentation of full motion video at a higher quality than other consoles of its generation.
Unusual for the time, the PlayStation lacks a dedicated 2D graphics processor; 2D elements are instead calculated as polygons by the Geometry Transfer Engine (GTE) so that they can be processed and displayed on screen by the GPU.
With the early PlayStation units, particularly early 1000 models, many gamers experience skipping full-motion video or physical "ticking" noises coming from their units. The problem seemingly comes from poorly placed vents leading to overheating in some environments. This causes the plastic mouldings inside the console to warp slightly and create knock-on effects with the laser assembly. The solution is to sit the console on a surface which dissipates heat efficiently in a well vented area or raise the unit up slightly from its resting surface. Sony representatives also recommended unplugging the PlayStation when it is not in use, as the system draws in a small amount of power (and therefore heat) even when turned off.
The first batch of PlayStations use a KSM-440AAM laser unit, whose case and movable parts are all built out of plastic. Over time, the plastic lens sled rail wears out—usually unevenly—due to friction. The placement of the laser unit close to the power supply accelerates wear, due to the additional heat, which makes the plastic more vulnerable to friction. Eventually, one side of the lens sled will become so worn that the laser can tilt, no longer pointing directly at the CD; after this, games will no longer load, due to data read errors. One common fix is turning the PlayStation upside down, which makes the lens sled rest on the unworn top rails. Sony eventually fixed the problem by making the sled out of die-cast metal and placing the laser unit further away from the power supply on later PlayStation models.
The PlayStation does not produce a proper signal on several older models of televisions (due to an engineering oversight) causing the display to flicker or bounce around the screen. Sony decided not to change the console design, since only a small percentage of PlayStation owners used such televisions, and instead gave consumers the option of sending their PlayStation unit to a Sony service centre to have an official modchip installed, allowing it to play on older televisions.
Prior to the PlayStation, reproducing copyrighted material for game consoles was restricted to either enthusiasts with exceptional technical ability, or people who had access to CD manufacturers. However, due to the increased availability of cheap CD burners at this time, Sony modified the shape of the first portion of the data track on PlayStation formatted discs: A normal data track follows a smooth spiral path around a disc, whereas the modified portion follows a wavy spiral path. As a result, any discs that did not contain this modification, such as CD-R copies or standard pirated discs, would not boot on the console. This modified portion of the data path is also used to encode the disc "region"; for example, a disc distributed in the NTSC-U/C region encoded the letters "SCEA", a disc in Europe encoded "SCEE", and a disc in Japan "SCEI". This served as copy protection as well as region-locking.
The installation of an unofficial modchip allowed the PlayStation to play CD-R copies of games. It also allowed the console to play games from any region, as the modchip could inject the data for any region into the system. Since there was a multitude of electronic parts on the market, by the end of the system's life cycle, anyone with minimal soldering experience could perform these modifications. This created a wave of games developed without official approval using free, official tools, such as the Net Yaroze, as well as unofficial tools, and the reproduction of original discs. With the introduction of such devices the console became very attractive to programmers and illegal copiers alike, as well as those who wished to protect the lifespan of their lawful, original discs. In 1996 Sony filed lawsuits against many companies which advertised such modchips and pirated games, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Some companies (notably Datel) eventually produced discs that booted on unmodified retail units while using special equipment.
Instead of a D-pad, which is used for directional movement in nearly every other console then on the market, the PlayStation controller uses four directional buttons.
Peripherals released for the PlayStation include memory cards, the PlayStation Mouse, the PlayStation Analog Joystick, the PlayStation Link Cable, the Multiplayer Adapter (a four-player multitap), the Memory Drive (a disk drive for 3.5-inch floppy disks), the GunCon (a light gun), and the Glasstron (a monoscopic head-mounted display).
The PlayStation went through a number of variants during its production run. From an external perspective, the most notable change between variants was the reduction in the number of connectors. The RCA jacks were removed in the first revision, and the Parallel I/O port was removed in the final revision.
Sony marketed a development kit for hobbyists and developers also known as the Net Yaroze, which launched in June 1996 in Japan and in 1997 in other countries. Sold only through an ordering service, the development console came with the necessary documentation and software to program PlayStation games and applications.
On 7 July 2000, Sony released the PS One (stylized as PS one), a smaller, redesigned version of the original PlayStation. It was the highest-selling console through the end of the year, outselling all other consoles – including Sony's own PlayStation 2. A total of 28.15 million PS one units had been sold by the time it was discontinued in March 2006.
A version of the PS one included a LCD screen, referred to as the "Combo pack".
On 19 September 2018, Sony announced the PlayStation Classic. It was released on 3 December 2018. It featured 20 pre-installed video games such as "Tekken 3", "Final Fantasy VII", "Jumping Flash", "Wild Arms" and "Ridge Racer Type 4". It also features two replicas of the wired PlayStation controllers without analog sticks. It also features an HDMI output. The maximum resolution is 720p. It is 45% smaller than the original console.
In a 1997 year-end review, a team of five "Electronic Gaming Monthly" editors gave the PlayStation scores of 9.5, 8.5, 9.0, 9.0, and 9.5 - for all five editors, the highest score they gave to any of the five consoles reviewed in the issue. They lauded the breadth and quality of the games library, saying it had vastly improved over previous years due to Sony dropping its ban on 2D games and RPGs and developers mastering the system's capabilities. They also complimented the low price point of the games, especially as compared to Nintendo 64 releases, and noted that it was the only console on the market that could be relied upon to deliver a solid stream of games for the coming year, primarily due to third party developers almost unanimously favoring it over its competitors.
Sony Computer Entertainment was an upstart in the video game industry in late 1994, as the early 1990s were dominated by Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo had been the clear leader in the video game industry since the introduction of the NES in 1985 and the Nintendo 64 was initially expected to maintain this position for Nintendo. The PlayStation's target audience included 15- to 17-year-olds who were not the primary focus of Nintendo, and 18- to 29-year-olds, who represented the first generation to grow up playing video games. By the late 1990s, Sony became a highly regarded console brand due to the PlayStation, with a significant lead over second-place Nintendo, while Sega was relegated to a distant third.
The PlayStation's lead in installed base and developer support paved the way for the success of the next-generation PlayStation 2, which overcame an early launch from the Sega Dreamcast and then fended off competition from the Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube.
The success of the PlayStation is widely believed to have influenced the demise of the cartridge-based home console. While not the first system to utilise an optical disc format, it is the first highly successful one, and ended up going head-to-head with the last major home console for over two decades to rely on proprietary cartridges—the Nintendo 64. Sony Computer Entertainment president Teruhisa Tokunaka remarked in 1996:
Nintendo was very public about its scepticism toward using CDs and DVDs to store games, citing longer load times and durability problems. It was widely speculated that the company was even more concerned with the proprietary cartridge format's ability to help enforce copy protection, given its substantial reliance on licensing and exclusive titles for its revenue. Piracy was rampant on the PlayStation due to the relative ease of the installation of a modchip allowing the PlayStation to play games region free or recorded on a regular CD-R making the console very attractive to programmers and illegal copiers.
The increasing complexity of games (in content, graphics, and sound) pushed cartridges to their storage limits and this gradually turned off some third-party developers. Part of the CD format's appeal to publishers was that they could be produced at a significantly lower cost and offered more production flexibility to meet demand. As a result, some third-party developers switched to the PlayStation, such as Squaresoft, whose "Final Fantasy VII", and Enix (later merged with Squaresoft create Square Enix), whose "Dragon Quest VII" titles were initially pre-planned for the N64; while some who remained released fewer games to the Nintendo 64 (Konami, releasing only thirteen N64 games but over fifty on the PlayStation). While new games were coming out rapidly for the PlayStation, new Nintendo 64 game releases were less frequent and that system's biggest successes were developed by either Nintendo itself or by second-parties, such as Rare. The lower production costs also allowed publishers an additional source of profit: budget-priced reissues of titles which had already recouped their development costs.
A successor, the PlayStation 2, was released in Japan in March 2000, North America in October 2000 and Europe in November 2000. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23964 |
PDP-1
The PDP-1 ("Programmed Data Processor-1") is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at MIT, BBN and elsewhere. The PDP-1 is the original hardware for playing history's first game on a minicomputer, Steve Russell's "Spacewar!"
The PDP-1 uses an 18-bit word size and has 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, though the system actually uses six-bit bytes), upgradable to 65,536 words. The magnetic core memory's cycle time is 5.35 microseconds (corresponding roughly to a "clock speed" of 187 kilohertz); consequently most arithmetic instructions take 10.7 microseconds (93,458 operations per second) because they use two memory cycles: the first to fetch the instruction, the second to fetch or store the data word. Signed numbers are represented in ones' complement. The PDP-1 has computing power roughly equivalent to a 1996 pocket organizer and a little less memory.
The PDP-1 uses 2,700 transistors and 3,000 diodes.
It is built mostly of DEC 1000-series System Building Blocks, using micro-alloy and micro-alloy diffused transistors with a rated switching speed of 5 MHz. The System Building Blocks are packaged into several 19-inch racks. The racks are themselves packaged into a single large mainframe case, with a hexagonal control panel containing switches and lights mounted to lie at table-top height at one end of the mainframe. Above the control panel is the system's standard input/output solution, a punched tape reader and writer.
The PDP-1 weighed about .
The design of the PDP-1 is based on the pioneering TX-0 and TX-2 computers, designed and built at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Benjamin Gurley was the lead engineer on the project. After showing a prototype at the Eastern Joint Computer Conference in December 1959, DEC delivered the first PDP-1 to Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) in November 1960, and it was formally accepted in early 1961. In September 1961, DEC donated the PDP-1 to MIT, where it was placed in the room next to its ancestor, the TX-0 computer, which was by then on indefinite loan from Lincoln Laboratory.
In this setting, the PDP-1 quickly replaced the TX-0 as the favorite machine among the budding hacker culture, and served as the platform for a long list of computing innovations. This list includes one of the earliest digital video games, "Spacewar!", the first text editor, the first word processor, the first interactive debugger, the first credible computer chess program, one of the very earliest time-sharing systems (BBN Time-Sharing System), and some of the earliest computerized music. At the Computer History Museum TX-0 alumni reunion in 1984, Gordon Bell said DEC's products developed directly from the TX-2, the successor to the TX-0 which had been developed at what Bell thought was a bargain price at the time, about . At the same meeting, Jack Dennis said Ben Gurley's design for the PDP-1 was influenced by his work on the TX-0 display.
The PDP-1 sold in basic form for . BBN's system was quickly followed by orders from Lawrence Livermore and Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL), and eventually 53 PDP-1s were delivered until production ended in 1969. All of these machines were still being actively used in 1970, and several were eventually saved. MIT's example was donated to The Computer Museum, Boston, and from there ended up at the Computer History Museum (CHM). A late version of "Spacewar!" on paper tape was still tucked into the case. PDP-1 #44 was found in a barn in Wichita, Kansas in 1988, apparently formerly owned by one of the many aviation companies in the area, and rescued for the Digital Historical Collection, also eventually ending up at the CHM. AECL's computer was sent to Science North, but was later scrapped.
The launch of the PDP-1 marked a radical shift in the philosophy of computer design: it is the first commercial computer that focuses on interaction with the user rather than just the efficient use of computer cycles.
The first ever reference to malicious hacking is 'telephone hackers' in MIT's student newspaper, "The Tech" of hackers trying up the lines with Harvard, configuring the PDP-1 to make free calls, war dialing and accumulating large phone bills.
The PDP-1 uses punched paper tape as its primary storage medium. Unlike punched card decks, which could be sorted and re-ordered, paper tape is difficult to physically edit. This inspired the creation of text-editing programs such as Expensive Typewriter and TECO. Because it is equipped with online and offline printers that were based on IBM electric typewriter mechanisms, it is capable of what, in 1980s terminology, would be called "letter-quality printing" and therefore inspired TJ-2, arguably the first word processor.
The console typewriter is the product of a company named Soroban Engineering. It uses an IBM Model B Electric typewriter mechanism, modified by the addition of switches to detect keypresses, and solenoids to activate the typebars. It uses a traditional typebar mechanism, not the "golfball" IBM Selectric typewriter mechanism, which was not introduced until the next year. Lettercase is selected by raising and lowering the massive type basket. The Soroban is equipped with a two-color inked ribbon (red and black), and the interface allows color selection. Programs commonly use color-coding to distinguish user input from machine responses. The Soroban mechanism is unreliable and prone to jamming, particularly when shifting case or changing ribbon color.
Offline devices are typically Friden Flexowriters that have been specially built to operate with the FIO-DEC character coding used by the PDP-1. Like the console typewriter, these are built around a typing mechanism that is mechanically the same as an IBM Electric typewriter. However, Flexowriters are highly reliable and were often used for long unattended printing sessions. Flexowriters have electromechanical paper tape punches and readers which operate synchronously with the typewriter mechanism. Typing rates are about ten characters per second. A typical PDP-1 operating procedure is to output text to punched paper tape using the PDP-1's "high speed" (60-character-per-second) Teletype model BRPE punch, then to hand carry the tape to a Flexowriter for offline printing.
In later years, DECtape drives were added to some PDP-1 systems, as a more convenient method of backing up programs and data, and to enable early time-sharing. This latter application usually requires a secondary storage medium for swapping programs and data in and out of core memory, without requiring manual intervention. For this purpose, DECtapes are far superior to paper tapes, in terms of reliability, durability, and speed. Early hard disks were expensive and notoriously unreliable; if available and working, they are used primarily for speed of swapping, and not for permanent file storage.
The Type 30 Precision CRT display is a point plotting display device capable of addressing 1024 by 1024 addressable locations at a rate of 20,000 points per second. A special "Display One Point On CRT" instruction is used to build up images, which have to be refreshed many times per second. The CRT, which was originally developed for use in radar, is in diameter and uses a long-persistence P7 phosphor. A light pen can be used with the Type 30 to pick points on the display. An optional character generator and hardware for line and curve generation are available.
MIT hackers also used the PDP-1 for playing music in four-part harmony, using some special hardware – four flip-flops directly controlled by the processor (the audio signal is filtered with simple RC filters). Music was prepared via Peter Samson's "Harmony Compiler", a sophisticated text-based program with some features specifically oriented toward the efficient coding of baroque music. Several hours of music were prepared for it, including Bach fugues, all of Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", the "Ode to Joy" movement concluding Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9", Christmas carols, and numerous popular songs.
Only three PDP-1 computers are still known to exist, and all three are in the collection of the Computer History Museum (CHM). One is the prototype formerly used at MIT, and the other two are production PDP-1C machines. One of the latter, serial number 55 (the last PDP-1 made) has been restored to working order, is on exhibit, and is demonstrated on two Saturdays every month. The restoration is described on a special web page of the Computer History Museum. The demonstrations include:
Software simulations of the PDP-1 exist in SIMH and MESS, and binary image paper tapes of the software exist in the bitsavers.org archives. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23965 |
PCR (disambiguation)
PCR, or polymerase chain reaction is a biochemical technology in molecular biology.
PCR may also refer to: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23968 |
Pilus
A pilus (Latin for 'hair'; plural: "pili") is a hair-like appendage found on the surface of many bacteria and archaea. The terms "pilus" and "fimbria" (Latin for 'fringe'; plural: "fimbriae") can be used interchangeably, although some researchers reserve the term "pilus" for the appendage required for bacterial conjugation. All pili in the latter sense are primarily composed of pilin proteins, which are oligomeric.
Dozens of these structures can exist on the bacterial and archaeal surface. Some bacteria, viruses or bacteriophages attach to receptors on pili at the start of their reproductive cycle.
Pili are antigenic. They are also fragile and constantly replaced, sometimes with pili of different composition, resulting in altered antigenicity. Specific host responses to old pili structure are not effective on the new structure. Recombination genes of pili code for variable (V) and constant (C) regions of the pili (similar to immunoglobulin diversity). As the primary antigenic determinants, virulence factors and impunity factors on the cell surface of a number of species of Gram negative and some Gram positive bacteria, including "Enterboacteriaceae", "Pseudomonadaceae", and "Neisseriaceae", there has been much interest in the study of pili as organelle of adhesion and as vaccine components. The first detailed study of pili was done by Brinton and co-workers who demonstrated the existence of two distinct phases within one bacterial strain: piloted (p+) and non-pileated)
Conjugative pili allow for the transfer of DNA between bacteria, in the process of bacterial conjugation. They are sometimes called "sex pili", in analogy to sexual reproduction, because they allow for the exchange of genes via the formation of "mating pairs". Perhaps the most well-studied is the pilus of "Escherichia coli", encoded by the fertility F sex factor.
A pili is typically 6 to 7 nm in diameter. During conjugation, a pilus emerging from the donor bacterium ensnares the recipient bacterium, draws it in close, and eventually triggers the formation of a mating bridge, which establishes direct contact and the formation of a controlled pore that allows transfer of DNA from the donor to the recipient. Typically, the DNA transferred consists of the genes required to make and transfer pili (often encoded on a plasmid), and so is a kind of selfish DNA; however, other pieces of DNA are often co-transferred and this can result in dissemination of genetic traits throughout a bacterial population, such as antibiotic resistance. Not all bacteria can make conjugative pili, but conjugation can occur between bacteria of different species.
Some pili, called type IV pili (T4P), generate motile forces. The external ends of the pili adhere to a solid substrate, either the surface to which the bacterium is attached or to other bacteria. Then, when the pili contract, they pull the bacterium forward like a grappling hook. Movement produced by type IV pili is typically jerky, so it is called twitching motility, as opposed to other forms of bacterial motility such as that produced by flagella. However, some bacteria, for example "Myxococcus xanthus", exhibit gliding motility. Bacterial type IV pili are similar in structure to the component flagellins of archaella (archaeal flagella). Besides archaella, many archaea produce adhesive type 4 pili, which enable archaeal cells to adhere to different substrates. The N-terminal alpha-helical portions of the archaeal type 4 pilins and archaellins are homologous to the corresponding regions of bacterial T4P; however, the C-terminal beta-strand-rich domains appear to be unrelated in bacterial and archaeal pilins.
Genetic transformation is the process by which a recipient bacterial cell takes up DNA from a neighboring cell and integrates this DNA into its genome by homologous recombination. In "Neisseria meningitidis" (also called meningococcus), DNA transformation requires the presence of short DNA uptake sequences (DUSs) which are 9-10 monomers residing in coding regions of the donor DNA. Specific recognition of DUSs is mediated by a type IV pilin. Menningococcal type IV pili bind DNA through the minor pilin ComP via an electropositive stripe that is predicted to be exposed on the filament's surface. ComP displays an exquisite binding preference for selective DUSs. The distribution of DUSs within the "N. meningitides" genome favors certain genes, suggesting that there is a bias for genes involved in genomic maintenance and repair.
To initiate formation of a biofilm, fimbriae must attach bacteria to host surfaces for colonization during infection. A fimbria is a short pilus that is used to attach the bacterium to a surface. They are sometimes called "attachment pili". Fimbriae are either located at the poles of a cell or are evenly spread over its entire surface. Mutant bacteria that lack fimbriae cannot adhere to their usual target surfaces, and thus cannot cause diseases.
Some fimbriae can contain lectins. The lectins are necessary to adhere to target cells because they can recognize oligosaccharide units on the surface of these target cells. Other fimbriae bind to components of the extracellular matrix. Fimbriae found in Gram-negative have the pilin subunits covalently linked.
Some aerobic bacteria form a thin layer at the surface of a broth culture. This layer, called a pellicle, consists of many aerobic bacteria that adhere to the surface by their fimbriae or "attachment pili". Thus, fimbriae allow the aerobic bacteria to remain on the broth, from which they take nutrients, while they congregate near the air.
Pili are responsible for virulence in the pathogenic strains of many bacteria, including "E. coli", "Vibrio cholerae", and many strains of "Streptococcus". This is because the presence of pili greatly enhances bacteria's ability to bind to body tissues, which then increases replication rates and ability to interact with the host organism. If a species of bacteria has multiple strains but only some are pathogenic, it is likely that the pathogenic strains will have pili while the nonpathogenic strains won't.
The development of attachment pili may then result in the development of further virulence traits. Nonpathogenic strains of "V. cholerae" first evolved pili, allowing them to bind to human tissues and form microcolonies. These pili then served as binding sites for the lysogenic bacteriophage that carries the disease-causing toxin. The gene for this toxin, once incorporated into the bacterium's genome, is expressed when the gene coding for the pilus is expressed (hence the name "toxin mediated pilus"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23971 |
Porsche 928
The Porsche 928 is a luxury grand tourer produced by Porsche AG of Germany from 1978 to 1995. Originally intended to replace the company's iconic 911, the 928 combined the power, poise, and handling of a sports car with the refinement, comfort, and equipment of a luxury sedan. Porsche executives believed such a flagship would have wider appeal than the compact, quirky and sometimes difficult to drive 911.
The 928 has the distinction of being the company's first production V8 powered model and its only coupé powered by a front-mounted V8 engine.
By the late 1960s Porsche had firmly established itself as a manufacturer of high-performance sports cars. Executives, including owner Ferdinand Porsche, were beginning to consider adding a luxury touring car to the line-up due to the need of a car using less fuel and being more usable in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis. Managing director Ernst Fuhrmann was pressuring Ferdinand to approve development of the new model due to concerns that the then-current flagship model, the 911, was reaching the limits of its potential. Fuhrmann believed that the future of the company relied upon grand touring cars with conventional engines rather than unconventional sports cars. Slumping sales of the 911 in the mid-1970s seemed to confirm that the model was approaching the end of its economic life cycle. Fuhrmann envisioned the new range-topping grand tourer model as being the best possible combination of a sports coupé and a luxury sedan. This would set it apart from the 911, with its relatively spartan interior and true sports car performance. The targets were that the car had to compete on par with offerings from Mercedes-Benz and BMW while also being successful in the United States, Porsche's main market at the time.
Ordered by Ferdinand Porsche to design a production-feasible concept for the new model, Fuhrmann initiated a design study in 1971, eventually yielding the 928 which was the first clean sheet design by the company for its own model; the 356 had evolved from the Volkswagen Beetle, the 911 was an evolution of the 356 and the 924 was the result of an abandoned project by Volkswagen and Audi.
Several drivetrain layouts were considered during early development, including rear and mid-engine designs, but most were dismissed because of technical and legislative difficulties. Having the engine, transmission, catalytic converter(s) and exhaust all cramped into a small rear engine bay made emission and noise control difficult which were the problems Porsche had with the 911. After deciding that the mid-engine layout did not allow enough room in the passenger compartment, a front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout was chosen. Porsche may have feared that the U.S. government would soon ban the sale of rear-engine cars in response to concern over safety problems with the rear-engine Chevrolet Corvair.
Porsche engineers wanted a large-displacement engine to power the 928, and prototype units were built with a 5-litre V8 engine rated at nearly . Ferdinand Piëch wanted this car to use a 4.6-litre 90 degree V10 engine with 88 mm bore spacing, a derivative of the Audi 5 cylinder engine, which in turn is based upon the Volkswagen EA827 unit. The Porsche board objected as this move would give rise to a rumour of a new 911 with a front-mounted six cylinder engine, but also it is theorized that the board wanted to maintain some distance from the Volkswagen group.
The resulting all-alloy M28 engine has multiple unusual features. Its bore spacing is 122 mm, and uses thick aluminium cylinder barrels, hence the lower displacement. The engine was designed for air flow first, thus the spark plugs are located at the top of the head. The four-bolt bearings are sizeable and are fed oil via grooves in the bottom surface of the block. The oil and water pumps are driven by the timing belt, and the design of the engine allows for sufficient air flow with a low bonnet.
The first two running prototypes of Porsche's M28 V8 used one four-barrel carburetor for initial testing. The cars were sold with the planned Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system. When increasing concern within the company over price and availability of fuel during the oil crisis of the 1970s became an issue of contention, smaller engines were considered in the interest of fuel economy. A push began for the development of a 3.3 L powerplant envisioned by Fuhrmann, but company engineers balked at this suggestion. Both sides finally settled on a 4.5 L, SOHC per bank 16-valve V8 rated at ( in North America), which they considered to have an acceptable compromise of performance and fuel economy.
The finished car debuted at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show before going on sale later that year as a 1978 model. Although it won early acclaim for its comfort, power and futuristic design, sales were slow. Base prices were much higher than that of the previous range-topping 911 model and the 928's front-engined, water-cooled design alienated many Porsche purists.
Fuhrmann's replacement, Peter Schutz, decided that the models should be sold side by side, feeling that the 911 still had potential in the company's line-up. Legislation against rear-engined vehicles did not materialize. Although it never sold in the numbers Fuhrmann envisioned, the 928 developed an avid following and had an 18-year production run.
The 928 featured a large, front-mounted and water-cooled V8 engine driving the rear wheels. Originally displacing 4.5 L and featuring a single overhead camshaft design, it was rated at for the North American market and in other markets. Porsche upgraded the engine from mechanical to electronic fuel injection in 1980 for US models, although power remained the same. This design marked a major change in direction for Porsche (started with the introduction of the 924 in 1976), whose cars had until then used only rear- or mid-mounted air-cooled flat engines with four or six cylinders.
Porsche utilised a transaxle in the 928 to help achieve 50/50 front/rear weight distribution, aiding the car's balance. Although it weighed more than the difficult-to-handle 911, its more neutral weight balance and higher power output gave it similar performance on the track. The 928 was regarded as the more relaxing car to drive at the time. It came with either a five-speed dog leg manual transmission, or a Mercedes-Benz-derived automatic transmission, originally with three speeds, with four-speed from 1983 in North America and 1984 in other markets. More than 80% of the cars had the automatic transmission. Exact percentage of manual gearbox cars for entire production run is not known but it is believed to be between 15 and 20%.
The body, styled by Wolfgang Möbius under guidance of Anatole Lapine, was mainly galvanized steel, but the doors, front wing, front fenders, and hood were made of aluminium in order to make the car more lightweight. It had a substantial luggage area accessed via a large hatchback. The new polyurethane elastic bumpers were integrated into the nose and tail and covered in body-coloured plastic; an unusual feature for the time that aided the car visually and reduced its drag. Another unusual feature were the pop-up headlamps which were based on the units found on the Lamborghini Miura and were integrated into the front wings.
The 928 qualified as a 2+2, having two small seats in the rear. Both rear seats could be folded down to enlarge the luggage area, and both the front and rear seats had sun visors for occupants. The rear seats are small (due to the prominent transmission hump) and have very little leg room; they are only suitable for adults on very short trips or children. The 928 was also the first vehicle in which the instrument cluster moved along with the adjustable steering wheel in order to maintain maximum instrument visibility.
The 928 included several other features such as the "Weissach Axle", a simple rear-wheel steering system that provides passive rear-wheel steering to increase stability while braking during a turn, and an unsleeved, silicon alloy engine block made of aluminium, which reduced weight and provided a highly durable cylinder bore.
Porsche's design and development efforts paid off during the 1978 European Car of the Year, where the 928 won ahead of the BMW 7 Series, and the Ford Granada. The 928 is the only sports car so far to have won this competition, where the usual winners are mainstream hatchbacks and sedans/saloons from major European manufacturers. This is regarded as proof of how advanced the 928 was, compared to its contemporaries.
Styling was the same in both 1978 and 1979, with the body lacking both front and rear spoilers. From 1980 (1983 in North America) through 1986, front and rear spoilers were present on "S" models, rear spoilers being integrated into the hatch. From 1987 through 1995, the front spoiler was integrated into the nose and the rear spoiler became a separated wing rather than an integrated piece, and side skirts were added. The rear tail-light configuration was also different from previous models. GTS models had wider rear fenders added to give more room for 9-inch wide wheels. Another easily noticeable visual difference between versions is the style of the wheels. Early 928s had 15-inch or 16-inch "phone dial"-style wheels, while most 1980s 928s had 16-inch slotted "flat disc" wheels, CSs, SEs and 1989 GTs had 16-inch "Club Sport" wheels, later GTs had 16-inch "Design 90" style wheels which were also option on same period S4s (shared with the 944 as well), the GTS used two variations of the 17-inch "CUP" wheels.
Porsche introduced a refreshed 928 S into the European market in 1980 model year, although it was summer of 1982 and MY 1983 before the model reached North America. Externally, the S wore new front and rear spoilers and sported wider wheels and tires than the older variant, but the main change for the 928 S was under the hood, where a revised 4.7 L engine was used. European versions debuted with , and were upgraded to for the 1984 model year. From 1984 to 1986, the S model was called S2 in United Kingdom. These cars used Bosch LH-Jetronic fuel injection system and purely electronic Bosch ignition, the same systems used on the later 32-valve cars, though without the pollution controls. North American-spec 1983 and 1984 S models used among other differences, smaller valves, milder camshafts, smaller diameter intake manifolds, and additional pollution equipment in order to meet emissions regulations, and were limited to as a result. Due to low grade fuel, the 16-valve low compression S engine was made for Australian market in the 1985 model year. It had a 9.3:1 compression ratio pistons as opposed to the normal 10.4:1 but used the same large intake, high lift cams, large valves etc. of other S engines.
As the faster European model was not available in the United States and Canada during the first three years of its existence, a "Competition Group" option was created to allow North American customers to have an S model lookalike with front and rear spoilers, 16-inch flat disc wheels, sport seats, sport springs and Bilstein Shock Absorbers. Customers could specify paint and interior colours the same way as on a normal 928. Two cars were made in the late 1980 model year for U.S. with this option. The package was officially available in 1981 and 1982 model years and was canceled in 1983 when the S model became available for these markets. Many cars have had S model features added by subsequent owners, making original "Competition Group" cars difficult to distinguish without checking option codes.
In the 1982 model year, two special models were available for different markets. 202 "Weissach Edition" cars were sold in North America. Unusual features were champagne gold metallic paint, matching brushed gold flat disc wheels, two-tone leather interior, a plaque containing the production number on the dash and the extremely collectible three-piece Porsche luggage set. It's believed these cars were not made with S spoilers even though these were available in U.S. during this time period as part of the "Competition Group" option. The "Weissach Edition" option was also available for the US market 911 for the 1980 model year and 924 for the 1981 model year.
141 special "50th Jubilee" 928 S models were available outside the U.S. and Canada to celebrate the company's 50-year existence as a car manufacturer. This model is also sometimes referred to as the "Ferry Porsche Edition" because his signature was embroidered into the front seats. It featured meteor metallic paint and was fitted with flat disc wheels, wine red leather and special striped fabric seat centers. Similar 911 and 924 specials were also made for world markets.
Porsche updated the North American 928 S for 1985, replacing the 4.7 L SOHC engine with a new 5.0 L DOHC unit sporting four valves per cylinder and producing . Seats were also updated to a new style, these cars are sometimes unofficially called S3 to distinguish them from 16-valve "S" models. European models kept a 4.7 L engine, which was somewhat more powerful as standard, though lower 9.3:1 compression 32-valve engine together with catalytic converters became an option in some European countries and Australia for 1986. In 1986, revised suspension settings, larger brakes with 4-piston callipers and modified exhaust system was available on the 928S, marking the final changes to old body style cars. These were straight from the 928S4, which was slated to debut a few months later. These changes came starting from VIN 1001, which means that the first thousand 1986 cars had the old brakes, but later cars had this equipment available. This later 1986 model is sometimes referred to as a 1986 or 1986.5 because of these changes. The name is a little misleading as more than 3/4 of the 1986 production had these updates.
The 928 S4 variant debuted in the second half of 1986 as a 1987 model, an updated version of the 5.0 L V8 for all markets producing , sporting a new single-disc clutch in manual transmission cars, larger torque converter in cars equipped with automatic transmission cars and fairly significant styling updates which gave the car a cleaner, sleeker look. S4 was much closer to being a truly world car than previous models as only major differences for North American models were instrumentation in either kilometers or miles, lighting, front and rear bumper shocks and the availability of catalytic converters in many other markets. The Australian market version was the only one with different horsepower rating at due to preparation for possible low grade fuel. Even this was achieved without engine changes.
A Club Sport variant which was up to lighter became available to continental Europe and U.S. in 1988. This model was the toned down version of the 1987 factory prototype which had a lightened body. Also in 1987, the factory made five white lightweight S4 models with a manual transmission for racecar drivers who were on their payroll at the time (Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Hans Stuck, Bob Wollek and Jacky Ickx). These were close to same as later actual Club Sport models and can also be considered prototypes for it. An SE (sometimes called the S4 Sport due to model designation on rear bumper), a sort of halfway point between a normally equipped S4 and the more race-oriented Club Sport, became available for the UK market. It's generally believed that these cars have more power than the usual S4. They utilize parts which later became known as GT pistons, cams and engine ECU programs. Some of them had stronger, short ratio manual transmission. The automatic transmission was not available for this model.
For the 1989 model year, a visible change inside was digital trip computer in the dashboard. At the same time Australian models received the same engine management setup as other markets. Porsche debuted the 928 GT in the late winter 1988/89 after dropping the slow-selling CS and SE. In terms of equipment, the GT was like the 928 SE, having more equipment than a Club Sport model but less than a 928 S4 to keep the weight down somewhat. It had the ZF 40% limited-slip differential as standard like the Club Sport and SE before it. Also, like the CS and SE, the GT was only available with a manual gearbox. European 1989 CS and GT wheels had an RDK tire pressure monitoring system as standard, which was also optional for the same year S4. For 1990 model year Porsche made RDK and a 0-100% variable ratio limited-slip called PSD (Porsche Sperr Differential) standard in both GT and S4 models for all markets. This system is much like the one from the flagship 959 and gives the vehicle even more grip on the track. In 1990, the S4 was no longer available with a manual transmission.
The S4 and GT variants halted production at the end of the 1991 model year, making way for the final version of the 928. The 928 GTS was available for sale in late 1991 as a 1992 model in Europe and in spring of 1992 as an early 1993 model in North America. Changed bodywork, larger front brakes and a new, more powerful 5.4 L, 350 PS (257 kW/345 hp) engine were the big advertised changes; what Porsche wasn't advertising was the price. Loaded GTS models could eclipse US$100,000 in 1995, making them among the most expensive cars on the road at the time. This severely hampered sales despite the model's high competency and long standard equipment list. Porsche discontinued the GTS model that year after shipping only 77 of them to the United States. Total worldwide production for all years was a little over 61,000 cars.
Second-hand models' value decreased as a result of high maintenance costs due to spare parts that are expensive to manufacture. Many parts suppliers and enthusiast networks exist, especially in the United States, Germany and the UK.
Road & Track magazine published a speculative piece in their April 2006 issue regarding the possibility of a new, 928-esque coupé that may debut on a shortened version of the Panamera's platform sometime around 2011 or 2012 model year but this speculation remained uncredible as Porsche denied the possibility of any such model reaching production stage.
The evolution of the 928 during its 18 years of production was quite subtle. The tables below show the major differences, which were made to the nose, tail, interior, engine, and wheels.
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
All production numbers are approximate figures collected from several sources. Porsche hasn't published actual numbers.
1) Count contains 2 1980, 458 1981 and 1,084 1982 US "Competition Group" models made.
2) Count contains 202 US "Weissach edition" models made in 1982 model year. 205 is official number which don't seem to be correct. Cars with higher production number than 202 or 205 exist. 217 is known existing plaque number but there were only 202 cars made with M462 option code.
3) Count contains 141 European "50th Jubilee" models made in 1982 model year.
4) Count contains 44 M151 low compression 16V 4.7L S engine models made in 1985 model year for Australian market.
5) Count contains 2,219 so-called S3 US models made in 1985 model year and 877 1986 models made in early part of 1986 model year up to November 1985.
6) Count contains 517 1986 European 32-valve S models. Most were Australian and Japanese models. 266 were optional M298/M299 catalytic converter models sold in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
7) Count contains 2,071 so-called S3.5 US models made in later part of 1986 model year starting from November 1985.
8) Count contains 6 Club Sport prototypes made in the 1987 model year.
9) Count contains 10 European models and 2 US models made in 1988 model year and 7 European models made in early part of 1989 model year. Last Club Sport cars were made in early winter 1988/89.
10) Count contains 358 European and 115 US/CDN model made in 1989 model year, 808 European and 142 US made in 1990, 516 European and 145 US made in 1991 resulting 1682 European and 396 US model made over two and half year time period. GT production started in around February 1989.
11) Count contains 955 1992, 621 1993, 523 1994 and 399 1995 European models resulting 2,498 cars made. Count contains 88 early VIN 1993, 102 late VIN 1993, 19 + 120 1994 and 77 1995 US models resulting 406 cars made.
The Porsche 942 was a special edition 928 presented by the company as a gift to Ferry Porsche on his 75th birthday in 1984. It's also known as the 928-4. It featured a longer wheelbase than the normal 928 production model, including an extended roof above the rear seats to better accommodate tall passengers, and what were at the time very advanced projector headlights. The weight increased marginally, by . It also received the new front and rear bumpers two years before they entered production on the S4 and the 5.0-litre 32-valve engine before it was introduced in the US market. This early model of the engine was slightly less powerful, producing and of torque at 2700 rpm.
Three years later, in 1987, the lengthened 928 that had been presented to the company's founder on his 75th birthday turned up as a "Feasibility Study", now with a second (rather narrow) set of doors, apparently opening in the same way as the suicide doors seen on the later Mazda RX-8. At the time "Study H50" appeared to sink with little trace, but two decades later, with the launch of the larger four-door Porsche Panamera saloon, the 928 based four-door saloon prototype from 1987 acquired greater significance.
In 1986 Porsche together with tuning company AMG made a few long wheelbase 928 specials. Unlike the 942, these had normal 928 headlights. One was presented to American Sunroof Corporation (ASC) founder and CEO Heinz Prechter. ASC was later partly responsible for manufacturing Porsche 944 S2 cabriolets.
Porsche's Racing Department never officially entered or prepared a racing 928 for a pure works entry. Only once Porsche decided to make it obvious to the 911 enthusiasts that they usually tended to underrate the racing genes of the 928. Porsche then "arranged" this 928GTR to compete against the then dominant 911 (993GTR) on the race track. In order not to offend sensibilities of their traditional 911 customers by openly challenging them with a Works 928GTR offering, Porsche asked Max Moritz Racing, their longtime private racing partner from next door Reutlingen to enter a 928GTR Cup as a 'semi-works' car.
The drivers were: Bernd Mayländer, Manuel Reuter (Porsche works pilots), also Harm Lagaay (then Head of Porsche's Design Studio). Vittorio Strosek sponsored MM with his Lightweight-Body-Parts and racing exhaust. The car was officially entered by Porsche-Club-Schwaben. Homologation minimum weight had to be, and actually is .
Lagaay reports that the car was very competitive and able to hold most 964 Cup GTs down, although the engine was no more than fine-tuned after having been chosen from a set of high power output specimen in Weissach. In the last race of the season at Hockenheim a crank-bearing ran dry. As the car was supposed to race in 1995 as well, it was made ready to continue its successful competition in the 1995 season. A fresh engine was installed, selected from the same lot of high output engines and tuned as before. In 1995 Porsche's 928 production came to an end, and the car consequently was not raced in the new season.
The late Max Moritz himself then added the car to his collection of historic vehicles. It was not put on the road again until after his death, when the family sold the car in October 2004 - with 24,500 km on the odometer.
For the 1984 24 hours of Daytona, Porsche sent one of its experimental "All-aluminium" 928S to the Brumos Racing Team to be prepared with specific instruction not to modify the car in any way. Porsche wanted to promote the performance of the 928 to North America. The drivers Richard Attwood (GB), Vic Elford (GB), Howard Meister (USA) and Bob Hagestad (USA) were told to just "drive the car". During practice for the 24-hour race the drivers found the car to be somewhat unstable on the high banks of Daytona and wanted to add a rear wing to the car; Porsche denied the request. The Brumos team tinkered with the suspension set up to make the car more stable. The car finished in 15th overall and 4th in the GTO class. One driver stated in an interview later on, that were it not for a lengthy pit stop to fix some body damage, they would have finished in the top 5 overall. The car was then returned to Porsche and is now in the Porsche Museum.
A 928S from Raymond Boutinaud also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1983 & 1984 with a 22nd-place finish in 1984. The same car also competed in 1000k races at Spa, Brands Hatch and Silverstone in 1984, but with little success. It has been rumored that the Raymond Boutinaud 928S was also an "all-aluminium" car from Porsche but that has been unfounded.
On August 7, 1986 American racing driver Al Holbert set a speed record at Bonneville in a pre-production 928 S4. This 928 would turn 171.110 mph in the flying mile and 171.926 mph for the flying kilometer. In March 1986, the same car reportedly did 180+ mph at Nardo, but the Bonneville run netted United States Auto Club official record "at the time" for International Category A, Group 2, Class 9, for normally aspirated vehicles. That made 1987's 928 S4 the fastest non-turbocharged production car in the world.
On September 15, 2011 at the Bonneville Salt Flats, racing driver and owner of 928 Motorsports, LLC. Carl Fausett set the current world record as the fastest Porsche 928 in recorded history. The record setting run was clocked by the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association at 216.63537 mph. The car was a 900 BHP supercharged 6.54 liter 32 valve 928 specially built for the land speed record attempt. dubbed by 928 Motorsports as the "Rekordwagen", which raced in the class Blown Gas Modified Sports B/BGMS.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is the second oldest auto race in the U.S.; a 12.42 mile (19.99 km) course with 156 turns starting at 9390 ft and ending at the 14110 foot summit of Pikes Peak. In 2007, 2008 and 2009 American racing driver Carl Fausett took his specially prepared and supercharged 1978 Porsche 928 to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and competed in the Open Division. Fausett placed third in the Open Division in both 2007 and again in 2009, where he was also the fastest 2WD car. At that time, much of the race course was gravel. Today the entire Pikes Peak Highway has been paved. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23972 |
Plasmid
A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; however, plasmids are sometimes present in archaea and eukaryotic organisms. In nature, plasmids often carry genes that benefit the survival of the organism and confer selective advantage such as antibiotic resistance. While chromosomes are large and contain all the essential genetic information for living under normal conditions, plasmids are usually very small and contain only additional genes that may be useful in certain situations or conditions. Artificial plasmids are widely used as vectors in molecular cloning, serving to drive the replication of recombinant DNA sequences within host organisms. In the laboratory, plasmids may be introduced into a cell via transformation.
Plasmids are considered "replicons", units of DNA capable of replicating autonomously within a suitable host. However, plasmids, like viruses, are not generally classified as life. Plasmids are transmitted from one bacterium to another (even of another species) mostly through conjugation. This host-to-host transfer of genetic material is one mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, and plasmids are considered part of the mobilome. Unlike viruses, which encase their genetic material in a protective protein coat called a capsid, plasmids are "naked" DNA and do not encode genes necessary to encase the genetic material for transfer to a new host; however, some classes of plasmids encode the conjugative "sex" pilus necessary for their own transfer. The size of the plasmid varies from 1 to over 200 kbp, and the number of identical plasmids in a single cell can range anywhere from one to thousands under some circumstances.
The term "plasmid" was introduced in 1952 by the American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg to refer to "any extrachromosomal hereditary determinant." The term's early usage included any bacterial genetic material that exists extrachromosomally for at least part of its replication cycle, but because that description includes bacterial viruses, the notion of plasmid was refined over time to comprise genetic elements that reproduce autonomously.
Later in 1968, it was decided that the term plasmid should be adopted as the term for extrachromosomal genetic element, and to distinguish it from viruses, the definition was narrowed to genetic elements that exist exclusively or predominantly outside of the chromosome and can replicate autonomously.
In order for plasmids to replicate independently within a cell, they must possess a stretch of DNA that can act as an origin of replication. The self-replicating unit, in this case, the plasmid, is called a replicon. A typical bacterial replicon may consist of a number of elements, such as the gene for plasmid-specific replication initiation protein (Rep), repeating units called iterons, DnaA boxes, and an adjacent AT-rich region. Smaller plasmids make use of the host replicative enzymes to make copies of themselves, while larger plasmids may carry genes specific for the replication of those plasmids. A few types of plasmids can also insert into the host chromosome, and these integrative plasmids are sometimes referred to as episomes in prokaryotes.
Plasmids almost always carry at least one gene. Many of the genes carried by a plasmid are beneficial for the host cells, for example: enabling the host cell to survive in an environment that would otherwise be lethal or restrictive for growth. Some of these genes encode traits for antibiotic resistance or resistance to heavy metal, while others may produce virulence factors that enable a bacterium to colonize a host and overcome its defences or have specific metabolic functions that allow the bacterium to utilize a particular nutrient, including the ability to degrade recalcitrant or toxic organic compounds. Plasmids can also provide bacteria with the ability to fix nitrogen. Some plasmids, however, have no observable effect on the phenotype of the host cell or its benefit to the host cells cannot be determined, and these plasmids are called cryptic plasmids.
Naturally occurring plasmids vary greatly in their physical properties. Their size can range from very small mini-plasmids of less than 1-kilobase pairs (Kbp) to very large megaplasmids of several megabase pairs (Mbp). At the upper end, little differs between a megaplasmid and a minichromosome. Plasmids are generally circular, but examples of linear plasmids are also known. These linear plasmids require specialized mechanisms to replicate their ends.
Plasmids may be present in an individual cell in varying number, ranging from one to several hundreds. The normal number of copies of plasmid that may be found in a single cell is called the Plasmid copy number, and is determined by how the replication initiation is regulated and the size of the molecule. Larger plasmids tend to have lower copy numbers. Low-copy-number plasmids that exist only as one or a few copies in each bacterium are, upon cell division, in danger of being lost in one of the segregating bacteria. Such single-copy plasmids have systems that attempt to actively distribute a copy to both daughter cells. These systems, which include the parABS system and parMRC system, are often referred to as the partition system or partition function of a plasmid.
Plasmids may be classified in a number of ways. Plasmids can be broadly classified into conjugative plasmids and non-conjugative plasmids. Conjugative plasmids contain a set of transfer genes which promote sexual conjugation between different cells. In the complex process of conjugation, plasmids may be transferred from one bacterium to another via sex pili encoded by some of the transfer genes (see figure). Non-conjugative plasmids are incapable of initiating conjugation, hence they can be transferred only with the assistance of conjugative plasmids. An intermediate class of plasmids are mobilizable, and carry only a subset of the genes required for transfer. They can parasitize a conjugative plasmid, transferring at high frequency only in its presence.
Plasmids can also be classified into incompatibility groups. A microbe can harbour different types of plasmids, but different plasmids can only exist in a single bacterial cell if they are compatible. If two plasmids are not compatible, one or the other will be rapidly lost from the cell. Different plasmids may therefore be assigned to different incompatibility groups depending on whether they can coexist together. Incompatible plasmids (belonging to the same incompatibility group) normally share the same replication or partition mechanisms and can thus not be kept together in a single cell.
Another way to classify plasmids is by function. There are five main classes:
Plasmids can belong to more than one of these functional groups.
Artificially constructed plasmids may be used as vectors in genetic engineering. These plasmids serve as important tools in genetics and biotechnology labs, where they are commonly used to clone and amplify (make many copies of) or express particular genes. A wide variety of plasmids are commercially available for such uses. The gene to be replicated is normally inserted into a plasmid that typically contains a number of features for their use. These include a gene that confers resistance to particular antibiotics (ampicillin is most frequently used for bacterial strains), an origin of replication to allow the bacterial cells to replicate the plasmid DNA, and a suitable site for cloning (referred to as a multiple cloning site).
DNA structural instability can be defined as a series of spontaneous events that culminate in an unforeseen rearrangement, loss, or gain of genetic material. Such events are frequently triggered by the transposition of mobile elements or by the presence of unstable elements such as non-canonical (non-B) structures. Accessory regions pertaining to the bacterial backbone may engage in a wide range of structural instability phenomena. Well-known catalysts of genetic instability include direct, inverted, and tandem repeats, which are known to be conspicuous in a large number of commercially available cloning and expression vectors. Insertion sequences can also severely impact plasmid function and yield, by leading to deletions and rearrangements, activation, down-regulation or inactivation of neighboring gene expression. Therefore, the reduction or complete elimination of extraneous noncoding backbone sequences would pointedly reduce the propensity for such events to take place, and consequently, the overall recombinogenic potential of the plasmid.
Plasmids are the most-commonly used bacterial cloning vectors. These cloning vectors contain a site that allows DNA fragments to be inserted, for example a multiple cloning site or polylinker which has several commonly used restriction sites to which DNA fragments may be ligated. After the gene of interest is inserted, the plasmids are introduced into bacteria by a process called transformation. These plasmids contain a selectable marker, usually an antibiotic resistance gene, which confers on the bacteria an ability to survive and proliferate in a selective growth medium containing the particular antibiotics. The cells after transformation are exposed to the selective media, and only cells containing the plasmid may survive. In this way, the antibiotics act as a filter to select only the bacteria containing the plasmid DNA. The vector may also contain other marker genes or reporter genes to facilitate selection of plasmids with cloned inserts. Bacteria containing the plasmid can then be grown in large amounts, harvested, and the plasmid of interest may then be isolated using various methods of plasmid preparation.
A plasmid cloning vector is typically used to clone DNA fragments of up to 15 kbp. To clone longer lengths of DNA, lambda phage with lysogeny genes deleted, cosmids, bacterial artificial chromosomes, or yeast artificial chromosomes are used.
Another major use of plasmids is to make large amounts of proteins. In this case, researchers grow bacteria containing a plasmid harboring the gene of interest. Just as the bacterium produces proteins to confer its antibiotic resistance, it can also be induced to produce large amounts of proteins from the inserted gene. This is a cheap and easy way of mass-producing the protein the gene codes for, for example, insulin.
Plasmids may also be used for gene transfer as a potential treatment in gene therapy so that it may express the protein that is lacking in the cells. Some forms of gene therapy require the insertion of therapeutic genes at pre-selected chromosomal target sites within the human genome. Plasmid vectors are one of many approaches that could be used for this purpose. Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) offer a way to cause a site-specific double-strand break to the DNA genome and cause homologous recombination. Plasmids encoding ZFN could help deliver a therapeutic gene to a specific site so that cell damage, cancer-causing mutations, or an immune response is avoided.
Plasmids were historically used to genetically engineer the embryonic stem cells of rats to create rat genetic disease models. The limited efficiency of plasmid-based techniques precluded their use in the creation of more accurate human cell models. However, developments in adeno-associated virus recombination techniques, and zinc finger nucleases, have enabled the creation of a new generation of isogenic human disease models.
The term "episome" was introduced by François Jacob and Élie Wollman in 1958 to refer to extra-chromosomal genetic material that may replicate autonomously or become integrated into the chromosome. Since the term was introduced, however, its use has shifted, as "plasmid" has become the preferred term for autonomously replicating extrachromosomal DNA. At a 1968 symposium in London some participants suggested that the term "episome" be abandoned, although others continued to use the term with a shift in meaning.
Today, some authors use "episome" in the context of prokaryotes to refer to a plasmid that is capable of integrating into the chromosome. The integrative plasmids may be replicated and stably maintained in a cell through multiple generations, but at some stage, they will exist as an independent plasmid molecule. In the context of eukaryotes, the term "episomes" is used to mean a non-integrated extrachromosomal closed circular DNA molecule that may be replicated in the nucleus. Viruses are the most common examples of this, such as herpesviruses, adenoviruses, and polyomaviruses, but some are plasmids. Other examples include aberrant chromosomal fragments, such as double minute chromosomes, that can arise during artificial gene amplifications or in pathologic processes (e.g., cancer cell transformation). Episomes in eukaryotes behave similarly to plasmids in prokaryotes in that the DNA is stably maintained and replicated with the host cell. Cytoplasmic viral episomes (as in poxvirus infections) can also occur. Some episomes, such as herpesviruses, replicate in a rolling circle mechanism, similar to bacterial phage viruses. Others replicate through a bidirectional replication mechanism ("Theta type" plasmids). In either case, episomes remain physically separate from host cell chromosomes. Several cancer viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, are maintained as latent, chromosomally distinct episomes in cancer cells, where the viruses express oncogenes that promote cancer cell proliferation. In cancers, these episomes passively replicate together with host chromosomes when the cell divides. When these viral episomes initiate lytic replication to generate multiple virus particles, they generally activate cellular innate immunity defense mechanisms that kill the host cell.
Some plasmids or microbial hosts include an addiction system or postsegregational killing system (PSK), such as the hok/sok (host killing/suppressor of killing) system of plasmid R1 in "Escherichia coli". This variant produces both a long-lived poison and a short-lived antidote. Several types of plasmid addiction systems (toxin/ antitoxin, metabolism-based, ORT systems) were described in the literature and used in biotechnical (fermentation) or biomedical (vaccine therapy) applications. Daughter cells that retain a copy of the plasmid survive, while a daughter cell that fails to inherit the plasmid dies or suffers a reduced growth-rate because of the lingering poison from the parent cell. Finally, the overall productivity could be enhanced.
In contrast, virtually all biotechnologically used plasmids (such as pUC18, pBR322 and derived vectors) do not contain toxin-antitoxin addiction systems and thus need to be kept under antibiotic pressure to avoid plasmid loss.
Yeasts naturally harbour various plasmids. Notable among them are 2 μm plasmids—small circular plasmids often used for genetic engineering of yeast—and linear pGKL plasmids from "Kluyveromyces lactis", that are responsible for killer phenotypes.
Other types of plasmids are often related to yeast cloning vectors that include:
Plasmids are often used to purify a specific sequence, since they can easily be purified away from the rest of the genome. For their use as vectors, and for molecular cloning, plasmids often need to be isolated.
There are several methods to isolate plasmid DNA from bacteria, ranging from the miniprep to the maxiprep or bulkprep. The former can be used to quickly find out whether the plasmid is correct in any of several bacterial clones. The yield is a small amount of impure plasmid DNA, which is sufficient for analysis by restriction digest and for some cloning techniques.
In the latter, much larger volumes of bacterial suspension are grown from which a maxi-prep can be performed. In essence, this is a scaled-up miniprep followed by additional purification. This results in relatively large amounts (several hundred micrograms) of very pure plasmid DNA.
Many commercial kits have been created to perform plasmid extraction at various scales, purity, and levels of automation.
Plasmid DNA may appear in one of five conformations, which (for a given size) run at different speeds in a gel during electrophoresis. The conformations are listed below in order of electrophoretic mobility (speed for a given applied voltage) from slowest to fastest:
The rate of migration for small linear fragments is directly proportional to the voltage applied at low voltages. At higher voltages, larger fragments migrate at continuously increasing yet different rates. Thus, the resolution of a gel decreases with increased voltage.
At a specified, low voltage, the migration rate of small linear DNA fragments is a function of their length. Large linear fragments (over 20 kb or so) migrate at a certain fixed rate regardless of length. This is because the molecules 'resperate', with the bulk of the molecule following the leading end through the gel matrix. Restriction digests are frequently used to analyse purified plasmids. These enzymes specifically break the DNA at certain short sequences. The resulting linear fragments form 'bands' after gel electrophoresis. It is possible to purify certain fragments by cutting the bands out of the gel and dissolving the gel to release the DNA fragments.
Because of its tight conformation, supercoiled DNA migrates faster through a gel than linear or open-circular DNA.
The use of plasmids as a technique in molecular biology is supported by bioinformatics software. These programs record the DNA sequence of plasmid vectors, help to predict cut sites of restriction enzymes, and to plan manipulations. Examples of software packages that handle plasmid maps are ApE, Clone Manager, GeneConstructionKit, Geneious, Genome Compiler, LabGenius, Lasergene, MacVector, pDraw32, Serial Cloner, VectorFriends, Vector NTI, and WebDSV. These pieces of software help conduct entire experiments in silico before doing wet experiments.
Many plasmids have been created over the years and researchers have given out plasmids to plasmid databases such as the non-profit organisations Addgene and BCCM/LMBP. One can find and request plasmids from those databases for research.
Researchers also often upload plasmid sequences to the NCBI database, from which sequences of specific plasmids can be retrieved. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23974 |
Parallelepiped
In geometry, a parallelepiped, parallelopiped or parallelopipedon is a three-dimensional figure formed by six parallelograms (the term "rhomboid" is also sometimes used with this meaning). By analogy, it relates to a parallelogram just as a cube relates to a square. In Euclidean geometry, the four concepts—"parallelepiped" and "cube" in three dimensions, "parallelogram" and "square" in two dimensions—are defined, but in the context of affine geometry, in which angles are not differentiated, only "parallelograms" and "parallelepipeds" exist. Three equivalent definitions of "parallelepiped" are
The rectangular cuboid (six rectangular faces), cube (six square faces), and the rhombohedron (six rhombus faces) are all specific cases of parallelepiped.
"Parallelepiped" is now usually pronounced , , or ; traditionally it was in accordance with its etymology in Greek παραλληλ-επίπεδον, a body "having parallel planes".
Parallelepipeds are a subclass of the prismatoids.
Any of the three pairs of parallel faces can be viewed as the base planes of the prism. A parallelepiped has three sets of four parallel edges; the edges within each set are of equal length.
Parallelepipeds result from linear transformations of a cube (for the non-degenerate cases: the bijective linear transformations).
Since each face has point symmetry, a parallelepiped is a zonohedron. Also the whole parallelepiped has point symmetry "Ci" (see also triclinic). Each face is, seen from the outside, the mirror image of the opposite face. The faces are in general chiral, but the parallelepiped is not.
A space-filling tessellation is possible with congruent copies of any parallelepiped.
A parallelepiped can be considered as an oblique prism with a parallelogram as base.
Hence the volume formula_1 of a parallelepiped is the product of the base area formula_2 and the height formula_3 (see diagram). With
The mixed product of three vectors is called triple product. It can be described by a determinant. Hence for formula_12 the volume is:
An alternative representation of the volume uses geometric properties (angles and edge lengths) only:
where formula_15 and formula_16 are the edge lengths.
The proof of (V2) uses properties of a determinant and the geometric interpretation of the dot product:
Let be formula_17 the 3x3-matrix, whose columns are the vectors formula_18 (see above). Then the following is true:
The volume of any tetrahedron that shares three converging edges of a parallelepiped is equal to one sixth of the volume of that parallelepiped (see proof).
The surface area of a parallelepiped is the sum of the areas of the bounding parallelograms:
A "perfect parallelepiped" is a parallelepiped with integer-length edges, face diagonals, and space diagonals. In 2009, dozens of perfect parallelepipeds were shown to exist, answering an open question of Richard Guy. One example has edges 271, 106, and 103, minor face diagonals 101, 266, and 255, major face diagonals 183, 312, and 323, and space diagonals 374, 300, 278, and 272.
Some perfect parallelopipeds having two rectangular faces are known. But it is not known whether there exist any with all faces rectangular; such a case would be called a perfect cuboid.
Coxeter called the generalization of a parallelepiped in higher dimensions a parallelotope.
Specifically in "n"-dimensional space it is called "n"-dimensional parallelotope, or simply "n"-parallelotope. Thus a parallelogram is a 2-parallelotope and a parallelepiped is a 3-parallelotope.
More generally a parallelotope, or "voronoi parallelotope", has parallel and congruent opposite facets. So a 2-parallelotope is a parallelogon which can also include certain hexagons, and a 3-parallelotope is a parallelohedron, including 5 types of polyhedra.
The diagonals of an "n"-parallelotope intersect at one point and are bisected by this point. Inversion in this point leaves the "n"-parallelotope unchanged. See also fixed points of isometry groups in Euclidean space.
The edges radiating from one vertex of a "k"-parallelotope form a "k"-frame formula_25 of the vector space, and the parallelotope can be recovered from these vectors, by taking linear combinations of the vectors, with weights between 0 and 1.
The "n"-volume of an "n"-parallelotope embedded in formula_26 where formula_27 can be computed by means of the Gram determinant. Alternatively, the volume is the norm of the exterior product of the vectors:
If "m" = "n", this amounts to the absolute value of the determinant of the "n" vectors.
Another formula to compute the volume of an "n"-parallelotope "P" in formula_29, whose vertices are formula_30, is
where formula_32 is the row vector formed by the concatenation of formula_33 and 1. Indeed, the determinant is unchanged if formula_34 is subtracted from formula_32 (), and placing formula_34 in the last position only changes its sign.
Similarly, the volume of any "n"-simplex that shares "n" converging edges of a parallelotope has a volume equal to one 1/"n"! of the volume of that parallelotope.
The word appears as "parallelipipedon" in Sir Henry Billingsley's translation of Euclid's Elements, dated 1570. In the 1644 edition of his "Cursus mathematicus", Pierre Hérigone used the spelling "parallelepipedum". The "Oxford English Dictionary" cites the present-day "parallelepiped" as first appearing in Walter Charleton's "Chorea gigantum" (1663).
Charles Hutton's Dictionary (1795) shows "parallelopiped" and "parallelopipedon", showing the influence of the combining form "parallelo-", as if the second element were "pipedon" rather than "epipedon". Noah Webster (1806) includes the spelling "parallelopiped". The 1989 edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" describes "parallelopiped" (and "parallelipiped") explicitly as incorrect forms, but these are listed without comment in the 2004 edition, and only pronunciations with the emphasis on the fifth syllable "pi" () are given.
A change away from the traditional pronunciation has hidden the different partition suggested by the Greek roots, with "epi-" ("on") and "pedon" ("ground") combining to give "epiped", a flat "plane". Thus the faces of a parallelepiped are planar, with opposite faces being parallel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23975 |
Plant cell
Plant cells are eukaryotic cells present in green plants, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Their distinctive features include primary cell walls containing cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin, the presence of plastids with the capability to perform photosynthesis and store starch, a large vacuole that regulates turgor pressure, the absence of flagella or centrioles, except in the gametes, and a unique method of cell division involving the formation of a cell plate or phragmoplast that separates the new daughter cells.
Plant cells differentiate from undifferentiated meristematic cells (analogous to the stem cells of animals) to form the major classes of cells and tissues of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and reproductive structures, each of which may be composed of several cell types.
Parenchyma cells are living cells that have functions ranging from storage and support to photosynthesis (mesophyll cells) and phloem loading (transfer cells). Apart from the xylem and phloem in their vascular bundles, leaves are composed mainly of parenchyma cells. Some parenchyma cells, as in the epidermis, are specialized for light penetration and focusing or regulation of gas exchange, but others are among the least specialized cells in plant tissue, and may remain totipotent, capable of dividing to produce new populations of undifferentiated cells, throughout their lives. Parenchyma cells have thin, permeable primary walls enabling the transport of small molecules between them, and their cytoplasm is responsible for a wide range of biochemical functions such as nectar secretion, or the manufacture of secondary products that discourage herbivory. Parenchyma cells that contain many chloroplasts and are concerned primarily with photosynthesis are called chlorenchyma cells. Others, such as the majority of the parenchyma cells in potato tubers and the seed cotyledons of legumes, have a storage function.
Collenchyma cells – collenchyma cells are alive at maturity and have thickened cellulosic cell walls. These cells mature from meristem derivatives that initially resemble parenchyma, but differences quickly become apparent. Plastids do not develop, and the secretory apparatus (ER and Golgi) proliferates to secrete additional primary wall. The wall is most commonly thickest at the corners, where three or more cells come in contact, and thinnest where only two cells come in contact, though other arrangements of the wall thickening are possible. Pectin and hemicellulose are the dominant constituents of collenchyma cell walls of dicotyledon angiosperms, which may contain as little as 20% of cellulose in "Petasites". Collenchyma cells are typically quite elongated, and may divide transversely to give a septate appearance. The role of this cell type is to support the plant in axes still growing in length, and to confer flexibility and tensile strength on tissues. The primary wall lacks lignin that would make it tough and rigid, so this cell type provides what could be called plastic support – support that can hold a young stem or petiole into the air, but in cells that can be stretched as the cells around them elongate. Stretchable support (without elastic snap-back) is a good way to describe what collenchyma does. Parts of the strings in celery are collenchyma.
Sclerenchyma is a tissue composed of two types of cells, sclereids and fibres that have thickened, lignified secondary walls laid down inside of the primary cell wall. The secondary walls harden the cells and make them impermeable to water. Consequently, scereids and fibres are typically dead at functional maturity, and the cytoplasm is missing, leaving an empty central cavity. Sclereids or stone cells, (from the Greek skleros, "hard") are hard, tough cells that give leaves or fruits a gritty texture. They may discourage herbivory by damaging digestive passages in small insect larval stages. Sclereids form the hard pit wall of peaches and many other fruits, providing physical protection to the developing kernel. Fibres are elongated cells with lignified secondary walls that provide load-bearing support and tensile strength to the leaves and stems of herbaceous plants. Sclerenchyma fibres are not involved in conduction, either of water and nutrients (as in the xylem) or of carbon compounds (as in the phloem), but it is likely that they evolved as modifications of xylem and phloem initials in early land plants.
Xylem is a complex vascular tissue composed of water-conducting tracheids or vessel elements, together with fibres and parenchyma cells. Tracheids are elongated cells with lignified secondary thickening of the cell walls, specialised for conduction of water, and first appeared in plants during their transition to land in the Silurian period more than 425 million years ago (see "Cooksonia"). The possession of xylem tracheids defines the vascular plants or Tracheophytes. Tracheids are pointed, elongated xylem cells, the simplest of which have continuous primary cell walls and lignified secondary wall thickenings in the form of rings, hoops, or reticulate networks. More complex tracheids with valve-like perforations called bordered pits characterise the gymnosperms. The ferns and other pteridophytes and the gymnosperms have only xylem tracheids, while the flowering plants also have xylem vessels. Vessel elements are hollow xylem cells without end walls that are aligned end-to-end so as to form long continuous tubes. The bryophytes lack true xylem tissue, but their sporophytes have a water-conducting tissue known as the hydrome that is composed of elongated cells of simpler construction.
Phloem is a specialised tissue for food transport in higher plants, mainly transporting sucrose along pressure gradients generated by osmosis, a process called translocation. Phloem is a complex tissue, consisting of two main cell types, the sieve tubes and the intimately associated companion cells, together with parenchyma cells, phloem fibres and sclereids. Sieve tubes are joined end-to-end with perforate end-plates between known as "sieve plates", which allow transport of photosynthate between the sieve elements. The sieve tube elements lack nuclei and ribosomes, and their metabolism and functions are regulated by the adjacent nucleate companion cells. The companion cells, connected to the sieve tubes via plasmodesmata, are responsible for loading the phloem with sugars. The bryophytes lack phloem, but moss sporophytes have a simpler tissue with analogous function known as the leptome.
The plant epidermis is specialised tissue, composed of parenchyma cells, that covers the external surfaces of leaves, stems and roots. Several cell types may be present in the epidermis. Notable among these are the stomatal guard cells that control the rate of gas exchange between the plant and the atmosphere, glandular and clothing hairs or trichomes, and the root hairs of primary roots. In the shoot epidermis of most plants, only the guard cells have chloroplasts. Chloroplasts contain the green pigment chlorophyll which is needed for photosynthesis. The epidermal cells of aerial organs arise from the superficial layer of cells known as the "tunica" (L1 and L2 layers) that covers the plant shoot apex, whereas the cortex and vascular tissues arise from innermost layer of the shoot apex known as the "corpus" (L3 layer). The epidermis of roots originates from the layer of cells immediately beneath the root cap. The epidermis of all aerial organs, but not roots, is covered with a cuticle made of polyester cutin or polymer cutan (or both), with a superficial layer of epicuticular waxes. The epidermal cells of the primary shoot are thought to be the only plant cells with the biochemical capacity to synthesize cutin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23977 |
Polysaccharide
Polysaccharides () are long chains of carbohydrate molecules, specifically polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with water (hydrolysis) using amylase enzymes at catalyst, which produces constituent sugars (monosaccharides, or oligosaccharides). They range in structure from linear to highly branched. Examples include storage polysaccharides such as starch and glycogen, and structural polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin.
Polysaccharides are often quite heterogeneous, containing slight modifications of the repeating unit. Depending on the structure, these macromolecules can have distinct properties from their monosaccharide building blocks. They may be amorphous or even insoluble in water. When all the monosaccharides in a polysaccharide are the same type, the polysaccharide is called a "homopolysaccharide" or "homoglycan", but when more than one type of monosaccharide is present they are called "heteropolysaccharides" or "heteroglycans".
Natural saccharides are generally of simple carbohydrates called monosaccharides with general formula (CH2O)"n" where "n" is three or more. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and glyceraldehyde. Polysaccharides, meanwhile, have a general formula of C"x"(H2O)"y" where "x" is usually a large number between 200 and 2500. When the repeating units in the polymer backbone are six-carbon monosaccharides, as is often the case, the general formula simplifies to (C6H10O5)"n", where typically .
As a rule of thumb, polysaccharides contain more than ten monosaccharide units, whereas oligosaccharides contain three to ten monosaccharide units; but the precise cutoff varies somewhat according to convention. Polysaccharides are an important class of biological polymers. Their function in living organisms is usually either structure- or storage-related. Starch (a polymer of glucose) is used as a storage polysaccharide in plants, being found in the form of both amylose and the branched amylopectin. In animals, the structurally similar glucose polymer is the more densely branched glycogen, sometimes called "animal starch". Glycogen's properties allow it to be metabolized more quickly, which suits the active lives of moving animals.
Cellulose and chitin are examples of structural polysaccharides. Cellulose is used in the cell walls of plants and other organisms, and is said to be the most abundant organic molecule on Earth. It has many uses such as a significant role in the paper and textile industries, and is used as a feedstock for the production of rayon (via the viscose process), cellulose acetate, celluloid, and nitrocellulose. Chitin has a similar structure, but has nitrogen-containing side branches, increasing its strength. It is found in arthropod exoskeletons and in the cell walls of some fungi. It also has multiple uses, including surgical threads. Polysaccharides also include callose or laminarin, chrysolaminarin, xylan, arabinoxylan, mannan, fucoidan and galactomannan.
Nutrition polysaccharides are common sources of energy. Many organisms can easily break down starches into glucose; however, most organisms cannot metabolize cellulose or other polysaccharides like chitin and arabinoxylans. These carbohydrate types can be metabolized by some bacteria and protists. Ruminants and termites, for example, use microorganisms to process cellulose.
Even though these complex polysaccharides are not very digestible, they provide important dietary elements for humans. Called dietary fiber, these carbohydrates enhance digestion among other benefits. The main action of dietary fiber is to change the nature of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract, and to change how other nutrients and chemicals are absorbed. Soluble fiber binds to bile acids in the small intestine, making them less likely to enter the body; this in turn lowers cholesterol levels in the blood. Soluble fiber also attenuates the absorption of sugar, reduces sugar response after eating, normalizes blood lipid levels and, once fermented in the colon, produces short-chain fatty acids as byproducts with wide-ranging physiological activities (discussion below). Although insoluble fiber is associated with reduced diabetes risk, the mechanism by which this occurs is unknown.
Not yet formally proposed as an essential macronutrient (as of 2005), dietary fiber is nevertheless regarded as important for the diet, with regulatory authorities in many developed countries recommending increases in fiber intake.
Starch is a glucose polymer in which glucopyranose units are bonded by "alpha"-linkages. It is made up of a mixture of amylose (15–20%) and amylopectin (80–85%). Amylose consists of a linear chain of several hundred glucose molecules, and Amylopectin is a branched molecule made of several thousand glucose units (every chain of 24–30 glucose units is one unit of Amylopectin). Starches are insoluble in water. They can be digested by breaking the "alpha"-linkages (glycosidic bonds). Both humans and other animals have amylases, so they can digest starches. Potato, rice, wheat, and maize are major sources of starch in the human diet. The formations of starches are the ways that plants store glucose.
Glycogen serves as the secondary long-term energy storage in animal and fungal cells, with the primary energy stores being held in adipose tissue. Glycogen is made primarily by the liver and the muscles, but can also be made by glycogenesis within the brain and stomach.
Glycogen is analogous to starch, a glucose polymer in plants, and is sometimes referred to as "animal starch", having a similar structure to amylopectin but more extensively branched and compact than starch. Glycogen is a polymer of α(1→4) glycosidic bonds linked, with α(1→6)-linked branches. Glycogen is found in the form of granules in the cytosol/cytoplasm in many cell types, and plays an important role in the glucose cycle. Glycogen forms an energy reserve that can be quickly mobilized to meet a sudden need for glucose, but one that is less compact and more immediately available as an energy reserve than triglycerides (lipids).
In the liver hepatocytes, glycogen can compose up to 8 percent (100–120 grams in an adult) of the fresh weight soon after a meal. Only the glycogen stored in the liver can be made accessible to other organs. In the muscles, glycogen is found in a low concentration of one to two percent of the muscle mass. The amount of glycogen stored in the body—especially within the muscles, liver, and red blood cells—varies with physical activity, basal metabolic rate, and eating habits such as intermittent fasting. Small amounts of glycogen are found in the kidneys, and even smaller amounts in certain glial cells in the brain and white blood cells. The uterus also stores glycogen during pregnancy, to nourish the embryo.
Glycogen is composed of a branched chain of glucose residues. It is stored in liver and muscles.
Inulin is a naturally occurring polysaccharide.
Arabinoxylans are found in both the primary and secondary cell walls of plants and are the copolymers of two sugars: arabinose and xylose. They may also have beneficial effects on human health.
The structural components of plants are formed primarily from cellulose. Wood is largely cellulose and lignin, while paper and cotton are nearly pure cellulose. Cellulose is a polymer made with repeated glucose units bonded together by "beta"-linkages. Humans and many animals lack an enzyme to break the "beta"-linkages, so they do not digest cellulose. Certain animals such as termites can digest cellulose, because bacteria possessing the enzyme are present in their gut. Cellulose is insoluble in water. It does not change color when mixed with iodine. On hydrolysis, it yields glucose. It is the most abundant carbohydrate in nature.
Chitin is one of many naturally occurring polymers. It forms a structural component of many animals, such as exoskeletons. Over time it is bio-degradable in the natural environment. Its breakdown may be catalyzed by enzymes called chitinases, secreted by microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, and produced by some plants. Some of these microorganisms have receptors to simple sugars from the decomposition of chitin. If chitin is detected, they then produce enzymes to digest it by cleaving the glycosidic bonds in order to convert it to simple sugars and ammonia.
Chemically, chitin is closely related to chitosan (a more water-soluble derivative of chitin). It is also closely related to cellulose in that it is a long unbranched chain of glucose derivatives. Both materials contribute structure and strength, protecting the organism.
Pectins are a family of complex polysaccharides that contain 1,4-linked α--galactosyl uronic acid residues. They are present in most primary cell walls and in the non-woody parts of terrestrial plants.
Acidic polysaccharides are polysaccharides that contain carboxyl groups, phosphate groups and/or sulfuric ester groups.
Pathogenic bacteria commonly produce a thick, mucous-like, layer of polysaccharide. This "capsule" cloaks antigenic proteins on the bacterial surface that would otherwise provoke an immune response and thereby lead to the destruction of the bacteria. Capsular polysaccharides are water-soluble, commonly acidic, and have molecular weights on the order of 100,000 to 2,000,000 daltons. They are linear and consist of regularly repeating subunits of one to six monosaccharides. There is enormous structural diversity; nearly two hundred different polysaccharides are produced by "E. coli" alone. Mixtures of capsular polysaccharides, either conjugated or native are used as vaccines.
Bacteria and many other microbes, including fungi and algae, often secrete polysaccharides to help them adhere to surfaces and to prevent them from drying out. Humans have developed some of these polysaccharides into useful products, including xanthan gum, dextran, welan gum, gellan gum, diutan gum and pullulan.
Most of these polysaccharides exhibit useful visco-elastic properties when dissolved in water at very low levels. This makes various liquids used in everyday life, such as some foods, lotions, cleaners, and paints, viscous when stationary, but much more free-flowing when even slight shear is applied by stirring or shaking, pouring, wiping, or brushing. This property is named pseudoplasticity or shear thinning; the study of such matters is called rheology.
Aqueous solutions of the polysaccharide alone have a curious behavior when stirred: after stirring ceases, the solution initially continues to swirl due to momentum, then slows to a standstill due to viscosity and reverses direction briefly before stopping. This recoil is due to the elastic effect of the polysaccharide chains, previously stretched in solution, returning to their relaxed state.
Cell-surface polysaccharides play diverse roles in bacterial ecology and physiology. They serve as a barrier between the cell wall and the environment, mediate host-pathogen interactions, and form structural components of biofilms. These polysaccharides are synthesized from nucleotide-activated precursors (called nucleotide sugars) and, in most cases, all the enzymes necessary for biosynthesis, assembly and transport of the completed polymer are encoded by genes organized in dedicated clusters within the genome of the organism. Lipopolysaccharide is one of the most important cell-surface polysaccharides, as it plays a key structural role in outer membrane integrity, as well as being an important mediator of host-pathogen interactions.
The enzymes that make the "A-band" (homopolymeric) and "B-band" (heteropolymeric) O-antigens have been identified and the metabolic pathways defined. The exopolysaccharide alginate is a linear copolymer of β-1,4-linked -mannuronic acid and -guluronic acid residues, and is responsible for the mucoid phenotype of late-stage cystic fibrosis disease. The "pel" and "psl" loci are two recently discovered gene clusters that also encode exopolysaccharides found to be important for biofilm formation. Rhamnolipid is a biosurfactant whose production is tightly regulated at the transcriptional level, but the precise role that it plays in disease is not well understood at present. Protein glycosylation, particularly of pilin and flagellin, became a focus of research by several groups from about 2007, and has been shown to be important for adhesion and invasion during bacterial infection.
Polysaccharides with unprotected vicinal diols or amino sugars (where some hydroxyl groups are replaced with amines) give a positive periodic acid-Schiff stain (PAS). The list of polysaccharides that stain with PAS is long. Although mucins of epithelial origins stain with PAS, mucins of connective tissue origin have so many acidic substitutions that they do not have enough glycol or amino-alcohol groups left to react with PAS. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23978 |
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , "Klaúdios Ptolemaîos" ; ; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt under the rule of the Roman Empire, had a Latin name (which several historians have taken to imply he was also a Roman citizen), cited Greek philosophers, and used Babylonian observations and Babylonian lunar theory. The 14th century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes gave his birthplace as the prominent Greek city Ptolemais Hermiou () in the Thebaid (). This attestation is quite late, however, and there is no other evidence to confirm or contradict it. He died in Alexandria around 168.
Ptolemy wrote several scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic and Western European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the "Almagest", although it was originally entitled the "Mathematical Treatise" () and then known as "The Great Treatise" (). The second is the "Geography", which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the "Apotelesmatiká" () but more commonly known as the "Tetrábiblos" from the Koine Greek () meaning "Four Books" or by the Latin "Quadripartitum".
"Ptolemaeus" ( "Ptolemaîos") is an ancient Greek personal name. It occurs once in Greek mythology and is of Homeric form. It was common among the Macedonian upper class at the time of Alexander the Great and there were several of this name among Alexander's army, one of whom made himself pharaoh in 323 BCE: Ptolemy I Soter, the first pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. All subsequent pharaohs of Egypt until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BCE, ending the Macedonian family's rule, were also Ptolemies.
The name "Claudius" is a Roman name, belonging to the "gens" Claudia; the peculiar multipart form of the whole name Claudius Ptolemaeus is a Roman custom, characteristic of Roman citizens. Several historians have made the deduction that this indicates that Ptolemy would have been a Roman citizen. Gerald Toomer, the translator of Ptolemy's "Almagest" into English, suggests that citizenship was probably granted to one of Ptolemy's ancestors by either the emperor Claudius or the emperor Nero.
The 9th century Persian astronomer Abu Maʻshar presents Ptolemy as a member of Egypt's royal lineage, stating that the descendants of the Alexandrine general and Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter, were wise "and included Ptolemy the Wise, who composed the book of the "Almagest"". Abu Maʻshar recorded a belief that a different member of this royal line "composed the book on astrology and attributed it to Ptolemy". We can evidence historical confusion on this point from Abu Maʿshar's subsequent remark: "It is sometimes said that the very learned man who wrote the book of astrology also wrote the book of the "Almagest". The correct answer is not known." Not much positive evidence is known on the subject of Ptolemy's ancestry, apart from what can be drawn from the details of his name (see above), although modern scholars have concluded that Abu Maʻshar's account is erroneous. It is no longer doubted that the astronomer who wrote the "Almagest" also wrote the "Tetrabiblos" as its astrological counterpart.
Ptolemy wrote in ancient Greek and can be shown to have utilized Babylonian astronomical data. He might have been a Roman citizen, but was ethnically either a Greek or a Hellenized Egyptian. He was often known in later Arabic sources as "the Upper Egyptian", suggesting he may have had origins in southern Egypt. Later Arabic astronomers, geographers and physicists referred to him as "Baṭlumyus" ().
Ptolemy's "Almagest" is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena; Greek astronomers such as Hipparchus had produced geometric models for calculating celestial motions. Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations. Ptolemy presented his astronomical models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position of the planets. The "Almagest" also contains a star catalogue, which is a version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus. Its list of forty-eight constellations is ancestral to the modern system of constellations, but unlike the modern system they did not cover the whole sky (only the sky Hipparchus could see). Across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in the Medieval period, it was the authoritative text on astronomy, with its author becoming an almost mythical figure, called Ptolemy, King of Alexandria. The "Almagest" was preserved, like most of extant Classical Greek science, in Arabic manuscripts (hence its familiar name). Because of its reputation, it was widely sought and was translated twice into Latin in the 12th century, once in Sicily and again in Spain. Ptolemy's model, like those of his predecessors, was geocentric and was almost universally accepted until the appearance of simpler heliocentric models during the scientific revolution.
His "Planetary Hypotheses" went beyond the mathematical model of the "Almagest" to present a physical realization of the universe as a set of nested spheres, in which he used the epicycles of his planetary model to compute the dimensions of the universe. He estimated the Sun was at an average distance of 1,210 Earth radii, while the radius of the sphere of the fixed stars was 20,000 times the radius of the Earth.
Ptolemy presented a useful tool for astronomical calculations in his "Handy Tables", which tabulated all the data needed to compute the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets, the rising and setting of the stars, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Ptolemy's "Handy Tables" provided the model for later astronomical tables or "zījes". In the "Phaseis" ("Risings of the Fixed Stars"), Ptolemy gave a "parapegma", a star calendar or almanac, based on the appearances and disappearances of stars over the course of the solar year.
Ptolemy's other main work is his "Geography" (also called the "Geographia"), a compilation of geographical coordinates of the part of the world known to the Roman Empire during his time. He relied somewhat on the work of an earlier geographer, Marinos of Tyre, and on gazetteers of the Roman and ancient Persian Empire. He also acknowledged ancient astronomer Hipparchus for having provided the elevation of the north celestial pole for a few cities.
The first part of the "Geography" is a discussion of the data and of the methods he used. As with the model of the Solar System in the "Almagest", Ptolemy put all this information into a grand scheme. Following Marinos, he assigned coordinates to all the places and geographic features he knew, in a grid that spanned the globe. Latitude was measured from the equator, as it is today, but Ptolemy preferred to express it as "climata", the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc: the length of the midsummer day increases from 12h to 24h as one goes from the equator to the polar circle. In books 2 through 7, he used degrees and put the meridian of 0 longitude at the most western land he knew, the "Blessed Islands", often identified as the Canary Islands, as suggested by the location of the six dots labelled the "FORTUNATA" islands near the left extreme of the blue sea of Ptolemy's map here reproduced.
Ptolemy also devised and provided instructions on how to create maps both of the whole inhabited world ("oikoumenè") and of the Roman provinces. In the second part of the "Geography", he provided the necessary topographic lists, and captions for the maps. His "oikoumenè" spanned 180 degrees of longitude from the Blessed Islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the middle of China, and about 80 degrees of latitude from Shetland to anti-Meroe (east coast of Africa); Ptolemy was well aware that he knew about only a quarter of the globe, and an erroneous extension of China southward suggests his sources did not reach all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The maps in surviving manuscripts of Ptolemy's "Geography", however, only date from about 1300, after the text was rediscovered by Maximus Planudes. It seems likely that the topographical tables in books 2–7 are cumulative texts – texts which were altered and added to as new knowledge became available in the centuries after Ptolemy. This means that information contained in different parts of the Geography is likely to be of different dates.
Maps based on scientific principles had been made since the time of Eratosthenes, in the 3rd century BC, but Ptolemy improved map projections. It is known from a speech by Eumenius that a world map, an "orbis pictus", doubtless based on the "Geography", was on display in a school in Augustodunum, Gaul in the 3rd century. In the 15th century, Ptolemy's "Geography" began to be printed with engraved maps; the earliest printed edition with engraved maps was produced in Bologna in 1477, followed quickly by a Roman edition in 1478 (Campbell, 1987). An edition printed at Ulm in 1482, including woodcut maps, was the first one printed north of the Alps. The maps look distorted when compared to modern maps, because Ptolemy's data were inaccurate. One reason is that Ptolemy estimated the size of the Earth as too small: while Eratosthenes found 700 "stadia" for a great circle degree on the globe, Ptolemy uses 500 "stadia" in the "Geography". It is highly probable that these were the same "stadion", since Ptolemy switched from the former scale to the latter between the "Syntaxis" and the "Geography", and severely readjusted longitude degrees accordingly. See also Ancient Greek units of measurement and History of geodesy.
Because Ptolemy derived many of his key latitudes from crude longest day values, his latitudes are erroneous on average by roughly a degree (2 degrees for Byzantium, 4 degrees for Carthage), though capable ancient astronomers knew their latitudes to more like a minute. (Ptolemy's own latitude was in error by 14'.) He agreed ("Geography" 1.4) that longitude was best determined by simultaneous observation of lunar eclipses, yet he was so out of touch with the scientists of his day that he knew of no such data more recent than 500 years before (Arbela eclipse). When switching from 700 stadia per degree to 500, he (or Marinos) expanded longitude differences between cities accordingly (a point first realized by P. Gosselin in 1790), resulting in serious over-stretching of the Earth's east-west scale in degrees, though not distance. Achieving highly precise longitude remained a problem in geography until the application of Galileo's Jovian moon method in the 18th century. It must be added that his original topographic list cannot be reconstructed: the long tables with numbers were transmitted to posterity through copies containing many scribal errors, and people have always been adding or improving the topographic data: this is a testimony to the persistent popularity of this influential work in the history of cartography.
Ptolemy has been referred to as "a pro-astrological authority of the highest magnitude". His astrological treatise, a work in four parts, is known by the Greek term "Tetrabiblos", or the Latin equivalent "Quadripartitum": "Four Books". Ptolemy's own title is unknown, but may have been the term found in some Greek manuscripts: "Apotelesmatika", roughly meaning "Astrological Outcomes", "Effects" or "Prognostics".
As a source of reference, the "Tetrabiblos" is said to have "enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among the astrological writers of a thousand years or more". It was first translated from Arabic into Latin by Plato of Tivoli (Tiburtinus) in 1138, while he was in Spain. The "Tetrabiblos" is an extensive and continually reprinted treatise on the ancient principles of horoscopic astrology. That it did not quite attain the unrivaled status of the "Almagest" was, perhaps, because it did not cover some popular areas of the subject, particularly electional astrology (interpreting astrological charts for a particular moment to determine the outcome of a course of action to be initiated at that time), and medical astrology, which were later adoptions.
The great popularity that the "Tetrabiblos" did possess might be attributed to its nature as an exposition of the art of astrology, and as a compendium of astrological lore, rather than as a manual. It speaks in general terms, avoiding illustrations and details of practice. Ptolemy was concerned to defend astrology by defining its limits, compiling astronomical data that he believed was reliable and dismissing practices (such as considering the numerological significance of names) that he believed to be without sound basis.
Much of the content of the "Tetrabiblos" was collected from earlier sources; Ptolemy's achievement was to order his material in a systematic way, showing how the subject could, in his view, be rationalized. It is, indeed, presented as the second part of the study of astronomy of which the "Almagest" was the first, concerned with the influences of the celestial bodies in the sublunary sphere. Thus explanations of a sort are provided for the astrological effects of the planets, based upon their combined effects of heating, cooling, moistening, and drying.
Ptolemy's astrological outlook was quite practical: he thought that astrology was like medicine, that is "conjectural", because of the many variable factors to be taken into account: the race, country, and upbringing of a person affects an individual's personality as much as, if not more than, the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets at the precise moment of their birth, so Ptolemy saw astrology as something to be used in life but in no way relied on entirely.
A collection of one hundred aphorisms about astrology called the "Centiloquium", ascribed to Ptolemy, was widely reproduced and commented on by Arabic, Latin and Hebrew scholars, and often bound together in medieval manuscripts after the "Tetrabiblos" as a kind of summation. It is now believed to be a much later pseudepigraphical composition. The identity and date of the actual author of the work, referred to now as Pseudo-Ptolemy, remains the subject of conjecture.
Despite Ptolemy's prominence as a philosopher, the Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis criticizes the "Tetrabiblos", stating that "it only remain puzzling that the very writer of the "Almagest", who had taught how to develop astronomy from accurate observations and mathematical constructions, could put together such a system of superficial analogies and unfounded assertions."
Ptolemy also wrote an influential work, "Harmonics", on music theory and the mathematics of music. After criticizing the approaches of his predecessors, Ptolemy argued for basing musical intervals on mathematical ratios (in contrast to the followers of Aristoxenus and in agreement with the followers of Pythagoras), backed up by empirical observation (in contrast to the overly theoretical approach of the Pythagoreans). Ptolemy wrote about how musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations and vice versa in "Harmonics". This is called Pythagorean tuning because it was first discovered by Pythagoras. However, Pythagoras believed that the mathematics of music should be based on the specific ratio of 3:2, whereas Ptolemy merely believed that it should just generally involve tetrachords and octaves. He presented his own divisions of the tetrachord and the octave, which he derived with the help of a monochord. His "Harmonics" never had the influence of his "Almagest" or "Planetary Hypotheses", but a part of it (Book III) did encourage Kepler in his own musings on the harmony of the world (Kepler, "Harmonice Mundi", Appendix to Book V). Ptolemy's astronomical interests also appeared in a discussion of the "music of the spheres".
His "Optics" is a work that survives only in a poor Arabic translation and in about twenty manuscripts of a Latin version of the Arabic, which was translated by Eugenius of Palermo (). In it, Ptolemy writes about properties of light, including reflection, refraction, and colour. The work is a significant part of the early history of optics
and influenced the more famous 11th-century "Book of Optics" by Ibn al-Haytham. It contains the earliest surviving table of refraction from air to water, for which the values (with the exception of the 60° angle of incidence), although historically praised as experimentally derived, appear to have been obtained from an arithmetic progression.
The work is also important for the early history of perception. Ptolemy combined the mathematical, philosophical and physiological traditions. He held an extramission-intromission theory of vision: the rays (or flux) from the eye formed a cone, the vertex being within the eye, and the base defining the visual field. The rays were sensitive, and conveyed information back to the observer's intellect about the distance and orientation of surfaces. Size and shape were determined by the visual angle subtended at the eye combined with perceived distance and orientation. This was one of the early statements of size-distance invariance as a cause of perceptual size and shape constancy, a view supported by the Stoics. Ptolemy offered explanations for many phenomena concerning illumination and colour, size, shape, movement and binocular vision. He also divided illusions into those caused by physical or optical factors and those caused by judgmental factors. He offered an obscure explanation of the sun or moon illusion (the enlarged apparent size on the horizon) based on the difficulty of looking upwards.
There are several characters or items named after Ptolemy, including: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23979 |
Pyxis
Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass (contrasting with Circinus, which represents a draftsman's compasses). Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations.
The plane of the Milky Way passes through Pyxis. A faint constellation, its three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—are in a rough line. At magnitude 3.68, Alpha is the constellation's brightest star. It is a blue-white star approximately distant and around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun.
Pyxis is located close to the stars that formed the old constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. Parts of Argo Navis were the Carina (the keel or hull), the Puppis (the poop deck or stern), and the Vela (the sails). These eventually became their own constellations. In the 19th century, John Herschel suggested renaming Pyxis to Malus (meaning the mast) but the suggestion was not followed.
T Pyxidis, located about 4 degrees northeast of Alpha Pyxidis, is a recurrent nova that has flared up to magnitude 7 every few decades. Also, three star systems in Pyxis have confirmed exoplanets. The Pyxis globular cluster is situated about 130,000 light-years away in the galactic halo. This region was not thought to contain globular clusters. The possibility has been raised that this object might have escaped from the Large Magellanic Cloud.
In ancient Chinese astronomy, Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis formed part of "Tianmiao", a celestial temple honouring the ancestors of the emperor, along with stars from neighbouring Antlia.
The French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille first described the constellation in French as "la Boussole" (the Marine Compass) in 1752, after he had observed and catalogued almost 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised fourteen new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honoured instruments that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. Lacaille Latinised the name to "Pixis" [sic] "Nautica" on his 1763 chart. The Ancient Greeks identified the four main stars of Pyxis as the mast of the mythological Jason's ship, "Argo Navis".
German astronomer Johann Bode defined the constellation Lochium Funis, the Log, and Line—a nautical device once used for measuring speed and distance travelled at sea—around Pyxis in his 1801 star atlas, but the depiction did not survive. In 1844 John Herschel attempted to resurrect the classical configuration of Argo Navis by renaming it Malus the Mast, a suggestion followed by Francis Baily, but Benjamin Gould restored Lacaille's nomenclature.
Covering 220.8 square degrees and hence 0.535% of the sky, Pyxis ranks 65th of the 88 modern constellations by area. Its position in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers south of 52°N. It is most visible in the evening sky in February and March. A small constellation, it is bordered by Hydra to the north, Puppis to the west, Vela to the south, and Antlia to the east. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Pyx". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of eight sides ("illustrated in infobox"). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between −17.41° and −37.29°.
Lacaille gave Bayer designations to ten stars now named Alpha to Lambda Pyxidis, skipping the Greek letters iota and kappa. Although a nautical element, the constellation was not an integral part of the old Argo Navis and hence did not share in the original Bayer designations of that constellation, which were split between Carina, Vela and Puppis. Pyxis is a faint constellation, its three brightest stars—Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—forming a rough line. Overall, there are 41 stars within the constellation's borders with apparent magnitudes brighter than or equal to 6.5.
With an apparent magnitude of 3.68, Alpha Pyxidis is the brightest star in the constellation. Located 880 ± 30 light-years distant from Earth, it is a blue-white giant star of spectral type B1.5III that is around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun and has 9.4 ± 0.7 times its diameter. It began life with a mass 12.1 ± 0.6 times that of the Sun, almost 15 million years ago. Its light is dimmed by 30% due to interstellar dust, so would have a brighter magnitude of 3.31 if not for this. The second brightest star at magnitude 3.97 is Beta Pyxidis, a yellow bright giant or supergiant of spectral type G7Ib-II that is around 435 times as luminous as the Sun, lying 420 ± 10 light-years distant away from Earth. It has a companion star of magnitude 12.5 separated by 9 arcseconds. Gamma Pyxidis is a star of magnitude 4.02 that lies 207 ± 2 light-years distant. It is an orange giant of spectral type K3III that has cooled and swollen to 3.7 times the diameter of the Sun after exhausting its core hydrogen.
Kappa Pyxidis was catalogued but not given a Bayer designation by Lacaille, but Gould felt the star was bright enough to warrant a letter. Kappa has a magnitude of 4.62 and is 560 ± 50 light-years distant. An orange giant of spectral type K4/K5III, Kappa has a luminosity approximately 965 times that of the Sun. It is separated by 2.1 arcseconds from a magnitude 10 star. Theta Pyxidis is a red giant of spectral type M1III and semi-regular variable with two measured periods of 13 and 98.3 days, and an average magnitude of 4.71, and is 500 ± 30 light-years distant from Earth. It has expanded to approximately 54 times the diameter of the Sun.
Located around 4 degrees northeast of Alpha is T Pyxidis, a binary star system composed of a white dwarf with around 0.8 times the Sun's mass and a red dwarf that orbit each other every 1.8 hours. This system is located around 15,500 light-years away from Earth. A recurrent nova, it has brightened to the 7th magnitude in the years 1890, 1902, 1920, 1944, 1966 and 2011 from a baseline of around 14th magnitude. These outbursts are thought to be due to the white dwarf accreting material from its companion and ejecting periodically.
TY Pyxidis is an eclipsing binary star whose apparent magnitude ranges from 6.85 to 7.5 over 3.2 days. The two components are both of spectral type G5IV with a diameter 2.2 times, and mass 1.2 times that of the Sun, and revolve around each other every 3.2 days. The system is classified as a RS Canum Venaticorum variable, a binary system with prominent starspot activity, and lies 184 ± 5 light-years away. The system emits X-rays, and analysing the emission curve over time led researchers to conclude that there was a loop of material arcing between the two stars. RZ Pyxidis is another eclipsing binary system, made up of two young stars less than 200,000 years old. Both are hot blue-white stars of spectral type B7V and are around 2.5 times the size of the Sun. One is around five times as luminous as the Sun and the other around four times as luminous. The system is classified as a Beta Lyrae variable, the apparent magnitude varying from 8.83 to 9.72 over 0.66 days. XX Pyxidis is one of the more-studied members of a class of stars known as Delta Scuti variables—short period (six hours at most) pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study astroseismology. Astronomers made more sense of its pulsations when it became clear that it is also a binary star system. The main star is a white main sequence star of spectral type A4V that is around 1.85 ± 0.05 times as massive as the Sun. Its companion is most likely a red dwarf of spectral type M3V, around 0.3 times as massive as the Sun. The two are very close—possibly only 3 times the diameter of the Sun between them—and orbit each other every 1.15 days. The brighter star is deformed into an egg shape.
AK Pyxidis is a red giant of spectral type M5III and semi-regular variable that varies between magnitudes 6.09 and 6.51. Its pulsations take place over multiple periods simultaneously of 55.5, 57.9, 86.7, 162.9 and 232.6 days. UZ Pyxidis is another semi-regular variable red giant, this time a carbon star, that is around 3560 times as luminous as the Sun with a surface temperature of 3482 K, located 2116 light-years away from Earth. It varies between magnitudes 6.99 and 7.83 over 159 days. VY Pyxidis is a BL Herculis variable (type II Cepheid), ranging between apparent magnitudes 7.13 and 7.40 over a period of 1.24 days. Located around 650 light-years distant, it shines with a luminosity approximately 45 times that of the Sun.
The closest star to Earth in the constellation is Gliese 318, a white dwarf of spectral class DA5 and magnitude 11.85. Its distance has been calculated to be 26 light-years, or 28.7 ± 0.5 light-years distant from Earth. It has around 45% of the Sun's mass, yet only 0.15% of its luminosity. WISEPC J083641.12-185947.2 is a brown dwarf of spectral type T8p located around 72 light-years from Earth. Discovered by infrared astronomy in 2011, it has a magnitude of 18.79.
Pyxis is home to three stars with confirmed planetary systems—all discovered by Doppler spectroscopy. A hot Jupiter, HD 73256 b, that orbits HD 73256 every 2.55 days, was discovered using the CORALIE spectrograph in 2003. The host star is a yellow star of spectral type G9V that has 69% of our Sun's luminosity, 89% of its diameter and 105% of its mass. Around 119 light-years away, it shines with an apparent magnitude of 8.08 and is around a billion years old. HD 73267 b was discovered with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in 2008. It orbits HD 73267 every 1260 days, a 7 billion-year-old star of spectral type G5V that is around 89% as massive as the Sun. A red dwarf of spectral type M2.5V that has around 42% the Sun's mass, Gliese 317 is orbited by two gas giant planets. Around 50 light-years distant from Earth, it is a good candidate for future searches for more terrestrial rocky planets.
Pyxis lies in the plane of the Milky Way, although part of the eastern edge is dark, with material obscuring our galaxy arm there. NGC 2818 is a planetary nebula that lies within a dim open cluster of magnitude 8.2. NGC 2818A is an open cluster that lies on line of sight with it. K 1-2 is a planetary nebula whose central star is a spectroscopic binary composed of two stars in close orbit with jets emanating from the system. The surface temperature of one component has been estimated at as high as 85,000 K. NGC 2627 is an open cluster of magnitude 8.4 that is visible in binoculars.
Discovered in 1995, the Pyxis globular cluster is a 13.3 ± 1.3 billion year-old globular cluster situated around 130,000 light-years distant from Earth and around 133,000 light-years distant from the centre of the Milky Way—a region not previously thought to contain globular clusters. Located in the galactic halo, it was noted to lie on the same plane as the Large Magellanic Cloud and the possibility has been raised that it might be an escaped object from that galaxy.
NGC 2613 is a spiral galaxy of magnitude 10.5 which appears spindle-shaped as it is almost edge-on to observers on Earth. Henize 2-10 is a dwarf galaxy which lies 30 million light-years away. It has a black hole of around a million solar masses at its centre. Known as a starburst galaxy due to very high rates of star formation, it has a bluish colour due to the huge numbers of young stars within it. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23984 |
Parasitic computing
Parasitic computing is programming technique where a program in normal authorized interactions with another program manages to get the other program to perform computations of a complex nature. It is, in a sense, a security exploit in that the program implementing the parasitic computing has no authority to consume resources made available to the other program.
It was first proposed by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Vincent W. Freeh, Hawoong Jeong & Jay B. Brockman from University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, in 2001. The example given by the original paper was two computers communicating over the Internet, under disguise of a standard communications session. The first computer is attempting to solve a large and extremely difficult 3-SAT problem; it has decomposed the original 3-SAT problem in a considerable number of smaller problems. Each of these smaller problems is then encoded as a relation between a checksum and a packet such that whether the checksum is accurate or not is also the answer to that smaller problem. The packet/checksum is then sent to another computer. This computer will, as part of receiving the packet and deciding whether it is valid and well-formed, create a checksum of the packet and see whether it is identical to the provided checksum. If the checksum is invalid, it will then request a new packet from the original computer. The original computer now knows the answer to that smaller problem based on the second computer's response, and can transmit a fresh packet embodying a different sub-problem. Eventually, all the sub-problems will be answered and the final answer easily calculated.
The example is based on an exploit of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), used for internet connections, so in the end, the target computer(s) is unaware that it has performed computation for the benefit of the other computer, or even done anything besides have a normal TCP/IP session.
The proof-of-concept is obviously extremely inefficient as the amount of computation necessary to merely send the packets in the first place easily exceeds the computations leeched from the other program; the 3-SAT problem would be solved much more quickly if just analyzed locally. In addition, in practice packets would probably have to be retransmitted occasionally when real checksum errors and network problems occur. However, parasitic computing on the level of checksums is a demonstration of the concept. The authors suggest that as one moves up the application stack, there might come a point where there is a net computational gain to the parasite - perhaps one could break down interesting problems into queries of complex cryptographic protocols using public keys. If there was a net gain, one could in theory use a number of control nodes for which many hosts on the Internet form a distributed computing network completely unawares.
Students of the University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Switzerland, extended this concept into a programmable virtual machine in 2002.
In 2011, a group of malware programs were noticed by security software vendors, which utilized high performance graphics processing units (GPUs) for Bitcoin mining, a chain of computationally intensive tasks to generate cryptocurrency units. These programs invaded systems and were executed like other malware, rather than exploiting underlying protocols. Powerful GPUs on personal computers were originally created mainly for games, but with interfaces like CUDA and OpenCL, became usable for general computing tasks, surpassing the performance of a Central Processing Unit (CPU) by multiple times. Until then, parasitic computing lacked powerful computing resources and results to easily convert into cash for criminals.
In January 2014, Bitcoin mining malware was distributed through a Java exploit by compromised ads, displayed on the Yahoo website. In 2013, Bitcoin mining malware was installed as adware alongside other downloads, some pointing out to the functionality in lengthy EULA texts. Malware including Bitcoin mining functionality was also secretly downloaded and activated by adware bundled with regular software downloads, both distributed by related companies in Israel and Ukraine.
Bitcoin mining by personal computers infected with malware is being challenged by dedicated hardware, such as FPGA and ASIC platforms, which are more efficient in terms of power consumption and thus may have lower costs than theft of computing resources. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23985 |
Pegasus
Pegasus (, "Pḗgasos"; ) is a mythical winged divine horse, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is the offspring of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled by the Gorgon Medusa upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated her. Pegasus is the brother of Chrysaor and the uncle of Geryon.
Pegasus was caught by the Greek hero Bellerophon, near the fountain Peirene, with the help of Athena and Poseidon. Pegasus allowed Bellerophon to ride him in order to defeat the monstrous Chimera, which led to many other exploits. Bellerophon later fell from the winged horse's back while trying to reach Mount Olympus. Afterwards, Zeus transformed Pegasus into the eponymous constellation.
The poet Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name "Pegasus" as derived from "spring, well": "the "pegai" of Okeanos, where he was born."
A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian , meaning "lightning", and , a local Luwian-Hittite name in southern Cilicia of a weather god represented with thunder and lightning. The proponents of this etymology adduce Pegasus' role, reported as early as Hesiod, as the bringer of thunderbolts to Zeus. It was first suggested in 1952 and remains widely accepted, but Robin Lane Fox (2009) has criticized it as implausible.
Dr. Michael Brown, who has been studying ancient and medieval Greek poetry in the context of the Greek-North European dialogue, and has concluded from it that the word "Pegasus" is a pre-Celtic-PIE word, one which did not evolve into one of the numerous common names listed in both Greek and Western languages. This is discussed further in "Linguistics and Classical Theology," by William S. R. Miller, which is based on his work with Charles F. G. Osterhaus's analysis of the word and its relationships to Greek and Italian. The relationship of "Pegasus" to "Cyrillic" is discussed further in his Phrygian Monikers and the Naming of Greek Pronunciation "Cyrillic or Pene-Orthogyrin" and "Pegasus" as an Early Semitic construct.
According to legend, everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring water spring burst forth. One of these springs was upon the Muses' Mount Helicon, the "Hippocrene" ("horse spring"), opened, Antoninus Liberalis suggested, at the behest of Poseidon to prevent the mountain swelling with rapture at the song of the Muses; another was at Troezen. Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him. Hesiod also says Pegasus carried thunderbolts for Zeus.
There are several versions of the birth of the winged stallion and his brother Chrysaor in the far distant place at the edge of Earth, Hesiod's "springs of Oceanus, which encircles the inhabited earth, where Perseus found Medusa:
One is that they sprang from the blood issuing from Medusa's neck as Perseus was beheading her, similar to the manner in which Athena was born from the head of Zeus. In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, they were born of the Earth, fed by the Gorgon's blood. A variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusa's blood, pain and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making. The last version bears resemblance to Hesiod's account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when Uranus's severed genitals were cast into the sea by Cronus.
Pegasus aided the hero Bellerophon in his fight against the Chimera. There are varying tales about how Bellerophon found Pegasus; the most common being that the hero was told by Polyeidos to sleep in the temple of Athena, where the goddess visited him in the night and presented him with a golden bridle. The next morning, still clutching the bridle, Bellerophon found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring, caught him and eventually tamed him.
Michaud's "Biographie universelle" relates that when Pegasus was born, he flew to where thunder and lightning are released. Then, according to certain versions of the myth, Athena tamed him and gave him to Perseus, who flew to Ethiopia to help Andromeda.
Pegasus and Athena left Bellerophon and continued to Olympus where he was stabled with Zeus' other steeds, and was given the task of carrying Zeus' thunderbolts, along with other members of his entourage, his attendants/handmaidens/shield bearers/shieldmaidens, Astrape and Bronte. Because of his years of faithful service to Zeus, Pegasus was later honoured with transformation into a constellation. On the day of his "catasterism", when Zeus transformed him into a constellation, a single feather fell to the earth near the city of Tarsus.
The pegasus became a common element in British heraldry, appearing chiefly as a supporter or a crest. Pegasi may also appear upon escutcheons, although this is rare. A pegasus rampant is featured on the arms of the Inner Temple, while those of the Richardson family contain a rare depiction of a pegasus sejant.
During World War II, the silhouetted image of Bellerophon the warrior, mounted on the winged Pegasus, was adopted by the United Kingdom's newly raised parachute troops in 1941 as their upper sleeve insignia. The image clearly symbolized a warrior arriving at a battle by air, the same tactics used by paratroopers. The square upper-sleeve insignia comprised Bellerophon/Pegasus in light blue on a maroon background. One source suggests that the insignia was designed by famous English novelist Daphne du Maurier, who was wife of the commander of the 1st Airborne Division (and later the expanded British Airborne Forces), General Frederick "Boy" Browning. According to the British Army Website, the insignia was designed by the celebrated East Anglian painter Major Edward Seago in May 1942. The maroon background on the insignia was later used again by the Airborne Forces when they adopted the famous maroon beret in Summer 1942. The beret was the origin of the German nickname for British airborne troops, the Red Devils. Today's Parachute Regiment carries on the maroon beret tradition. The selection process for the elite Parachute Regiment is called Pegasus Company (often abbreviated to "P Company"). In 2015 it was announced that the units of 16 Air Assault Brigade would once again use the Pegasus insignia after a 15-year hiatus.
During the airborne phase of the Normandy invasion on the night of 5–6 June 1944, British 6th Airborne Division captured all its key objectives in advance of the seaborne assault, including the capture and holding at all costs of a vital bridge over the Caen Canal, near Ouistreham. In memory of their tenacity, the bridge has been known ever since as Pegasus Bridge.
The Tuscan National Liberation Committee during the German occupation of Italy also had a Pegasus as its emblem. The winged horse is still featured on the Tuscan flag and coat of arms.
The winged horse has provided an instantly recognizable corporate logo or emblem of inspiration. Ecuador launched its weather satellite, named "Pegaso" (, Pegasus in Spanish), on 26 April 2013 but it was damaged by Russian space debris. Pegasus Airlines (Turkish: Pegasus Hava Taşımacılığı A.Ş.) is a low-cost airline headquartered in the Kurtköy area of Pendik, Istanbul, Turkey. Mobil Oil has had a Pegasus as its company logo since its affiliation with Magnolia Petroleum Company in the 1930s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23986 |
Party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation in elections in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through allocations to an electoral list. They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.
In these systems, parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats are distributed to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. Voters may vote directly for the party, as in Albania, Argentina, Turkey, and Israel; or for candidates whose vote total will pool to the party, as in Finland, Brazil and the Netherlands; or for a list of candidates, as in Hong Kong.
Voters in Luxembourg's multi-seat constituencies can choose between voting for a complete list of candidates of a single party ("list vote") or voting for individual candidates from one or several lists ("panachage").
The order in which a party's list candidates get elected may be pre-determined by some method internal to the party or the candidates (a closed list system) or it may be determined by the voters at large (an open list system) or by districts (a local list system).
Many variations on seat allocation within party-list proportional representation exist. The two most common are:
List proportional representation may also be combined in various hybrids, e.g., using the additional member system.
List of main apportionment methods:
While the allocation formula is important, equally important is the district magnitude (number of seats in a constituency). The higher the district magnitude, the more proportional an electoral system becomes - the most proportional being when there is no division into constituencies at all and the entire country is treated as a single constituency. More, in some countries the electoral system works on two levels: at-large for parties, and in constituencies for candidates, with local party-lists seen as fractions of general, national lists. In this case, magnitude of local constituencies is irrelevant, seat apportionment being calculated at national level.
In France, party lists in proportional elections must include as many candidates (and twice as many substitutes for the departmental elections) as there are seats to be allocated, whereas in other countries "incomplete" lists are allowed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23987 |
Piscis Austrinus
Piscis Austrinus is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. The name is Latin for "the southern fish", in contrast with the larger constellation Pisces, which represents a pair of fishes. Prior to the 20th century, it was also known as Piscis Notius. Its only star brighter than 4th magnitude is Fomalhaut, which is a 1st-magnitude star and is the 18th-brightest star in the night sky.
Piscis Austrinus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. The stars of the modern constellation Grus once formed the "tail" of Piscis Austrinus. In 1597 (or 1598), Petrus Plancius carved out a separate constellation and named it after the crane.
Pisces Austrinus originated with the Babylonian constellation simply known as the Fish (MUL.KU). Professor of astronomy Bradley Schaefer has proposed that ancient observers must have been able to see as far south as Mu Piscis Austrini to define a pattern that looked like a fish.
Piscis Austrinus, along with the eagle Aquila the crow Corvus and water snake Hydra, were introduced to the Greeks around 500 BCE; they marked the summer and winter solstices respectively.
In Greek mythology, this constellation is known as the Great Fish and it is portrayed as swallowing the water being poured out by Aquarius, the water-bearer constellation. The two fish of the constellation Pisces are said to be the offspring of the Great Fish. In Egyptian mythology, this fish saved the life of the Egyptian goddess Isis, so she placed this fish and its descendants into the heavens as constellations of stars. Ctesias wrote that the fish was said to have lived in a lake near Bambyce in Syria and had saved Derceto, daughter of Aphrodite, and for this deed was placed in the heavens. For this reason, fish were sacred and not eaten by many Syrians.
Piscis Austrinus is a constellation bordered by Capricornus to the northwest, Microscopium to the southwest, Grus to the south, Sculptor to the east, Aquarius to the north. Its recommended three-letter abbreviation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "PsA". Ptolemy called the constellation "Ichthus Notios" "Southern Fish" in his "Almagest"; this was Latinised to Piscis Notius and used by German celestial cartographers Johann Bayer, Johann Bayer, and Johann Elert Bode. Bayer also called it Piscis Meridanus and Piscis Austrinus, while French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille called it Piscis Australis. English Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed went with Piscis Austrinus, which was followed by most subsequently. The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of four segments ("illustrated in infobox"). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between -24.83° and -36.46°. The whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 53°N.
Ancient astronomers counted 12 stars as belonging to the Southern Fish, though one was later incorporated into nearby Grus as Gamma Gruis. Other stars became part of Microscopium. Bayer used the Greek letters alpha through mu to label the most prominent stars in the constellation. Ptolemy had catalogued Fomalhaut (Alpha Piscis Austrini) as belonging to both this constellation and Aquarius. Lacaille redrew the constellation as it was poorly visible from Europe, adding nu, pi and a new kappa as the original kappa became Gamma Gruis, and relabelling gamma, delta and epsilon as epsilon, eta and gamma respectively. However, Baily and Gould did not uphold these changes as Bayer's original chart was fairly accurate. Bode added tau and upsilon. Flamsteed gave 24 stars Flamsteed designations, though the first four numbered became part of Microscopium. Within the constellation's borders, there are 47 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5.
Traditionally representing the mouth of the fish, Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation and the 19th brightest star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of 1.16. Located 25.13 ± 0.09 light-years away, it is a white main sequence star that is 1.92 ± 0.02 times as massive and 16.63±0.48 as luminous as the Sun. Its companion Fomalhaut b was thought to be the first extrasolar planet ever detected by a visible light image, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, but infrared observations have since retracted this claim: it is instead a spherical cloud of dust. TW Piscis Austrini can be seen close by and is possibly associated with Fomalhaut as it lies within a light-year of it. Of magnitude 6.5, it is a BY Draconis variable.
The second brightest star in the constellation, Epsilon Piscis Austrini is a blue-white star of magnitude +4.17. Located 400 ± 20 light-years distant, it is a blue-white main sequence star 4.10 ± 0.19 times as massive as the Sun, and around 661 times as luminous.
Beta, Delta and Zeta constitute the "Tien Kang" ("heavenly rope") in China. Beta is a white main sequence star of apparent magnitude 4.29 that is of similar size and luminosity to Fomalhaut but five times as remote, at around 143 ± 1 light-years distant from Earth. Delta Piscis Austrini is a double star with components of magnitude 4.2 and 9.2. The brighter is a yellow giant of spectral type G8 III. It is a red clump star that is burning helium in its core. It is 172 ± 2 light-years distant from Earth. Zeta Piscis Austrini is an orange giant star of spectral type K1III that is located 413 ± 2 light-years distant from Earth. It is a suspected variable star.
S Piscis Austrini is a long-period Mira-type variable red giant which ranges between magnitude 8.0 and 14.5 over a period of 271.7 days, and V Piscis Austrini is a semi-regular variable ranging between magnitudes 8.0 and 9.0 over 148 days.
Lacaille 9352 is a faint red dwarf star which is a mere 10.74 light-years away. At magnitude 7.34, it is too dim to be seen with the naked eye.
Exoplanets have been discovered in five other star systems in the constellation. HD 205739 is a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F7 V that has a planet around 1.37 times as massive as Jupiter orbiting it with a period of 279 days, and a suggestion of a second planet. HD 216770 is an orange dwarf accompanied by a Jupiter-like plaent every 118 days.. HD 207832 is a sunlike star with two planets. WASP-112 and WASP-124 are two sunlike stars that have planets discovered by transit.
NGC 7172, NGC 7174 and NGC 7314 are three galaxies of magnitudes 11.9, 12.5 and 10.9, respectively. NGC 7259 is another spiral galaxy, which hosted a supernova—SN 2009ip—in 2009.
At redshift z = 0.116, the BL Lacertae object PKS 2155-304 is one of the brightest blazars in the sky. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23992 |
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty (; , "Ptolemaioi"), sometimes also known as the Lagids () or Lagidae (; , "Lagidai", after Lagus, Ptolemy I's father), was a Macedonian Greek royal family, which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 to 30 BC. They were the last dynasty of ancient Egypt.
Ptolemy, one of the seven somatophylakes (bodyguards) of Macedon who served as Alexander the Great's generals and deputies, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself Ptolemy I, later known as "Sōter" "Saviour". The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC.
Like the earlier dynasties of ancient Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty practiced inbreeding including sibling marriage, but this did not start in earnest until nearly a century into the dynasty's history. All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy, while queens regnant were all called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.
Dates in brackets represent the regnal dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They frequently ruled jointly with their wives, who were often also their sisters. Several queens exercised regal authority. Of these, one of the last and most famous was Cleopatra ("Cleopatra VII Philopator", 51–30 BC), with her two brothers and her son serving as successive nominal co-rulers. Several systems exist for numbering the later rulers; the one used here is the one most widely employed by modern scholars.
In continuation of the tradition established by previous Egyptian dynasties, the Ptolemies engaged in inbreeding including sibling marriage, with many of the pharaohs being married to their siblings and often co-ruling with them. Ptolemy I and other early rulers of the dynasty were not married to their relatives, the childless marriage of siblings Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II being an exception. The first child-producing incestuous marriage in the Ptolemaic dynasty was that of Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III, who were succeeded as co-pharaohs by their son Ptolemy V, born 210 BC. The most famous Ptolemaic pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, was at different times married to and reigning with two of her brothers (Ptolemy XIII until 47 BC and then Ptolemy XIV until 44 BC), and their parents were likely siblings or possibly cousins as well.
Contemporaries describe a number of the Ptolemaic dynasty members as extremely obese, whilst sculptures and coins reveal prominent eyes and swollen necks. Familial Graves' disease could explain the swollen necks and eye prominence (exophthalmos), although this is unlikely to occur in the presence of morbid obesity. This is all likely due to inbreeding within the Ptolemaic dynasty. In view of the familial nature of these findings, members of this dynasty likely suffered from a multi-organ fibrotic condition such as Erdheim–Chester disease or a familial multifocal fibrosclerosis where thyroiditis, obesity and ocular proptosis may have all occurred concurrently. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23994 |
Party
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration of a special occasion. A party will typically feature food and beverages, and often music and dancing or other forms of entertainment. In many Western countries, parties for teens and adults are associated with drinking alcohol such as beer, wine, or distilled spirits.
More occasionally (though often in politics), a party can also simply refer to a group of people with a common objective.
Some parties are held in honor of a specific person, day, or event, such as a birthday party, a Super Bowl party, or a St. Patrick’s Day party. Parties of this kind are often called celebrations. A party is not necessarily a private occasion. Public parties are sometimes held in restaurants, pubs, beer gardens, nightclubs or bars, and people attending such parties may be charged an admission fee by the host. Large parties in public streets may celebrate events such as Mardi Gras or the signing of a peace treaty ending a long war.
A birthday party is a celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the person who is being honored. The tradition started in the mid-nineteenth century but did not become popular until the mid-twentieth century. Birthday parties are now a feature of many cultures.
In Western cultures, birthday parties include a number of common rituals. The guests may be asked to bring a gift for the honored person. Party locations are often decorated with colorful decorations, such as balloons and streamers. A birthday cake is usually served with lit candles that are to be blown out after a "birthday wish" has been made. The person being honored will be given the first piece of cake. While the birthday cake is being brought to the table, the song "Happy Birthday to You" or some other birthday song is sung by the guests.
At parties for children, time is often taken for the "gift opening" wherein the individual whose birthday is celebrated opens each of the gifts brought. It is also common at children's parties for the host to give parting gifts to the attendees in the form of "goodie bags". Children and even adults sometimes wear colorful cone-shaped party hats.
Birthday parties are often larger and more extravagant if they celebrate someone who has reached what is regarded in the culture as a milestone age, such as transition from childhood to adulthood. Examples of traditional coming of age celebrations include the North American sweet sixteen party and the Latin American quinceañera.
A surprise party is a party that is not made known beforehand to the person in whose honor it is being held.
Birthday surprise parties are the most common kind of surprise party. At most such parties, the guests will arrive an hour or so before the honored person arrives. Often, a friend in on the surprise will lead the honored person to the location of the party without letting on anything.
The guests might even conceal themselves from view, and when the honored person enters the room, they leap from hiding and all shout, "Surprise!" For some surprise birthday parties, it is considered to be a good tactic to shock the honored person. Streamers, silly string, and balloons may be used for this purpose. Evidence of a party, such as decorations and balloons, are not made visible from the exterior of the home, so that the person honored will suspect nothing.
A dinner party is a social gathering at which people eat dinner together, usually in the host's home. At the most formal dinner parties, the dinner is served on a dining table with place settings. Dinner parties are often preceded by a cocktail hour in a living room or bar, where guests drink cocktails while mingling and conversing. Wine is usually served throughout the meal, often with a different wine accompanying each course.
At less formal dinner parties, a buffet is provided. Guests choose food from the buffet and eat while standing up and conversing. Women guests may wear cocktail dresses; men may wear blazers.
At some informal dinner parties, the host may ask guests to bring food or beverages (a main dish, a side dish, a dessert, or appetizers). A party of this type is called a potluck or potluck dinner. In the United States, potlucks are very often held in churches and community centers.
A garden party is a party in a park or a garden. An event described as a garden party is usually more formal than other outdoor gatherings, which may be called simply parties, picnics, barbecues, etc. A garden party can be a prestigious event. For example, invitations by the British Sovereign to garden parties at Buckingham Palace are considered an honor. The President of France holds a garden party at the Palais de l'Elysée in Paris on Bastille Day.
A cocktail party is a party at which cocktails are served. It is sometimes called a "cocktail reception". Women who attend a cocktail party may wear a cocktail dress. A cocktail hat is sometimes worn as a fashion statement.
In Anglo-American culture, a tea party is a formal gathering for afternoon tea. These parties were traditionally attended only by women, but men may also be invited. Tea parties are often characterized by the use of prestigious tableware, such as bone china and silver. The table, whatever its size or cost, is made to look its prettiest, with cloth napkins and matching cups and plates.
In addition to tea, larger parties may serve punch or, in cold weather, hot chocolate. The tea is accompanied by a variety of easily managed foods. Thin sandwiches such as cucumber or tomato, bananas, cake slices, buns, and cookies are all common choices.
Formal receptions are parties that are designed to receive a large number of guests, often at prestigious venues such as Buckingham Palace, the White House or Government Houses of the British Empire and Commonwealth. The hosts and any guests of honor form a receiving line in order of precedence near the entrance. Each guest is announced to the host who greets each one in turn as he or she arrives. Each guest properly speaks little more than his name (if necessary) and a conventional greeting or congratulation to each person in the receiving line. In this way, the line of guests progresses steadily without unnecessary delay. After formally receiving each guest in this fashion, the hosts may mingle with the guests.
Somewhat less formal receptions are common in academic settings, sometimes to honor a guest lecturer, or to celebrate a special occasion such as retirement of a respected member of staff. Receptions are also common in symposium or academic conference settings, as an environment for attendees to mingle and interact informally. These gatherings may be accompanied by a sit-down dinner, or more commonly, a stand-up informal buffet meal.
Receptions are also held to celebrate exhibition openings at art galleries or museums. The featured artist or artists are often present, as well as the curators who organized the exhibition. In addition or instead, a celebratory reception may be held partway through or at the end of an exhibition run. This alternative scheduling allows guests more time to see the exhibition in depth at their own pace, before meeting the featured guests. Some food is often served, as in academic gatherings.
Refreshments at a reception may be as minimal, such as coffee or lemonade, or as elaborate as those at a state dinner.
In the 18th century, in France and England, it became fashionable for wealthy, well married ladies who had a residence "in town" to invite accomplished guests to visit their home in the evening, to partake of refreshments and cultural conversation. Soirées often included refined musical entertainment, and the term is still sometimes used to define a certain sophisticated type of evening party.
Society hostesses included actresses or other women with a larger-than-life reputation. The character of the hostess obviously determined the character of the soirée and the choice of guests.
Famous soirée hostesses include Hester Thrale.
A dance is a social gathering at which the guests dance. It may be a casual, informal affair or a structured event, such as a school dance or a charity ball. Dances usually take place during the evening. An afternoon dance is formally known as a tea dance. Some dances feature specific kinds of dancing, such as square dancing.
A ball is a large formal party that features ballroom dancing. Women guests wear ball gowns; men wear evening dress.
A block party is a public party that is attended by the residents of a specific city block or neighborhood. These parties are typically held in a city street that has been closed to traffic to accommodate the party. At some block parties, attendees are free to pass from house to house, socializing, and often drinking alcoholic beverages.
At a masquerade ball, guests wear masks to conceal their identities. Guests at a costume party or a fancy dress party wear costumes. These parties are sometimes associated with holiday events, such as Halloween and Mardi Gras.
In English and American culture during the Christmas season, it is traditional to have a Christmas caroling party. People go from door to door in a neighborhood and sing Christmas carols. Some popular Christmas carols are "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "Deck the Halls", "The Twelve Days of Christmas", "Frosty the Snowman", "Jingle Bells", "Silver Bells", "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", and "O Holy Night".
In Spain, this type of party is called "El Aguinaldo". It is the same as in England and the United States, but the only difference is that the children who sing the carols are given tips. Christmas songs are called "villancicos" in Spain; they are mainly sung by children at small parties.
Dance parties are gatherings in bars or community centers where the guests dance to house music, techno music, or disco. The music for dance parties is usually selected and played by a disc jockey.
A spin-off of dance parties, the rave involves dancing to loud house music, techno music, or industrial music. Rave parties may be attended by as few as a score of people in a basement or, more likely, by a few hundred people in a club, to as many as thousands in a large warehouse, field, or even tens of thousands in a sporting arena, amusement park, or other large space. Raves are associated with illegal drugs such as Ecstasy and psychedelic drugs.
A house party is a party where a large group of people get together at a private home to socialize. House parties that involve the drinking of beer pumped from a keg are called keg parties or "keggers." These parties are popular in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia and are often attended by people under the legal drinking age. Sometimes, even older party-goers run afoul of the law for having provided alcoholic beverages to minors. Arrests may also be made for violating a noise ordinance, for disorderly conduct, and even for operating a "blind pig", an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages.
On college campuses, parties are often hosted by fraternities.
Outdoor parties include bush parties and beach parties. Bush parties (also called "field parties") are held in a secluded area of a forest ("bush"), where friends gather to drink and talk. These parties are often held around a bonfire. Beach parties are held on a sandy shoreline of a lake, river, or sea, and also often feature a bonfire.
School-related parties for teenagers and young adults include proms and graduation parties, which are held in honor of someone who has recently graduated from a school or university.
A pool party is a party in which the guests swim in a swimming pool.
A singles dance party and mixer is a party which is organized for people who are not married and who want to find a partner for friendship, dating, or sex.
Usually a "mixer game" is played, to make it easy for people to meet each other. For example, each guest may be given a card with an inspiring quotation on it. The game is to find a potential partner who has the same quotation. Couples who have matching cards may be given a small prize.
These parties are sponsored by various organizations, both non-profit and for-profit.
A fundraising party, or fundraiser, is a party that is held for the purpose of collecting money that will be given to some person or to some institution, such as a school, charity, business, or political campaign. These parties are usually formal and consist of a dinner followed by speeches or by a presentation extolling whatever the money is being raised for.
It is very common to charge an admission fee for parties of this kind. This fee may be as high as several thousand dollars, especially if money is being raised for a political campaign.
In some places, parties to celebrate graduation from school, college or university are popular. A graduation party may be held on campus or external, and transportation is provided when location is far away.
A shower is a party whose primary purpose is to give gifts to the guest of honor. Traditionally, a bridal shower is a way for an engaged woman to be "showered" with gifts for her upcoming married life (see hope chest). Guests are expected to bring a small gift related to the upcoming life event. Themed games are a frequent sight at this sort of party. A new twist on the baby shower for a pregnant woman is the gender reveal party, made possible by modern ultrasound technology.
A housewarming party may be held when a family, couple, or person moves into a new house or apartment. It is an occasion for the hosts to show their new home to their friends. Housewarming parties are typically informal and do not include any planned activities other than a tour of the new house or apartment. Invited family members and friends may bring gifts for the new home.
A welcome party is held for the purpose of welcoming a newcomer, such as a new club member, a new employee, or a family's new baby.
In many cultures, it is customary to throw a farewell party in honor of someone who is moving away or departing on a long trip (sometimes called a "bon voyage" party). Retirement parties for departing co-workers fall into this category. Several are described in Japan in Shusaku Endo's 1974 novel "When I Whistle".
A cast party is a celebration following the final performance of a theatric event, such as a play, a musical, or an opera. A party of this kind may also be held following the end of shooting for a motion picture (called a "wrap party") or after the season's final episode of a television series. Cast parties are traditionally held for most theater performances, both professional and amateur.
Invited guests are usually restricted to performers, crew members, and a few others who did not participate in the performance, such as sponsors and donors who have helped fund the production.
A pre-party is a party that is held immediately before some event, such as a school dance, a wedding, a birthday party, or a bar mitzvah. These parties are usually of short duration and sometimes involve getting ready for the event (e.g., the guests may put on makeup or costumes). Guests usually leave at the same time and arrive at the event together. Often people engage in pregaming or drinking before an event or a night out, especially if the event lacks access to alcohol.
An after-party is a party that is held after a musical or theatrical performance or after some other event, such as a wedding or a school dance. Guests are usually limited to friends of the host.
International
Australia
Canada
France
Germany
India
Iran and other Persified societies
Ireland
Israel
Mexico
New Zealand
Pakistan
Scotland
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Christian
Islamic
Jewish | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23995 |
Political party
A political party is an organized group of people who have the same ideology, or who otherwise have the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections, in an attempt to get them elected and thereby implement the party's agenda. They are a defining element of representative democracy.
While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized and in how they operate, there are often many differences, and some are significant. Most of political parties have an ideological core, but some do not, and many represent ideologies very different from their ideology at the time the party was founded. Many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba. The United States is in practice a two-party system but with many smaller parties also participating.
The idea of people forming large groups or factions to advocate for their shared interests is ancient. Plato mentions the political factions of Classical Athens in "the Republic", and Aristotle discusses the tendency of different types of government to produce factions in "the Politics". Certain ancient disputes were also factional, like the Nika riots between two chariot racing factions at the Hippodrome of Constantinople. However, modern political parties are considered to have emerged around the end of the 18th or early 19th centuries, appearing first in Europe and the United States. What distinguishes political parties from factions and interest groups is that political parties use an explicit label to identify their members as having shared electoral and legislative goals. The transformation from loose factions into organised modern political parties is considered to have first occurred in either the United Kingdom or the United States, with the United Kingdom's Conservative Party and the Democratic Party of the United States both frequently called the world's "oldest continuous political party".
The party system that emerged in early modern Britain is considered to be one of the world's first, with origins in the factions that emerged from the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution of the late 17th century. The Whig faction originally organised itself around support for Protestant constitutional monarchy as opposed to absolute rule, whereas the conservative Tory faction (originally the Royalist or Cavalier faction of the English Civil War) supported a strong monarchy. These two groups structured disputes in the politics of the United Kingdom throughout the 18th century. Throughout the next several centuries, these loose factions began to adopt more coherent political tendencies and ideologies: the liberal political ideas of John Locke and the notion of universal rights espoused by theorists like Algernon Sidney and later John Stuart Mill were major influences on the Whigs, whereas the Tories eventually came to be identified with conservative philosophers like Edmund Burke.
The period between the advent of factionalism, around the Glorious Revolution, and the accession of George III in 1760 was characterised by Whig supremacy, during which the Whigs remained the most powerful bloc and consistently championed constitutional monarchy with strict limits on the monarch's power, opposed the accession of a Catholic king, and believed in extending toleration to nonconformist Protestants and dissenters. Although the Tories were out of office for half a century, they largely remained a united opposition to the Whigs.
When they lost power, the old Whig leadership dissolved into a decade of factional chaos with distinct Grenvillite, Bedfordite, Rockinghamite, and Chathamite factions successively in power, and all referring to themselves as "Whigs". The first distinctive political parties emerged from this chaos. The first such party was the Rockingham Whigs under the leadership of Charles Watson-Wentworth and the intellectual guidance of the political philosopher Edmund Burke. Burke laid out a philosophy that described the basic framework of the political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed". As opposed to the instability of the earlier factions, which were often tied to a particular leader and could disintegrate if removed from power, the party was centred around a set of core principles and remained out of power as a united opposition to government.
A coalition including the Rockingham Whigs, led by the Earl of Shelburne, took power in 1782, only to collapse after Rockingham's death. The new government, led by the radical politician Charles James Fox in coalition with Lord North, was soon brought down and replaced by William Pitt the Younger in 1783. It was now that a genuine two-party system began to emerge, with Pitt leading the new Tories against a reconstituted "Whig" party led by Fox. The modern Conservative Party was created out of these Pittite Tories. In 1859 under Lord Palmerston, the Whigs, heavily influenced by the classical liberal ideas of Adam Smith, joined together with the free trade Tory followers of Robert Peel and the independent Radicals to form the Liberal Party.
Although the framers of the 1787 United States Constitution did not anticipate that American political disputes would be primarily organised around political parties, political controversies in the early 1790s over the extent of federal government powers saw the emergence of two proto-political parties: the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party, which were championed by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. However, a consensus reached on these issues ended party politics in 1816 for nearly a decade, a period commonly known as the Era of Good Feelings.
The splintering of the Democratic-Republican Party in the aftermath of the contentious 1824 presidential election led to the re-emergence of political parties. Two major parties would dominate the political landscape for the next quarter-century: the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, established by Henry Clay from the National Republicans and from other Anti-Jackson groups. When the Whig Party fell apart in the mid-1850s, its position as a major U.S. political party was filled by the Republican Party.
Another candidate for the first modern party system to emerge is that of Sweden. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, the party model of politics was adopted across Europe. In Germany, France, Austria and elsewhere, the 1848 Revolutions sparked a wave of liberal sentiment and the formation of representative bodies and political parties. The end of the century saw the formation of large socialist parties in Europe, some conforming to the philosophy of Karl Marx, others adapting social democracy through the use of reformist and gradualist methods.
At the same time, the Home Rule League Party, campaigning for Home Rule for Ireland in the British Parliament, was fundamentally changed by the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell in the 1880s. In 1882, he changed his party's name to the Irish Parliamentary Party and created a well-organized grassroots structure, introducing membership to replace "ad hoc" informal groupings. He created a new selection procedure to ensure the professional selection of party candidates committed to taking their seats, and in 1884 he imposed a firm 'party pledge' which obliged MPs to vote as a bloc in parliament on all occasions. The creation of a strict party whip and a formal party structure was unique at the time, preceded only by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (1875), even though the latter was persecuted by Otto von Bismarck from 1878 to 1890. These parties' efficient structure and control contrasted with the loose rules and flexible informality found in the main British parties, and represented the development of new forms of party organisation, which constituted a "model" in the 20th-century.
Political parties are a nearly ubiquitous feature of modern countries. Nearly all democratic countries have strong political parties, and many political scientists consider countries with fewer than two parties to necessarily be autocratic. However, these sources allow that a country with multiple competitive parties is not necessarily democratic, and the politics of many autocratic countries are organised around one dominant political party. There are many explanations for how and why political parties are such a crucial part of modern states.
One of the core explanations for why political parties exist is that they arise from existing divisions among people. Building on Harold Hotelling's work on the aggregation of preferences and Duncan Black's development of social choice theory, Anthony Downs showed how an underlying distribution of preferences in an electorate can produce regular results in the aggregate, such as the median voter theorem. This abstract model shows that parties can arise from variations within an electorate, and can adjust themselves to the patterns in the electorate. However, Downs assumed that some distribution of preferences exists, rather than attributing any meaning to that distribution.
Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan made the idea of differences within an electorate more concrete by arguing that several major party systems of the 1960s were the result of social cleavages that had already existed in the 1920s. They identify four lasting cleavages in the countries they examine: a Center-Periphery cleavage regarding religion and language, a State-Church cleavage centered on control of mass education, a Land-Industry cleavage regarding freedom of industry and agricultural policies, and an Owner-Worker cleavage which includes a conflict between nationalism and internationalism. Subsequent authors have expanded on or modified these cleavages, particularly when examining parties in other parts of the world.
The argument that parties are produced by social cleavages has drawn several criticisms. Some authors have challenged the theory on empirical grounds, either finding no evidence for the claim that parties emerge from existing cleavages or arguing that this claim is not empirically testable. Others note that while social cleavages might cause political parties to exist, this obscures the opposite effect: that political parties also cause changes in the underlying social cleavages. A further objection is that, if the explanation for where parties come from is that they emerge from existing social cleavages, then the theory has not identified what causes parties unless it also explains where social cleavages come from; one response to this objection, along the lines of Charles Tilly's bellicist theory of state-building, is that social cleavages are formed by historical conflicts.
An alternative explanation for why parties are ubiquitous across the world is that the formation of parties provides compatible incentives for candidates and legislators. One explanation for the existence of parties, advanced by John Aldrich, is that the existence of political parties means that a candidate in one electoral district has an incentive to assist a candidate in a different district, when those two candidates have a similar ideology.
One reason that this incentive exists is that parties can solve certain legislative challenges that a legislature of unaffiliated members might face. Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins argue that the development of many institutions can be explained by their power to constrain the incentives of individuals; a powerful institution can prohibit individuals from acting in ways that harm the community. This suggests that political parties might be mechanisms for preventing candidates with similar ideologies from acting to each other's detriment. One specific advantage that candidates might obtain from helping similar candidates in other districts is that the existence of a party apparatus can help coalitions of electors to agree on ideal policy choices, which is in general not possible. This could be true even in contexts where it is only slightly beneficial to be part of a party; models of how individuals coordinate on joining a group or participating in an event show how even a weak preference to be part of a group can provoke mass participation.
Parties may be necessary for many individuals to participate in politics, because they provide a massively simplifying heuristic which allows people to make informed choices with a much lower cognitive cost. Without political parties, electors would have to evaluate every individual candidate in every single election they are eligible to vote in. Instead, parties enable electors to make judgments about a few groups instead of a much larger number of individuals. Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes argued in The American Voter that identification with a political party is a crucial determinant of whether and how an individual will vote. Because it is much easier to become informed about a few parties' platforms than about many candidates' personal positions, parties reduce the cognitive burden for people to cast informed votes. However, evidence suggests that over the last several decades the strength of party identification has been weakening, so this may be a less important function for parties to provide than it was in the past.
A political party is typically led by a party leader (the most powerful member and spokesperson representing the party), a party secretary (who maintains the daily work and records of party meetings), party treasurer (who is responsible for membership dues) and party chair (who forms strategies for recruiting and retaining party members, and also chairs party meetings). Most of the above positions are also members of the party executive, the leading organization which sets policy for the entire party at the national level. The structure is far more decentralized in the United States because of the separation of powers, federalism and the multiplicity of economic interests and religious sects. Even state parties are decentralized as county and other local committees are largely independent of state central committees. The national party leader in the U.S. will be the president, if the party holds that office, or a prominent member of Congress in opposition (although a big-state governor may aspire to that role). Officially, each party has a chairman for its national committee who is a prominent spokesman, organizer and fund-raiser, but without the status of prominent elected office holders.
In parliamentary democracies, on a regular, periodic basis, party conferences are held to elect party officers, although snap leadership elections can be called if enough members opt for such. Party conferences are also held in order to affirm party values for members in the coming year. American parties also meet regularly and, again, are more subordinate to elected political leaders.
Depending on the demographic spread of the party membership, party members form local or regional party committees in order to help candidates run for local or regional offices in government. These local party branches reflect the officer positions at the national level.
It is also customary for political party members to form wings for current or prospective party members, most of which fall into the following two categories:
These are useful for party outreach, training and employment. Many young aspiring politicians seek these roles and jobs as stepping stones to their political careers in legislative or executive offices.
The internal structure of political parties has to be democratic in some countries. In Germany Art. 21 Abs. 1 Satz 3 GG establishes a command of inner-party democracy.
When the party is represented by members in the lower house of parliament, the party leader simultaneously serves as the leader of the parliamentary group of that full party representation; depending on a minimum number of seats held, Westminster-based parties typically allow for leaders to form frontbench teams of senior fellow members of the parliamentary group to serve as critics of aspects of government policy. When a party becomes the largest party not part of the Government, the party's parliamentary group forms the Official Opposition, with Official Opposition frontbench team members often forming the Official Opposition Shadow cabinet. When a party achieves enough seats in an election to form a majority, the party's frontbench becomes the Cabinet of government ministers. They are all elected members. There are members who attend party without promotion.
The freedom to form, declare membership in, or campaign for candidates from a political party is considered a measurement of a state's adherence to liberal democracy as a political value. Regulation of parties may run from a crackdown on or repression of all opposition parties, a norm for authoritarian governments, to the repression of certain parties which hold or promote ideals which run counter to the general ideology of the state's incumbents (or possess membership by-laws which are legally unenforceable).
Furthermore, in the case of far-right, far-left and regionalism parties in the national parliaments of much of the European Union, mainstream political parties may form an informal cordon sanitaire which applies a policy of non-cooperation towards those "Outsider Parties" present in the legislature which are viewed as 'anti-system' or otherwise unacceptable for government. "Cordons sanitaire", however, have been increasingly abandoned over the past two decades in multi-party democracies as the pressure to construct broad coalitions in order to win elections – along with the increased willingness of outsider parties themselves to participate in government – has led to many such parties entering electoral and government coalitions.
Starting in the second half of the 20th century, modern democracies have introduced rules for the flow of funds through party coffers, e.g. the Canada Election Act 1976, the PPRA in the U.K. or the FECA in the U.S. Such political finance regimes stipulate a variety of regulations for the transparency of fundraising and expenditure, limit or ban specific kinds of activity and provide public subsidies for party activity, including campaigning.
Partisan style varies according to each jurisdiction, depending on how many parties there are, and how much influence each individual party has.
In a nonpartisan system, no official political parties exist, sometimes reflecting legal restrictions on political parties. In nonpartisan elections, each candidate is eligible for office on his or her own merits. In nonpartisan legislatures, there are no typically formal party alignments within the legislature. The administration of George Washington and the first few sessions of the United States Congress were nonpartisan. Washington also warned against political parties during his Farewell Address. In the United States, the unicameral legislature of Nebraska is nonpartisan but is elected and often votes on informal party lines. In Canada, the territorial legislatures of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are nonpartisan. In New Zealand, Tokelau has a nonpartisan parliament. Many city and county governments in the United States and Canada are nonpartisan. Nonpartisan elections and modes of governance are common outside of state institutions. Unless there are legal prohibitions against political parties, factions within nonpartisan systems often evolve into political parties.
In one-party systems, one political party is legally allowed to hold effective power. Although minor parties may sometimes be allowed, they are legally required to accept the leadership of the dominant party. This party may not always be identical to the government, although sometimes positions within the party may in fact be more important than positions within the government. North Korea and China are examples; others can be found in Fascist states, such as Nazi Germany between 1934 and 1945. The one-party system is thus often equated with dictatorships and tyranny.
In dominant-party systems, opposition parties are allowed, and there may be even a deeply established democratic tradition, but other parties are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Sometimes, political, social and economic circumstances, and public opinion are the reason for others parties' failure. Sometimes, typically in countries with less of an established democratic tradition, it is possible the dominant party will remain in power by using patronage and sometimes by voting fraud. In the latter case, the definition between dominant and one-party system becomes rather blurred. Examples of dominant party systems include the People's Action Party in Singapore, the African National Congress in South Africa, the Cambodian People's Party in Cambodia, the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and the National Liberation Front in Algeria. One-party dominant system also existed in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, in the southern United States with the Democratic Party from the late 19th century until the 1970s, in Indonesia with the "Golkar" from the early 1970s until 1998.
Two-party systems are states such as Honduras, Jamaica, Malta, Ghana and the United States in which there are two political parties dominant to such an extent that electoral success under the banner of any other party is almost impossible. One right wing coalition party and one left wing coalition party is the most common ideological breakdown in such a system but in two-party states political parties are traditionally catch all parties which are ideologically broad and inclusive.
The United States has gone through several party systems, each of which has been essentially two-party in nature. The divide has typically been between a conservative and liberal party; presently, the Republican Party and Democratic Party serve these roles. Third parties have seen extremely little electoral success, and successful third party runs typically lead to vote splitting due to the first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all systems used in most US elections. There have been several examples of third parties siphoning votes from major parties, such as Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and George Wallace in 1968, resulting in the victory of the opposing major party. In presidential elections, the Electoral College system has prevented third party candidates from being competitive, even when they have significant support (such as in 1992). More generally, parties with a broad base of support across regions or among economic and other interest groups have a greater chance of winning the necessary plurality in the U.S.'s largely single-member district, winner-take-all elections.
The UK political system, while technically a multi-party system, has functioned generally as a two-party (sometimes called a "two-and-a-half party") system; since the 1920s the two largest political parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics the Liberal Party was the other major political party along with the Conservatives. Though coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has in the past century relied upon a third party to deliver a working majority in Parliament. (A plurality voting system usually leads to a two-party system, a relationship described by Maurice Duverger and known as Duverger's Law.) There are also numerous other parties that hold or have held a number of seats in Parliament.
Multi-party systems are systems in which more than two parties are represented and elected to public office.
Australia, Canada, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Ireland, United Kingdom and Norway are examples of countries with two strong parties and additional smaller parties that have also obtained representation. The smaller or "third" parties may hold the balance of power in a parliamentary system, and thus may be invited to form a part of a coalition government together with one of the larger parties, or may provide a supply and confidence agreement to the government; or may instead act independently from the dominant parties.
More commonly, in cases where there are three or more parties, no one party is likely to gain power alone, and parties have to work with each other to form coalition governments. This is almost always the case in Germany on national and state level, and in most constituencies at the communal level. Furthermore, since the forming of the Republic of Iceland there has never been a government not led by a coalition, usually involving the Independence Party or the Progressive Party. A similar situation exists in the Republic of Ireland, where no one party has held power on its own since 1989. Since then, numerous coalition governments have been formed. These coalitions have been led exclusively by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Political change is often easier with a coalition government than in one-party or two-party dominant systems. If factions in a two-party system are in fundamental disagreement on policy goals, or even principles, they can be slow to make policy changes, which appears to be the case now in the U.S. with power split between Democrats and Republicans. Still coalition governments struggle, sometimes for years, to change policy and often fail altogether, post World War II France and Italy being prime examples. When one party in a two-party system controls all elective branches, however, policy changes can be both swift and significant. Democrats Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were beneficiaries of such fortuitous circumstances, as were Republicans as far removed in time as Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama briefly had such an advantage between 2009 and 2011.
Political parties are funded by contributions from
Political parties, still called factions by some, especially those in the governmental apparatus, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trade unions. Money and gifts-in-kind to a party, or its leading members, may be offered as incentives. Such donations are the traditional source of funding for all right-of-centre cadre parties. Starting in the late 19th century these parties were opposed by the newly founded left-of-centre workers' parties. They started a new party type, the mass membership party, and a new source of political fundraising, membership dues.
From the second half of the 20th century on parties which continued to rely on donations or membership subscriptions ran into mounting problems. Along with the increased scrutiny of donations there has been a long-term decline in party memberships in most western democracies which itself places more strains on funding. For example, in the United Kingdom and Australia membership of the two main parties in 2006 is less than an 1/8 of what it was in 1950, despite significant increases in population over that period.
In some parties, such as the post-communist parties of France and Italy or the Sinn Féin party and the Socialist Party, elected representatives (i.e. incumbents) take only the average industrial wage from their salary as a representative, while the rest goes into party coffers. Although these examples may be rare nowadays, "rent-seeking" continues to be a feature of many political parties around the world.
In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages have been awarded to contributors to party funds, the benefactors becoming members of the House of Lords and thus being in a position to participate in legislating. Famously, Lloyd George was found to have been selling peerages. To prevent such corruption in the future, Parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 into law. Thus the outright sale of peerages and similar honours became a criminal act. However, some benefactors are alleged to have attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal.
Such activities as well as assumed "influence peddling" have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increase. In the UK some politicians are advocating that parties should be funded by the state; a proposition that promises to give rise to interesting debate in a country that was the first to regulate campaign expenses (in 1883).
In many other democracies such subsidies for party activity (in general or just for campaign purposes) have been introduced decades ago. Public financing for parties and/ or candidates (during election times and beyond) has several permutations and is increasingly common. Germany, Sweden, Israel, Canada, Australia, Austria and Spain are cases in point. More recently among others France, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands and Poland have followed suit.
There are two broad categories of public funding, direct, which entails a monetary transfer to a party, and indirect, which includes broadcasting time on state media, use of the mail service or supplies. According to the Comparative Data from the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, out of a sample of over 180 nations, 25% of nations provide no direct or indirect public funding, 58% provide direct public funding and 60% of nations provide indirect public funding. Some countries provide both direct and indirect public funding to political parties. Funding may be equal for all parties or depend on the results of previous elections or the number of candidates participating in an election. Frequently parties rely on a mix of private and public funding and are required to disclose their finances to the Election management body.
In fledgling democracies funding can also be provided by foreign aid. International donors provide financing to political parties in developing countries as a means to promote democracy and good governance. Support can be purely financial or otherwise. Frequently it is provided as capacity development activities including the development of party manifestos, party constitutions and campaigning skills. Developing links between ideologically linked parties is another common feature of international support for a party. Sometimes this can be perceived as directly supporting the political aims of a political party, such as the support of the US government to the Georgian party behind the Rose Revolution. Other donors work on a more neutral basis, where multiple donors provide grants in countries accessible by all parties for various aims defined by the recipients. There have been calls by leading development think-tanks, such as the Overseas Development Institute, to increase support to political parties as part of developing the capacity to deal with the demands of interest-driven donors to improve governance.
Generally speaking, over the world, political parties associate themselves with colors, primarily for identification, especially for voter recognition during elections.
Color associations are useful when it is not desirable to make rigorous links to parties, particularly when coalitions and alliances are formed between political parties and other organizations, for example: "Purple" (Red-Blue) alliances, Red-green alliances, Blue-green alliances, Traffic light coalitions, Pan-green coalitions, and Pan-blue coalitions.
Political color schemes in the United States diverge from international norms. Since 2000, red has become associated with the right-wing Republican Party and blue with the left-wing Democratic Party. However, unlike political color schemes of other countries, the parties did not choose those colors; they were used in news coverage of the 2000 election results and ensuing legal battle and caught on in popular usage. Prior to the 2000 election the media typically alternated which color represented which party each presidential election cycle. The color scheme happened to get inordinate attention that year, so the cycle was stopped lest it cause confusion the following election.
The emblem of socialist parties is often a red rose held in a fist. Communist parties often use a hammer to represent the worker, a sickle to represent the farmer, or both a hammer and a sickle to refer to both at the same time.
The emblem of Nazism, the swastika or ""hakenkreuz"", has been adopted as a near-universal symbol for almost any organised white supremacist group, even though it dates from more ancient times.
During the 19th and 20th century, many national political parties organized themselves into international organizations along similar policy lines. Notable examples are The Universal Party, International Workingmen's Association (also called the First International), the Socialist International (also called the Second International), the Communist International (also called the Third International), and the Fourth International, as organizations of working class parties, or the Liberal International (yellow), Hizb ut-Tahrir, Christian Democratic International and the International Democrat Union (blue). Organized in Italy in 1945, the International Communist Party, since 1974 headquartered in Florence has sections in six countries. Worldwide green parties have recently established the Global Greens. The Universal Party, The Socialist International, the Liberal International, and the International Democrat Union are all based in London.
Some administrations (e.g. Hong Kong) outlaw formal linkages between local and foreign political organizations, effectively outlawing international political parties.
Klaus von Beyme categorised European parties into nine families, which described most parties. He was able to arrange seven of them from left to right: Communist, Socialist, Green, Liberal, Christian democratic, Conservative and Libertarian. The position of two other types, Agrarian and Regional/Ethnic parties varied.
Political scientists have distinguished between different types of political parties that have evolved throughout history. These include cadre parties, mass parties, catch-all parties and cartel parties. Cadre parties were political elites that were concerned with contesting elections and restricted the influence of outsiders, who were only required to assist in election campaigns. Mass parties tried to recruit new members who were a source of party income and were often expected to spread party ideology as well as assist in elections. In the United States, where both major parties were cadre parties, the introduction of primaries and other reforms has transformed them so that power is held by activists who compete over influence and nomination of candidates.
A cadre party, or elite party, is a type of political party that was dominant in the nineteenth century before the introduction of universal suffrage and that was made up of a collection of individuals or political elites. The French political scientist Marcel Duverger first distinguished between “cadre” and “mass” parties, founding his distinction on the differences within the organisational structures of these two types. Cadre parties are characterised by minimal and loose organisation, and are financed by fewer larger monetary contributions typically originating from outside the party. Cadre parties give little priority to expanding the party’s membership base, and its leaders are its only members. The earliest parties, such as the early American political parties, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists, are classified as cadre parties.
A mass party is a type of political party that developed around cleavages in society and mobilised the ordinary citizens or 'masses' in the political process. In Europe, the introduction of universal suffrage resulted in the creation of worker’s parties that later evolved into mass parties; an example is the German Social Democratic Party. These parties represented large groups of citizens who had previously not been represented in political processes, articulating the interests of different groups in society. In contrast to cadre parties, mass parties are funded by their members, and rely on and maintain a large membership base. Further, mass parties prioritise the mobilisation of voters and are more centralised than cadre parties.
The catch-all party, also called the 'big tent' party, is a term developed by German-American political scientist Otto Kirchheimer used to describe the parties that developed in the 1950s and 1960s from changes within the mass parties. Kirchheimer characterised the shift from the traditional mass parties to catch-all parties as a set of developments including the “drastic reduction of the party’s ideological baggage” and the "downgrading of the role of the individual party member". By broadening their central ideologies into more open-ended ones, catch-all parties seek to secure the support of a wider section of the population. Further, the role of members is reduced as catch-all parties are financed in part by the state or by donations. In Europe, the shift of Christian Democratic parties that were organised around religion into broader centre-right parties epitomises this type.
Cartel parties are a type of political party that emerged post-1970s and are characterised by heavy state financing and the diminished role of ideology as an organising principle. The cartel party thesis was developed by Richard Katz and Peter Mair who wrote that political parties have turned into "semi-state agencies", acting on behalf of the state rather than groups in society. The term 'cartel' refers to the way in which prominent parties in government make it difficult for new parties to enter, as such forming a cartel of established parties. As with catch-all parties, the role of members in cartel parties is largely insignificant as parties use the resources of the state to maintain their position within the political system.
Niche parties are a type of political party that developed on the basis of the emergence of new cleavages and issues in politics, such as immigration and the environment. In contrast to mainstream or catch-all parties, niche parties articulate an often limited set of interests in a way that does not conform to the dominant economic left-right divide in politics, emphasising issues that do not attain prominence within the other parties. Further, niche parties do not respond to changes in public opinion to the extent that mainstream parties do. Examples of niche parties include Green parties and extreme nationalist parties, such as the Front National in France. However, over time these parties may lose some of their niche qualities, instead adopting those of mainstream parties, for example after entering government. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23996 |
Slide guitar
Slide guitar is a particular technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues-style music. The technique involves placing an object against the strings while playing to create glissando effects and deep vibratos. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position (flat against the body) with the use of a tubular "slide" fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle. The term "bottleneck" was historically used to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar and is then referred to as "lap slide guitar" or "lap steel guitar".
Creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to primitive stringed instruments in African culture and also to the origin of the steel guitar in Hawaii. Near the beginning of the twentieth century, blues musicians in the Mississippi Delta popularized the bottleneck slide guitar style, and the first recording of slide guitar was by Sylvester Weaver in 1923. Since the 1930s, performers including Robert Nighthawk, Earl Hooker, Elmore James and Muddy Waters popularized slide guitar in the electric blues genre and influenced later slide guitarists in the rock genre including the Rolling Stones, Duane Allman and Ry Cooder. Lap slide guitar pioneers include Oscar "Buddy" Woods, "Black Ace" Turner and Freddie Roulette.
The technique of using a hard object against a plucked string goes back to the "diddley bow" derived from a one-stringed African instrument. The "diddley bow" is believed to be one of the ancestors of the bottleneck style. When sailors from Europe introduced the Spanish guitar to Hawaii in the latter nineteenth century, the Hawaiians slackened some of the strings from the standard tuning to make a chordthis became known as "slack-key" guitar, today referred to as an open tuning. With the "slack-key" the Hawaiians found it easy to play a three-chord song by moving a piece of metal along the fretboard and began to play the instrument across the lap. Near the end of the nineteenth century, a Hawaiian named Joseph Kekuku became proficient in playing this way using a steel bar against the guitar strings. The bar was called the "steel" and was the source of the name "steel guitar". Kekuku popularized the method and some sources claim he originated the technique. He moved to the United States mainland and became a vaudeville performer, later performing in Europe for several years. In the first half of the twentieth century, this so-called "Hawaiian guitar" style of playing spread to the US. Sol Hoopii was an influential Hawaiian guitarist who in 1919, at age 17, came to the US mainland from Hawaii as a stow-away on a ship heading for San Francisco. Hoopii's playing became popular in the late 1920s and he recorded songs like "Hula Blues" and "Farewell Blues". According to author Pete Madsen, "[Hoopii's playing] would influence a legion of players from rural Mississippi."
Most players of blues slide guitar were from the southern US particularly the Mississippi Delta, and their music was likely from an African origin handed down to African-American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the fields. The earliest Delta blues musicians were largely solo singer-guitarists. W. C. Handy commented on the first time he heard slide guitar in 1903, when a blues player performed in a local train station: "As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularised by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable."
Blues historian Gérard Herzhaft notes that Tampa Red was one of the first black musicians inspired by the Hawaiian guitarists of the beginning of the century, and he managed to adapt their sound to the blues. Tampa Red, as well as Kokomo Arnold, Casey Bill Weldon and Oscar Woods, adopted the Hawaiian mode of playing longer melodies with the slide instead of playing short riffs as they had done previously.
In the early twentieth century, steel guitar playing divided into two streams: bottleneck-style, performed on a traditional Spanish guitar held flat against the body; and lap-style, performed on an instrument specifically designed or modified for the purpose of being played on the performer's lap. The bottleneck-style was typically associated with blues music and was popularized by African-American blues artists. The Mississippi Delta was the home of Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton, and other blues pioneers, who prominently used the slide. The first known recording of the bottleneck style was in 1923 by Sylvester Weaver, who recorded two instrumentals, "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag". Guitarist and author Woody Mann identifies Tampa Red and Blind Willie Johnson as "developing the most distinctive styles in the recorded idom" of the time. He adds:
When the guitar was electrified in the 1930s, it allowed solos on the instrument to be more audible, and thus more prominently featured. In the 1940s, players like Robert Nighthawk and Earl Hooker popularized electric slide guitar; but, unlike their predecessors, they used standard tuning. This allowed them switch between slide and fretted guitar playing readily, which was an advantage in rhythm accompaniment.
Robert Nighthawk (born Robert Lee McCollum) recorded extensively in the 1930s as "Robert Lee McCoy" with bluesmen, such as John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson (also known as Sonny Boy Williamson I). He performed on acoustic guitar in a style influenced by Tampa Red. Sometime around World War II, after changing his last name to "Nighthawk" (from the title of one of his songs), he became an early proponent of electric slide guitar and adopted a metal slide. Nighthawk's sound was extremely clean and smooth, with a very light touch of the slide against the strings. He helped popularize Tampa Red's "Black Angel Blues" (later called "Sweet Little Angel"), "Crying Won't Help You", and "Anna Lou Blues" (as "Anna Lee") in his electric slide style-songs which later became part of the repertoire of Earl Hooker, B.B. King, and others. His style influenced both Muddy Waters and Hooker. Nighthawk is credited as one who helped bring music from Mississippi into the Chicago blues style of "electric blues".
As a teenager, Earl Hooker (a cousin of John Lee Hooker) sought out Nighthawk as his teacher and in the late 1940s, the two toured the South extensively. Nighthawk had a lasting impact on Hooker's playing; however, by the time of his 1953 recording of "Sweet Angel" (a tribute of sorts to Nighthawk's "Sweet Little Angel"), Hooker had developed an advanced style of his own. His solos had a resemblance to the human singing voice and music writer Andy Grigg commented: "He had the uncanny ability to make his guitar weep, moan and talk just like a person... his slide playing was peerless, even exceeding his mentor, Robert Nighthawk." The vocal approach is heard in Hooker's instrumental, "Blue Guitar", which was later overdubbed with a unison vocal by Muddy Waters and became "You Shook Me". Unusual for a blues player, Hooker explored using a wah-wah pedal in the 1960s to further emulate the human voice.
Possibly the most influential electric blues slide guitarist of his era was Elmore James, who gained prominence with his 1951 song "Dust My Broom", a remake of Robert Johnson's 1936 song, "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom". It features James' playing a series of triplets throughout the song which "Rolling Stone" magazine called "one immortal lick" and is heard in many blues songs to this day. Although Johnson had used the figure on several songs, James' overdriven electric sound made it "more insistent, firing out a machine-gun triplet beat that would become a defining sound of the early rockers", writes historian Ted Gioia. Unlike Nighthawk and Hooker, James used a full-chord glissando effect with an open E tuning and a bottleneck. Other popular songs by James, such as "It Hurts Me Too" (first recorded by Tampa Red), "The Sky Is Crying", "Shake Your Moneymaker", feature his slide playing.
Although Muddy Waters made his earliest recordings using an acoustic slide guitar, as a guitarist, he was best known for his electric slide playing. Born McKinley Morganfield, Muddy Waters helped bring the Delta blues to Chicago and was instrumental in defining the city's electric blues style. He was also one of the pioneers of electric slide guitar. Beginning with "I Can't Be Satisfied" (1948), many of his hit songs featured slide, including "Rollin' and Tumblin'", "Rollin' Stone" (whose name was adopted by the well-known rock band and the magazine), "Louisiana Blues", and "Still a Fool". Waters used an open G tuning for several of his earlier songs, but later switched to a standard tuning and often used a capo to change keys. He usually played single notes with a small metal slide on his little finger and dampened the strings combined with varying the volume to control the amount of distortion. According to writer Ted Drozdowski, "One last factor to consider is slide vibrato that is achieved by shaking a slide back and forth. Muddy’s slide vibrato was insane, both manic and controlled. That added to the excitement of his playing."
Rock musicians began exploring electric slide guitar in the early 1960s. In the UK, groups like the Rolling Stones, who were fans of Chicago blues and Chess Records artists in particular, began recording songs by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and others. The Stones' second single, "I Wanna Be Your Man" (1963), featured a slide guitar break by Brian Jones, which may be the first appearance of a slide on a rock record. Critic Richie Unterberger commented, "Particularly outstanding was Brian Jones's slide guitar, whose wailing howl gave the tune a raunchy bluesiness missing in the Beatles' more straightforward rock 'n' roll arrangement." Jones also played slide on their 1964 single "Little Red Rooster", which reached number one on the British charts. One of his last contributions to a Stones recording was his acoustic guitar slide playing on "No Expectations", which biographer Paul Trynka describes as "subtle, totally without bombast or overemphasis... the perfect embodiment of the journey he'd embarked on in 1961."
In Chicago, Mike Bloomfield frequented blues clubs as early as the late 1950sby the early 1960s Muddy Waters and harmonica virtuoso Little Walter encouraged him and occasionally allowed him to sit in on jam sessions. Waters recalled: "Mike was a great guitar player. He learned a lot of slide from me. Plus I guess he picked up a little lick or two from me, but he learned how to play a lot of slide and pick a lot of guitar." Bloomfield's slide playing attracted Paul Butterfield and together with guitarist Elvin Bishop, they formed the classic lineup of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Their first album, "The Paul Butterfield Blues Band" (1965), features Bloomfield's guitar work and his slide playing on the band's adaptation of Elmore James' "Shake Your Moneymaker" and shows his well-developed slide style. Around the same time, he recorded with Bob Dylan for the "Highway 61 Revisited" album and contributed the distinctive slide guitar to the title track. On the second Butterfield album, "East-West" (1966), songs such as "Walkin' Blues" and "Two Trains Running" include slide playing that brought him to the audience's attention.
Ry Cooder was a child music prodigy and at age 15, began working on bottleneck guitar techniques and learned Robert Johnson songs. In 1964, Cooder, along with Taj Mahal, formed the Rising Sons, one of the earliest blues rock bands. His early guitar work appears on Captain Beefheart's debut "Safe as Milk" album (1967) and several songs on Taj Mahal's self-titled 1968 debut album. Cooder's slide playing is featured on songs such as "44 Blues" (which he later recorded with Little Feat for their 1971 debut album), "Sure 'Nuff 'n Yes I Do" (a "Rollin' and Tumblin'"-style song), "The Celebrated Walkin' Blues" (an adaptation of Muddy Waters' "Walkin' Blues"), and "Statesboro Blues" (later adopted by the Allman Brothers Band). Also in 1968, he collaborated with the Rolling Stones on recording sessions, which resulted in Cooder playing slide on "Memo from Turner". The Jagger/Richards song was later included on the soundtrack to the 1970 film "Performance"; "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked it at number 92 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Times". In 1970, he recorded his own self titled debut album, which included the Blind Willie Johnson classic slide instrumental "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" (re-recorded in 1984 for the soundtrack to "Paris, Texas"). Recognized as a master of slide guitar by 1967, "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked him at number eight on their list of the "100 Greatist Guitarists of All Time" in 2003.
Duane Allman’s slide playing with the Allman Brothers Band was one of the formative influences in the creation of Southern rock. He also added memorable slide guitar to Derek and the Dominos’ "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs" album, notably its title track, which was ranked at number 13 on "Rolling Stone's" "100 Greatest Guitar Songs". Allman, who died in a motorcycle accident at age 24, was hailed by NPR's Nick Morrison as "the most inventive slide guitarist of his era". He extended the role of the slide guitar by mimicking the harmonica effects of Sonny Boy Williamson II, most clearly in the Allman Brothers' rendition of Williamson's "One Way Out", recorded live at the Fillmore East and heard on their album "Eat a Peach".
The slide guitar, according to music educator Keith Wyatt, can be thought of as a "one-finger fretless guitar". The placement of a slide on a string the determines the pitch, functioning in the manner of a finger pressed against the fretboard. The slide is pressed lightly against the strings to avoid hitting against the frets, and is kept parallel with them. The frets are used only as a visual reference, and playing in tune without them requires additional skill. In this playing technique the player's remaining fingers and thumb still have access to the frets, and may be used for playing rhythmic accompaniment or reaching additional notes. The guitar itself may be tuned in the traditional tuning or an open tuning. Most early blues players used open tunings, but most modern slide players use both. The major limitation of open tuning is that usually only one chord shape is easily available and is dictated by how the guitar is originally tuned. Two-note intervals can be played by slanting the slide on certain notes.
In the sixteenth century, the notes of A–D–G–B–E were adopted as a tuning for guitar-like instruments, and the low E was added later to make E–A–D–G–B–E as the standard guitar tuning. In open tuning, the strings are tuned to sound a chord when not fretted, and is most often major. Open tunings commonly used with slide guitar include open D or Vestapol tuning: D–A–D–F–A–D; and open G or Spanish tuning: D–G–D–G–B–D. Open E and open A, formed by raising each of those tunings a whole tone, are also common. Other tunings are also used, in particular the drop D tuning (low E string tuned down to D) is used by many slide players. This tuning allows for power chords, which contain root, fifth and eighth (octave) notes in the bass strings and conventional tuning for the rest of the strings. Robert Johnson, whose playing has been cited by Clapton, Richards, Hendrix, and Winter as being a powerful influence on them, used tunings of standard, open G, open D, and drop D.
The National String Instrument Corporation produced the first metal-body resonator guitars in the late 1920s (see image at beginning of article). Popular with early slide players, these featured a large aluminum cone, resembling an inverted loudspeaker, attached under the instrument’s bridge to increase its volume. It was patented in the late 1920s by the Dopyera brothers and became widely used on many types of guitars, and was adapted to the mandolin and ukulele.
Tampa Red played a gold-plated National Tricone style 4, and was of the first black musicians to record with it. Delta blues pioneer, Son House, played this type of guitar on many songs including the classic, "Death Letter". A resonator guitar with a metal body was played by Bukka White ("Parchman Farm Blues" and "Fixin' to Die Blues").
"Lap slide guitar" does not refer a specific instrument, rather a style of playing guitar with the instrument resting on the performer's lap or otherwise supported, and the term usually indicates blues or rock music. The horizontal position is also known as "Hawaiian style". There are various instruments specifically made (or adapted) to play in the table-top position, including:
Proper terminology for the hand-held bar used is "steel" or "tone bar" rather than "slide". The term "lap slide" coexists with "lap steel" to describe the same lap-played instrument, but "lap slide" usually connotes blues or rock music, while "lap steel" could encompass any musical genre. That said, not even the manufacturers and players of the many variants of these instruments agree on basic terminology. These types of instruments may differ markedly in external appearancesome resemble a traditional guitar, while others are made in a solid rectangular block.
Buddy Woods was a Louisiana street performer who recorded in the 1930s. He was called "The Lone Wolf" after the title of his most successful song, "Lone Wolf Blues". Between 1936 and 1938, he recorded ten songs which are today considered classics, including "Don't Sell It, Don't Give It Away". Woods recorded five songs for the US Library of Congress in 1940 in Shreveport, Louisiana, including "Boll Weevil Blues" and "Sometimes I Get a Thinkin'".
"Black Ace" Turner (born Babe Karo Turner), a blues artist from Texas, was befriended and mentored by Buddy Woods. Historian Gérard Herzhaft stated, "Black Ace is one of the few blues guitarists to have played in the purest Hawaiian style, that is, with the guitar flat on the knees." Turner played a square-neck National "style 2" Tri-cone metal body guitar and used a glass medicine bottle as a slide. Turner was also a good storyteller, which enabled him to host a radio program in Fort Worth called "The Black Ace". His career effectively ended when he entered military service in 1943. His album, "I Am the Boss Card in Your Hand", contained Turner's original 1930s recordings as well as new songs recorded in 1960. Turner was featured in a 1962 documentary film entitled "The Blues".
Freddie Roulette (born Frederick Martin Roulette) is a San Francisco-based lap steel blues artist who became interested in the lap steel guitar at an early age and became proficient enough to play in Chicago blues clubs with prominent players. He earned a spot in Earl Hooker's band and recorded with Hooker in the 1960s. Roulette had played lap steel in other genres before focusing on blueshe said this helped him add more complex chords to the basic blues played by Hooker, and said, "it worked". Roulette was recruited to San Francisco in the mid 1970s by blues hall-of-famer Charlie Musselwhite. In 1997, he recorded a solo album, "Back in Chicago: Jammin' with Willie Kent and the Gents", which won Best Blues Album of 1997 by "Living Blues Magazine". Roulette's contribution to the lap slide guitar was to prove that a lap-played instrument was capable of holding its own in Chicago blues style.
A slide used around a player's finger can be made with any type of smooth hard material that allows tones to resonate. Different materials cause subtle differences in sustain, timbre, and loudness; glass or metal are the most common choices. Longer slides are used to bridge across all six guitar strings at once, but take away the fretting ability of that finger entirely. A shorter slide allows the fingertip to protrude from the slide and allow that finger to be used to fret.
Improvised slides are common, including pipes, rings, knives, spoons, and glass bottle necks. Early blues players sometimes used a knife, such as Blind Willie Johnson (pocket- or penknife) and CeDell Davis (butterknife). Duane Allman used a glass Coricidin medicine bottle. Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett was fond of using a Zippo lighter as a slide, but this was largely for special effects. Jimi Hendrix also used a cigarette lighter for part of his solo on "All Along the Watchtower". It is one of the few recordings with Hendrix on slide, and biographer Harry Shapiro notes he performed it with the guitar on his lap.
For guitars designed to be played on the lap, the performer uses a solid piece of steel rather than a hollow tube. The choice of shape and size is a matter of personal preference. The most common steel is a solid metal cylinder with one end rounded into a dome shape. Some lap slide guitar players choose a steel with a deep indentation or groove on each side so it can be held firmly, and may have squared-off ends. The better grip may facilitate playing the rapid vibratos in blues music. This design facilitates hammer-on and pull-off notes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27614 |
Steel guitar
A steel guitar is any type of guitar that is played by pressing and moving a hard object against the strings that allows the player to make an infinite smooth glissando or deep vibrato that is not possible with the fingers alone. The hard object was historically called a "steel" and this is the origin of the name "steel guitar". It may be a solid bar held in the hand or a tubular object placed around the player's finger; it may go by many names, including "steel", "tone bar", "slide", "bottleneck" and others. The strings are typically plucked (not strummed) by the fingers of the dominant hand while the tone bar is pressed against the strings and moved by the opposite hand. Creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to primitive stringed instruments in African culture.
A steel guitar might be or look like an ordinary guitar and be played in the traditional position (flat against the body). In that case, the player uses a tubular object around his finger, then called a "slide", and the technique is called "slide guitar" and is typically heard in blues or rock music. The term "bottleneck" was historically used to describe this type of playing.
A steel guitar may also be played in a horizontal position, a technique popularized in Hawaii in the 1890s by Joseph Kekuku, with the instrument placed across the knees or otherwise supported. In this case, the hard object would be a solid bar held in the hand (see photo) and called a "steel" or "tone bar" and that type of playing referred to as "lap style" or "Hawaiian style".
From its first use in Hawaii in the 19th century, the sound of a steel guitar became popular in the United States in the first half of the 20th century and spawned a family of instruments designed specifically to be played with the guitar in a horizontal position. The first instrument in this chronology was the Hawaiian guitar also called a lap steel; next was a lap steel with a resonator to make it louder. In 1934, the electric guitar pickup was invented , allowing steel guitars to be heard equally with other instruments. The invention also allowed new guitars to be designed without any resonant chamber, bearing no resemblance to the traditional guitar shape, e.g., a rectangular block. Electronic amplification led to the development of the electrified lap steel, then the console steel, and the pedal steel guitar.
A steel guitar is any guitar played with a hard object against the strings with one hand to change pitch while the strings are plucked with the opposite hand, typically one of two general types:
* A guitar designed to be played horizontally (called a Lap steel guitar), typically played with the hand pronated holding a solid bar, while plucking the strings with the opposite hand:
Lap slide guitar is not a specific instrument, but a style of playing.
The instrument's ancestry is traced to the Hawaiian Islands in the late 19th century after the Spanish guitar was introduced there by European sailors and by Mexican "vaqueros" who came there to herd cattle. Hawaiians who perhaps did not want to take the time to learn how to play a Spanish guitar re-tuned the instrument so it sounded a major chord when strummed, then thought to be an "unorthodox tuning". This was known as "slack-key" because some of the strings were "slackened" to an open tuning. To change chords, they used some smooth object, usually a piece of pipe or metal, sliding it over the strings to the fourth or fifth position, easily playing a three-chord song. To play using a steel bar, early players laid the guitar across the lap and played it while sitting. The problem with playing a traditional Spanish guitar this way was that the steel tone bar strikes against the frets making an unpleasant sound unless played very lightly—this was corrected by raising the strings higher off the fretboard with a piece of metal or wood over the nut. This technique became popular throughout Hawaii.
Joseph Kekuku was a Hawaiian from Oahu who became proficient in this style of playing around the end of the 19th century and popularized it—some sources say he invented the steel guitar. He moved to the United States mainland and became a vaudeville performer and also toured Europe performing Hawaiian music.
The Hawaiian style of playing spread to the United States mainland and became popular during the first half of the 20th century; noted players of the day were Frank Ferera, Sol Hoʻopiʻi, Sam Ku West and "King" Bennie Nawahi. This music became popular to the degree that it was called the "Hawaiian craze" and was ignited by several events.
One such event was a 1912 Broadway musical show called "Bird of Paradise", which featured Hawaiian music and elaborate costumes. The show became a hit and, to ride this wave of success, it was subsequently taken on the road in the U.S. and Europe, eventually spawning a motion picture of the same name. Joseph Kekuku was a member of the show's original cast and toured Europe with the "Bird of Paradise" show for eight years. The "Washington Herald" in 1918 stated, "So great is the popularity of Hawaiian music in this country that 'The Bird of Paradise' will go on record as having created the greatest musical fad this country has ever known".
Another event fueling the popularity of Hawaiian music was a radio broadcast called "Hawaii Calls" which began broadcasting from Hawaii to the US west coast. It prominently featured the steel guitar and Hawaiian songs sung in English. Subsequently, the program was heard worldwide on over 750 stations. One of steel guitar's foremost virtuosos, Buddy Emmons at age 11 trained at the "Hawaiian Conservatory of Music" in South Bend, Indiana.
The acceptance of the sound of the steel guitar, then referred to as "Hawaiian guitars" or "lap steels", spurred instrument makers to produce them in quantity and create innovations in the design to accommodate this style of playing.
In the early twentieth century, steel guitar playing divided into two streams: bottleneck-style, performed on a traditional Spanish guitar held flat against the body; and lap-style, performed on an instrument specifically designed or modified for the purpose of being played on the performer's lap. The bottleneck-style became associated with blues guitar, and the horizontal style became associated with American country music.
One of the first southern blues musicians to adapt the Hawaiian sound to the blues was "Tampa Red" whose playing, says historian Gérard Herzhaft, "created a style that has unquestionably influenced all modern blues." The bottleneck-style was popularized by African-American blues artists. The Mississippi Delta was the home of Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton, and other blues pioneers, who prominently used a tubular slide on a finger. The first known recording of the bottleneck style was in 1923 by Sylvester Weaver, who recorded two instrumentals, "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag". His song, "Guitar Rag", was adapted by Western swing pioneers Bob Wills and Leon McAuliffe in 1935 for the influential instrumental "Steel Guitar Rag". Blues musicians played a conventional Spanish guitar as hybrid between the two types of guitars, using one finger inserted into a tubular slide or a bottleneck while using frets with the remaining fingers. This is known as "slide guitar" and the hard object against the strings in this case is called a "slide".
Steel guitar was heard in American country music as early as the 1920s. Jimmie Rodgers featured acoustic steel guitar in his song "Tuck Away My Lonesome Blues" (1929). Acoustic lap steel guitars were not loud enough to compete with other instruments, a problem that many inventors were trying to remedy in the early 1930s. A violin repairman in Los Angeles named John Dopyera and his brother Rudy created creating a guitar with a large resonator cone (resembling a loudspeaker) attached under the instrument's bridge. Their company was called Dobro, a portmanteau of DOpyera BROthers. A former associate of the Dopyeras, George Beauchamp went on his own to invent an electric guitar pickup. Beauchamp came up with the idea of using two horseshoe magnets encircling the guitar strings like a bracelet, and six small metal rods wrapped with wire to concentrate the magnetic field (one under each guitar string). A vibrating metal string in a magnetic field generates a small current that can be amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. He applied for patent June 2, 1934 and received it on August 10, 1937.
According to music writer Michael Ross, the first electrified stringed instrument on a commercial recording was a western swing tune by Bob Dunn in 1935. He recorded with Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies. Brown has been called "The father of western swing"
In the mid- to late-1930s, Leon McAuliffe advanced steel guitar technique while playing in the western swing band Bob Wills. McAuliffe's "Steel Guitar Rag" helped to popularize the steel guitar in the context of 1930s and 1940s country and western music. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the steel guitar was prominently featured in the emerging "honky-tonk" style of country music. Honky-tonk singers who used a lap steel guitar in their musical arrangements included Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Webb Pierce. The need was there to change tunings and keys, so steel players added additional necks on the same instrument. The added bulk and weight made the instrument so heavy that it could no longer be held on the player's lap and had to be placed in a frame with legs. This was called a console steel guitar, which contained as many as four different necks. Since these instruments proved too expensive for most musicians, a better solution was needed, which led to the invention of the pedal steel guitar.
A pedal system was designed about 1948 by Paul Bigsby, a motorcycle shop foreman. Bigsby put pedals on a rack between the two front legs of the steel guitar. The pedals operated a mechanical linkage to apply tension to raise the pitch of the strings. In 1953, musician Bud Isaacs used Bigsby's invention to change the pitch of two of its strings, and was the first to push the pedal while notes were still sounding. When Isaacs first used the setup on the 1956 recording of Webb Pierce's song "Slowly", he pushed the pedal while playing a chord, so certain notes could be heard bending up from below into the existing chord to harmonize with the other strings, creating a stunning effect which had not been possible with the steel bar. It was the birth of a new sound in country music and caused a virtual revolution among steel players who wanted to duplicate it.
Steel guitar has been incorporated into songs and compositions across many genres of music. In the late 1920s jazz musician Andy Sanella, although primarily a saxophonist had some success as a steel guitarist and recorded several solo records of steel guitar music with a jazz flavor. South African banjoist and guitarist, Len Fillis also played the instrument in jazz and dance bands in London in the early 1930s. Steel guitar has been featured in swing music (e.g., the work of bandleader Alvino Rey), rock (e.g., Steely Dan's "Razor Boy", and Beck's "Sissyneck"), soul (e.g., The Spinners' "Sadie"), reggae (e.g., Toots & The Maytals' "Beautiful Woman"), jazz (e.g., Bill Frisell's "Blues Dream" album), Indian classical music (e.g., the music of guitarist Shrikrishan Sharma), gospel music (particularly in the sacred steel tradition), and in many other genres of music.
The steel guitar's popularity in India began with a Hawaiian immigrant who settled in Calcutta in the 1940s named Tau Moe (pronounced mo-ay). Moe taught Hawaiian guitar style and made steel guitars, and is believed to have been a force in popularizing the instrument in India. By the 1960s, the steel had become a common instrument in Indian popular music—later included in film sound tracks. Indian musicians typically play the lap steel while sitting on the floor and have modified the instrument by using, for example, three melody strings (played with steel bar and finger picks), four plucked drone strings, and 12 sympathetic strings to buzz like a sitar. Performing in this manner, the Indian musician Brij Bhushan Kabra adapted the steel guitar to play "ragas", traditional Indian compositions and is called the father of the genre of Hindustani Slide Guitar.
Steel guitar may be played with the guitar held horizontally, with the bass strings towards the player, and using a device called a "steel" against the strings above the fingerboard rather than fretting the strings with the fingers. If a traditional guitar is played this way, the steel may hit against the frets causing an unpleasant sound. This is usually remedied by raising the strings higher off the fretboard using a nut extender, because frets are not used in lap steel. When strings are raised like this, it may create a much greater force on the neck than a traditional guitar can take; these instruments are usually designed with thicker (sometimes square) reinforced necks or are used in console instruments in a rectangular frame.
Instruments designed and produced for horizontal playing typically have painted lines or "pictures of frets" as a visual cue only. Without frets, playing in tune is more difficult and requires considerable skill to place the bar exactly where the fret would be. Another obstacle to overcome is the fact that when a note is sounded or a steel guitar, it continues to sound until it dies out. On a piano, by contrast, a note stops as soon as the player's finger is lifted off the key. A steel guitarist must play the note and physically stop it afterward. This is called "blocking" and may be done by the players palm (palm-blocking) another digit (pick-blocking). Using the piano analogy, playing steel without blocking or damping would be like playing a piano with the sustain pedal permanently depressed— the notes would overlap and staccato passages would not be possible.
On non-pedal steel guitars, the bar may be slanted at an angle when playing to change an interval between two or more notes played simultaneously on different strings. On a pedal steel guitar, slanting the bar is rarely needed.
Dobro is a brand of resonator guitars, but the word is commonly used as a generic term to describe bluegrass resonator lap steels of any brand. Tunings and techniques are similar to acoustic Hawaiian steel guitar playing, but have evolved somewhat differently in the bluegrass idiom, which may use a steel bar with a deep groove in it (see photo above) to allow the steel to be grasped more firmly and to be lifted and pointed downward for pull-off notes.
Slide guitar is similar, with the exception that the guitar is held in the conventional position, and a different, tubular form of slide is slipped over the middle, ring or little fingers to accommodate this playing position. The slide is almost never slanted. Slide guitar may be played as a hybrid by fingering the frets on some strings (usually for rhythm accompaniment) and using the slide on others. Slide players may use open tunings or traditional tunings as a matter of personal preference.
Early lap steel guitars were Spanish guitars modified by raising both the bridge and head nut. The string height at the head nut was raised to about half an inch by using a "head nut converter" or "converter nut". This type of guitar is claimed to have been invented in about 1889 by Joseph Kekuku in Hawaii.
The Rickenbacker "frying pan", an electric lap steel guitar produced from 1931 to 1939, was the first commercially successful solid body electric guitar.
The console steel guitar is an electric instrument, intermediate between the lap steel from which it developed and the pedal steel which in turn developed from the console steel. There are no pedals, so the player has only as many tunings available as there are necks.
The development of the lap steel guitar into the console steel guitar saw the introduction of amplification as standard, multiple necks, and additional strings on each neck, first to seven, and eight strings per neck is now common. One, two, three and four neck instruments are not uncommon. The two neck, eight string per neck configuration is particularly favored in Hawaiian music.
The distinction between console steel guitar and lap steel guitar is fuzzy at best, and some makers and authorities do not use the term "console steel guitar" at all, but refer to any steel guitar without pedals as a "lap steel guitar" even if playing it in lap steel position would be quite impossible.
The pedal steel guitar is an electric instrument normally with eight to fourteen strings per neck, and one or two necks, each in a different tuning, usually C6 and E9. It may have up to ten pedals (not counting the volume pedal) and up to eight knee-levers are used to alter the tunings of different strings, which gives the instrument its distinctive voice, most often heard in country music.
The extra strings and use of pedals gives a pedal steel guitar far more versatility than any other type of steel guitar, but at the same time makes playing far more complex.
A steel is a hard object pressed agains the strings and is the reason for the name "steel guitar". It may go by many names, including "steel", "tone bar", "slide", "bottleneck" and others. A cylindrical-shaped steel with a bullet-shape on one end is typical in console steel and pedal steel playing. Lap steel and Dobro players often use a steel bar with squared-off ends and a deep groove for firmer grip. It has a cross section that resembles a railroad track. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27615 |
Sunspot
Sunspots are temporary phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as spots darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic field flux that inhibit convection. Sunspots usually appear in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity. Their number varies according to the approximately 11-year solar cycle.
Individual sunspots or groups of sunspots may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but eventually decay. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun, with diameters ranging from to . Larger sunspots can be visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope. They may travel at relative speeds, or proper motions, of a few hundred meters per second when they first emerge.
Indicating intense magnetic activity, sunspots accompany secondary phenomena such as coronal loops, prominences, and reconnection events. Most solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in magnetically active regions around visible sunspot groupings. Similar phenomena indirectly observed on stars other than the Sun are commonly called starspots, and both light and dark spots have been measured.
The earliest extant report of sunspots dates back to the Chinese "Book of Changes", . The first clear mention of a sunspot in Western literature, around 300 BC, was by the ancient Greek scholar Theophrastus, student of Plato and Aristotle and successor to the latter. The earliest surviving record of deliberate sunspot observation dates from 364 BC, based on comments by Chinese astronomer Gan De in a star catalogue. By 28 BC, Chinese astronomers were regularly recording sunspot observations in official imperial records. The first drawings of sunspots were made by an English monk named John of Worcester in December 1128. Sunspots were first observed telescopically in late 1610 by English astronomer Thomas Harriot and Frisian astronomers Johannes and David Fabricius, who published a description in June 1611.. After Johannes Fabricius' early death at the age of 29, the book remained obscure and was eclipsed by the independent discoveries of and publications about sunspots by Christoph Scheiner and Galileo Galilei, few months later.
Although they are at temperatures of roughly , the contrast with the surrounding material at about leaves sunspots clearly visible as dark spots. This is because the luminance (which is essentially "brightness" in visible light) of a heated black body (closely approximated by the photosphere) at these temperatures varies greatly with temperature. Isolated from the surrounding photosphere, a single sunspot would shine brighter than the full moon, with a crimson-orange color.
Sunspots have two parts: the central umbra, which is the darkest part, where the magnetic field is approximately vertical (normal to the Sun's surface) and the surrounding penumbra, which is lighter, where the magnetic field is more inclined.
Any given appearance of a sunspot may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, though groups of sunspots and their active regions tend to last weeks or months, but all do eventually decay and disappear. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun, with diameters ranging from to .
Although the details of sunspot generation are still a matter of research, it appears that sunspots are the visible counterparts of magnetic flux tubes in the Sun's convective zone that get "wound up" by differential rotation. If the stress on the tubes reaches a certain limit, a loop of the tube may project through the photosphere, the Sun's visible surface. Convection is inhibited at the puncture points; the energy flux from the Sun's interior decreases, and with it, surface temperature, causing the surface area through which the magnetic field passes to look dark against the bright background of the photosphere.
The Wilson effect implies that sunspots are depressions on the Sun's surface. Observations using the Zeeman effect show that prototypical sunspots come in pairs with opposite magnetic polarity. From cycle to cycle, the polarities of leading and trailing (with respect to the solar rotation) sunspots change from north/south to south/north and back. Sunspots usually appear in groups.
Magnetic pressure should tend to remove field concentrations, causing the sunspots to disperse, but sunspot lifetimes are measured in days to weeks. In 2001, observations from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) using sound waves traveling below the photosphere (local helioseismology) were used to develop a three-dimensional image of the internal structure below sunspots; these observations show that a powerful downdraft underneath each sunspot, forms a rotating vortex that sustains the concentrated magnetic field.
Sunspot activity cycles are about every eleven years, with some variation in length. Over the solar cycle, sunspot populations rise quickly and then fall more slowly. The point of highest sunspot activity during a cycle is known as solar maximum, and the point of lowest activity as solar minimum. This period is also observed in most other solar activity and is linked to a variation in the solar magnetic field that changes polarity with this period.
Early in the cycle, sunspots appear in the higher latitudes and then move towards the equator as the cycle approaches maximum, following Spörer's law. Spots from two adjacent cycles can co-exist for some time. Spots from adjacent cycles can be distinguished by direction of their magnetic field.
The Wolf number sunspot index counts the average number of sunspots and groups of sunspots during specific intervals. The 11-year solar cycles are numbered sequentially, starting with the observations made in the 1750s.
George Ellery Hale first linked magnetic fields and sunspots in 1908. Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years, covering two periods of increased and decreased sunspot numbers, accompanied by polar reversals of the solar magnetic dipole field. Horace W. Babcock later proposed a qualitative model for the dynamics of the solar outer layers. The Babcock Model explains that magnetic fields cause the behavior described by Spörer's law, as well as other effects, which are twisted by the Sun's rotation.
Sunspot number also changes over long periods. For example, from 1900 to the 1960s, the solar maxima trend of sunspot count was upwards; for the following decades it diminished. Overall, the Sun was last as active as this period over 8,000 years ago.
Sunspots number is correlated with the intensity of solar radiation over the period since 1979, when satellite measurements became available. The variation caused by the sunspot cycle to solar output is on the order of 0.1% of the solar constant (a peak-to-trough range of 1.3 W·m−2 compared with 1366 W·m−2 for the average solar constant).
Sunspots are observed with land-based and Earth-orbiting solar telescopes. These telescopes use filtration and projection techniques for direct observation, in addition to various types of filtered cameras. Specialized tools such as spectroscopes and spectrohelioscopes are used to examine sunspots and sunspot areas. Artificial eclipses allow viewing of the circumference of the Sun as sunspots rotate through the horizon.
Since looking directly at the Sun with the naked eye permanently damages human vision, amateur observation of sunspots is generally conducted using projected images, or directly through protective filters. Small sections of very dark filter glass, such as a #14 welder's glass, are effective. A telescope eyepiece can project the image, without filtration, onto a white screen where it can be viewed indirectly, and even traced, to follow sunspot evolution. Special purpose hydrogen-alpha narrow bandpass filters and aluminum-coated glass attenuation filters (which have the appearance of mirrors due to their extremely high optical density) on the front of a telescope provide safe observation through the eyepiece.
Due to its link to other kinds of solar activity, sunspot occurrence can be used to help predict space weather, the state of the ionosphere, and hence the conditions of short-wave radio propagation or satellite communications. High sunspot activity is celebrated by members of the amateur radio community as a harbinger of excellent ionospheric propagation conditions that greatly increase radio range in the HF bands. During sunspot peaks, worldwide radio communication can be possible on frequencies as high as the 6-meter VHF band. Solar activity (and the solar cycle) have been implicated in global warming, originally the role of the Maunder Minimum of sunspot occurrence in the Little Ice Age in European winter climate. Sunspots themselves, in terms of the magnitude of their radiant-energy deficit, have a weak effect on solar flux however the total solar flux increases as "At solar maximum the Sun is some 0.1% brighter than its solar-minimum level". On longer time scales, such as the solar cycle, other magnetic phenomena (faculae and the chromospheric network) correlate with sunspot occurrence.
In 1947, G. E. Kron proposed that starspots were the reason for periodic changes in brightness on red dwarfs. Since the mid-1990s, starspot observations have been made using increasingly powerful techniques yielding more and more detail: photometry showed starspot growth and decay and showed cyclic behavior similar to the Sun's; spectroscopy examined the structure of starspot regions by analyzing variations in spectral line splitting due to the Zeeman effect; Doppler imaging showed differential rotation of spots for several stars and distributions different from the Sun's; spectral line analysis measured the temperature range of spots and the stellar surfaces. For example, in 1999, Strassmeier reported the largest cool starspot ever seen rotating the giant K0 star XX Triangulum (HD 12545) with a temperature of , together with a warm spot of . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27616 |
Sicily
Sicily ( ; ) is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions and is officially referred to as "Regione Siciliana". It has 5 million inhabitants.
Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, and one of the most active in the world, currently high. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate.
The earliest archaeological evidence of human activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. By around 750 BC, Sicily had three Phoenician and a dozen Greek colonies and it was later the site of the Sicilian Wars and the Punic Wars. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Sicily was ruled during the Early Middle Ages by the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantine Empire, and the Emirate of Sicily. The Norman conquest of southern Italy led to the creation of the Kingdom of Sicily, which was subsequently ruled by the Hohenstaufen, the Capetian House of Anjou, Spain, and the House of Habsburg. It was unified under the House of Bourbon with the Kingdom of Naples as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, and a plebiscite. Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region on 15 May 1946, 18 days before the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. However, much of the autonomy still remains unapplied, especially financial autonomy, because the autonomy-activating laws have been deferred to be approved by the joint committee (50% Italian State, 50% Regione Siciliana), since 1946.
Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine, and architecture. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Erice and Selinunte.
Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name "Trinacria".
To the north-east, it is separated from Calabria and the rest of the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about wide in the north, and about wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about long measured as a straight line, while the eastern coast measures around ; total coast length is estimated at . The total area of the island is , while the Autonomous Region of Sicily (which includes smaller surrounding islands) has an area of .
The terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the mountain ranges of Madonie, , Nebrodi, , and Peloritani, , are an extension of the mainland Apennines. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast. In the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains, . The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, but have declined since the 1950s.
Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions. It currently stands high, though this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps. Etna covers an area of with a basal circumference of . This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, the god of the sky. Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily.
The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, and include Stromboli.
The three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant. Off the southern coast of Sicily, the underwater volcano of Ferdinandea, which is part of the larger Empedocles volcano, last erupted in 1831. It is located between the coast of Agrigento and the island of Pantelleria (which itself is a dormant volcano).
The autonomous region also includes several neighbouring islands: the Aegadian Islands, the Aeolian Islands, Pantelleria and Lampedusa.
The island is drained by several rivers, most of which flow through the central area and enter the sea at the south of the island. The Salso flows through parts of Enna and Caltanissetta before entering the Mediterranean Sea at the port of Licata. To the east, the Alcantara flows through the province of Messina and enters the sea at Giardini Naxos, and the Simeto, which flows into the Ionian Sea south of Catania. Other important rivers on the island are the Belice and Platani in the southwest.
Sicily has a typical Mediterranean climate with mild and wet winters and hot, dry summers with very changeable intermediate seasons. On the coasts, especially in the south-west, the climate is affected by the African currents and summers can be scorching.
Sicily is seen as an island of warm winters.
Snow falls above 900–1000 metres, but it can fall in the hills. The interior mountains, especially Nebrodi, Madonie, and Etna, enjoy a full mountain climate, with heavy snowfalls during winter. The summit of Mount Etna is usually snow-capped from October to May.
On the other hand, especially in the summer, it is not unusual that there is the sirocco, the wind from the Sahara. Rainfall is scarce, and water proves deficient in some provinces where a water crisis can happen occasionally.
According to the Regional Agency for Waste and Water, on 10 August 1999, the weather station of Catenanuova (EN) recorded a maximum temperature of . The official European record – measured by minimum/maximum thermometers – is held by Athens, Greece, which reported a maximum of in 1977. Total precipitation is highly variable, generally increasing with elevation. In general, the southern and southeast coast receives the least rainfall (less than ), and the northern and northeastern highlands the most (over ).
Sicily is an often-quoted example of man-made deforestation, which has occurred since Roman times, when the island was turned into an agricultural region. This gradually dried the climate, leading to a decline in rainfall and the drying of rivers. The central and southwest provinces are practically devoid of any forest. In Northern Sicily, there are three important forests; near Mount Etna, in the Nebrodi Mountains and in the Bosco della Ficuzza's Natural Reserve near Palermo. The Nebrodi Mountains Regional Park, established on 4 August 1993 and covering , is the largest protected natural area of Sicily; and contains the largest forest in Sicily, the Caronia. The Hundred Horse Chestnut (Castagno dei Cento Cavalli), in Sant'Alfio, on the eastern slopes of Mount Etna, is the largest and oldest known chestnut tree in the world at 2,000 – 4,000 years old.
Sicily has a wide variety of fauna. Species include fox, least weasel, pine marten, roe deer, girgentana, wild boar, crested porcupine, hedgehog, common toad, "Vipera aspis", golden eagle, peregrine falcon, hoopoe and black-winged stilt.
The Zingaro Natural Reserve is one of the best examples of unspoiled coastal wilderness in Sicily.
Surrounding waters including the Strait of Messina are home to varieties of birds and marine life, including larger species such as flamingos and fin whales.
The name "Sicilia" was given to the Roman province in 241 BC. It is derived from the name of the Sikeloi, who inhabited the eastern part of the island.
The ancient name of the island is "Trinacria" (Greek Τρινακρία "having three headlands") for its triangular shape, likely a re-interpretation of earlier (Homeric) "Thrinacia".
The Greek name was rendered as "Trīnācrĭa" in classical Latin (Virgil, Ovid).
The original classical-era inhabitants of Sicily comprised three defined groups of the ancient peoples of Italy. The most prominent and by far the earliest of these, the Sicani, who (Thucydides writes) arrived from the Iberian Peninsula (perhaps Catalonia). Some modern scholars, however, suggest classifying the Sicani as possibly an Illyrian tribe. Important historical evidence has been discovered in the form of cave drawings by the Sicani, dated from the end of the Pleistocene epoch around 8000 BC. The arrival of the first humans on the island correlates with the extinction of the Sicilian Hippopotamus and the dwarf elephant. The Elymians, thought to have come from the area of the Aegean Sea, became the next tribe to join the Sicanians on Sicily.
Recent discoveries of dolmens on the island (dating to the second half of the third millennium BC) seem to offer new insights into the culture of primitive Sicily. It is well known that the Mediterranean region went through a quite intricate prehistory, so much so that it is difficult to piece together the muddle of different peoples who have followed each other. The impact of two influences is clear, however: the European one coming from the Northwest, and the Mediterranean influence of a clear eastern heritage.
No evidence survives of any warring between the tribes, but the Sicanians moved eastwards when the Elymians settled in the northwest corner of the island. The Sicels are thought to have originated in Liguria; they arrived from mainland Italy in 1200 BC and forced the Sicanians to move back across Sicily and to settle in the middle of the island. Other minor Italic groups who settled in Sicily included the Ausones (Aeolian Islands, Milazzo) and the Morgetes of Morgantina.
The Phoenician settlements in the western part of the island predate the Greeks. From about 750 BC, the Greeks began to live in Sicily (Σικελία – "Sikelia"), establishing many important settlements. The most important colony was in Syracuse; others were located at Akragas, Selinunte, Gela, Himera and Zancle. The native Sicani and Sicel peoples were absorbed into the Hellenic culture with relative ease, and the area became part of "Magna Graecia" along with the rest of southern Italy, which the Greeks had also colonised. Sicily was very fertile, and the successful introduction of olives and grape vines created a great deal of profitable trading. A significant part of Greek culture on the island was that of the Greek religion, and many temples were built throughout Sicily, including several in the "Valley of the Temples" at Agrigento.
Politics on the island was intertwined with that of Greece; Syracuse became desired by the Athenians who set out on the Sicilian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War. Syracuse gained Sparta and Corinth as allies and, as a result, the Athenian expedition was defeated. The Athenian army and ships were destroyed, with most of the survivors being sold into slavery.
Greek Syracuse controlled eastern Sicily while Carthage controlled the West. The two cultures began to clash, leading to the Greek-Punic wars. Greece had begun to make peace with the Roman Republic in 262 BC, and the Romans sought to annexe Sicily as their republic's first province. Rome attacked Carthage's holdings in Sicily in the First Punic War and won, making Sicily the first Roman province outside of the Italian Peninsula by 242 BC.
In the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians attempted to take back Sicily. Some of the Greek cities on the island sided with the Carthaginians. Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse, helped the Carthaginians, but was killed by the Romans after they invaded Syracuse in 213 BC. They failed, and Rome was even more unrelenting in its annihilation of the invaders this time; Roman consul M. Valerian told the Roman Senate in 210 BC that "no Carthaginian remains in Sicily".
As the empire's granary, Sicily was an important province, divided into two quaestorships: Syracuse to the east and Lilybaeum to the west. Some attempt was made under Augustus to introduce the Latin language to the island, but Sicily was allowed to remain largely Greek in a cultural sense. The once prosperous and contented island went into sharp decline when Verres became governor of Sicily. In 70 BC, noted figure Cicero condemned the misgovernment of Verres in his oration "In Verrem".
The island was used as a base of power numerous times, being occupied by slave insurgents during the First and Second Servile Wars, and by Sextus Pompey during the Sicilian revolt. Christianity first appeared in Sicily during the years following AD 200; between this time and AD 313, Constantine the Great finally lifted the prohibition on Christianity, but not before a significant number of Sicilians had become martyrs, including Agatha, Christina, Lucy, and Euplius. Christianity grew rapidly in Sicily over the next two centuries. The period of history during which Sicily was a Roman province lasted for around 700 years.
The Western Roman Empire began falling apart after the great invasion of Vandals, Alans, and Sueves across the Rhine on the last day of 406. Eventually the Vandals, after roaming about western and southern Spain for 20 years moved to North Africa in 429. They occupied Carthage in 439 (The Franks moved south from Belgium. The Visigoths moved west and were eventually settled in Aquitaine in 418; the Burgundians were settled in Savoy in 443). This put them in a position to threaten Sicily only 100 miles away. After taking Carthage the Vandals personally led by King Gaiseric laid siege to Palermo in 440 as the opening act in an attempt to wrest the island from Roman rule personally. The Vandals made another attempt to take the island one year after the sack of Rome in 455, at Agrigento, but were defeated decisively by Ricimir in a naval victory off Corsica in 456. The island remained under Roman rule until 469. The Vandal possession of the island was lost 8 years later in 477 to the East Germanic tribe Ostrogoths who were in control of Italy and Dalmatia. The island was returned for payment of tribute to Odoacer, king of the Ostrogoths. He ruled Italy from 476–88 in the name of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Emperor. The Vandals kept a toehold in Lilybaeum, a port on the west coast. They lost this in 491 after making one last attempt to conquer the island from this port. The Ostrogothic conquest of Sicily (and Italy as a whole) under Theodoric the Great began in 488. He had been appointed viceroy of the emperor to rule in Italy. The Goths were Germanic, but Theodoric was supportive of Roman culture and government and allowed freedom of religion. In 461 from the age of seven or eight until 17 or 18 he was a hostage; he resided in the great palace of Constantinople and was favored by Leo I and where he learned to read and write and do arithmetic.
After taking areas occupied by the Vandals in North Africa, Justinian decided to retake Italy as an ambitious attempt to recover the lost provinces in the West. The re-conquests marked an end to over 150 years of accommodationist policies with tribal invaders. His first target was Sicily (known as the Gothic War (535–554) began between the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire). His general Belisarius was assigned the task. Sicily was used as a base for the Byzantines to conquer the rest of Italy, with Naples, Rome, Milan. It took five years before the Ostrogoth capital Ravenna fell in 540. However, the new Ostrogoth king Totila counterattacked, moving down the Italian peninsula, plundering and conquering Sicily in 550. Totila was defeated and killed in the Battle of Taginae by Byzantine general Narses in 552 but Italy was in ruins.
At the time of the reconquest Greek was still the predominant language spoken on the island. Sicily was invaded by the Arab forces of Caliph Uthman in 652, but the Arabs failed to make any permanent gains. They returned to Syria with their booty. Raids seeking loot continued until the mid-8th century.
The Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II decided to move from Constantinople to Syracuse in 660. The following year he launched an assault from Sicily against the Lombard Duchy of Benevento, which occupied most of southern Italy. Rumors that the capital of the empire was to be moved to Syracuse probably cost Constans his life, as he was assassinated in 668. His son Constantine IV succeeded him. A brief usurpation in Sicily by Mezezius was quickly suppressed by this emperor. Contemporary accounts report that the Greek language was widely spoken on the island during this period. In 740 Emperor Leo III the Isaurian transferred Sicily from the jurisdiction of the church of Rome to that of Constantinople, placing the island within the eastern branch of the Church.
In 826 Euphemius, the Byzantine commander in Sicily, having apparently killed his wife, forced a nun to marry him. Emperor Michael II caught wind of the matter and ordered general Constantine to end the marriage and cut off Euphemius' head. Euphemius rose up, killed Constantine, and then occupied Syracuse; he, in turn, was defeated and driven out to North Africa. He offered the rule of Sicily to Ziyadat Allah, the Aghlabid Emir of Tunisia, in return for a position as a general and a place of safety. A Muslim army was then sent to the island consisting of Arabs, Berbers, Cretans, and Persians.
The Muslim conquest of Sicily was a see-saw affair and met with fierce resistance. It took over a century for Byzantine Sicily to be conquered; the largest city, Syracuse, held out until 878 and the Greek city of Taormina fell in 962. It was not until 965 that all of Sicily was conquered by the Arabs. In the 11th-century Byzantine armies carried out a partial reconquest of the island under George Maniakes, but it was their Norman mercenaries who would eventually complete the island's reconquest at the end of the century.
The Arabs initiated land reforms, which increased productivity and encouraged the growth of smallholdings, undermining the dominance of the latifundia. The Arabs further improved irrigation systems. The language spoken in Sicily under Arab rule was Siculo-Arabic and Arabic influence is still present in some Sicilian words today. Although the language is extinct in Sicily, it has developed into what is now the Maltese language on the islands of Malta today.
A description of Palermo was given by Ibn Hawqal, an Arab merchant who visited Sicily in 950. A walled suburb, called the Al-Kasr (the palace), is the centre of Palermo to this day, with the great Friday mosque on the site of the later Roman cathedral. The suburb of al-Khalisa (modern Kalsa) contained the Sultan's palace, baths, a mosque, government offices, and a private prison. Ibn Hawqal reckoned 7,000 individual butchers trading in 150 shops. Palermo was initially ruled by the Aghlabids; later it was the centre of Emirate of Sicily under the nominal suzerainty of the Fatimid Caliphate. During the reign of this dynasty revolts by Byzantine Sicilians continuously occurred especially in the east where Greek-speaking Christians predominated. Parts of the island were re-occupied before revolts were being quashed. During Muslim rule agricultural products such as oranges, lemons, pistachio and sugarcane were brought to Sicily. Under the Arab rule the island was divided in three administrative regions, or "vals", roughly corresponding to the three "points" of Sicily: Val di Mazara in the west; Val Demone in the northeast; and Val di Noto in the southeast. As dhimmis, that is as members of a protected class of approved monotheists the Eastern Orthodox Christians were allowed freedom of religion, but had to pay a tax, the jizya (in lieu of the obligatory alms tax, the zakat, paid by Muslims), and were restricted from active participation in public affairs.
The Emirate of Sicily began to fragment as intra-dynastic quarreling fractured the Muslim regime. During this time, there was also a small Jewish presence.
In 1038, seventy years after losing their last cities in Sicily, the Byzantines under the Greek general George Maniakes invaded the island together with their Varangian and Norman mercenaries. Maniakes was killed in a Byzantine civil war in 1043 before completing a reconquest and the Byzantines withdrew. The Normans invaded in 1061. After taking Apulia and Calabria, Roger occupied Messina with an army of 700 knights. In 1068, Roger was victorious at Misilmeri. Most crucial was the siege of Palermo, whose fall in 1071 eventually resulted in all Sicily coming under Norman control. The conquest was completed in 1091 when they captured Noto the last Arab stronghold. Palermo continued to be the capital under the Normans.
The Norman Hauteville family, descendants of Vikings, appreciated and admired the rich and layered culture in which they now found themselves. They also introduced their own culture, customs, and politics in the region. Many Normans in Sicily adopted the habits and comportment of Muslim rulers and their Byzantine subjects in dress, language, literature, even to the extent of having palace eunuchs and, according to some accounts, a harem.
Roger died in 1101. His wife Adelaide ruled until 1112 when their son Roger II of Sicily came of age. Having succeeded his brother Simon as Count of Sicily, Roger II was ultimately able to raise the status of the island to a kingdom in 1130, along with his other holdings, which included the Maltese Islands and the Duchies of Apulia and Calabria.
Roger II appointed the powerful Greek George of Antioch to be his "emir of emirs" and continued the syncretism of his father. During this period, the Kingdom of Sicily was prosperous and politically powerful, becoming one of the wealthiest states in all of Europe—even wealthier than the Kingdom of England.
The court of Roger II became the most luminous centre of culture in the Mediterranean, both from Europe and the Middle East, like the multi-ethnic Caliphate of Córdoba, then only just eclipsed. This attracted scholars, scientists, poets, artists, and artisans of all kinds. Laws were issued in the language of the community to whom they were addressed in Norman Sicily, at the time when the culture was still heavily Arab and Greek. Governance was by rule of law which promoted justice. Muslims, Jews, Byzantine Greeks, Lombards, and Normans worked together fairly amicably. During this time many extraordinary buildings were constructed.
However this situation changed as the Normans under Papal pressure to secure the island imported immigrants from Lombardy, Piedmont, Provence and Campania. Linguistically, the island shifted from being one-third Greek- and two-thirds Arabic-speaking at the time of the Norman conquest to becoming fully Latinised. In terms of religion the island became completely Roman Catholic (bearing in mind that until 1054 the Churches owing allegiance to the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople belonged to one Church); Sicily before the Norman conquest was under Eastern Orthodox Patriarch. After Pope Innocent III made him Papal Legate in 1098, Roger I created several Catholic bishoprics while still allowing the construction of 12 Greek-speaking monasteries (the Greek language, monasteries, and 1500 parishes continued to exist until the adherents of the Greek Rite were forced in 1585 to convert to Catholicism or leave; a small pocket of Greek-speakers still live in Messina).
After a century, the Norman Hauteville dynasty died out; the last direct descendant and heir of Roger, Constance, married Emperor Henry VI. This eventually led to the crown of Sicily being passed on to the Hohenstaufen Dynasty, who were Germans from Swabia. The last of the Hohenstaufens, Frederick II, the only son of Constance, was one of the greatest and most cultured men of the Middle Ages. His mother's will had asked Pope Innocent III to undertake the guardianship of her son. Frederick was four when at Palermo, he was crowned King of Sicily in 1198. Frederick received no systematic education and was allowed to run free in the streets of Palermo. There he picked up the many languages he heard spoken, such as Arabic and Greek, and learned some of the lore of the Jewish community. At age twelve, he dismissed Innocent's deputy regent and took over the government; at fifteen he married Constance of Aragon, and began his reclamation of the imperial crown. Subsequently, due to Muslim rebellions, Frederick II destroyed the remaining Muslim presence in Sicily, estimated at 60,000 persons, moving all to the city of Lucera in Apulia between 1221 and 1226.
Conflict between the Hohenstaufen house and the Papacy led, in 1266, to Pope Innocent IV crowning the French prince Charles, count of Anjou and Provence, as the king of both Sicily and Naples.
Strong opposition to French officialdom due to mistreatment and taxation saw the local peoples of Sicily rise up, leading in 1282 to an insurrection known as the War of the Sicilian Vespers, which eventually saw almost the entire French population on the island killed. During the war, the Sicilians turned to Peter III of Aragon, son-in-law of the last Hohenstaufen king, for support after being rejected by the Pope. Peter gained control of Sicily from the French, who, however, retained control of the Kingdom of Naples. A crusade was launched in August 1283 against Peter III and the Kingdom of Aragon by Pope Martin IV (a pope from Île-de-France), but it failed. The wars continued until the peace of Caltabellotta in 1302, which saw Peter's son Frederick III recognized as the king of the Isle of Sicily, while Charles II was recognized as the king of Naples by Pope Boniface VIII. Sicily was ruled as an independent kingdom by relatives of the kings of Aragon until 1409 and then as part of the Crown of Aragon. In October 1347, in Messina, Sicily, the Black Death first arrived in Europe.
Between the 15th-18th centuries, waves of Greeks from the Peloponnese (such as the Maniots) and Arvanites migrated to Sicily in large numbers to escape persecution after the Ottoman conquest of the Peloponnese. They brought with them Eastern Orthodoxy as well as the Greek and Arvanitika languages to the island, once again adding onto the extensive Byzantine/Greek influence.
The onset of the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 led to Ferdinand II decreeing the expulsion of all Jews from Sicily. The eastern part of the island was hit by very destructive earthquakes in 1542 and 1693. Just a few years before the latter earthquake, the island was struck by a ferocious plague. The earthquake in 1693 took an estimated 60,000 lives. There were revolts during the 17th century, but these were quelled with significant force, especially the revolts of Palermo and Messina. North African slave raids discouraged settlement along the coast until the 19th century. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 saw Sicily assigned to the House of Savoy; however, this period of rule lasted only seven years, as it was exchanged for the island of Sardinia with Emperor Charles VI of the Austrian Habsburg Dynasty.
While the Austrians were concerned with the War of the Polish Succession, a Bourbon prince, Charles from Spain was able to conquer Sicily and Naples. At first Sicily was able to remain as an independent kingdom under personal union, while the Bourbons ruled over both from Naples. However, the advent of Napoleon's First French Empire saw Naples taken at the Battle of Campo Tenese and Bonapartist King of Naples were installed. Ferdinand III the Bourbon was forced to retreat to Sicily which he was still in complete control of with the help of British naval protection.
Following this, Sicily joined the Napoleonic Wars, and subsequently the British under Lord William Bentinck established a military and diplomatic presence on the island to protect against a French invasion. After the wars were won, Sicily and Naples formally merged as the Two Sicilies under the Bourbons. Major revolutionary movements occurred in 1820 and 1848 against the Bourbon government with Sicily seeking independence; the second of which, the 1848 revolution resulted in a short period of independence for Sicily. However, in 1849 the Bourbons retook control of the island and dominated it until 1860.
The Expedition of the Thousand led by Giuseppe Garibaldi captured Sicily in 1860, as part of the . The conquest started at Marsala, and native Sicilians joined him in the capture of the southern Italian peninsula. Garibaldi's march was completed with the Siege of Gaeta, where the final Bourbons were expelled and Garibaldi announced his dictatorship in the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia. Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia after a referendum where more than 75% of Sicily voted in favour of the annexation on 21 October 1860 (but not everyone was allowed to vote). As a result of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, Sicily became part of the kingdom on 17 March 1861.
The Sicilian economy (and the wider "mezzogiorno" economy) remained relatively underdeveloped after the Italian unification, in spite of the strong investments made by the Kingdom of Italy in terms of modern infrastructure, and this caused an unprecedented wave of emigration. In 1894, organisations of workers and peasants known as the "Fasci Siciliani" protested against the bad social and economic conditions of the island, but they were suppressed in a few days. The Messina earthquake of 28 December 1908 killed more than 80,000 people.
This period was also characterized by the first contact between the Sicilian mafia (the crime syndicate also known as Cosa Nostra) and the Italian government. The Mafia's origins are still uncertain, but it is generally accepted that it emerged in the 18th century initially in the role of private enforcers hired to protect the property of landowners and merchants from the groups of bandits ("Briganti") who frequently pillaged the countryside and towns. The battle against the Mafia made by the Kingdom of Italy was controversial and ambiguous. The Carabinieri (the military police of Italy) and sometimes the Italian army were often involved in terrible fights against the mafia members, but their efforts were frequently useless because of the secret co-operation between the mafia and local government and also because of the weakness of the Italian judicial system.
In the 1920s, the Fascist regime began a stronger military action against the Mafia, which was led by prefect Cesare Mori, who was known as the "Iron Prefect" because of his iron-fisted campaigns. This was the first time in which an operation against the Sicilian mafia ended with considerable success. There was an allied invasion of Sicily during World War II starting on 10 July 1943. In preparation for the invasion, the Allies revitalised the Mafia to aid them. The invasion of Sicily contributed to the 25 July crisis; in general, the Allied victors were warmly embraced by Sicily.
Italy became a Republic in 1946 and, as part of the Constitution of Italy, Sicily was one of the five regions given special status as an autonomous region. Both the partial Italian land reform and special funding from the Italian government's "Cassa per il Mezzogiorno" (Fund for the South) from 1950 to 1984 helped the Sicilian economy. During this period, the economic and social condition of the island was generally improved thanks to important investments on infrastructures such as motorways and airports, and thanks to the creation of important industrial and commercial areas. In the 1980s, the Mafia was deeply weakened by a second important campaign led by magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Between 1990 and 2005, the unemployment rate fell from about 23% to 11%.
The Cosa Nostra has traditionally been the most powerful group in Sicily, especially around Palermo. A police investigation in summer 2019 also confirmed strong links between the Palermo area Sicilian Mafia and American organized crime, particularly the Gambino crime family. According to La Repubblica, "Off they go, through the streets of Passo di Rigano, Boccadifalco, Torretta and at the same time, Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Jersey. Because from Sicily to the US, the old mafia has returned".
Sicily is a melting pot of a variety of different cultures and ethnicities, including the original Italic people, the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Aragonese, Lombards, Spaniards, French, and Albanians, each contributing to the island's culture and genetic makeup. About five million people live in Sicily, making it the fourth most populated region in Italy. In the first century after the Italian unification, Sicily had one of the most negative net migration rates among the regions of Italy because of the emigration of millions of people to other European countries, North America, South America and Australia. Like the South of Italy and Sardinia, immigration to the island is very low compared to other regions of Italy because workers tend to head to Northern Italy instead, due to better employment and industrial opportunities. According to ISTAT figures from 2017, show around 175,000 immigrants out of the total 5,029,615 population; Romanians with more than 50,000 make up the most immigrants, followed by Tunisians, Moroccans, Sri Lankans, Albanians, and others mostly from Eastern Europe. As in the rest of Italy, the official language is Italian and the primary religion is Roman Catholicism.
Since the Italian unification, Sicily, along with the entire south of the Italian peninsula has been strongly marked by coerced emigration, partly induced by a planned de-industrialization of the south in order to favour the northern regions.
After Italian unification most of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies's former National Bank, the Banco delle Due Sicilie's assets were transferred to Piedmont. During the first decades of the Risorgimento, a rising number of Sicilian and South Italian manufacturies were driven into ruin due to high taxation imposed by the central government. Furthermore, an embargo imposed on goods coming from South Italian manufacturers, that effectively barred them from exporting to the north and abroad, were also key factors that led to further impoverishment of the entire region. South Italian and Sicilian emigration started shortly after the Unification of Italy and has not stopped ever since. By the beginning of the 1900s, less than 40 years after the Unification, what was formerly known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, one of Europe's most industrialized countries, became one of the poorest regions in Europe.
The aforementioned factors, along with a failed land reform, resulted in a never-before-seen wave of Sicilians emigrating, first to the United States between the 1880s and the 1920s, later to Northern Italy, and from the 1960s onwards also to Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, as well as Australia and South America.
Today, Sicily is the Italian region with the highest number of expatriates: as of 2017, 750,000 Sicilians, 14.4% of the island's population, lived abroad. For lack of employment, every year many Sicilians, especially young graduates, still leave the island to seek jobs abroad. Today, an estimated 10 million people of Sicilian origins live around the world.
The are the ten largest cities of Sicily:
As in most Italian regions, Christian Roman Catholicism is the predominant religious denomination in Sicily, and the church still plays an important role in the lives of most people. There is also a notable small minority of Eastern-rite Byzantine Catholics which has a mixed congregation of ethnic Albanians; it is operated by the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church. Most people still attend church weekly or at least for religious festivals, and many people get married in churches. There was a wide presence of Jews in Sicily for at least 1,400 years and possibly for more than 2,000 years. Some scholars believe that the Sicilian Jewry are partial ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews. However, much of the Jewish community faded away when they were expelled from the island in 1492. Islam was present during the Emirate of Sicily, although Muslims were also expelled. Today, mostly due to immigration to the island, there are also several religious minorities, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism. There are also a fair number of evangelical Christians who live on the island.
The politics of Sicily takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democracy, whereby the President of Regional Government is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the Regional Government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The capital of Sicily is Palermo.
Traditionally, Sicily gives center-right results during elections. From 1943 to 1951 there was also a separatist political party called Sicilian Independence Movement ("Movimento Indipendentista Siciliano", MIS). Its best electoral result was in the 1946 general election, when MIS obtained 0.7% of national votes (8.8% of votes in Sicily), and four seats. However, the movement lost all its seats following the 1948 general election and the 1951 regional election. Even though it has never been formally disbanded, today the movement is no longer part of the politics of Sicily. After World War II Sicily became a stronghold of the Christian Democracy, in opposition to the Italian Communist Party. The Communists and their successors (the Democratic Party of the Left, the Democrats of the Left and the present-day Democratic Party) had never won in the region until 2012. Sicily is now governed by a center-right coalition. Nello Musumeci is the current President since 2017.
Administratively, Sicily is divided into nine provinces, each with a capital city of the same name as the province. Small surrounding islands are also part of various Sicilian provinces: the Aeolian Islands (Messina), isle of Ustica (Palermo), Aegadian Islands (Trapani), isle of Pantelleria (Trapani) and Pelagian Islands (Agrigento).
Thanks to the regular growth of the last years, Sicily is the eighth largest regional economy of Italy in terms of total GDP (see List of Italian regions by GDP). A series of reforms and investments on agriculture such as the introduction of modern irrigation systems have made this important industry competitive. In the 1970s there was a growth of the industrial sector through the creation of some factories. In recent years the importance of the service industry has grown for the opening of several shopping malls and for modest growth of financial and telecommunication activities. Tourism is an important source of wealth for the island thanks to its natural and historical heritage. Today Sicily is investing a large amount of money on structures of the hospitality industry, in order to make tourism more competitive. However, Sicily continues to have a GDP per capita below the Italian average and higher unemployment than the rest of Italy. This difference is mostly caused by the negative influence of the Mafia that is still active in some areas although it is much weaker than in the past.
Sicily has long been noted for its fertile soil due to volcanic eruptions. The local agriculture is also helped by the pleasant climate of the island. The main agricultural products are wheat, citrons, oranges "(Arancia Rossa di Sicilia IGP)", lemons, tomatoes "(Pomodoro di Pachino IGP)", olives, olive oil, artichokes, prickly pear "(Fico d'India dell'Etna DOP)", almonds, grapes, pistachios "(Pistacchio di Bronte DOP)" and wine. Cattle and sheep are raised. The cheese productions are particularly important thanks to the Ragusano DOP and the Pecorino Siciliano DOP. Ragusa is noted for its honey ("Miele Ibleo") and chocolate ("Cioccolato di Modica IGP") productions.
Sicily is the third largest wine producer in Italy (the world's largest wine producer) after Veneto and Emilia Romagna. The region is known mainly for fortified Marsala wines. In recent decades the wine industry has improved, new winemakers are experimenting with less-known native varietals, and Sicilian wines have become better known. The best known local varietal is Nero d'Avola, named for a small town not far from Syracuse; the best wines made with these grapes come from Noto, a famous old city close to Avola. Other important native varietals are Nerello Mascalese used to make the Etna Rosso DOC wine, Frappato that is a component of the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG wine, Moscato di Pantelleria (also known as "Zibibbo") used to make different Pantelleria wines, Malvasia di Lipari used for the Malvasia di Lipari DOC wine and Catarratto mostly used to make the white wine Alcamo DOC. Furthermore, in Sicily high quality wines are also produced using non-native varietals like Syrah, Chardonnay and Merlot.
Sicily is also known for its liqueurs, such as the Amaro Averna produced in Caltanissetta and the local limoncello.
Fishing is another fundamental resource for Sicily. There are important tuna, sardine, swordfish and European anchovy fisheries. Mazara del Vallo is the largest fishing centre in Sicily and one of the most important in Italy.
Improvements in Sicily's road system have helped to promote industrial development. The region has three important industrial districts:
In Palermo there are important shipyards (such as Fincantieri), mechanical factories of famous Italian companies as Ansaldo Breda, publishing and textile industries. Chemical industries are also in the Province of Messina (Milazzo) and in the Province of Caltanissetta (Gela).
There are petroleum, natural gas and asphalt fields in the Southeast (mostly near Ragusa) and massive deposits of halite in Central Sicily. The Province of Trapani is one of the largest sea salt producers in Italy.
A table showing Sicily's different GDP (nominal and per capita) growth between 2000 and 2008:
After the table which shows Sicily's GDP growth, this table shows the sectors of the Sicilian economy in 2006:
The unemployment rate stood at 21.5% in 2018 and was one of the highest in Italy and Europe.
Highways have been built and expanded in the last four decades. The most prominent Sicilian roads are the motorways (known as ) in the north of the island. Much of the motorway network is elevated on pillars due to the island's mountainous terrain. Other main roads in Sicily are the "Strade Statali", such as the SS.113 that connects Trapani to Messina (via Palermo), the SS.114 Messina-Syracuse (via Catania) and the SS.115 Syracuse-Trapani (via Ragusa, Gela and Agrigento).
The first railway in Sicily was opened in 1863 (Palermo-Bagheria) and today all of the Sicilian provinces are served by a network of railway services, linking to most major cities and towns; this service is operated by Trenitalia. Of the of railway tracks in use, over 60% has been electrified whilst the remaining are serviced by diesel engines. 88% of the lines (1.209 km) are single-track and only are double-track serving the two main routes, Messina-Palermo (Tyrrhenian) and Messina-Catania-Syracuse (Ionian), which are the main lines of this region. Of the narrow-gauge railways the Ferrovia Circumetnea is the only one that still operates, going round Mount Etna. From the major cities of Sicily, there are services to Naples, Rome and Milan; this is achieved by the trains being loaded onto ferries which cross the Strait.
In Catania there is an underground railway service (metropolitana di Catania); in Palermo the national railway operator Trenitalia operates a commuter rail (Palermo metropolitan railway service), the Sicilian Capital is also served by 4 AMAT (Comunal Public Transport Operator) tramlines; Messina is served by a tramline.
Mainland Sicily has several airports that serve numerous Italian and European destinations and some extra-European.
By sea, Sicily is served by several ferry routes and cargo ports, and in all major cities, cruise ships dock on a regular basis.
Plans for a bridge linking Sicily to the mainland have been discussed since 1865. Throughout the last decade, plans were developed for a road and rail link to the mainland via what would be the world's longest suspension bridge, the Strait of Messina Bridge. Planning for the project has experienced several false starts over the past few years. On 6 March 2009, Silvio Berlusconi's government declared that the construction works for the Messina Bridge will begin on 23 December 2009, and announced a pledge of €1.3 billion as a contribution to the bridge's total cost, estimated at €6.1 billion.
The plan has been criticized by environmental associations and some local Sicilians and Calabrians, concerned with its environmental impact, economical sustainability and even possible infiltrations by organized crime.
Sicily's sunny, dry climate, scenery, cuisine, history, and architecture attract many tourists from mainland Italy and abroad. The tourist season peaks in the summer months, although people visit the island all year round. Mount Etna, the beaches, the archaeological sites, and major cities such as Palermo, Catania, Syracuse and Ragusa are the favourite tourist destinations, but the old town of Taormina and the neighbouring seaside resort of Giardini Naxos draw visitors from all over the world, as do the Aeolian Islands, Erice, Castellammare del Golfo, Cefalù, Agrigento, the Pelagie Islands and Capo d'Orlando. The last features some of the best-preserved temples of the ancient Greek period. Many Mediterranean cruise ships stop in Sicily, and many wine tourists also visit the island.
Some scenes of several Hollywood and Cinecittà films were shot in Sicily. This increased the attraction of Sicily as a tourist destination.
There are seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites on Sicily. By the order of inscription:
Because many different cultures settled, dominated or invaded the island, Sicily has a huge variety of archaeological sites. Also, some of the most notable and best preserved temples and other structures of the Greek world are located in Sicily.. Here is a short list of the major archaeological sites:
The excavation and restoration of one of Sicily's best known archaeological sites, the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, was at the direction of the archaeologist Domenico Antonio Lo Faso Pietrasanta, Fifth Duke of Serradifalco, known in archaeological circles simply as ""Serradifalco"". He also oversaw the restoration of ancient sites at Segesta, Selinunte, Siracusa and Taormina.
In Sicily there are hundreds of castles, the most relevant are:
The Coastal towers in Sicily ("Torri costiere della Sicilia") are 218 old watchtowers along the coast. In Sicily, the first coastal towers date back to 1313 and 1345 of the Aragonese monarchy. From 1360 the threat came from the south, from North Africa to Maghreb, mainly to Barbary pirates and corsairs of Barbary Coast. In 1516, the Turks settled in Algiers, and from 1520, the corsair Hayreddin Barbarossa under the command of Ottoman Empire, operated from that harbor.
Most existing towers were built on architectural designs of the Florentine architect Camillo Camilliani from [1583] to 1584 and involved the coastal periple of Sicily. The typology changed completely in '800, because of the new higher fire volumes of cannon vessels, the towers were built on the type of Martello towers that the British built in the UK and elsewhere in the British Empire.
The decline of Mediterranean piracy caused by the Second Barbary War led to a smaller number of coastal towers built during the 19th Century.
Sicily has long been associated with the arts; many poets, writers, philosophers, intellectuals, architects and painters have roots on the island. The history of prestige in this field can be traced back to Greek philosopher Archimedes, a Syracuse native who has gone on to become renowned as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Gorgias and Empedocles are two other highly noted early Sicilian-Greek philosophers, while the Syracusan Epicharmus is held to be the inventor of comedy.
Terracotta ceramics from the island are well known, the art of ceramics on Sicily goes back to the original ancient peoples named the Sicanians, it was then perfected during the period of Greek colonisation and is still prominent and distinct to this day. Nowadays, Caltagirone is one of the most important centres in Sicily for the artistic production of ceramics and terra-cotta sculptures. Famous painters include Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, Bruno Caruso, Renato Guttuso and Greek born Giorgio de Chirico who is commonly dubbed the "father of Surrealist art" and founder of the metaphysical art movement. The most noted architects are Filippo Juvarra (one of the most important figures of the Italian Baroque) and Ernesto Basile.
The Sicilian Baroque has a unique architectural identity. Noto, Caltagirone, Catania, Ragusa, Modica, Scicli and particularly Acireale contain some of Italy's best examples of Baroque architecture, carved in the local red sandstone. Noto provides one of the best examples of the Baroque architecture brought to Sicily.
The Baroque style in Sicily was largely confined to buildings erected by the church, and palazzi built as private residences for the Sicilian aristocracy. The earliest examples of this style in Sicily lacked individuality and were typically heavy-handed pastiches of buildings seen by Sicilian visitors to Rome, Florence, and Naples. However, even at this early stage, provincial architects had begun to incorporate certain vernacular features of Sicily's older architecture. By the middle of the 18th century, when Sicily's Baroque architecture was noticeably different from that of the mainland, it typically included at least two or three of the following features, coupled with a unique freedom of design that is more difficult to characterize in words.
Palermo hosts the Teatro Massimo which is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in all of Europe.
In Catania there is another important opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini with 1,200 seats, which is considered one of the best European opera houses for its acoustics.
Sicily's composers vary from Vincenzo Bellini, Sigismondo d'India, Giovanni Pacini and Alessandro Scarlatti, to contemporary composers such as Salvatore Sciarrino and Silvio Amato.
Many award-winning and acclaimed films of Italian cinema have been filmed in Sicily, amongst the most noted of which are: Visconti's ""La Terra Trema"" and ""Il Gattopardo"", Pietro Germi's ""Divorzio all'Italiana"" and ""Sedotta e Abbandonata"".
The golden age of Sicilian poetry began in the early 13th century with the Sicilian School of Giacomo da Lentini, which was highly influential on Italian literature. Some of the most noted figures among writers and poets are Luigi Pirandello (Nobel laureate, 1934), Salvatore Quasimodo (Nobel laureate, 1959), Giovanni Verga (the father of the "Italian Verismo"), Domenico Tempio, Giovanni Meli, Luigi Capuana, Mario Rapisardi, Federico de Roberto, Leonardo Sciascia, Vitaliano Brancati, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Elio Vittorini, Vincenzo Consolo and Andrea Camilleri (noted for his novels and short stories with the fictional character Inspector Salvo Montalbano as protagonist). On the political side notable philosophers include Gaetano Mosca and Giovanni Gentile who wrote "The Doctrine of Fascism". In terms of academic reflection, the historical and aesthetic richness as well as the multi-layered heterogeneity of Sicilian literature and culture have been first grasped methodologically and coined with the term of transculturality by German scholar of Italian studies Dagmar Reichardt who, after having published an extensive study on the literary work of Giuseppe Bonaviri, was awarded the International Premio Flaiano ("Italianistica") for a trilingual (English, Italian, German) collection about the European liminality of Sicily, Sicilian literature and Sicilian Studies.
Today in Sicily most people are bilingual and speak both Italian and Sicilian, a distinct and historical Romance language. Some of the Sicilian words are loan words from Greek, Catalan, French, Arabic, Spanish and other languages. Dialects related to Sicilian are also spoken in Calabria and Salento; it had a significant influence on the Maltese language. However the use of Sicilian is limited to informal contexts (mostly in family) and in a majority of cases it is replaced by the so-called "regional Italian of Sicily", an Italian dialect that is a kind of mix between Italian and Sicilian.
Sicilian was an early influence in the development of the first Italian standard, although its use remained confined to an intellectual elite. This was a literary language in Sicily created under the auspices of Frederick II and his court of notaries, or "Magna Curia", which, headed by Giacomo da Lentini, also gave birth to the Sicilian School, widely inspired by troubadour literature. Its linguistic and poetic heritage was later assimilated into the Florentine by Dante Alighieri, the father of modern Italian who, in his , claims that "In effect, this vernacular seems to deserve higher praise than the others since all the poetry written by Italians can be called Sicilian". It is in this language that appeared the first sonnet, whose invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself.
Catania has one of the four laboratories of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) in which there is a cyclotron that uses protons both for nuclear physics experiments and for particle therapy to treat cancer (proton therapy). Noto has one of the largest radio telescopes in Italy that performs geodetic and astronomical observations. There are observatories in Palermo and Catania, managed by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (National Institute for Astrophysics). In the "Observatory of Palermo" the astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the first and the largest asteroid to be identified Ceres (today considered a dwarf planet) on 1 January 1801; Catania has two observatories, one of which is situated on Mount Etna at .
Syracuse is also an experimental centre for the solar technologies through the creation of the project Archimede solar power plant that is the first concentrated solar power plant to use molten salt for heat transfer and storage which is integrated with a combined-cycle gas facility. All the plant is owned and operated by Enel. The touristic town of Erice is also an important science place thanks to the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture which
embraces 123 schools from all over the world, covering all branches of science, offering courses, seminars, workshops, and annual meetings. It was founded by the physicist Antonino Zichichi in honour of another scientist of the island, Ettore Majorana known for the Majorana equation and Majorana fermions. Sicily's famous scientists include also Stanislao Cannizzaro (chemist), Giovanni Battista Hodierna and Niccolò Cacciatore (astronomers).
Sicily has four universities:
The island has a long history of producing a variety of noted cuisines and wines, to the extent that Sicily is sometimes nicknamed "God's Kitchen" because of this. Every part of Sicily has its speciality (e.g. Cassata is typical of Palermo although available everywhere in Sicily, as is Granita). The ingredients are typically rich in taste while remaining affordable to the general public. The savoury dishes of Sicily are viewed to be healthy, using fresh vegetables and fruits, such as tomatoes, artichokes, olives (including olive oil), citrus, apricots, aubergines, onions, beans, raisins commonly coupled with seafood, freshly caught from the surrounding coastlines, including tuna, sea bream, sea bass, cuttlefish, swordfish, sardines, and others.
The most well-known part of Sicilian cuisine is the rich sweet dishes including ice creams and pastries. Cannoli (singular: "cannolo"), a tube-shaped shell of fried pastry dough filled with a sweet filling usually containing ricotta, is strongly associated with Sicily worldwide. Biancomangiare, biscotti ennesi (cookies native to Enna), braccilatte (a Sicilian version of doughnuts), buccellato, ciarduna, pignoli, Biscotti Regina, giurgiulena, frutta martorana, cassata, pignolata, granita, cuccidati (a variety of fig cookie; also known as buccellati) and cuccìa are some notable sweet dishes.
Like the cuisine of the rest of southern Italy, pasta plays an important part in Sicilian cuisine, as does rice; for example with arancine. As well as using some other cheeses, Sicily has spawned some of its own, using both cow's and sheep's milk, such as pecorino and caciocavallo. Spices used include saffron, nutmeg, clove, pepper, and cinnamon, which were introduced by the Arabs. Parsley is used abundantly in many dishes. Although Sicilian cuisine is commonly associated with sea food, meat dishes, including goose, lamb, goat, rabbit, and turkey, are also found in Sicily. It was the Normans and Swabians who first introduced a fondness for meat dishes to the island. Some varieties of wine are produced from vines that are relatively unique to the island, such as the Nero d'Avola made near the baroque of town of Noto.
The most popular sport in Sicily is football, which came to the fore in the late 19th century under the influence of the English. Some of the oldest football clubs in Italy are from Sicily: the three most successful are Palermo, Catania, and Messina, which have played 29, 17 and 5 seasons in the Serie A respectively. No club from Sicily has ever won Serie A, but football is still deeply embedded in local culture and all over Sicily most towns have a representative team.
Palermo and Catania have a heated rivalry and compete in the Sicilian derby together. Palermo is the only team in Sicily to have played on the European stage, in the UEFA Cup. In the island, the most noted footballer is Salvatore Schillaci, who won the Golden Boot at the 1990 FIFA World Cup with Italy. Other noted players include Giuseppe Furino, Pietro Anastasi, Francesco Coco, Christian Riganò, and Roberto Galia. There have also been some noted managers from the island, such as Carmelo Di Bella and Franco Scoglio.
Although football is the most popular sport in Sicily, the island also has participants in other fields. Amatori Catania have competed in the top Italian national rugby union league called National Championship of Excellence. They have even participated at the European level in the European Challenge Cup. Competing in the basketball variation of Serie A is Orlandina Basket from Capo d'Orlando in the province of Messina, where the sport has a reasonable following. Various other sports that are played to some extent include volleyball, handball, and water polo. Previously, in motorsport, Sicily held the prominent Targa Florio sports car race that took place in the Madonie Mountains, with the start-finish line in Cerda. The event was started in 1906 by Sicilian industrialist and automobile enthusiast Vincenzo Florio, and ran until it was canceled due to safety concerns in 1977.
From 28 September to 9 October 2005 Trapani was the location of Acts 8 and 9 of the Louis Vuitton Cup. This sailing race featured, among other entrants, all boats that took part in the 2007 America's Cup.
Each town and city has its own patron saint, and the feast days are marked by colourful processions through the streets with marching bands and displays of fireworks.
Sicilian religious festivals also include the "presepe vivente" (living nativity scene), which takes place at Christmas time. Deftly combining religion and folklore, it is a constructed mock 19th-century Sicilian village, complete with a nativity scene, and has people of all ages dressed in the costumes of the period, some impersonating the Holy Family, and others working as artisans of their particular assigned trade. It is normally concluded on Epiphany, often highlighted by the arrival of the magi on horseback.
Oral tradition plays a large role in Sicilian folklore. Many stories passed down from generation to generation involve a character named "Giufà". Anecdotes from this character's life preserve Sicilian culture as well as convey moral messages.
Sicilians also enjoy outdoor festivals, held in the local square or "piazza" where live music and dancing are performed on stage, and food fairs or "sagre" are set up in booths lining the square. These offer various local specialties, as well as typical Sicilian food. Normally these events are concluded with fireworks. A noted "sagra" is the "Sagra del Carciofo" or "Artichoke Festival", which is held annually in Ramacca in April. The most important traditional event in Sicily is the carnival. Famous carnivals are in Acireale, Misterbianco, Regalbuto, Paternò, Sciacca, Termini Imerese.
The Opera dei Pupi (Opera of the Puppets; Sicilian: Òpira dî pupi) is a marionette theatrical representation of Frankish romantic poems such as the Song of Roland or "Orlando furioso" that is one of the characteristic cultural traditions of Sicily. The sides of donkey carts are decorated with intricate, painted scenes; these same tales are enacted in traditional puppet theatres featuring hand-made marionettes of wood. The opera of the puppets and the Sicilian tradition of "cantastorî" (singers of tales) are rooted in the Provençal troubadour tradition in Sicily during the reign of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in the first half of the 13th century. A great place to see this marionette art is the puppet theatres of Palermo. The Sicilian marionette theatre Opera dei Pupi was proclaimed in 2001 and inscribed in 2008 in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.
Today, there are only a few troupes that maintain the tradition. They often perform for tourists. However, there are no longer the great historical families of marionettists, such as the Greco of Palermo; the Canino of Partinico and Alcamo; Crimi, Trombetta and Napoli of Catania, Pennisi and Macri of Acireale, Profeta of Licata, Gargano and Grasso of Agrigento. One can, however, admire the richest collection of marionettes at the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette Antonio Pasqualino and at the Museo Etnografico Siciliano Giuseppe Pitrè in Palermo. Other elaborate marionettes are on display at the Museo Civico Vagliasindi in Randazzo.
The Sicilian cart is an ornate, colourful style of a horse or donkey-drawn cart native to Sicily. Sicilian wood carver George Petralia states that horses were mostly used in the city and flat plains, while donkeys or mules were more often used in rough terrain for hauling heavy loads. The cart has two wheels and is primarily handmade out of wood with iron components.
The Sicilian coppola is a traditional kind of flat cap typically worn by men in Sicily. First used by English nobles during the late 18th century, the "tascu" began being used in Sicily in the early 20th century as a driving cap, usually worn by car drivers. The "coppola" is usually made in tweed. Today it is widely regarded as a definitive symbol of Sicilian heritage.
The Flag of Sicily, regarded as a regional icon, was first adopted in 1282, after the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo. It is characterised by the presence of the triskeles in the middle, depicting the head of Medusa and three wheat ears representing the extreme fertility of the land of Sicily. In early mythology, when Medusa was slain and beheaded by Perseus, the Medusa head was placed in the centre of Athena's shield. Palermo and Corleone were the first two cities to found a confederation against the Angevin rule. The triskeles symbol came to be on the Sicilian flag in 1943 during World War II when Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile led an independence movement, in collaboration with the allies. Their plan was to help Sicily become independent and form a free republic. The colours, likewise introduced in the 1940s, respectively represent the cities of Palermo and Corleone. The separatist behind the movement used a yellow and red flag with the Trinacria in the center of it. When World War II ended, Sicily was recognized as an autonomous region in the Italian Republic.
The flag became the official public flag of the "Regione Siciliana" in January 2000, after the passing of an apposite regional law which advocates its use on public buildings, schools and city halls along with the national Italian flag and the European one.
Familiar as an ancient symbol of the region, the Triskelion is also featured on Greek coins of Syracuse, such as coins of Agathocles (317–289 BC).The symbol dates back to when Sicily was part of Magna Graecia, the colonial extension of Greece beyond the Aegean. The triskelion was revived, as a neoclassic – and non-Bourbon – emblem for the new Napoleonic Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, by Joachim Murat in 1808. In the case of Sicily, the triskelion symbol is said to represent the three capes (headlands or promontories of the island of Sicily, namely: Pelorus (Peloro, Tip of Faro, Messina: North-East); Pachynus (Passero, Syracuse: South); and Lilybæum (Lilibeo, Cape Boeo, Marsala: West), which form three points of a triangle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27619 |
Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist, best known for his controversial experiment on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.
Milgram was influenced by the events of the Holocaust, especially the trial of Adolf Eichmann, in developing the experiment.
After earning a PhD in social psychology from Harvard University, he taught at Yale, Harvard, and then for most of his career as a professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, until his death in 1984.
His small-world experiment, while at Harvard, led researchers to analyze the degree of connectedness, including the six degrees of separation concept.
Later in his career, Milgram developed a technique for creating interactive hybrid social agents (called cyranoids), which has since been used to explore aspects of social- and self-perception.
He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of social psychology.
A "Review of General Psychology" survey, published in 2002, ranked Milgram as the 46th-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Milgram was born in 1933 in New York City (the Bronx) to Jewish parents. His parents were Adele (née Israel) and Samuel Milgram (1898–1953), who had emigrated to the United States from Romania and Hungary respectively during World War I. He was the second of three children. Milgram's immediate and extended family were both affected by the Holocaust. After the war, relatives of his who had survived Nazi concentration camps and bore concentration camp tattoos stayed with the Milgram family in New York for a time.
His Bar Mitzvah speech was on the subject of the plight of the European Jews and the impact that World War II events would have on Jewish people around the world. He said, upon becoming a man under Jewish law: "As I ... find happiness in joining the ranks of Israel, the knowledge of the tragic suffering of my fellow Jews ... makes this ... an occasion to reflect upon the heritage of my people—which now becomes mine. ... I shall try to understand my people and do my best to share the responsibilities which history has placed upon all of us." He later wrote to a friend from childhood: "I should have been born into the German-speaking Jewish community of Prague in 1922 and died in a gas chamber some 20 years later. How I came to be born in the Bronx Hospital, I'll never quite understand."
Milgram's interest in the Holocaust had its basis in what his biographer, Professor Thomas Blass, referred to as Milgram's "lifelong identification with the Jewish people." Author Kirsten Fermaglich wrote that Milgram as an adult had "a personal conflict as a Jewish man who perceived himself both as an outsider, a victim of the Nazi destruction, and as an insider, as scientist." Alexandra stated that Milgram's Jewish identity led to his focus on the Holocaust and his obedience-to-authority research. He shared this as well with Herbert Winer, one of his obedience study subjects, who noted after speaking to Milgram about the experiment that "Milgram was very Jewish. I was Jewish. We talked about this. There was obviously a motive behind neutral research."
Milgram married his wife, Alexandra, in a ceremony at the Brotherhood Synagogue in Greenwich Village in Manhattan on December 10, 1961, and they had two children, Michele and Marc.
Milgram's father worked as a baker, providing a modest income for his family until his death in 1953 (upon which Stanley's mother took over the bakery). Milgram attended PS 77 and James Monroe High School in the Bronx (which he graduated from in three years), and excelled academically and was a great leader among his peers. One of Milgram's classmates at James Monroe High School was Philip Zimbardo, the architect of the Stanford prison experiment. Milgram and Zimbardo also shared an affinity for the popular television program "Candid Camera" and an admiration for its creator, Allen Funt.
By the time he was college age, his family had moved to nearby Queens. In 1954, Milgram received his bachelor's degree in political science from Queens College in New York, which he attended tuition-free. He also studied at Brooklyn College, where he received A-grades in "Psychology of Personality" and "An Eclectic Approach to Social Psychology." He applied to a PhD program in social psychology at Harvard University, and was initially rejected due to an insufficient background in psychology (he had not taken any undergraduate courses in psychology at Queens College). He was eventually accepted to Harvard in 1954 after first enrolling as a student in Harvard's Office of Special Students.
In 1961, Milgram received a PhD in social psychology from Harvard. He became an assistant professor at Yale in the fall of 1960. He served as an assistant professor in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard from 1963 to 1966 on a three-year contract. The contract was then extended for one additional year, but with the lower rank of a lecturer. Most likely because of his controversial obedience experiment, Milgram was denied tenure at Harvard.
In 1967 he accepted an offer to become a tenured full professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and he taught at City University until he died in 1984. Milgram had a number of significant influences, including psychologists Solomon Asch and Gordon Allport.
Milgram died on December 20, 1984, aged 51, of a heart attack in New York City. It was his fifth heart attack. He left behind a widow, Alexandra "Sasha" Milgram, a daughter, Michele Sara, and a son, Marc Daniel.
In 1963, Milgram submitted the results of his obedience experiments in the article "Behavioral Study of Obedience." In the ensuing controversy, the American Psychological Association held up his application for membership for a year because of questions about the ethics of his work, but eventually did grant him full membership. Ten years later, in 1974, Milgram published "Obedience to Authority". He won the AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research in 1964, mostly for his work on the social aspects of obedience. Inspired in part by the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, his models were later also used to explain the 1968 My Lai Massacre (including authority training in the military, depersonalizing the "enemy" through racial and cultural differences, etc.). He produced a film depicting his experiments, which are considered classics of social psychology.
An article in "American Psychologist" sums up Milgram's obedience experiments: In Milgram's basic paradigm, a subject walks into a laboratory believing that s/he is about to take part in a study of memory and learning. After being assigned the role of a teacher, the subject is asked to teach word associations to a fellow subject (who in reality is a collaborator of the experimenter). The teaching method, however, is unconventional—administering increasingly higher electric shocks to the learner. Once the presumed shock level reaches a certain point, the subject is thrown into a conflict. On the one hand, the strapped learner demands to be set free, he appears to suffer pain, and going all the way may pose a risk to his health. On the other hand, the experimenter, if asked, insists that the experiment is not as unhealthy as it appears to be, and that the teacher must go on. In sharp contrast to the expectations of professionals and laymen alike, some 65% of all subjects continue to administer shocks up to the very highest levels.More recent tests of the experiment have found that it only works under certain conditions; in particular, when participants believe the results are necessary for the "good of science."
According to Milgram, "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow." Thus, "the major problem for the subject is to recapture control of his own regnant processes once he has committed them to the purposes of the experimenter." Besides this hypothetical agentic state, Milgram proposed the existence of other factors accounting for the subject's obedience: politeness, awkwardness of withdrawal, absorption in the technical aspects of the task, the tendency to attribute impersonal quality to forces that are essentially human, a belief that the experiment served a desirable end, the sequential nature of the action, and anxiety.
A competing explanation of Milgram's results invokes belief perseverance as the underlying factor. What "people cannot be counted on is to realize that a seemingly benevolent authority is in fact malevolent, even when they are faced with overwhelming evidence which suggests that this authority is indeed malevolent. Hence, the underlying cause for the subjects' striking conduct could well be conceptual, and not the alleged 'capacity of man to abandon his humanity . . . as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures."'
Inspired by the horrific events of Nazi Germany, Milgram's obedience experiments have been used to explain a range of social influences on the individual—including how police interrogators can get innocent people to confess to crimes they did not commit. At the same time, these experiments have come under attack. Some critics questioned whether subjects sensed the unreality of the situation. Others questioned the relevance of the laboratory setting to the real world.
The most devastating criticisms involved the ethics of the basic experimental design. Professor Milgram, for his part, felt that such misgivings were traceable to the unsavory nature of his results: "Underlying the criticism of the experiment," Milgram wrote, "is an alternative model of human nature, one holding that when confronted with a choice between hurting others and complying with authority, normal people reject authority."
Daniel Raver looks back:Even though Milgram’s personal interests were diverse, his greatest contribution to psychology came through one set of experiments, but in that set he contributed monumentally. He helped justify a science some dismiss as unimportant, contributed to the understanding of humanity, and, even if by way of attacks against him, contributed to the consideration of the treatment of research participants.
The six degrees of separation concept was examined in Milgram's 1967 "small-world experiment," which tracked chains of acquaintances in the United States. In the experiment, Milgram sent several packages to 160 random people living in Omaha, Nebraska, asking them to forward the package to a friend or acquaintance who they thought would bring the package closer to a set final individual, a stockbroker from Boston, Massachusetts. Each "starter" received instructions to mail a folder via the U.S. Post Office to a recipient, but with some rules. Starters could only mail the folder to someone they actually knew personally on a first-name basis. When doing so, each starter instructed their recipient to mail the folder ahead to one of the latter's first-name acquaintances with the same instructions, with the hope that their acquaintance might by some chance know the target recipient.
Given that starters knew only the target recipient's name and address, they had a seemingly impossible task. Milgram monitored the progress of each chain via returned "tracer" postcards, which allowed him to track the progression of each letter. Surprisingly, he found that the very first folder reached the target in just four days and took only two intermediate acquaintances. Overall, Milgram reported that chains varied in length from two to ten intermediate acquaintances, with a median of five intermediate acquaintances (i.e. six degrees of separation) between the original sender and the destination recipient.
Milgram's "six degrees" theory has been severely criticized. He did not follow up on many of the sent packages, and as a result, scientists are unconvinced that there are merely "six degrees" of separation. Elizabeth DeVita–Raebu has discussed potential problems with Milgram's experiment.
In 2008, a study by Microsoft showed that the average chain of contacts between users of its '.NET Messenger Service' (later called Microsoft Messenger service) was 6.6 people.
Milgram developed a technique, called the "lost letter" experiment, for measuring how helpful people are to strangers who are not present, and their attitudes toward various groups. Several sealed and stamped letters were planted in public places, addressed to various entities, such as individuals, favorable organizations like medical research institutes, and stigmatized organizations such as "Friends of the Nazi Party." Milgram found most of the letters addressed to individuals and favorable organizations were mailed, while most of those addressed to stigmatized organizations were not.
In 1970–71, Milgram conducted experiments which attempted to find a correlation between media consumption (in this case, watching television) and anti-social behavior. The experiment presented the opportunity to steal money, donate to charity, or neither, and tested whether the rate of each choice was influenced by watching similar actions in the ending of a specially crafted episode of the popular series "Medical Center".
In 1977 Milgram began piloting an experimental procedure that aimed to operationalize the mind-body fusion fantasy explored in the Edmond Rostand play "Cyrano de Bergerac". In the story, Cyrano supplies Christian with amorous prose so that they may jointly woo Roxane (each being incapable, given their respective physical and linguistic limitations, of doing so on their own).
Milgram trained speech shadowers to replicate in real-time spontaneous prose supplied by a remote "source" by-way-of discreet radio transmission during face-to-face dialogue with naïve "interactants." In homage to Cyrano, he referred to the hybrid agent formed by combining the words of one individual with the body of another as a "cyranoid." In his studies, interactants repeatedly failed to detect that their interlocutors were merely speech shadowing for third parties, implicitly and explicitly attributing to them communicative autonomy. Milgram referred to this phenomenon as the "cyranic illusion." This illusion held even in circumstances involving high disparity between shadower and source, such as when he sourced for child shadowers while being interviewed by panels of teachers (naïve to the deception) tasked with assessing each child's intellectual abilities.
Milgram hoped that the cyranoid method could evolve into a useful means of interactively exploring phenomena related to social behavior and self-perception (e.g., racial, gender, and age-based stereotyping and behavioral confirmation). Though he continued to develop the methodology through 1984 (the year of his death), he never prepared a formal publication detailing his cyranoid experiments.
In 2014, social psychologists at the London School of Economics published the first replications of Milgram's original pilots. Robb Mitchell has explored cyranoids as an experiential learning tool within the classroom (having children shadow for teachers during teaching exercises). Cyranoids have also been used in installation art to explore social experiences whereby people encounter those familiar to them through the bodies of strangers.
In 1975, CBS presented a made-for-television movie about obedience experiments, "The Tenth Level", with William Shatner as Stephen Hunter, a Milgram-like scientist. Milgram was a consultant for the film, though his personal life did not resemble that of the Shatner character. In this film, incidents were portrayed that never occurred in the followup to the real-life experiment, including a subject's psychotic episode and the main character saying that he regretted the experiment. When asked about the film, Milgram told one of his graduate students, Sharon Presley, that he was not happy with the film and told her that he did not want his name to be used in the credits.
In 1986, musician Peter Gabriel wrote a song called "We do what we're told (Milgram's 37)," referring mistakenly to the percentage of test subjects who refused to continue administering shocks. Gabriel's intent was optimistic: not everyone was willing to obey authority and shock to the highest level. The actual percentage was 35. Quoted in an article in "SPIN" magazine in September, 1986:
"At first this seems a very negative thing," says Gabriel, "but I was comforted that some had the strength to rebel, and in the "So" version of the song, which I’ve been performing in concert since around 1980, the emphasis is shifted to the positive side."
Milgram 18 was reproduced to test the participants in a 2008 television special "The Heist". Created by Derren Brown and Andy Nyman for British station Channel 4, the Milgram experiment helped determine which candidates were the most responsive to authority. The four most responsive and psychologically sound candidates at the end of the show were indirectly given the opportunity to rob a (fake) armoured bank van.
In March 2010, French television channel France 2 broadcast "Jusqu'où va la télé", describing the results of a fake game show that they had run 80 times (each time independently, and with a new contestant and audience). The contestants received instructions to administer what they thought would be near fatal electric shocks to another "contestant" (really an actor) when that other contestant erred on memorized word-associations. Encouraged by the show's host and by an unprimed studio audience, the vast majority followed instructions even as the "victim" screamed.
In 2010, luxury brand Enfants Perdus released a collection called "Milgram," in which the designers drew themes and inspiration from the Milgram experiment. The design team has referenced the discussions about the human condition and the revelations of the human condition in numerous interviews.
In 2015, an experimental biopic about Milgram called "Experimenter" was released, directed by Michael Almereyda. Peter Sarsgaard stars as Stanley Milgram. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27628 |
Senegal River
The Senegal River (, ) is a long river in West Africa that forms the border between Senegal and Mauritania. It has a drainage basin of 270,000 km2, a mean flow of 680 m3/s, and an annual discharge of 21.5 km3. Important tributaries are the Falémé River, Karakoro River, and the Gorgol River. The river divides into two branches once it passes Kaédi The left branch, called the Doué, runs parallel to the main river to the north. After 200 km the two branches rejoin a few kilometers downstream of Pondor.
In 1972 Mali, Mauritania and Senegal founded the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) to manage the river basin. Guinea joined in 2005. At the present time, only very limited use is made of the river for the transportation of goods and passengers. The OMVS have looked at the feasibility of creating a navigable channel 55 m in width between the small town of Ambidédi in Mali and Saint-Louis, a distance of 905 km. It would give landlocked Mali a direct route to the Atlantic Ocean.
The aquatic fauna in the Senegal River basin is closely associated with that of the Gambia River basin, and the two are usually combined under a single ecoregion known as the Senegal-Gambia Catchments. Only three species of frogs and one fish are endemic to this ecoregion.
The river has two large dams along its course, the Manantali Dam in Mali and the Maka-Diama Dam downstream on the Mauritania-Senegal border. In between is the Félou Hydroelectric Plant, built in 1927, but replaced in 2014. The construction of the Gouina Hydroelectric Plant upstream of Felou at Gouina Falls began in 2013.
The Senegal's headwaters are the Semefé (Bakoye) and Bafing rivers which both originate in Guinea; they form a small part of the Guinea–Mali border before coming together at Bafoulabé in Mali. From there, the Senegal river flows west and then north through Talari Gorges near Galougo and over the Gouina Falls, then flows more gently past Kayes, where it receives the Kolimbiné. After flowing together with the Karakoro, it prolongs the former's course along the Mali–Mauritania border for some tens of kilometers till Bakel where it flows together with the Falémé River, which also has its source in Guinea, subsequently runs along a small part of the Guinea-Mali frontier to then trace most of the Senegal-Mali border up to Bakel. The Senegal further flows through semi-arid land in the north of Senegal, forming the border with Mauritania and into the Atlantic. In Kaedi it accepts the Gorgol from Mauritania. Flowing through Boghé it reaches Richard Toll where it is joined by the Ferlo coming from inland Senegal's Lac de Guiers. It passes through Rosso and, approaching its mouth, around the Senegalese island on which the city of Saint-Louis is located, to then turn south. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a thin strip of sand called the Langue de Barbarie before it pours into the ocean itself.
The river has two large dams along its course, the multi-purpose Manantali Dam in Mali and the Maka-Diama Dam downstream on the Mauritania-Senegal border, near the outlet to the sea, preventing access of salt water upstream. In between Manantali and Maka-Diama is the Félou Hydroelectric Plant which was originally completed in 1927 and uses a weir. The power station was replaced in 2014. In 2013, construction of the Gouina Hydroelectric Plant upstream of Felou at Gouina Falls began.
The Senegal River has a drainage basin of 270,000 km2, a mean flow of 680 m3/s and an annual discharge of 21.5 km3. Important tributaries are the Falémé River, Karakoro River, and the Gorgol River.
Downstream of Kaédi the river divides into two branches. The left branch called the Doué runs parallel to the main river to the north. After 200 km the two branches rejoin a few kilometres downstream of Pondor. The long strip of land between the two branches is called the Île á Morfil.
In 1972 Mali, Mauritania and Senegal founded the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) to manage the river basin. Guinea joined in 2005.
At the present time, only very limited use is made of the river for the transport of goods and passengers. The OMVS have looked at the feasibility of creating a navigable channel 55 m in width between the small town of Ambidédi in Mali and Saint-Louis, a distance of 905 km. It would give landlocked Mali a direct route to the Atlantic Ocean.
The aquatic fauna in the Senegal River basin is closely associated with that of the Gambia River basin, and the two are usually combined under a single ecoregion known as the Senegal-Gambia Catchments. Although the species richness is moderately high, only three species of frogs and one fish are endemic to this ecoregion.
The existence of the Senegal River was known to the early Mediterranean civilizations. It or some other river was called "Bambotus" by Pliny the Elder (possibly from Phoenician "behemoth" for hippopotamus) and "Nias" by Claudius Ptolemy. It was visited by Hanno the Carthaginian around 450 BCE at his navigation from Carthage through the pillars of Herakles to Theon Ochema (Mount Cameroon) in the Gulf of Guinea. There was trade from here to the Mediterranean World, until the destruction of Carthage and its west African trade net in 146 BCE.
In the Early Middle Ages (c. 800 CE), the Senegal River restored contact with the Mediterranean world with the establishment of the Trans-Saharan trade route between Morocco and the Ghana Empire. Arab geographers, like al-Masudi of Baghdad (957), al-Bakri of Spain (1068) and al-Idrisi of Sicily (1154), provided some of the earliest descriptions of the Senegal River. Early Arab geographers believed the upper Senegal River and the upper Niger River were connected to each other, and formed a single river flowing from east to west, which they called the "Western Nile". (In fact, some of the headwaters of the Senegal River are near the Niger River in Mali and Guinea.) It was believed to be either a western branch of the Egyptian Nile River or drawn from the same source (variously conjectured to some great internal lakes of the Mountains of the Moon, or Ptolemy's Gir (Γειρ) or the Biblical Gihon stream).
Arab geographers Abd al-Hassan Ali ibn Omar (1230), Ibn Said al-Maghribi (1274) and Abulfeda (1331), label the Senegal as the "Nile of Ghana" (Nil Gana or Nili Ganah).
As the Senegal River reached into the heart of the gold-producing Ghana Empire and later the Mali Empire, Trans-Saharan traders gave the Senegal its famous nickname as the "River of Gold". The Trans-Saharan stories about the "River of Gold" reached the ears of Sub-Alpine European merchants that frequented the ports of Morocco and the lure proved irresistible. Arab historians report at least three separate Arab maritime expeditions - the last one organized by a group of eight "mughrarin" ("wanderers") of Lisbon (before 1147) - that tried to sail down the Atlantic coast, possibly in an effort find the mouth of the Senegal.
Drawing from Classical legend and Arab sources, the "River of Gold" found its way into European maps in the 14th century. In the Hereford Mappa Mundi (c. 1300), there is a river labelled "Nilus Fluvius" drawn "parallel" to the coast of Africa, albeit without communication with Atlantic (it ends in a lake). It depicts some giant ants digging up gold dust from its sands, with the note ""Hic grandes formice auream serican [or servant] arenas"" ("Here great ants guard gold sands"). In the mappa mundi made by Pietro Vesconte for the c. 1320 atlas of Marino Sanuto, there is an unnamed river stemming from the African interior and opening in the Atlantic ocean. The 1351 Medici-Laurentian Atlas shows both the Egyptian Nile and the western Nile stemming from the same internal mountain range, with the note that ""Ilic coligitur aureaum"". The portolan chart of Giovanni da Carignano (1310s-20s) has the river with the label, "iste fluuis exit de nilo ubi multum aurum repperitur".
In the more accurately-drawn portolan charts, starting with the 1367 chart of Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano and carried on in the 1375 Catalan Atlas, the 1413 chart of the Catalan "converso" , etc. the "River of Gold" is depicted (if only speculatively), draining into the Atlantic Ocean somewhere just south of Cape Bojador. The legend of Cape Bojador as a terrifying obstacle, the 'cape of no return' to European sailors, emerged around the same time (possibly encouraged by Trans-Saharan traders who did not want to see their land route sidestepped by sea).
The river is frequently depicted with a great river island midway, the "Island of Gold", first mentioned by al-Masudi, and famously called ""Wangara"" by al-Idrisi and ""Palolus"" in the 1367 Pizzigani brothers chart. It is conjectured that this riverine "island" is in fact just the Bambuk-Buré goldfield district, which is practically surrounded on all sides by rivers - the Senegal river to the north, the Falémé River to the west, the Bakhoy to the east and the Niger and Tinkisso to the south.
The 1413 portolan chart of gives perhaps the most detailed depiction of the early state of European knowledge about the Senegal River prior to the 1440s. Viladestes labels it "River of Gold" (""riu del or"") and locates it a considerable distance south of Cape Bojador ("buyeter") - indeed, south of a mysterious ""cap de abach"" (possibly Cape Timris). There are extensive notes about the plentifulness of ivory and gold in the area, including a note that reads
The galley of Jaume Ferrer is depicted off the coast on the left, with a quick note about his 1346 voyage. The golden round island at the mouth of the Senegal River is the indication (customary on portolan charts) of river mouth bars or islands - in this case, probably a reference to the Langue de Barbarie or the island of Saint-Louis). The first town, by the mouth of the Senegal, is called ""isingan"" (arguably the etymological source of the term "Senegal"). East of that, the Senegal forms a riverine island called ""insula de bronch"" (Île à Morfil). By its shores lies the city of ""tocoror"" (Takrur). Above it is a depiction of the Almoravid general Abu Bakr ibn Umar (""Rex Bubecar"") on a camel. Further east, along the river, is the seated emperor (mansa) of Mali (""Rex Musa Meli"", prob. Mansa Musa), holding a gold nugget. His capital, ""civitat musa meli"" is shown on the shores of the river, and the range of the Emperor of Mali's sway is suggested by all the black banners (an inscription notes "This lord of the blacks is called Musa Melli, Lord of Guinea, the greatest noble lord of these parts for the abundance of the gold which is collected in his lands". Curiously, there is a defiant gold-bannered town south of the river, labelled ""tegezeut"" (probably the Ta'adjast of al-Idrisi), and might be an ichoate reference to Djenné.
East of Mali, the river forms a lake or "Island of Gold" shown here studded with river-washed gold nuggets (this is what the Pizzigani brothers called the island of ""Palolus"", and most commentators take to indicate the Bambuk-Buré goldfields). It is connected by many streams to the southerly "mountains of gold" (labelled ""montanies del lor"", the Futa Djallon/Bambouk Mountains and Loma Mountains of Sierra Leone). It is evident the Senegal river morphs east, unbroken, into the Niger River - the cities of ""tenbuch"" (Timbuktu), ""geugeu"" (Gao) and ""mayna"" (Niamey? or a misplaced Niani?) are denoted along the same single river. South of them (barely visible) are what seem like the towns of Kukiya (on the eastern shore of the Island of Gold), and east of that, probably Sokoto (called "Zogde" in the Catalan Atlas) and much further southeast, probably Kano.
North of the Senegal-Niger are the various oases and stations of the trans-Saharan route (""Tutega"" = Tijigja, ""Anzica"" = In-Zize, ""Tegaza"" = Taghaza, etc.) towards the Mediterranean coast. There is an unlabeled depiction of a black African man on a camel traveling from ""Uuegar"" (prob. Hoggar) to the town of "Organa" (""ciutat organa"", variously identified as Kanem or Ouargla or possibly even a misplaced depiction of Ghana - long defunct, but, on the other hand, contemporaneous with the depicted Abu Bakr). Nearby sits its Arab-looking king (""Rex Organa"") holding a scimitar. The River of Gold is sourced at a circular island, what seem like the Mountains of the Moon (albeit unlabeled here). From this same source also flows north the White Nile towards Egypt, which forms the frontier between the Muslim "king of Nubia" (""Rex Onubia"", his range depicted by crescent-on-gold banners) and the Christian Prester John (""Preste Joha""), i.e. the emperor of Ethiopia in the garb of a Christian bishop (coincidentally, this is the first visual depiction of Prester John on a portolan chart).
Uniquely, the Viladestes map shows another river, south of the Senegal, which it labels the ""flumen gelica"" (poss. "angelica"), which some have taken to depict the Gambia River. In the 1459 mappa mundi of Fra Mauro, drawn a half-century later, after the Portuguese had already visited the Senegal (albeit still trying to respect Classical sources), shows "two" parallel rivers running east to west, both of them sourced from the same great internal lake (which, Fra Mauro asserts, is also the same source as the Egyptian Nile). Mauro names the two parallel rivers differently,calling one ""flumen Mas" ("Mas River"), the other the ""canal dal oro"" ("Channel of Gold"), and makes the note that ""Inne larena de questi do fiume se trova oro de paiola"" ("In the sands of both these rivers gold of 'palola' may be found"), and nearer to the sea, ""Qui se racoce oro"" ("Here gold is collected"), and finally, on the coast, ""Terra de Palmear"" ("Land of Palms"). It is notable that Fra Mauro knew of the error of Henry the Navigator's captains about the Daklha inlet, which Mauro carefully labels ""Reodor"" ("Rio do Ouro", Western Sahara), distinctly from the "Canal del Oro" (Senegal River).
Christian Europeans soon began attempting to find the sea route to the mouth of the Senegal. The first known effort may have been by the Genoese brothers Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, who set out down the coast in 1291 in a pair of ships (nothing more is heard of them). In 1346, the Majorcan sailor, Jaume Ferrer set out on a galley with the explicit objective of finding the "River of Gold" ("Riu de l'Or"), where he heard that most people along its shores were engaged in the collection of gold and that the river was wide and deep enough for the largest ships. Nothing more is heard of him either. In 1402, after establishing the first European colony on the Canary Islands, the French Norman adventurers Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle set about immediately probing the African coast, looking for directions to the mouth of Senegal.
The project of finding the Senegal was taken up in the 1420s by the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, who invested heavily to reach it. In 1434, one of Henry's captains, Gil Eanes, finally surpassed Cape Bojador and returned to tell about it. Henry immediately dispatched a follow up mission in 1435, under Gil Eanes and Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia. Going down the coast, they turned around the al-Dakhla peninsula in the Western Sahara and emerged into an inlet, which they excitedly believed to be the mouth of the Senegal River. The name they mistakenly bestowed upon the inlet - "Rio do Ouro" - is a name it would remain stuck with down to the 20th century.
Realizing the mistake, Henry kept pressing his captains further down the coast, and in 1445, the Portuguese captain Nuno Tristão finally reached the Langue de Barbarie, where he noticed the desert end and the treeline begin, and the population change from 'tawny' Sanhaja Berbers to 'black' Wolof people. Bad weather or lack of supplies prevented Tristão from actually reaching the mouth of the Senegal River, but he rushed back to Portugal to report he had finally found the "Land of the Blacks" ("Terra dos Negros"), and that the "Nile" was surely nearby. Shortly after (possibly still within that same year) another captain, Dinis Dias (sometimes given as Dinis Fernandes) was the first known European since antiquity to finally reach the mouth of the Senegal River. However, Dias did not sail upriver, but instead kept sailing down the Grande Côte to the bay of Dakar.
The very next year, in 1446, the Portuguese slave-raiding fleet of Lançarote de Freitas arrived at the mouth of the Senegal. One of its captains, Estêvão Afonso, volunteered to take a launch to explore upriver for settlements, thus becoming the first European to actually enter the Senegal river. He didn't get very far. Venturing ashore at one point along the river bank, Afonso tried to kidnap two Wolof children from a woodsman's hut. But he ran into their father, who proceeded to chase the Portuguese back to their launch and gave them such a beating that the explorers gave up on going any further, and turned back to the waiting caravels.
Sometime between 1448 and 1455, the Portuguese captain Lourenço Dias opened regular trade contact on the Senegal River, with the Wolof statelets of Waalo (near the mouth of the Senegal River) and Cayor (a little below that), drumming up a profitable business exchanging Mediterranean goods (notably, horses) for gold and slaves. Chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara, writing in 1453, still called it the "Nile River", but Alvise Cadamosto, writing in the 1460s, was already calling it the "Senega" , and it is denoted as "Rio do Çanagà" on most subsequent Portuguese maps of the age. Cadamosto relates the legend that both the Senegal and the Egyptian Nile were branches of the Biblical Gihon River that stems from the Garden of Eden and flows through Ethiopia. He also notes that the Senegal was called "the Niger" by the ancients - probably a reference to Ptolemy's legendary 'Nigir' (Νιγειρ) (below the Gir), which would be later identified by Leo Africanus with the modern Niger River. Much the same story is repeated by Marmol in 1573, with the additional note that both the Senegal River and Gambia River were tributaries of the Niger River. However, the contemporary African atlas of Venetian cartographer Livio Sanuto, published in 1588, sketches the Senegal, the Niger and the Gambia as three separate, parallel rivers.
Portuguese chronicler João de Barros (writing in 1552) says the river's original local Wolof name was "Ovedech" (which according to one source, comes from "vi-dekh", Wolof for "this river"). His contemporary, Damião de Góis (1567) records it as "Sonedech" (from "sunu dekh", Wolof for "our river"). Writing in 1573, the Spanish geographer Luis del Marmol Carvajal asserts that the Portuguese called it "Zenega", the 'Zeneges' (Berber Zenaga) called it the "Zenedec", the 'Gelofes' (Wolofs) call it "Dengueh", the 'Tucorones' (Fula Toucouleur) called it "Mayo", the 'Çaragoles' (Soninke Sarakole of Ngalam) called it "Colle" and further along (again, Marmol assuming Senegal was connected to the Niger), the people of Bagamo' (Bambara of Bamako?) called it "Zimbala" (Jimbala?) and the people of Timbuktu called it the "Yça".
The 16th-century chronicler Joao de Barros asserts the Portuguese renamed it "Senegal" because that was the personal name of a local Wolof chieftain who frequently conducted business with the Portuguese traders. But this etymology is doubtful (e.g. the ruler of Senegalese river state of Waalo bears the title 'Brak', and Cadamosto gives the personal name of the Senegal river chieftain as "Zucholin"). The confusion may have arisen because Cadamosto says the Portuguese interacted frequently with a certain Wolof chieftain south of the river, somewhere on the Grande Côte, which he refers to as "Budomel". "Budomel" is almost certainly a reference to the ruler of Cayor, a combination of his formal title ("Damel"), prefixed by the generic Wolof term "bor" ("lord"). Curiously, Budomel is reminiscent of "Vedamel" already used by the Genoese back in the 14th century as an alternative name of the Senegal River. It is almost certain that the Genoese "Vedamel" are corruptions from the Arabic, either "Wad al-mal" ("River of Treasure", i.e. Gold) or, alternatively, "Wad al-Melli" ("River of Mali") or even, by transcription error, "Wad al-Nill" ("River of Nile").
Other etymological theories for "Senegal" abound. A popular one, first proposed by Fr. David Boilat (1853), was that "Senegal" comes from the Wolof phrase "sunu gaal", meaning "our canoe" (more precisely, "our pirogue"). Bailot speculates the name probably arose as a misunderstanding, that when a Portuguese captain came across some Wolof fishermen and asked them what the name of the river was, they believed he was asking who their fishing boat belonged to, and replied simply "it is our canoe" ("sunu gaal"). The "our canoe" theory has been popularly embraced in modern Senegal for its charm and appeal to national solidarity ("we're all in one canoe", etc.).
More recent historians suggest the name "Senegal" is probably a derivation of "Azenegue", the Portuguese term for the Saharan Berber Zenaga people that lived north of it.
A strong challenge to this theory is that "Senegal" is much older, and might derive from "Sanghana" (also given as Isenghan, Asengan, Singhanah), a city described by the Arab historian al-Bakri in 1068 as located by the mouth of the Senegal River (straddling both banks) and the capital of a local kingdom. The location "Senegany" is depicted in 1351 Genoese map known as the Medici Atlas (Laurentian Gaddiano portolan). This town ("Isingan") is fantastically depicted in the 1413 portolan map of Majorcan cartographer . The name itself might be of Berber Zenaga origin, speculatively related to 'Ismegh' ('black slave', analogous to the Arabic 'abd) or 'sagui nughal' ('border'). Some sources claim 'Isinghan' remained the usual Berber term to refer to the Wolof kingdom of Cayor.
Some Serer people from the south have advanced the claim that the river's name is originally derived from the compound of the Serer term "Sene" (from Rog Sene, Supreme Deity in Serer religion) and "O Gal" (meaning "body of water"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27629 |
Subset
In mathematics, a set "A" is a subset of a set "B", or equivalently "B" is a superset of "A", if "A" is contained in "B". That is, all elements of "A" are also elements of "B". "A" and "B" may be equal; if they are unequal, then "A" is a proper subset of "B". The relationship of one set being a subset of another is called inclusion or sometimes containment. "A" is a subset of "B" may also be expressed as "B" includes "A", or "A" is included in "B".
The subset relation defines a partial order on sets. In fact, the subsets of a given set form a Boolean algebra under the subset relation, in which the join and meet are given by intersection and union, and the subset relation itself is the Boolean inclusion relation.
If "A" and "B" are sets and every element of "A" is also an element of "B", then
If "A" is a subset of "B", but "A" is not equal to "B" (i.e. there exists at least one element of B which is not an element of "A"), then
For any set "S", the inclusion relation ⊆ is a partial order on the set formula_5 of all subsets of "S" (the power set of "S") defined by formula_6. We may also partially order formula_5 by reverse set inclusion by defining formula_8
When quantified, is represented as .
Some authors use the symbols ⊂ and ⊃ to indicate "subset" and "superset" respectively; that is, with the same meaning and instead of the symbols, ⊆ and ⊇. For example, for these authors, it is true of every set "A" that .
Other authors prefer to use the symbols ⊂ and ⊃ to indicate "proper" (also called strict) subset and "proper" superset respectively; that is, with the same meaning and instead of the symbols, ⊊ and ⊋. This usage makes ⊆ and ⊂ analogous to the inequality symbols ≤ and 1, "s"2, ..., "s""k"} and associating with each subset "T" ⊆ "S" (which is to say with each element of 2"S") the "k"-tuple from {0,1}"k" of which the "i"th coordinate is 1 if and only if "s""i" is a member of "T". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27631 |
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of a ring of standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred "tumuli" (burial mounds).
Archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument since 1882, when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years.
The "Oxford English Dictionary" cites Ælfric's tenth-century glossary, in which "henge-cliff" is given the meaning "precipice", or stone; thus, the "stanenges" or "Stanheng" "not far from Salisbury" recorded by eleventh-century writers are "stones supported in the air". In 1740 William Stukeley notes, "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire...I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones." Christopher Chippindale's "Stonehenge Complete" gives the derivation of the name "Stonehenge" as coming from the Old English words "stān" meaning "stone", and either "hencg" meaning "hinge" (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or "hen(c)en" meaning "to hang" or "gallows" or "instrument of torture" (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the "suspended stones" etymology). Like Stonehenge's trilithons, medieval gallows consisted of two uprights with a lintel joining them, rather than the inverted L-shape more familiar today.
The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges. Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian use. Because its bank is inside its ditch, Stonehenge is not truly a henge site.
Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical—for example, at more than tall, its extant trilithons' lintels, held in place with mortise and tenon joints, make it unique.
Mike Parker Pearson, leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project based at Durrington Walls, noted that Stonehenge appears to have been associated with burial from the earliest period of its existence:
Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases spanning at least 1500 years. There is evidence of large-scale construction on and around the monument that perhaps extends the landscape's time frame to 6500 years. Dating and understanding the various phases of activity are complicated by disturbance of the natural chalk by periglacial effects and animal burrowing, poor quality early excavation records, and a lack of accurate, scientifically verified dates. The modern phasing most generally agreed to by archaeologists is detailed below. Features mentioned in the text are numbered and shown on the plan, right.
Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large Mesolithic postholes (one may have been a natural tree throw), which date to around 8000 BC, beneath the nearby old tourist car-park in use until 2013. These held pine posts around in diameter, which were erected and eventually rotted "in situ". Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east-west alignment which may have had ritual significance. Another Mesolithic astronomical site in Britain is the Warren Field site in Aberdeenshire, which is considered the world's oldest Lunar calendar, corrected yearly by observing the midwinter solstice. Similar but later sites have been found in Scandinavia. A settlement that may have been contemporaneous with the posts has been found at Blick Mead, a reliable year-round spring from Stonehenge.
Salisbury Plain was then still wooded, but 4,000 years later, during the earlier Neolithic, people built a causewayed enclosure at Robin Hood's Ball and long barrow tombs in the surrounding landscape. In approximately 3500 BC, a Stonehenge Cursus was built north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees and develop the area. A number of other previously overlooked stone or wooden structures and burial mounds may date as far back as 4000 BC. Charcoal from the ‘Blick Mead’ camp from Stonehenge (near the Vespasian's Camp site) has been dated to 4000 BC. The University of Buckingham's Humanities Research Institute believes that the community who built Stonehenge lived here over a period of several millennia, making it potentially "one of the pivotal places in the history of the Stonehenge landscape."
The first monument consisted of a circular bank and ditch enclosure made of Late Cretaceous (Santonian Age) Seaford Chalk, measuring about in diameter, with a large entrance to the north east and a smaller one to the south. It stood in open grassland on a slightly sloping spot. The builders placed the bones of deer and oxen in the bottom of the ditch, as well as some worked flint tools. The bones were considerably older than the antler picks used to dig the ditch, and the people who buried them had looked after them for some time prior to burial. The ditch was continuous but had been dug in sections, like the ditches of the earlier causewayed enclosures in the area. The chalk dug from the ditch was piled up to form the bank. This first stage is dated to around 3100 BC, after which the ditch began to silt up naturally. Within the outer edge of the enclosed area is a circle of 56 pits, each about in diameter, known as the Aubrey holes after John Aubrey, the seventeenth-century antiquarian who was thought to have first identified them. These pits and the bank and ditch together are known as the Palisade or Gate Ditch. The pits may have contained standing timbers creating a timber circle, although there is no excavated evidence of them. A recent excavation has suggested that the Aubrey Holes may have originally been used to erect a bluestone circle. If this were the case, it would advance the earliest known stone structure at the monument by some 500 years. A small outer bank beyond the ditch could also date to this period.
In 2013 a team of archaeologists, led by Mike Parker Pearson, excavated more than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, from 63 individuals, buried at Stonehenge. These remains had originally been buried individually in the Aubrey holes, exhumed during a previous excavation conducted by William Hawley in 1920, been considered unimportant by him, and subsequently re-interred together in one hole, Aubrey Hole 7, in 1935. Physical and chemical analysis of the remains has shown that the cremated were almost equally men and women, and included some children. As there was evidence of the underlying chalk beneath the graves being crushed by substantial weight, the team concluded that the first bluestones brought from Wales were probably used as grave markers. Radiocarbon dating of the remains has put the date of the site 500 years earlier than previously estimated, to around 3000 BC. A 2018 study of the strontium content of the bones found that many of the individuals buried there around the time of construction had probably come from near the source of the bluestone in Wales and had not extensively lived in the area of Stonehenge before death.
Evidence of the second phase is no longer visible. The number of postholes dating to the early third millennium BC suggests that some form of timber structure was built within the enclosure during this period. Further standing timbers were placed at the northeast entrance, and a parallel alignment of posts ran inwards from the southern entrance. The postholes are smaller than the Aubrey Holes, being only around in diameter, and are much less regularly spaced. The bank was purposely reduced in height and the ditch continued to silt up. At least twenty-five of the Aubrey Holes is known to have contained later, intrusive, cremation burials dating to the two centuries after the monument's inception. It seems that whatever the holes' initial function, it changed to become a funerary one during Phase two. Thirty further cremations were placed in the enclosure's ditch and at other points within the monument, mostly in the eastern half. Stonehenge is therefore interpreted as functioning as an enclosed cremation cemetery at this time, the earliest known cremation cemetery in the British Isles. Fragments of unburnt human bone have also been found in the ditch-fill. Dating evidence is provided by the late Neolithic grooved ware pottery that has been found in connection with the features from this phase.
Archaeological excavation has indicated that around 2600 BC, the builders abandoned timber in favour of stone and dug two concentric arrays of holes (the Q and R Holes) in the centre of the site. These stone sockets are only partly known (hence on present evidence are sometimes described as forming 'crescents'); however, they could be the remains of a double ring. Again, there is little firm dating evidence for this phase. The holes held up to 80 standing stones (shown blue on the plan), only 43 of which can be traced today. It is generally accepted that the bluestones (some of which are made of dolerite, an igneous rock), were transported by the builders from the Preseli Hills, away in modern-day Pembrokeshire in Wales. Another theory is that they were brought much nearer to the site as glacial erratics by the Irish Sea Glacier although there is no evidence of glacial deposition within southern central England. A 2019 publication announced that evidence of Megalithic quarrying had been found at quarries in Wales identified as a source of Stonehenge's bluestone, indicating that the bluestone was quarried by human agency and not transported by glacial action.
The long-distance human transport theory was bolstered in 2011 by the discovery of a megalithic bluestone quarry at Craig Rhos-y-felin, near Crymych in Pembrokeshire, which is the most likely place for some of the stones to have been obtained. Other standing stones may well have been small sarsens (sandstone), used later as lintels. The stones, which weighed about two tons, could have been moved by lifting and carrying them on rows of poles and rectangular frameworks of poles, as recorded in China, Japan and India. It is not known whether the stones were taken directly from their quarries to Salisbury Plain or were the result of the removal of a venerated stone circle from Preseli to Salisbury Plain to "merge two sacred centres into one, to unify two politically separate regions, or to legitimise the ancestral identity of migrants moving from one region to another". Each monolith measures around in height, between wide and around thick. What was to become known as the Altar Stone is almost certainly derived from the Senni Beds, perhaps from east of Mynydd Preseli in the Brecon Beacons.
The north-eastern entrance was widened at this time, with the result that it precisely matched the direction of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. This phase of the monument was abandoned unfinished, however; the small standing stones were apparently removed and the Q and R holes purposefully backfilled. Even so, the monument appears to have eclipsed the site at Avebury in importance towards the end of this phase.
The Heel Stone, a Tertiary sandstone, may also have been erected outside the north-eastern entrance during this period. It cannot be accurately dated and may have been installed at any time during phase 3. At first, it was accompanied by a second stone, which is no longer visible. Two, or possibly three, large portal stones were set up just inside the north-eastern entrance, of which only one, the fallen Slaughter Stone, long, now remains. Other features, loosely dated to phase 3, include the four Station Stones, two of which stood atop mounds. The mounds are known as "barrows" although they do not contain burials. Stonehenge Avenue, a parallel pair of ditches and banks leading to the River Avon, was also added. Two ditches similar to Heelstone Ditch circling the Heelstone (which was by then reduced to a single monolith) were later dug around the Station Stones.
During the next major phase of activity, 30 enormous Oligocene–Miocene sarsen stones "(shown grey on the plan)" were brought to the site. They may have come from a quarry around north of Stonehenge on the Marlborough Downs, or they may have been collected from a "litter" of sarsens on the chalk downs, closer to hand. The stones were dressed and fashioned with mortise and tenon joints before 30 were erected as a diameter circle of standing stones, with a ring of 30 lintel stones resting on top. The lintels were fitted to one another using another woodworking method, the tongue and groove joint. Each standing stone was around high, wide and weighed around 25 tons. Each had clearly been worked with the final visual effect in mind; the orthostats widen slightly towards the top in order that their perspective remains constant when viewed from the ground, while the lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument.
The inward-facing surfaces of the stones are smoother and more finely worked than the outer surfaces. The average thickness of the stones is and the average distance between them is . A total of 75 stones would have been needed to complete the circle (60 stones) and the trilithon horseshoe (15 stones). It was thought the ring might have been left incomplete, but an exceptionally dry summer in 2013 revealed patches of parched grass which may correspond to the location of removed sarsens. The lintel stones are each around long, wide and thick. The tops of the lintels are above the ground.
Within this circle stood five trilithons of dressed sarsen stone arranged in a horseshoe shape across, with its open end facing northeast. These huge stones, ten uprights and five lintels, weigh up to 50 tons each. They were linked using complex jointing. They are arranged symmetrically. The smallest pair of trilithons were around tall, the next pair a little higher, and the largest, single trilithon in the south-west corner would have been tall. Only one upright from the Great Trilithon still stands, of which is visible and a further is below ground. The images of a 'dagger' and 14 'axeheads' have been carved on one of the sarsens, known as stone 53; further carvings of axeheads have been seen on the outer faces of stones 3, 4, and 5. The carvings are difficult to date but are morphologically similar to late Bronze Age weapons. Early 21st-century laser scanning of the carvings supports this interpretation. The pair of trilithons in the north east are smallest, measuring around in height; the largest, which is in the south-west of the horseshoe, is almost tall.
This ambitious phase has been radiocarbon dated to between 2600 and 2400 BC, slightly earlier than the Stonehenge Archer, discovered in the outer ditch of the monument in 1978, and the two sets of burials, known as the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen, discovered to the west. Analysis of animal teeth found away at Durrington Walls, thought by Parker Pearson to be the 'builders camp', suggests that, during some period between 2600 and 2400 BC, as many as 4,000 people gathered at the site for the mid-winter and mid-summer festivals; the evidence showed that the animals had been slaughtered around nine months or 15 months after their spring birth. Strontium isotope analysis of the animal teeth showed that some had been brought from as far afield as the Scottish Highlands for the celebrations. At about the same time, a large timber circle and a second avenue were constructed at Durrington Walls overlooking the River Avon. The timber circle was oriented towards the rising Sun on the midwinter solstice, opposing the solar alignments at Stonehenge. The avenue was aligned with the setting Sun on the summer solstice and led from the river to the timber circle. Evidence of huge fires on the banks of the Avon between the two avenues also suggests that both circles were linked. They were perhaps used as a procession route on the longest and shortest days of the year. Parker Pearson speculates that the wooden circle at Durrington Walls was the centre of a 'land of the living', whilst the stone circle represented a 'land of the dead', with the Avon serving as a journey between the two.
Later in the Bronze Age, although the exact details of activities during this period are still unclear, the bluestones appear to have been re-erected. They were placed within the outer sarsen circle and may have been trimmed in some way. Like the sarsens, a few have timber-working style cuts in them suggesting that, during this phase, they may have been linked with lintels and were part of a larger structure.
This phase saw further rearrangement of the bluestones. They were arranged in a circle between the two rings of sarsens and in an oval at the centre of the inner ring. Some archaeologists argue that some of these bluestones were from a second group brought from Wales. All the stones formed well-spaced uprights without any of the linking lintels inferred in Stonehenge 3 III. The Altar Stone may have been moved within the oval at this time and re-erected vertically. Although this would seem the most impressive phase of work, Stonehenge 3 IV was rather shabbily built compared to its immediate predecessors, as the newly re-installed bluestones were not well-founded and began to fall over. However, only minor changes were made after this phase.
Soon afterwards, the northeastern section of the Phase 3 IV bluestone circle was removed, creating a horseshoe-shaped setting (the Bluestone Horseshoe) which mirrored the shape of the central sarsen Trilithons. This phase is contemporary with the Seahenge site in Norfolk.
The Y and Z Holes are the last known construction at Stonehenge, built about 1600 BC, and the last usage of it was probably during the Iron Age. Roman coins and medieval artefacts have all been found in or around the monument but it is unknown if the monument was in continuous use throughout British prehistory and beyond, or exactly how it would have been used. Notable is the massive Iron Age hillfort Vespasian's Camp built alongside the Avenue near the Avon. A decapitated seventh century Saxon man was excavated from Stonehenge in 1923. The site was known to scholars during the Middle Ages and since then it has been studied and adopted by numerous groups.
Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records. Many aspects of Stonehenge, such as how it was built and for what purposes it was used, remain subject to debate. A number of myths surround the stones. The site, specifically the great trilithon, the encompassing horseshoe arrangement of the five central trilithons, the heel stone, and the embanked avenue, are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice. A natural landform at the monument's location followed this line, and may have inspired its construction. The excavated remains of culled animal bones suggest that people may have gathered at the site for the winter rather than the summer. Further astronomical associations, and the precise astronomical significance of the site for its people, are a matter of speculation and debate.
There is little or no direct evidence revealing the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders. Over the years, various authors have suggested that supernatural or anachronistic methods were used, usually asserting that the stones were impossible to move otherwise due to their massive size. However, conventional techniques, using Neolithic technology as basic as shear legs, have been demonstrably effective at moving and placing stones of a similar size. How the stones could be transported by a prehistoric people without the aid of the wheel or a pulley system is not known. The most common theory of how prehistoric people moved megaliths has them creating a track of logs which the large stones were rolled along. Another megalith transport theory involves the use of a type of sleigh running on a track greased with animal fat. Such an experiment with a sleigh carrying a 40-ton slab of stone was successful near Stonehenge in 1995. A team of more than 100 workers managed to push and pull the slab along the journey from Marlborough Downs. Proposed functions for the site include usage as an astronomical observatory or as a religious site.
More recently two major new theories have been proposed. Professor Geoffrey Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and Timothy Darvill, of Bournemouth University, have suggested that Stonehenge was a place of healing—the primeval equivalent of Lourdes. They argue that this accounts for the high number of burials in the area and for the evidence of trauma deformity in some of the graves. However, they do concede that the site was probably multifunctional and used for ancestor worship as well. Isotope analysis indicates that some of the buried individuals were from other regions. A teenage boy buried approximately 1550 BC was raised near the Mediterranean Sea; a metal worker from 2300 BC dubbed the "Amesbury Archer" grew up near the alpine foothills of Germany; and the "Boscombe Bowmen" probably arrived from Wales or Brittany, France.
On the other hand, Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University has suggested that Stonehenge was part of a ritual landscape and was joined to Durrington Walls by their corresponding avenues and the River Avon. He suggests that the area around Durrington Walls Henge was a place of the living, whilst Stonehenge was a domain of the dead. A journey along the Avon to reach Stonehenge was part of a ritual passage from life to death, to celebrate past ancestors and the recently deceased. Both explanations were first mooted in the twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who extolled the curative properties of the stones and was also the first to advance the idea that Stonehenge was constructed as a funerary monument. Whatever religious, mystical or spiritual elements were central to Stonehenge, its design includes a celestial observatory function, which might have allowed prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox and other celestial events important to a contemporary religion.
There are other hypotheses and theories. According to a team of British researchers led by Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, Stonehenge may have been built as a symbol of "peace and unity", indicated in part by the fact that at the time of its construction, Britain's Neolithic people were experiencing a period of cultural unification.
Researchers from the Royal College of Art in London have discovered that the monument's bluestones possess "unusual acoustic properties" — when struck they respond with a "loud clanging noise". According to Paul Devereux, editor of the journal "Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture", this idea could explain why certain bluestones were hauled nearly —a major technical accomplishment at the time. In certain ancient cultures rocks that ring out, known as lithophones, were believed to contain mystic or healing powers, and Stonehenge has a history of association with rituals. The presence of these "ringing rocks" seems to support the hypothesis that Stonehenge was a "place for healing", as has been pointed out by Bournemouth University archaeologist Timothy Darvill, who consulted with the researchers. The bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried near a town in Wales called Maenclochog, which means "ringing rock", where the local bluestones were used as church bells until the 18th century.
Researchers studying DNA extracted from Neolithic human remains across Britain determined that the ancestors of the people who built Stonehenge were farmers who came from the Eastern Mediterranean, traveling west from there. DNA studies indicate that they had a predominantly Aegean ancestry, although their agricultural techniques seem to have come originally from Anatolia. These Aegean farmers then moved to Iberia before heading north, reaching Britain in about 4,000 BC.
These Neolithic migrants to Britain also may have introduced the tradition of building monuments using large megaliths, and Stonehenge was part of this tradition.
At that time, Britain was inhabited by groups of Western Hunter-Gatherers, similar to the Cheddar Man. When the farmers arrived, DNA studies show that these two groups did not seem to mix much. Instead, there was a substantial population replacement.
The Bell Beaker people arrived later, around 2,500 BC, migrating from mainland Europe. The earliest British beakers were similar to those from the Rhine. There was again a large population replacement in Britain. The Bell Beakers also left their impact on Stonehenge construction. They are also associated with the Wessex culture.
The latter appears to have had wide-ranging trade links with continental Europe, going as far as the Mycenaean Greece. The wealth from such trade probably permitted the Wessex people to construct the second and third ("megalithic") phases of Stonehenge and also indicates a powerful form of social organisation.
The Bell Beakers were also associated with the tin trade, which was Britain's only unique export at the time. Tin was important because it was used to turn copper into bronze, and the Beakers derived much wealth from this.
The Heel Stone lies northeast of the sarsen circle, beside the end portion of Stonehenge Avenue. It is a rough stone, above ground, leaning inwards towards the stone circle. It has been known by many names in the past, including "Friar's Heel" and "Sun-stone". At summer solstice an observer standing within the stone circle, looking northeast through the entrance, would see the Sun rise in the approximate direction of the heel stone, and the Sun has often been photographed over it.
A folk tale relates the origin of the Friar's Heel reference.
The name is not unique; there was a monolith with the same name recorded in the nineteenth century by antiquarian Charles Warne at Long Bredy in Dorset.
In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth included a fanciful story in his "Historia Regum Britanniae" ("History of the Kings of Britain") that attributed the monument's construction to the wizard Merlin. Geoffrey's story spread widely, appearing in more and less elaborate form in adaptations of his work such as Wace's Norman French "Roman de Brut", Layamon's Middle English "Brut", and the Welsh "Brut y Brenhinedd".
According to Geoffrey, the rocks of Stonehenge were healing rocks, called the Giant's dance, which giants had brought from Africa to Ireland for their healing properties. The fifth-century king Aurelius Ambrosius wished to erect a memorial to 3,000 nobles slain in battle against the Saxons and buried at Salisbury, and, at Merlin's advice, chose Stonehenge. The king sent Merlin, Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father), and 15,000 knights, to remove it from Ireland, where it had been constructed on Mount Killaraus by the Giants. They slew 7,000 Irish, but as the knights tried to move the rocks with ropes and force, they failed. Then Merlin, using "gear" and skill, easily dismantled the stones and sent them over to Britain, where Stonehenge was dedicated. After it had been rebuilt near Amesbury, Geoffrey further narrates how first Ambrosius Aurelianus, then Uther Pendragon, and finally Constantine III, were buried inside the "Giants' Ring of Stonehenge".
In another legend of Saxons and Britons, in 472, the invading king Hengist invited Brythonic warriors to a feast but treacherously ordered his men to draw their weapons from concealment and fall upon the guests, killing 420 of them. Hengist erected the stone monument—Stonehenge—on the site to show his remorse for the deed.
Stonehenge has changed ownership several times since King Henry VIII acquired Amesbury Abbey and its surrounding lands. In 1540 Henry gave the estate to the Earl of Hertford. It subsequently passed to Lord Carleton and then the Marquess of Queensberry. The Antrobus family of Cheshire bought the estate in 1824. During the First World War an aerodrome (Royal Flying Corps "No. 1 School of Aerial Navigation and Bomb Dropping") was built on the downs just to the west of the circle and, in the dry valley at Stonehenge Bottom, a main road junction was built, along with several cottages and a cafe. The Antrobus family sold the site after their last heir was killed in the fighting in France. The auction by Knight Frank & Rutley estate agents in Salisbury was held on 21 September 1915 and included "Lot 15. Stonehenge with about 30 acres, 2 rods, 37 perches [12.44 ha] of adjoining downland."
Cecil Chubb bought the site for £6,600 (£ in 2020) and gave it to the nation three years later. Although it has been speculated that he purchased it at the suggestion of—or even as a present for—his wife, in fact he bought it on a whim, as he believed a local man should be the new owner.
In the late 1920s a nationwide appeal was launched to save Stonehenge from the encroachment of the modern buildings that had begun to rise around it. By 1928 the land around the monument had been purchased with the appeal donations and given to the National Trust to preserve. The buildings were removed (although the roads were not), and the land returned to agriculture. More recently the land has been part of a grassland reversion scheme, returning the surrounding fields to native chalk grassland.
During the twentieth century, Stonehenge began to revive as a place of religious significance, this time by adherents of Neopaganism and New Age beliefs, particularly the Neo-druids. The historian Ronald Hutton would later remark that "it was a great, and potentially uncomfortable, irony that modern Druids had arrived at Stonehenge just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient Druids from it." The first such Neo-druidic group to make use of the megalithic monument was the Ancient Order of Druids, who performed a mass initiation ceremony there in August 1905, in which they admitted 259 new members into their organisation. This assembly was largely ridiculed in the press, who mocked the fact that the Neo-druids were dressed up in costumes consisting of white robes and fake beards.
Between 1972 and 1984, Stonehenge was the site of the Stonehenge Free Festival. After the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985, this use of the site was stopped for several years and ritual use of Stonehenge is now heavily restricted. Some Druids have arranged an assembling of monuments styled on Stonehenge in other parts of the world as a form of Druidist worship.
When Stonehenge was first opened to the public it was possible to walk among and even climb on the stones, but the stones were roped off in 1977 as a result of serious erosion. Visitors are no longer permitted to touch the stones but are able to walk around the monument from a short distance away. English Heritage does, however, permit access during the summer and winter solstice, and the spring and autumn equinox. Additionally, visitors can make special bookings to access the stones throughout the year.
The access situation and the proximity of the two roads have drawn widespread criticism, highlighted by a 2006 National Geographic survey. In the survey of conditions at 94 leading World Heritage Sites, 400 conservation and tourism experts ranked Stonehenge 75th in the list of destinations, declaring it to be "in moderate trouble".
As motorised traffic increased, the setting of the monument began to be affected by the proximity of the two roads on either side—the A344 to Shrewton on the north side, and the A303 to Winterbourne Stoke to the south. Plans to upgrade the A303 and close the A344 to restore the vista from the stones have been considered since the monument became a World Heritage Site. However, the controversy surrounding expensive re-routing of the roads has led to the scheme being cancelled on multiple occasions. On 6 December 2007, it was announced that extensive plans to build Stonehenge road tunnel under the landscape and create a permanent visitors' centre had been cancelled.
On 13 May 2009, the government gave approval for a £25 million scheme to create a smaller visitors' centre and close the A344, although this was dependent on funding and local authority planning consent. On 20 January 2010 Wiltshire Council granted planning permission for a centre to the west and English Heritage confirmed that funds to build it would be available, supported by a £10m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. On 23 June 2013 the A344 was closed to begin the work of removing the section of road and replacing it with grass. The centre, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, opened to the public on 18 December 2013.
The earlier rituals were complemented by the Stonehenge Free Festival, loosely organised by the Polytantric Circle, held between 1972 and 1984, during which time the number of midsummer visitors had risen to around 30,000. However, in 1985 the site was closed to festivalgoers by a High Court injunction. A consequence of the end of the festival in 1985 was the violent confrontation between the police and New Age travellers that became known as the Battle of the Beanfield when police blockaded a convoy of travellers to prevent them from approaching Stonehenge. Beginning in 1985, the year of the Battle, no access was allowed into the stones at Stonehenge for any religious reason. This "exclusion-zone" policy continued for almost fifteen years: until just before the arrival of the twenty-first century, visitors were not allowed to go into the stones at times of religious significance, the winter and summer solstices, and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
However, following a European Court of Human Rights ruling obtained by campaigners such as Arthur Uther Pendragon, the restrictions were lifted. The ruling recognizes that members of any genuine religion have a right to worship in their own church, and Stonehenge is a place of worship to Neo-Druids, Pagans and other "Earth based' or 'old' religions. The Roundtable meetings include members of the Wiltshire Police force, National Trust, English Heritage, Pagans, Druids, Spiritualists and others.
At the Summer Solstice 2003, which fell over a weekend, over 30,000 people attended a gathering at and in the stones. The 2004 gathering was smaller (around 21,000 people).
Throughout recorded history, Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments have attracted attention from antiquarians and archaeologists. John Aubrey was one of the first to examine the site with a scientific eye in 1666, and in his plan of the monument, he recorded the pits that now bear his name, the Aubrey holes. William Stukeley continued Aubrey's work in the early eighteenth century, but took an interest in the surrounding monuments as well, identifying (somewhat incorrectly) the Cursus and the Avenue. He also began the excavation of many of the barrows in the area, and it was his interpretation of the landscape that associated it with the Druids. Stukeley was so fascinated with Druids that he originally named Disc Barrows as Druids' Barrows. The most accurate early plan of Stonehenge was that made by Bath architect John Wood in 1740. His original annotated survey has recently been computer redrawn and published. Importantly Wood's plan was made before the collapse of the southwest trilithon, which fell in 1797 and was restored in 1958.
William Cunnington was the next to tackle the area in the early nineteenth century. He excavated some 24 barrows before digging in and around the stones and discovered charred wood, animal bones, pottery and urns. He also identified the hole in which the Slaughter Stone once stood. Richard Colt Hoare supported Cunnington's work and excavated some 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain including on some 200 in the area around the Stones, some excavated in conjunction with William Coxe. To alert future diggers to their work they were careful to leave initialled metal tokens in each barrow they opened. Cunnington's finds are displayed at the Wiltshire Museum. In 1877 Charles Darwin dabbled in archaeology at the stones, experimenting with the rate at which remains sink into the earth for his book "The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms".
Stone 22 fell during a fierce storm on 31 December 1900.
William Gowland oversaw the first major restoration of the monument in 1901 which involved the straightening and concrete setting of sarsen stone number 56 which was in danger of falling. In straightening the stone he moved it about half a metre from its original position. Gowland also took the opportunity to further excavate the monument in what was the most scientific dig to date, revealing more about the erection of the stones than the previous 100 years of work had done. During the 1920 restoration William Hawley, who had excavated nearby Old Sarum, excavated the base of six stones and the outer ditch. He also located a bottle of port in the Slaughter Stone socket left by Cunnington, helped to rediscover Aubrey's pits inside the bank and located the concentric circular holes outside the Sarsen Circle called the Y and Z Holes.
Richard Atkinson, Stuart Piggott and John F. S. Stone re-excavated much of Hawley's work in the 1940s and 1950s, and discovered the carved axes and daggers on the Sarsen Stones. Atkinson's work was instrumental in furthering the understanding of the three major phases of the monument's construction.
In 1958 the stones were restored again, when three of the standing sarsens were re-erected and set in concrete bases. The last restoration was carried out in 1963 after stone 23 of the Sarsen Circle fell over. It was again re-erected, and the opportunity was taken to concrete three more stones. Later archaeologists, including Christopher Chippindale of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge and Brian Edwards of the University of the West of England, campaigned to give the public more knowledge of the various restorations and in 2004 English Heritage included pictures of the work in progress in its book "Stonehenge: A History in Photographs".
In 1966 and 1967, in advance of a new car park being built at the site, the area of land immediately northwest of the stones was excavated by Faith and Lance Vatcher. They discovered the Mesolithic postholes dating from between 7000 and 8000 BC, as well as a length of a palisade ditch – a V-cut ditch into which timber posts had been inserted that remained there until they rotted away. Subsequent aerial archaeology suggests that this ditch runs from the west to the north of Stonehenge, near the avenue.
Excavations were once again carried out in 1978 by Atkinson and John Evans during which they discovered the remains of the Stonehenge Archer in the outer ditch, and in 1979 rescue archaeology was needed alongside the Heel Stone after a cable-laying ditch was mistakenly dug on the roadside, revealing a new stone hole next to the Heel Stone.
In the early 1980s Julian Richards led the Stonehenge Environs Project, a detailed study of the surrounding landscape. The project was able to successfully date such features as the Lesser Cursus, Coneybury Henge and several other smaller features.
In 1993 the way that Stonehenge was presented to the public was called 'a national disgrace' by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. Part of English Heritage's response to this criticism was to commission research to collate and bring together all the archaeological work conducted at the monument up to this date. This two-year research project resulted in the publication in 1995 of the monograph "Stonehenge in its landscape", which was the first publication presenting the complex stratigraphy and the finds recovered from the site. It presented a rephasing of the monument.
More recent excavations include a series of digs held between 2003 and 2008 known as the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Mike Parker Pearson. This project mainly investigated other monuments in the landscape and their relationship to the stones — notably, Durrington Walls, where another "Avenue" leading to the River Avon was discovered. The point where the Stonehenge Avenue meets the river was also excavated and revealed a previously unknown circular area which probably housed four further stones, most likely as a marker for the starting point of the avenue.
In April 2008 Tim Darvill of the University of Bournemouth and Geoff Wainwright of the Society of Antiquaries began another dig inside the stone circle to retrieve datable fragments of the original bluestone pillars. They were able to date the erection of some bluestones to 2300 BC, although this may not reflect the earliest erection of stones at Stonehenge. They also discovered organic material from 7000 BC, which, along with the Mesolithic postholes, adds support for the site having been in use at least 4,000 years before Stonehenge was started. In August and September 2008, as part of the Riverside Project, Julian Richards and Mike Pitts excavated Aubrey Hole 7, removing the cremated remains from several Aubrey Holes that had been excavated by Hawley in the 1920s, and re-interred in 1935. A licence for the removal of human remains at Stonehenge had been granted by the Ministry of Justice in May 2008, in accordance with the "Statement on burial law and archaeology" issued in May 2008. One of the conditions of the licence was that the remains should be reinterred within two years and that in the intervening period they should be kept safely, privately and decently.
A new landscape investigation was conducted in April 2009. A shallow mound, rising to about was identified between stones 54 (inner circle) and 10 (outer circle), clearly separated from the natural slope. It has not been dated but speculation that it represents careless backfilling following earlier excavations seems disproved by its representation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrations. There is some evidence that, as an uncommon geological feature, it could have been deliberately incorporated into the monument at the outset. A circular, shallow bank, little more than high, was found between the Y and Z hole circles, with a further bank lying inside the "Z" circle. These are interpreted as the spread of spoil from the original Y and Z holes, or more speculatively as hedge banks from vegetation deliberately planted to screen the activities within.
In 2010, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project discovered a "henge-like" monument less than away from the main site. This new hengiform monument was subsequently revealed to be located "at the site of Amesbury 50", a round barrow in the Cursus Barrows group.
In November 2011, archaeologists from University of Birmingham announced the discovery of evidence of two huge pits positioned within the Stonehenge Cursus pathway, aligned in celestial position towards midsummer sunrise and sunset when viewed from the Heel Stone. The new discovery was made as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project which began in the summer of 2010. The project uses non-invasive geophysical imaging technique to reveal and visually recreate the landscape. According to team leader Vince Gaffney, this discovery may provide a direct link between the rituals and astronomical events to activities within the Cursus at Stonehenge.
In December 2011, geologists from University of Leicester and the National Museum of Wales announced the discovery of the source of some of the rhyolite fragments found in the Stonehenge debitage. These fragments do not seem to match any of the standing stones or bluestone stumps. The researchers have identified the source as a long rock outcrop called Craig Rhos-y-Felin (), near Pont Saeson in north Pembrokeshire, located from Stonehenge.
In 2014, the University of Birmingham announced findings including evidence of adjacent stone and wooden structures and burial mounds near Durrington, overlooked previously, that may date as far back as 4000 BC. An area extending to was studied to a depth of three metres with ground-penetrating radar equipment. As many as seventeen new monuments, revealed nearby, may be Late Neolithic monuments that resemble Stonehenge. The interpretation suggests a complex of numerous related monuments. Also included in the discovery is that the cursus track is terminated by two wide, extremely deep pits, whose purpose is still a mystery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27633 |
Sima Qian
Sima Qian (; ; c. 145 – c. 86 BC) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206AD220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his "Records of the Grand Historian", a general history of China in the "Jizhuanti" style (紀傳體) covering more than two thousand years beginning from the rise of the legendary Yellow Emperor and the formation of the first Chinese polity to the reigning sovereign of Sima Qian's time, Emperor Wu of Han. As the first universal history of the world as it was known to the ancient Chinese, the "Records of the Grand Historian" served as a model for official history-writing for subsequent Chinese dynasties and the Chinese cultural sphere (Korea, Vietnam, Japan) up until the 20th century.
Sima Qian's father Sima Tan (司馬談) first conceived of the ambitious project of writing a complete history of China, but only completed some preparatory sketches at the time of his death. After inheriting his father's position as court historian in the imperial court, he was determined to fulfill his father's dying wish of composing and putting together this epic work of history. However, in 99 BC, he would fall victim to the Li Ling affair for speaking out in defense of the general, who was blamed for an unsuccessful campaign against the Xiongnu. Given the choice of being executed or castrated, he chose the latter in order to finish his historical work. Although he is universally remembered for the "Records", surviving works indicate that he was also a gifted poet and prose writer, and he was instrumental in the creation of the "Taichu" calendar, which was officially promulgated in 104 BC.
As his position in the imperial court was "Grand Historian" ("tàishǐ" , variously translated as court historian, scribe, or astronomer/astrologer), later generations would accord him with the honorific title of "Lord Grand Historian" ("Tàishǐ Gōng" ) for his monumental work, though his "magnum opus" was completed many years after his tenure as Grand Historian ended in disgrace and after his acceptance of punitive actions against him, including imprisonment, castration, and subjection to servility. He was acutely aware of the importance of his work to posterity and its relationship to his own personal suffering. In the postface of the "Records", he implicitly compared his universal history of China to the classics of his day, the "Guoyu" by Zuoqiu Ming", Lisao" by Qu Yuan, and the "Art of War" by Sun Bin, pointing out that their authors all suffered great personal misfortunes before their lasting monumental works could come to fruition.
Sima Qian was born at Xiayang in Zuopingyi (around present-day Hancheng, Shaanxi Province) around 145, though some sources give his birth year as around 135. Around 136, his father, Sima Tan, received an appointment to the relatively low-ranking position of "grand historian" ("tàishǐ" , alt. "grand scribe" or "grand astrologer"). The grand historian's primary duty was to formulate the yearly calendar, identifying which days were ritually auspicious or inauspicious, and present it to the emperor prior to New Year's Day. Besides these duties, the grand historian was also to travel with the emperor for important rituals and to record the daily events both at the court and within the country. By his account, by the age of ten Sima was able to "read the old writings" and was considered to be a promising scholar. Sima grew up in a Confucian environment, and Sima always regarded his historical work as an act of Confucian filial piety to his father.
In 126, around the age of twenty, Sima Qian began an extensive tour around China as it existed in the Han dynasty. He started his journey from the imperial capital, Chang'an (near modern Xi'an), then went south across the Yangtze River to
Changsha Kingdom (modern Hunan Province), where he visited the Miluo River site where the Warring States era poet Qu Yuan was traditionally said to have drowned himself. He then went to seek the burial place of the legendary rulers Yu on Mount Kuaiji and Shun in the Jiuyi Mountains (modern Ningyuan County, Hunan). He then went north to Huaiyin (modern Huai'an, Jiangsu Province) to see the grave of Han dynasty general Han Xin, then continued north to Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, where he studied ritual and other traditional subjects.
After his travels, Sima was chosen to be a Palace Attendant in the government, whose duties were to inspect different parts of the country with Emperor Wu in 122 BC. Sima married young and had one daughter. In 110 BC, at the age of thirty-five, Sima Qian was sent westward on a military expedition against some "barbarian" tribes. That year, his father fell ill due to the distress of not being invited to attend the Imperial Feng Sacrifice. Suspecting his time was running out, he summoned his son back home to take over the historical work he had begun. Sima Tan wanted to follow the "Annals of Spring and Autumn"—the first chronicle in the history of Chinese literature. It appears that Sima Tan was only able to put together an outline of the work before he died. In the postface of the completed "Shiji", there is a short essay on the six philosophical schools that is explicitly attributed to Sima Tan. Otherwise, there are only fragments of the "Shiji" that are speculated to be authored by Sima Tan or based on his notes. Fueled by his father's inspiration, Sima Qian spent much of the subsequent decade authoring and compiling the "Records of the Grand Historian", completing it before 91 BC, probably around 94 BC. Three years after the death of his father, Sima Qian assumed his father's previous position as "taishi". In 105 BC, Sima was among the scholars chosen to reform the calendar. As a senior imperial official, Sima was also in the position to offer counsel to the emperor on general affairs of state.
In 99 BC, Sima became embroiled in the Li Ling affair, where Li Ling and Li Guangli, two military officers who led a campaign against the Xiongnu in the north, were defeated and taken captive. Emperor Wu attributed the defeat to Li Ling, with all government officials subsequently condemning him for it. Sima was the only person to defend Li Ling, who had never been his friend but whom he respected. Emperor Wu interpreted Sima's defence of Li as an attack on his brother-in-law, Li Guangli, who had also fought against the Xiongnu without much success, and sentenced Sima to death. At that time, execution could be commuted either by money or castration. Since Sima did not have enough money to atone his "crime", he chose the latter and was then thrown into prison, where he endured three years. He described his pain thus: "When you see the jailer you abjectly touch the ground with your forehead. At the mere sight of his underlings you are seized with terror ... Such ignominy can never be wiped away." Sima called his castration "the worst of all punishments".
In 96 BC, on his release from prison, Sima chose to live on as a palace eunuch to complete his histories, rather than commit suicide as was expected of a gentleman-scholar who had been disgraced by being castrated. As Sima Qian himself explained in his "Letter to Ren An":
Upon his release from prison in 97/96 BC, Sima Qian continued to serve in the Han court as "zhongshuling" (), a court archivist position reserved for eunuchs with considerable status and with higher pay than his previous position of historian.
The "Letter to Ren An" was written by Sima Qian in reply to Ren An in response to the latter's involvement in Crown Prince Liu Ju's rebellion in 91 BC. This is the last record of Sima Qian in contemporary documents. The letter is a reply to a lost letter by Ren An to Sima Qian, perhaps asking Sima Qian to intercede on his behalf as Ren An was facing execution for accusations of being an opportunist and displaying equivocal loyalty to the emperor during the rebellion. In his reply, Sima Qian stated that he is a mutilated man with no influence at court. However, some later historians claimed that Sima Qian himself became implicated in the rebellion as a result of his friendship with Ren An and was executed as part of the purge of the crown prince's supporters in court. However, the earliest attested record of this account dates from the 4th century. Moreover, it has also been pointed out that Sima Qian would have been reluctant to render substantive aid to Ren An, given the severe consequences that he suffered for supporting General Li Ling, as well as Ren An's failure to act on his behalf during the Li Ling affair. Although there are many theories regarding the exact dating as well as the true nature and purpose of the "Letter to Ren An", one common interpretation suggests that the letter, in part, tacitly expressed a refusal to play an active role in securing a reduced punishment for Ren An.
The early 20th century scholar Wang Guowei stated that there are no reliable records establishing when Sima Qian died. He and most modern historians believe that Sima Qian spent his last days as a scholar in reclusion ("yǐnshì", 隱士) after leaving the Han court, perhaps dying around the same time as Emperor Wu in 87/86 BC.
Although the style and form of Chinese historical writings varied through the ages, the "Records of the Grand Historian" ("Shiji") has defined the quality and style from then onwards. Before Sima, histories were written as certain events or certain periods of history of states; his idea of a general history affected later historiographers like Zheng Qiao (鄭樵) in writing "Tongzhi" and Sima Guang in writing "Zizhi Tongjian". The Chinese historical form of dynasty history, or "jizhuanti" history of dynasties, was codified in the second dynastic history by Ban Gu's "Book of Han", but historians regard Sima's work as their model, which stands as the "official format" of the history of China. The "Shiji" comprises 130 chapters consisting of half a million characters.
The "jizhuanti" format refers to the organization of the work into "benji" (本紀) or 'basic annals' chapters containing the biographies of the sovereigns ('sons of heaven') organized by dynasty and "liezhuan" (列傳) or 'ordered biographies' chapters containing the biographies of influential non-nobles, sometimes for one prominent individual, but often for two or more people who, in Sima Qian's judgment, played similar roles in history. In addition to these namesake categories, there are chapters falling under the categories of "biao" (表) or 'tables', containing graphical chronologies of royalty and nobility; "shu" (書) or 'treatises', consisting of essays giving a historical perspective on various topics like music, ritual, or economics; and "shijia" (世家) or 'house chronicles', documenting important events in the histories of the ruling houses of each of the quasi-independent states that were originally vassals to the Zhou dynasty kings, together with accounts of contemporary aristocratic houses established during the Han dynasty. In all, the "Records" consist of 12 Basic Annals, 10 Tables, 8 Treatises, 30 House Chronicles, and 70 Ordered Biographies. (The last of the Ordered Biographies is the postface. This final chapter details the background on how the "Shiji" was composed and compiled and gives brief justifications for the inclusion of the major topics, events, and individuals in the work. As part of the background, the postface provides a short sketch of the history of the Sima clan, from legendary times to his father Sima Tan, the dying words of Sima Tan tearfully exhorting the author to compose the present work, and a biographical sketch of the author himself. The postface then concludes with a self-referential description of the postface as the 70th and last of the Ordered Biographies chapters.)
Sima was greatly influenced by Confucius's "Spring and Autumn Annals", which on the surface is a succinct chronology from the events of the reigns of the twelve dukes of Lu from 722 to 484 BC. Many Chinese scholars have and still do view how Confucius ordered his chronology as the ideal example of how history should be written, especially with regards to what he chose to include and to exclude; and his choice of words as indicating moral judgements Seen in this light, the "Spring and Autumn Annals" are a moral guide to the proper way of living. Sima took this view himself as he explained:It ["Spring and Autumn Annals"] distinguishes what is suspicious and doubtful, clarifies right and wrong, and settles points which are uncertain. It calls good good and bad bad, honours the worthy, and condemns the unworthy. It preserves states which are lost and restores the perishing family. It brings to light what was neglected and restores what was abandoned. Sima saw the "Shiji" as being in the same tradition as he explained in his introduction to chapter 61 of the "Shiji" where he wrote: "Some people say 'It is Heaven's way, without distinction of persons, to keep the good perpetually supplied. ' Can we say then that Po I and Shu Ch'I were good men or not? They clung to righteousness and were pure in their deeds … yet they starved to death … Robber Chih day after day killed innocent men, making mincemeat of their flesh … But in the end he lived to a great old age. For what virtue did he deserve this? … I find myself in much perplexity. Is this so-called 'Way of Heaven' right or wrong?" To resolve this theodical problem, Sima argued that while the wicked may succeed and the good may suffer in their own life-times, it is the historian who ensures that in the end good triumphs. For Sima, the writing of history was no mere antiquarian pursuit, but was rather a vital moral task as the historian would "preserve memory", and thereby ensure the ultimate victory of good over evil. Along these lines, Sima wrote: "Su Ch'in and his two brothers all achieved fame among the feudal lords as itinerant strategists. Their policies laid great stress upon stratagems and shifts of power. But because Su Ch'in died a traitor's death, the world has united in scoffing at him and has been loath to study his policies … Su Ch'in arose from the humblest beginnings to lead the Six States in the Vertical Alliance, and this is evidence that he possessed an intelligence surpassing the ordinary person. For this reason I have set forth this account of his deeds, arranging them in proper chronological order, so that he may not forever suffer from an evil reputation and be known for nothing else". Such a moralizing approach to history with the historian high-guiding the good and evil to provide lessons for the present could be dangerous for the historian as it could bring down the wrath of the state onto the historian as happened to Sima himself. As such, the historian had to tread carefully and often expressed his judgements in a circuitous way designed to fool the censor.
Sima himself in the conclusion to chapter 110 of the "Shiji" declared that he was writing in this tradition where he stated:"When Confucius wrote the "Spring and Autumn Annals", he was very open in treating the reigns of Yin and Huan, the early dukes of Lu; but when he came to the later period of Dukes Ding and Ai, his writing was much more covert. Because in the latter case he was writing about his own times, he did not express his judgements frankly, but used subtle and guarded language." Bearing this in mind, not everything that Sima wrote should be understood as conveying didactical moral lessons. But several historians have suggested that parts of the "Shiji", such as where Sima placed his section on Confucius's use of indirect criticism in the part of the book dealing with the Xiongnu "barbarians" might indicate his disapproval of the foreign policy of the Emperor Wu.
In writing "Shiji", Sima initiated a new writing style by presenting history in a series of biographies. His work extends over 130 chapters—not in historical sequence, but divided into particular subjects, including annals, chronicles, and treatises—on music, ceremonies, calendars, religion, economics, and extended biographies. Sima's work influenced the writing style of other histories outside of China as well, such as the Goryeo (Korean) history the "Samguk sagi". Sima adopted a new method in sorting out the historical data and a new approach to writing historical records. At the beginning of the "Shiji", Sima declared himself a follower of Confucius's approach in the "Analects" to "hear much but leave to one side that which is doubtful, and speak with due caution concerning the remainder". Reflecting these rigorous analytic methods, Sima declared that he would not write about periods of history where there was insufficient documentation. As such, Sima wrote "the ages before the Ch'in dynasty are too far away and the material on them too scanty to permit a detailed account of them here". In the same way, Sima discounted accounts in the traditional records that were "ridiculous" such as the pretense that Prince Tan could via the use of magic make the clouds rain grain and horses grow horns. Sima constantly compared accounts found in the manuscripts with what he considered reliable sources like Confucian classics like the "Book of Odes", "Book of History", "Book of Rites", "Book of Music", "Book of Changes" and "Spring and Autumn Annals". When Sima encountered a story that could not be cross-checked with the Confucian classics, he systemically compared the information with other documents. Sima mentioned at least 75 books he used for cross-checking. Furthermore, Sima often questioned people about historical events they had experienced. Sima mentioned after one of his trips across China that: "When I had occasion to pass through Feng and Beiyi I questioned the elderly people who were about the place, visited the old home of Xiao He, Cao Can, Fan Kuai and Xiahou Ying, and learned much about the early days. How different it was from the stories one hears!" Reflecting the traditional Chinese reverence for age, Sima stated that he preferred to interview the elderly as he believed that they were the most likely to supply him with correct and truthful information about had happened in the past. During one of this trips, Sima mentioned that he was overcome with emotion when he saw the carriage of Confucius together with his clothes and various other personal items that had belonged to Confucius.
Despite his very large debts to Confucian tradition, Sima was an innovator in four ways. To begin with, Sima's work was concerned with the history of the known world. Previous Chinese historians had focused on only one dynasty and/or region. Sima's history of 130 chapters began with the legendary Yellow Emperor and extended to his own time, and covered not only China, but also neighboring nations like Korea and Vietnam. In this regard, Sima was significant as the first Chinese historian to treat the peoples living to the north of the Great Wall like the Xiongnu as human beings who were implicitly the equals of the Middle Kingdom, instead of the traditional approach which had portrayed the Xiongnu as savages who had the appearance of humans, but the minds of animals. In his comments about the Xiongnu, Sima refrained from evoking claims about the innate moral superiority of the Han over the "northern barbarians" that were the standard rhetorical tropes of Chinese historians in this period. Likewise, Sima in his chapter about the Xiongnu condemns those advisors who pursue the "expediency of the moment", that is advise the Emperor to carry policies such as conquests of other nations that bring a brief moment of glory, but burden the state with the enormous financial and often human costs of holding on to the conquered land. Sima was engaging in an indirect criticism of the advisors of the Emperor Wu who were urging him to pursue a policy of aggression towards the Xiongnu and conquer all their land, a policy that Sima was apparently opposed to.
Sima also broke new ground by using more sources like interviewing witnesses, visiting places where historical occurrences had happened, and examining documents from different regions and/or times. Before Chinese historians had tended to use only reign histories as their sources. The "Shiji" was further very novel in Chinese historiography by examining historical events outside of the courts, providing a broader history than the traditional court-based histories had done. Lastly, Sima broke with the traditional chronological structure of Chinese history. Sima instead had divided the "Shiji" into five divisions: the basic annals which comprised the first 12 chapters, the chronological tables which comprised the next 10 chapters, treatises on particular subjects which make up 8 chapters, accounts of the ruling families which take up 30 chapters, and biographies of various eminent people which are the last 70 chapters. The annals follow the traditional Chinese pattern of court-based histories of the lives of various emperors and their families. The chronological tables are graphs recounting the political history of China. The treatises are essays on topics such as astronomy, music, religion, hydraulic engineering and economics. The last section dealing with biographies covers individuals judged by Sima to have made a major impact on the course of history, regardless of whether they were of noble or humble birth and whether they were born in the central states, the periphery, or barbarian lands. Unlike traditional Chinese historians, Sima went beyond the androcentric, nobility-focused histories by dealing with the lives of women and men such as poets, bureaucrats, merchants, comedians/jesters, assassins, and philosophers. The treatises section, the biographies sections and the annals section relating to the Qin dynasty (as a former dynasty, there was more freedom to write about the Qin than there was about the reigning Han dynasty) that make up 40% of the "Shiji" have aroused the most interest from historians and are the only parts of the "Shiji" that have been translated into English.
When Sima placed his subjects was often his way of expressing obliquely moral judgements. Empress Lü and Xiang Yu were the effective rulers of China during reigns Hui of the Han and Yi of Chu, respectively, so Sima placed both their lives in the basic annals. Likewise, Confucius is included in the fourth section rather the fifth where he properly belonged as a way of showing his eminent virtue. The structure of the "Shiji" allowed Sima to tell the same stories in different ways, which allowed him to pass his moral judgements. For example, in the basic annals section, the Emperor Gaozu is portrayed as a good leader whereas in the section dealing with his rival Xiang Yu, the Emperor is portrayed unflatteringly. Likewise, the chapter on Xiang presents him in a favorable light whereas the chapter on Gaozu portrays him in more darker colors. At the end of most of the chapters, Sima usually wrote a commentary in which he judged how the individual lived up to traditional Chinese values like filial piety, humility, self-discipline, hard work and concern for the less fortunate. Sima analyzed the records and sorted out those that could serve the purpose of "Shiji". He intended to discover the patterns and principles of the development of human history. Sima also emphasized, for the first time in Chinese history, the role of individual men in affecting the historical development of China and his historical perception that a country cannot escape from the fate of growth and decay.
Unlike the "Book of Han", which was written under the supervision of the imperial dynasty, "Shiji" was a privately written history since he refused to write "Shiji" as an official history covering only those of high rank. The work also covers people of the lower classes and is therefore considered a "veritable record" of the darker side of the dynasty. In Sima's time, literature and history were not seen as separate disciplines as they are now, and Sima wrote his "magnum opus" in a very literary style, making extensive use of irony, sarcasm, juxtaposition of events, characterization, direct speech and invented speeches, which led the American historian Jennifer Jay to describe parts of the "Shiji" as reading more like a historical novel than a work of history. For an example, Sima tells the story of a Chinese eunuch named Zhonghang Yue who become an advisor to the Xiongnu kings. Sima provides a long dialogue between Zhonghang and an envoy sent by the Emperor Wen of China during which the latter disparages the Xiongnu as "savages" whose customs are barbaric while Zhonghang defends the Xiongnu customs as either justified and/or as morally equal to Chinese customs, at times even morally superior as Zhonghang draws a contrast between the bloody succession struggles in China where family members would murder one another to be Emperor vs. the more orderly succession of the Xiongnu kings. The American historian Tamara Chin wrote that though Zhonghang did exist, the dialogue is merely a "literacy device" for Sima to make points that he could not otherwise make. The favorable picture of the traitor Zhonghang who went over to the Xiongnu who bests the Emperor's loyal envoy in an ethnographic argument about what is the morally superior nation appears to be Sima's way of attacking the entire Chinese court system where the Emperor preferred the lies told by his sycophantic advisors over the truth told by his honest advisors as inherently corrupt and depraved. The point is reinforced by the fact that Sima has Zhonghang speak the language of an idealized Confucian official whereas the Emperor's envoy's language is dismissed as "mere twittering and chatter". Elsewhere in the "Shiji" Sima portrayed the Xiongnu less favorably, so the debate was almost certainly more Sima's way of criticizing the Chinese court system and less genuine praise for the Xiongnu.
Sima has often been criticized for "historizing" myths and legends as he assigned dates to mythical and legendary figures from ancient Chinese history together with what appears to be suspiciously precise genealogies of leading families over the course of several millennia (including his own where he traces the descent of the Sima family from legendary emperors in the distant past). However, archaeological discoveries in recent decades have confirmed aspects of the "Shiji", and suggested that even if the sections of the "Shiji" dealing with the ancient past are not totally true, at least Sima wrote down what he believed to be true. In particular, archaeological finds have confirmed the basic accuracy of the "Shiji" including the reigns and locations of tombs of ancient rulers.
Sima's "Shiji" is respected as a model of biographical literature with high literary value and still stands as a textbook for the study of classical Chinese. Sima's works were influential to Chinese writing, serving as ideal models for various types of prose within the neo-classical ("renaissance" 复古) movement of the Tang-Song period. The great use of characterisation and plotting also influenced fiction writing, including the classical short stories of the middle and late medieval period (Tang-Ming) as well as the vernacular novel of the late imperial period. Sima had immense influence on historiography not only in China, but also in Japan and Korea. For centuries afterwards, the "Shiji" was regarded as the greatest history book written in Asia. Sima is little known in the English-speaking world as a full translation of the "Shiji" in English has not yet been completed.
His influence was derived primarily from the following elements of his writing: his skillful depiction of historical characters using details of their speech, conversations, and actions; his innovative use of informal, humorous, and varied language; and the simplicity and conciseness of his style. Even the 20th-century literary critic Lu Xun regarded "Shiji" as "the historians' most perfect song, a "Li Sao" without the rhyme" (史家之絶唱，無韻之離騷) in his "Outline of Chinese Literary History" (漢文學史綱要).
Sima's famous letter to his friend Ren An about his sufferings during the Li Ling Affair and his perseverance in writing "Shiji" is today regarded as a highly admired example of literary prose style, studied widely in China even today. The "Letter to Ren An" contains the quote, "Men have always had but one death. For some it is as weighty as Mount Tai; for others it is as insignificant as a goose down. The difference is what they use it for." (人固有一死，或重于泰山，或輕于鴻毛，用之所趨異也。) This quote has become one of the most well-known in all of Chinese literature. In modern times, Chairman Mao paraphrased this quote in a speech in which he paid tribute to a fallen PLA soldier.
Sima Qian wrote eight rhapsodies ("fu"), which are listed in the bibliographic treatise of the "Book of Han". All but one, the "Rhapsody in Lament for Gentlemen who do not Meet their Time" (士不遇賦) have been lost, and even the surviving example is probably not complete.
Sima and his father both served as the "taishi" (太史) of the Former Han Dynasty, a position which includes aspects of being a historian, a court scribe, calendarist, and court astronomer/astrologer. At that time, the astrologer had an important role, responsible for interpreting and predicting the course of government according to the influence of the Sun, Moon, and stars, as well as other astronomical and geological phenomena such as solar eclipses and earthquakes, which depended on revising and upholding an accurate calendar.
Before compiling "Shiji", Sima Qian was involved in the creation of the 104 BC "Taichu" Calendar 太初暦 (太初 became the new era name for Emperor Wu and means "supreme beginning"), a modification of the Qin calendar. This is the first Chinese calendar whose full method of calculation 暦法 has been preserved.
The minor planet "12620 Simaqian" is named in his honour.
Sima Qian is the son of court astrologer (太史令) Sima Tan, who is a descendant of Qin general Sima Cuo (司馬錯), the commander of Qin army in the state's conquest of Ba and Shu.
Before his castration, Sima Qian was recorded to have two sons and a daughter. While little is recorded of his sons, his daughter later married Yang Chang (楊敞), and had sons Yang Zhong (楊忠) and Yang Yun (楊惲). It was Yang Yun who hid his grandfather's great work, and decided to release it during the reign of Emperor Xuan.
According to local legend, Sima Qian had two sons, the older named Sima Lin (司馬临) and younger named Sima Guan (司馬觀), who fled the capital to Xu Village (徐村) in what is now Shaanxi province during the Li Ling affair, for fear of falling victim to familial extermination. They changed their surnames to Tong (同 = 丨+ 司) and Feng (馮 = 仌 + 馬), respectively, to hide their origins while continuing to secretly offer sacrifices to the Sima ancestors. To this day, people living in the village with surnames Feng and Tong are forbidden from intermarrying on the grounds that the relationship would be incestuous.
According to the "Book of Han", Wang Mang sent an expedition to search for and ennoble a male-line descent of Sima Qian as 史通子 ("Viscount of Historical Mastery"), although it was not recorded who received this title of nobility. A Qing dynasty stele 重修太史廟記 ("Records of the Renovation of the Temple of the Grand Historian") erected in the nearby county seat Han City (韓城) claims that the title was given to the grandson of Sima Lin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27636 |
Structural geology
Structural geology is the study of the three-dimensional distribution of rock units with respect to their deformational histories. The primary goal of structural geology is to use measurements of present-day rock geometries to uncover information about the history of deformation (strain) in the rocks, and ultimately, to understand the stress field that resulted in the observed strain and geometries. This understanding of the dynamics of the stress field can be linked to important events in the geologic past; a common goal is to understand the structural evolution of a particular area with respect to regionally widespread patterns of rock deformation (e.g., mountain building, rifting) due to plate tectonics.
The study of geologic structures has been of prime importance in economic geology, both petroleum geology and mining geology. Folded and faulted rock strata commonly form traps that accumulate and concentrate fluids such as petroleum and natural gas. Similarly, faulted and structurally complex areas are notable as permeable zones for hydrothermal fluids, resulting in concentrated areas of base and precious metal ore deposits. Veins of minerals containing various metals commonly occupy faults and fractures in structurally complex areas. These structurally fractured and faulted zones often occur in association with intrusive igneous rocks. They often also occur around geologic reef complexes and collapse features such as ancient sinkholes. Deposits of gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, and other metals, are commonly located in structurally complex areas.
Structural geology is a critical part of engineering geology, which is concerned with the physical and mechanical properties of natural rocks. Structural fabrics and defects such as faults, folds, foliations and joints are internal weaknesses of rocks which may affect the stability of human engineered structures such as dams, road cuts, open pit mines and underground mines or road tunnels.
Geotechnical risk, including earthquake risk can only be investigated by inspecting a combination of structural geology and geomorphology. In addition, areas of karst landscapes which reside atop caverns, potential sinkholes, or other collapse features are of particular importance for these scientists. In addition, areas of steep slopes are potential collapse or landslide hazards.
Environmental geologists and hydrogeologists need to apply the tenets of structural geology to understand how geologic sites impact (or are impacted by) groundwater flow and penetration. For instance, a hydrogeologist may need to determine if seepage of toxic substances from waste dumps is occurring in a residential area or if salty water is seeping into an aquifer.
Plate tectonics is a theory developed during the 1960s which describes the movement of continents by way of the separation and collision of crustal plates. It is in a sense structural geology on a planet scale, and is used throughout structural geology as a framework to analyze and understand global, regional, and local scale features.
Structural geologists use a variety of methods to (first) measure rock geometries, (second) reconstruct their deformational histories, and (third) estimate the stress field that resulted in that deformation.
Primary data sets for structural geology are collected in the field. Structural geologists measure a variety of planar features (bedding planes, foliation planes, fold axial planes, fault planes, and joints), and linear features (stretching lineations, in which minerals are ductilely extended; fold axes; and intersection lineations, the trace of a planar feature on another planar surface).
The inclination of a planar structure in geology is measured by "strike and dip". The strike is the line of intersection between the planar feature and a horizontal plane, taken according to the right hand convention, and the dip is the magnitude of the inclination, below horizontal, at right angles to strike. For example; striking 25 degrees East of North, dipping 45 degrees Southeast, recorded as N25E,45SE.
Alternatively, dip and dip direction may be used as this is absolute. Dip direction is measured in 360 degrees, generally clockwise from North. For example, a dip of 45 degrees towards 115 degrees azimuth, recorded as 45/115. Note that this is the same as above.
The term "hade" is occasionally used and is the deviation of a plane from vertical i.e. (90°-dip).
Fold axis plunge is measured in dip and dip direction (strictly, plunge and azimuth of plunge). The orientation of a fold axial plane is measured in strike and dip or dip and dip direction.
Lineations are measured in terms of dip and dip direction, if possible. Often lineations occur expressed on a planar surface and can be difficult to measure directly. In this case, the lineation may be measured from the horizontal as a "rake" or "pitch" upon the surface.
Rake is measured by placing a protractor flat on the planar surface, with the flat edge horizontal and measuring the angle of the lineation clockwise from horizontal. The orientation of the lineation can then be calculated from the rake and strike-dip information of the plane it was measured from, using a stereographic projection.
If a fault has lineations formed by movement on the plane, e.g.; slickensides, this is recorded as a lineation, with a rake, and annotated as to the indication of throw on the fault.
Generally it is easier to record strike and dip information of planar structures in dip/dip direction format as this will match all the other structural information you may be recording about folds, lineations, etc., although there is an advantage to using different formats that discriminate between planar and linear data.
The convention for analysing structural geology is to identify the planar structures, often called "planar fabrics" because this implies a textural formation, the linear structures and, from analysis of these, unravel deformations.
Planar structures are named according to their order of formation, with original sedimentary layering the lowest at S0. Often it is impossible to identify S0 in highly deformed rocks, so numbering may be started at an arbitrary number or given a letter (SA, for instance). In cases where there is a bedding-plane foliation caused by burial metamorphism or diagenesis this may be enumerated as S0a.
If there are folds, these are numbered as F1, F2, etc. Generally the axial plane foliation or cleavage of a fold is created during folding, and the number convention should match. For example, an F2 fold should have an S2 axial foliation.
Deformations are numbered according to their order of formation with the letter D denoting a deformation event. For example, D1, D2, D3. Folds and foliations, because they are formed by deformation events, should correlate with these events. For example, an F2 fold, with an S2 axial plane foliation would be the result of a D2 deformation.
Metamorphic events may span multiple deformations. Sometimes it is useful to identify them similarly to the structural features for which they are responsible, e.g.; M2. This may be possible by observing porphyroblast formation in cleavages of known deformation age, by identifying metamorphic mineral assemblages created by different events, or via geochronology.
Intersection lineations in rocks, as they are the product of the intersection of two planar structures, are named according to the two planar structures from which they are formed. For instance, the intersection lineation of a S1 cleavage and bedding is the L1-0 intersection lineation (also known as the cleavage-bedding lineation).
Stretching lineations may be difficult to quantify, especially in highly stretched ductile rocks where minimal foliation information is preserved. Where possible, when correlated with deformations (as few are formed in folds, and many are not strictly associated with planar foliations), they may be identified similar to planar surfaces and folds, e.g.; L1, L2. For convenience some geologists prefer to annotate them with a subscript S, for example Ls1 to differentiate them from intersection lineations, though this is generally redundant.
Stereographic projection is a method for analyzing the nature and orientation of deformation stresses, lithological units and penetrative fabrics wherein linear and planar features (structural strike and dip readings, typically taken using a compass clinometer) passing through an imagined sphere are plotted on a two-dimensional grid projection, facilitating more holistic analysis of a set of measurements.
On a large scale, structural geology is the study of the three-dimensional interaction and relationships of stratigraphic units within terranes of rock or geological regions.
This branch of structural geology deals mainly with the orientation, deformation and relationships of stratigraphy (bedding), which may have been faulted, folded or given a foliation by some tectonic event. This is mainly a geometric science, from which "cross sections" and three-dimensional "block models" of rocks, regions, terranes and parts of the Earth's crust can be generated.
Study of regional structure is important in understanding orogeny, plate tectonics and more specifically in the oil, gas and mineral exploration industries as structures such as faults, folds and unconformities are primary controls on ore mineralisation and oil traps.
Modern regional structure is being investigated using seismic tomography and seismic reflection in three dimensions, providing unrivaled images of the Earth's interior, its faults and the deep crust. Further information from geophysics such as gravity and airborne magnetics can provide information on the nature of rocks imaged to be in the deep crust.
Rock microstructure or "texture" of rocks is studied by structural geologists on a small scale to provide detailed information mainly about metamorphic rocks and some features of sedimentary rocks, most often if they have been folded.
Textural study involves measurement and characterisation of foliations, crenulations, metamorphic minerals, and timing relationships between these structural features and mineralogical features.
Usually this involves collection of hand specimens, which may be cut to provide petrographic thin sections which are analysed under a petrographic microscope.
Microstructural analysis finds application also in multi-scale statistical analysis, aimed to analyze some rock features showing scale invariance (see e.g. Guerriero et al., 2009, 2011).
Geologists use rock geometry measurements to understand the history of strain in rocks. Strain can take the form of brittle faulting and ductile folding and shearing. Brittle deformation takes place in the shallow crust, and ductile deformation takes place in the deeper crust, where temperatures and pressures are higher.
By understanding the constitutive relationships between stress and strain in rocks, geologists can translate the observed patterns of rock deformation into a stress field during the geologic past. The following list of features are typically used to determine stress fields from deformational structures.
The mechanical properties of rock play a vital role in the structures that form during deformation deep below the earth's crust. The conditions in which a rock is present will result in different structures that geologists observe above ground in the field. The field of structural geology tries to relate the formations that humans see to the changes the rock went through to get to that final structure. Knowing the conditions of deformation that lead to such structures can illuminate the history of the deformation of the rock.
Temperature and pressure play a huge role in the deformation of rock. At the conditions under the earth's crust of extreme high temperature and pressure, rocks are ductile. They can bend, fold or break. Other vital conditions that contribute to the formation of structure of rock under the earth are the stress and strain fields.
Stress is a pressure, defined as a directional force over area. When a rock is subjected to stresses, it changes shape. When the stress is released, the rock may or may not return to its original shape. That change in shape is quantified by strain, the change in length over the original length of the material in one dimension. Stress induces strain which ultimately results in a changed structure.
Elastic deformation refers to a reversible deformation. In other words, when stress on the rock is released, the rock returns to its original shape. Reversible, linear, elasticity involves the stretching, compressing, or distortion of atomic bonds. Because there is no breaking of bonds, the material springs back when the force is released. This type of deformation is modeled using a linear relationship between stress and strain, i.e. a Hookean relationship.
Where σ denotes stress, formula_2 denotes strain, and E is the elastic modulus, which is material dependent. The elastic modulus is, in effect, a measure of the strength of atomic bonds.
Plastic deformation refers to non-reversible deformation. The relationship between stress and strain for permanent deformation is nonlinear. Stress has caused permanent change of shape in the material by involving the breaking of bonds.
One mechanism of plastic deformation is the movement of dislocations by an applied stress. Because rocks are essentially aggregates of minerals, we can think of them as poly-crystalline materials. Dislocations are a type of crystallographic defect which consists of an extra or missing half plane of atoms in the periodic array of atoms that make up a crystal lattice. Dislocations are present in all real crystallographic materials.
Hardness is difficult to quantify. It is a measure of resistance to deformation, specifically permanent deformation. There is precedent for hardness as a surface quality, a measure of the abrasiveness or surface-scratching resistance of a material. If the material being tested, however, is uniform in composition and structure, then the surface of the material is only a few atomic layers thick, and measurements are of the bulk material. Thus, simple surface measurements yield information about the bulk properties. Ways to measure hardness include:
Indentation hardness is used often in metallurgy and materials science and can be thought of as resistance to penetration by an indenter.
Toughness can be described best by a material's resistance to cracking. During plastic deformation, a material absorbs energy until fracture occurs. The area under the stress-strain curve is the work required to fracture the material. The toughness modulus is defined as:
Where formula_4 is the ultimate tensile strength, and formula_5 is the strain at failure. The modulus is the maximum amount of energy per unit volume a material can absorb without fracturing. From the equation for modulus, for large toughness, high strength and high ductility are needed. These two properties are usually mutually exclusive. Brittle materials have low toughness because low plastic deformation decreases the strain (low ductility). Ways to measure toughness include:
Resilience is a measure of the elastic energy absorbed of a material under stress. In other words, the external work performed on a material during deformation. The area under the elastic portion of the stress-strain curve is the strain energy absorbed per unit volume. The resilience modulus is defined as:
where formula_7 is the yield strength of the material and E is the elastic modulus of the material. To increase resilience, one needs increased elastic yield strength and decreased modulus of elasticity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27637 |
Spermatozoon
A spermatozoon (pronounced , alternate spelling spermatozoön; plural spermatozoa; from ("seed") and ("living being")) is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote. (A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, that normally develops into an embryo.)
Sperm cells contribute approximately half of the nuclear genetic information to the diploid offspring (excluding, in most cases, mitochondrial DNA). In mammals, the sex of the offspring is determined by the sperm cell: a spermatozoon bearing a X chromosome will lead to a female (XX) offspring, while one bearing a Y chromosome will lead to a male (XY) offspring. Sperm cells were first observed in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's laboratory in 1677.
The human sperm cell is the reproductive cell in males and will only survive in warm environments; once it leaves the male body the sperm's survival likelihood is reduced and it may die, thereby decreasing the total sperm quality. Sperm cells come in two types, "female" and "male". Sperm cells that give rise to female (XX) offspring after fertilization differ in that they carry an X-chromosome, while sperm cells that give rise to male (XY) offspring carry a Y-chromosome.
A human sperm cell consists of a flat, disc shaped head 5.1 µm by 3.1 µm and a tail 50 µm long. The tail flagellates, which propels the sperm cell (at about 1–3 mm/minute in humans) by whipping in an elliptical cone. Sperm have an olfactory guidance mechanism, and after reaching the Fallopian tubes, must undergo a period of capacitation before penetration of the ovum.
Head: It has a compact nucleus with only chromatic substance and is surrounded by only a thin rim of cytoplasm. Above the nucleus lies a cap-like structure called the "acrosome", formed by modification of the Golgi body, which secretes the enzyme spermlysin "(hyaluronidase, corona-penetrating enzyme, zona eyesin, or aerosin), that are necessary for fertilization." The acrosomal region experiment the acrosomal reaction, it consists in the fusion of the sperm plasma membrane with the outer acrosomal membrane. On the surface of the head lies a decapacitating substance which is removed before fertilisation.
Neck: It is the smallest part (0.03 ×10−6 m), and has a proximal centriole parallel to the base of the nucleus and distal centriole perpendicular to the previous one. The proximal centriole is present also in the mature spermatozoon; the distal centriole disappears after axoneme assembly. The proximal centriole enters into the egg during fertilisation and starts the first cleavage division of the egg, which has no centriole. The distal centriole gives rise to the axial filament which forms the tail and has a (9+2) arrangement. A transitory membrane called the "Manchette" lies in the middle piece.
Middle piece: It has 10–14 spirals of mitochondria surrounding the axial filament in the cytoplasm. It provides motility, and hence is called the powerhouse of the sperm. It also has a ring centriole (annulus) that form a diffusion barrier between the middle piece and the principal piece and serve as a stabilizing structure for tail rigidity.
Tail: It is the longest part (50×10−6 m), having an axial filament surrounded by cytoplasm and plasma membrane, but at the posterior end the axial filament is naked. It is push mechanism.
Semen has an alkaline nature and the spermatozoa do not reach full motility (hypermotility) until they reach the vagina, where the alkaline pH is neutralized by acidic vaginal fluids. This gradual process takes 20–30 minutes. During this period, fibrinogen from the seminal vesicles forms a clot, securing and protecting the sperm. Just as they become hypermotile, fibrinolysin from the prostate gland dissolves the clot, allowing the sperm to progress optimally.
The spermatozoon is characterized by a minimum of cytoplasm and the most densely packed DNA known in eukaryotes. Compared to mitotic chromosomes in somatic cells, sperm DNA is at least sixfold more highly condensed.
The specimen contributes with DNA/chromatin, a centriole, and perhaps also an oocyte-activating factor (OAF). It may also contribute with paternal messenger RNA (mRNA), also contributing to embryonic development.
Human sperm genetics has been associated with human evolution, per a 2020 study.
DNA damages present in spermatozoa in the period after meiosis but before fertilization may be repaired in the fertilized egg, but if not repaired, can have serious deleterious effects on fertility and the developing embryo. Human spermatozoa are particularly vulnerable to free radical attack and the generation of oxidative DNA damage. (see e.g. 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine)
Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa. In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking, and occupational exposure to benzene, insecticides, and perfluorinated compounds. Increased aneuploidy of spermatozoa often occurs in association with increased DNA damage. DNA fragmentation and increased in situ DNA susceptibility to denaturation, the features similar to these seen during apoptosis of somatic cells, characterize abnormal spermatozoa in cases of male infertility.
Glycoprotein molecules on the surface of ejaculated sperm cells are recognized by all human female immune systems, and interpreted as a signal that the cell should not be rejected. The female immune system might otherwise attack sperm in the reproductive tract. The specific glycoproteins coating sperm cells are also utilized by some cancerous and bacterial cells, some parasitic worms, and HIV-infected white blood cells, thereby avoiding an immune response from the host organism.
The blood-testis barrier, maintained by the tight junctions between the Sertoli cells of the seminiferous tubules, prevents communication between the forming spermatozoa in the testis and the blood vessels (and immune cells circulating within them) within the interstitial space. This prevents them from eliciting an immune response. The blood-testis barrier is also important in preventing toxic substances from disrupting spermatogenesis.
Fertilization relies on spermatozoa for most sexually reproductive animals.
Some species of fruit fly produce the largest known spermatozoon found in nature. "Drosophila melanogaster" produces sperm that can be up to 1.8 mm, while its relative "Drosophila bifurca" produces the largest known spermatozoon, measuring over 58 mm in length. In Drosophila melanogaster, the entire sperm, tail included, gets incorporated into the oocyte cytoplasm, however, for Drosophila bifurca only a small portion of the tail enters the oocyte.
The wood mouse "Apodemus sylvaticus" possesses spermatozoa with falciform morphology. Another characteristic which makes these gametocytes unique is the presence of an apical hook on the sperm head. This hook is used to attach to the hooks or to the flagella of other spermatozoa. Aggregation is caused by these attachments and mobile trains result. These trains provide improved motility in the female reproductive tract and are a means by which fertilization is promoted.
The postmeiotic phase of mouse spermatogenesis is very sensitive to environmental genotoxic agents, because as male germ cells form mature spermatozoa they progressively lose the ability to repair DNA damage. Irradiation of male mice during late spermatogenesis can induce damage that persists for at least 7 days in the fertilizing spermatozoa, and disruption of maternal DNA double-strand break repair pathways increases spermatozoa-derived chromosomal aberrations. Treatment of male mice with melphalan, a bifunctional alkylating agent frequently employed in chemotherapy, induces DNA lesions during meiosis that may persist in an unrepaired state as germ cells progress through DNA repair-competent phases of spermatogenic development. Such unrepaired DNA damages in spermatozoa, after fertilization, can lead to offspring with various abnormalities.
Sea urchins such as "Arbacia punctulata" are ideal organisms to use in sperm research, they spawn large numbers of sperm into the sea, making them well-suited as model organisms for experiments.
The spermatozoa of marsupials are usually longer than those of placental mammals.
The gametophytes of bryophytes, ferns and some gymnosperms produce motile sperm cells, contrary to pollen grains employed in most gymnosperms and all angiosperms. This renders sexual reproduction in the absence of water impossible, since water is a necessary medium for sperm and egg to meet. Algae and lower plant sperm cells are often multi-flagellated (see image) and thus morphologically different from animal spermatozoa.
Some algae and fungi produce non-motile sperm cells, called spermatia. In higher plants and some algae and fungi, fertilization involves the migration of the sperm nucleus through a fertilization tube (e.g. pollen tube in higher plants) to reach the egg cell.
Spermatozoa are produced in the seminiferous tubules of the testes in a process called spermatogenesis. Round cells called spermatogonia divide and differentiate eventually to become spermatozoa. During copulation the cloaca or vagina gets inseminated, and then the spermatozoa move through chemotaxis to the ovum inside a Fallopian tube or the uterus.
Approaching the egg cell is a rather complex, multistep process of chemotaxis guided by different chemical substances/stimuli on individual levels of phylogeny. One of the most significant, common signaling characters of the event is that a prototype of professional chemotaxis receptors, formyl peptide receptor (60,000 receptor/cell) as well as the activator ability of its ligand formyl Met-Leu-Phe have been demonstrated in the surface membrane even in the case of human sperms.
Mammalian sperm cells become even more active when they approach an egg cell in a process called sperm activation. Sperm activation has been shown to be caused by calcium ionophores "in vitro", progesterone released by nearby cumulus cells and binding to ZP3 of the zona pellucida. The cumulus cells are embedded in a gel-like substance made primarily of hyaluronic acid, and developed in the ovary with the egg and support it as it grows.
The initial change is called "hyperactivation", which causes a change in spermatozoa motility. They swim faster and their tail movements become more forceful and erratic.
A recent discovery links hyperactivation to a sudden influx of calcium ion into the tails. The whip-like tail (flagellum) of the sperm is studded with ion channels formed by proteins called CatSper. These channels are selective, allowing only calcium ions to pass. The opening of CatSper channels is responsible for the influx of calcium. The sudden rise in calcium levels causes the flagellum to form deeper bends, propelling the sperm more forcefully through the viscous environment. Sperm hyperactivity is necessary for breaking through two physical barriers that protect the egg from fertilization.
The second process in sperm activation is the acrosome reaction. This involves releasing the contents of the acrosome, which disperse, and the exposure of enzymes attached to the inner acrosomal membrane of the sperm. This occurs after the sperm first meets the egg. This lock-and-key type mechanism is species-specific and prevents the sperm and egg of different species from fusing. There is some evidence that this binding is what triggers the acrosome to release the enzymes that allow the sperm to fuse with the egg.
ZP3, one of the proteins that make up the zona pellucida, then binds to a partner molecule on the sperm. Enzymes on the inner acrosomal membrane digest the zona pellucida. After the sperm penetrates the zona pellucida, part of the sperm's cell membrane then fuses with the egg cell's membrane, and the contents of the head diffuse into the egg.
Upon penetration, the oocyte is said to have become activated. It undergoes its secondary meiotic division, and the two haploid nuclei (paternal and maternal) fuse to form a zygote. In order to prevent polyspermy and minimise the possibility of producing a triploid zygote, several changes to the egg's zona pellucida renders them impenetrable shortly after the first sperm enters the egg.
Spermatozoa can be stored in diluents such as the "Illini Variable Temperature" (IVT) diluent, which have been reported to be able to preserve high fertility of spermatozoa for over seven days. The IVT diluent is composed of several salts, sugars and antibacterial agents and gassed with CO2.
Semen cryopreservation can be used for far longer storage durations. For human spermatozoa, the longest reported successful storage with this method is 21 years. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27638 |
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, he wrote in both French and English.
Beckett's work offers a bleak, tragi-comic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd". His most well known work is his 1953 play "Waiting for Godot".
Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation." He was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984.
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin on Good Friday, 13 April 1906, to William Frank Beckett (18711933), a quantity surveyor and descendant of the Huguenots, and Maria Jones Roe, a nurse, when both were 35. They had married in 1901. Beckett had one older brother, Frank Edward Beckett (1902–1954). At the age of five, Beckett attended a local playschool in Dublin, where he started to learn music, and then moved to Earlsfort House School in Dublin city centre near Harcourt Street. The Becketts were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland. The family home, Cooldrinagh in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock, was a large house and garden complete with tennis court built in 1903 by Samuel's father, William. The house and garden, together with the surrounding countryside where he often went walking with his father, the nearby Leopardstown Racecourse, the Foxrock railway station and Harcourt Street station at the city terminus of the line, all feature in his prose and plays.
In 1919/1920, Beckett went to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (which Oscar Wilde had also attended). He left three years later, in 1923. A natural athlete, Beckett excelled at cricket as a left-handed batsman and a left-arm medium-pace bowler. Later, he was to play for Dublin University and played two first-class games against Northamptonshire. As a result, he became the only Nobel literature laureate to have played first-class cricket.
Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College Dublin from 1923 to 1927 (one of his tutors was the eminent Berkeley scholar A. A. Luce, who introduced him to the work of Henri Bergson). He was elected a Scholar in Modern Languages in 1926. Beckett graduated with a BA and, after teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfast, took up the post of "lecteur d'anglais" at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris from November 1928 to 1930. While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce by Thomas MacGreevy, a poet and close confidant of Beckett who also worked there. This meeting had a profound effect on the young man. Beckett assisted Joyce in various ways, one of which was research towards the book that became "Finnegans Wake".
In 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay entitled "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce". The essay defends Joyce's work and method, chiefly from allegations of wanton obscurity and dimness, and was Beckett's contribution to "Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress" (a book of essays on Joyce which also included contributions by Eugene Jolas, Robert McAlmon, and William Carlos Williams). Beckett's close relationship with Joyce and his family cooled, however, when he rejected the advances of Joyce's daughter Lucia owing to her progressing schizophrenia. Beckett's first short story, "Assumption", was published in Jolas's periodical "transition". The next year he won a small literary prize for his hastily composed poem "Whoroscope", which draws on a biography of René Descartes that Beckett happened to be reading when he was encouraged to submit.
In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer. In November 1930, he presented a paper in French to the Modern Languages Society of Trinity on the Toulouse poet Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called "le Concentrisme". It was a literary parody, for Beckett had in fact invented the poet and his movement that claimed to be "at odds with all that is clear and distinct in Descartes". Beckett later insisted that he had not intended to fool his audience. When Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, his brief academic career was at an end. He commemorated it with the poem "Gnome", which was inspired by his reading of Johann Wolfgang Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" and eventually published in "The Dublin Magazine" in 1934:
Beckett travelled throughout Europe. He spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published "Proust", his critical study of French author Marcel Proust. Two years later, following his father's death, he began two years' treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychoanalyst Dr. Wilfred Bion. Aspects of it became evident in Beckett's later works, such as "Watt" and "Waiting for Godot". In 1932, he wrote his first novel, "Dream of Fair to Middling Women", but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it (it was eventually published in 1992). Despite his inability to get it published, however, the novel served as a source for many of Beckett's early poems, as well as for his first full-length book, the 1933 short-story collection "More Pricks Than Kicks".
Beckett published essays and reviews, including "Recent Irish Poetry" (in "The Bookman", August 1934) and "Humanistic Quietism", a review of his friend Thomas MacGreevy's "Poems" (in "The Dublin Magazine", July–September 1934). They focused on the work of MacGreevy, Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin and Blanaid Salkeld, despite their slender achievements at the time, comparing them favourably with their Celtic Revival contemporaries and invoking Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and the French symbolists as their precursors. In describing these poets as forming "the nucleus of a living poetic in Ireland", Beckett was tracing the outlines of an Irish poetic modernist canon.
In 1935—the year that he successfully published a book of his poetry, "Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates"—Beckett worked on his novel "Murphy". In May, he wrote to MacGreevy that he had been reading about film and wished to go to Moscow to study with Sergei Eisenstein at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. In mid-1936 he wrote to Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin to offer himself as their apprentice. Nothing came of this, however, as Beckett's letter was lost owing to Eisenstein's quarantine during the smallpox outbreak, as well as his focus on a script re-write of his postponed film production. In 1936, a friend had suggested he look up the works of Arnold Geulincx, which Beckett did and he took many notes. The philosopher's name is mentioned in "Murphy" and the reading apparently left a strong impression. "Murphy" was finished in 1936 and Beckett departed for extensive travel around Germany, during which time he filled several notebooks with lists of noteworthy artwork that he had seen and noted his distaste for the Nazi savagery that was overtaking the country. Returning to Ireland briefly in 1937, he oversaw the publication of "Murphy" (1938), which he translated into French the following year. He fell out with his mother, which contributed to his decision to settle permanently in Paris. Beckett remained in Paris following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, preferring, in his own words, "France at war to Ireland at peace". His was soon a known face in and around Left Bank cafés, where he strengthened his allegiance with Joyce and forged new ones with artists Alberto Giacometti and Marcel Duchamp, with whom he regularly played chess. Sometime around December 1937, Beckett had a brief affair with Peggy Guggenheim, who nicknamed him "Oblomov" (after the character in Ivan Goncharov's novel).
In January 1938 in Paris, Beckett was stabbed in the chest and nearly killed when he refused the solicitations of a notorious pimp (who went by the name of Prudent). Joyce arranged a private room for Beckett at the hospital. The publicity surrounding the stabbing attracted the attention of Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, who knew Beckett slightly from his first stay in Paris. This time, however, the two would begin a lifelong companionship. At a preliminary hearing, Beckett asked his attacker for the motive behind the stabbing. Prudent replied: "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur. Je m'excuse" ["I do not know, sir. I'm sorry"]. Beckett eventually dropped the charges against his attacker—partially to avoid further formalities, partly because he found Prudent likeable and well-mannered.
After the Nazi German occupation of France in 1940, Beckett joined the French Resistance, in which he worked as a courier. On several occasions over the next two years he was nearly caught by the Gestapo. In August 1942, his unit was betrayed and he and Suzanne fled south on foot to the safety of the small village of Roussillon, in the Vaucluse "département" in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. There he continued to assist the Resistance by storing armaments in the back yard of his home. During the two years that Beckett stayed in Roussillon he indirectly helped the Maquis sabotage the German army in the Vaucluse mountains, though he rarely spoke about his wartime work in later life.
Beckett was awarded the Croix de guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance by the French government for his efforts in fighting the German occupation; to the end of his life, however, Beckett would refer to his work with the French Resistance as "boy scout stuff". While in hiding in Roussillon, he continued work on the novel "Watt" (begun in 1941 and completed in 1945, but not published until 1953, though an extract had appeared in the Dublin literary periodical "Envoy").
In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit. During his stay, he had a revelation in his mother's room: his entire future direction in literature appeared to him. Beckett had felt that he would remain forever in the shadow of Joyce, certain to never beat him at his own game. His revelation prompted him to change direction and to acknowledge both his own stupidity and his interest in ignorance and impotence:
"I realised that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one's material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realised that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding."
Knowlson argues that "Beckett was rejecting the Joycean principle that knowing more was a way of creatively understanding the world and controlling it ... In future, his work would focus on poverty, failure, exile and loss – as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er.'" The revelation "has rightly been regarded as a pivotal moment in his entire career". Beckett fictionalised the experience in his play "Krapp's Last Tape" (1958). While listening to a tape he made earlier in his life, Krapp hears his younger self say "clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most...", at which point Krapp fast-forwards the tape (before the audience can hear the complete revelation). Beckett later explained to Knowlson that the missing words on the tape are "precious ally".
In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre’s magazine "Les Temps modernes" published the first part of Beckett's short story ""Suite"" (later to be called ""La Fin"", or "The End"), not realising that Beckett had only submitted the first half of the story; Simone de Beauvoir refused to publish the second part. Beckett also began to write his fourth novel, "Mercier et Camier", which was not published until 1970. The novel presaged his most famous work, the play "Waiting for Godot", which was written not long afterwards. More importantly, the novel was Beckett's first long work that he wrote in French, the language of most of his subsequent works which were strongly supported by Jérôme Lindon, director of his Parisian publishing house Les Éditions de Minuit, including the poioumenon "trilogy" of novels: "Molloy" (1951); "Malone meurt" (1951), "Malone Dies" (1958); "L'innommable" (1953), "The Unnamable" (1960). Despite being a native English speaker, Beckett wrote in French because—as he himself claimed—it was easier for him thus to write "without style".
Beckett is most famous for his play "En attendant Godot" (1953) ("Waiting for Godot"). Like most of his works after 1947, the play was first written in French. Beckett worked on the play between October 1948 and January 1949. His partner, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, was integral to its success. Dechevaux-Dumesnil became his agent and sent the manuscript to multiple producers until they met Roger Blin, the soon-to-be director of the play.
Blin's knowledge of French theatre and vision alongside Beckett knowing what he wanted the play to represent contributed greatly to its success. In a much-quoted article, the critic Vivian Mercier wrote that Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." The play was published in 1952 and premièred in 1953 in Paris; an English translation was performed two years later. The play was a critical, popular, and controversial success in Paris. It opened in London in 1955 to mainly negative reviews, but the tide turned with positive reactions from Harold Hobson in "The Sunday Times" and, later, Kenneth Tynan. After the showing in Miami, the play became extremely popular, with highly successful performances in the US and Germany. The play is a favourite: it is not only performed frequently but has globally inspired playwrights to emulate it. This is the sole play the manuscript of which Beckett never sold, donated or gave away. He refused to allow the play to be translated into film but did allow it to be played on television.
Beckett translated all of his works into English himself, with the exception of "Molloy", for which he collaborated with Patrick Bowles. The success of "Waiting for Godot" opened up a career in theatre for its author. Beckett went on to write successful full-length plays, including "Fin de partie" ("Endgame") (1957), "Krapp's Last Tape" (1958, written in English), "Happy Days" (1961, also written in English), and "Play" (1963). In 1961, Beckett received the International Publishers' Formentor Prize in recognition of his work, which he shared that year with Jorge Luis Borges.
The 1960s were a time of change for Beckett, both on a personal level and as a writer. In 1961, he married Suzanne in a secret civil ceremony in England (its secrecy due to reasons relating to French inheritance law). The success of his plays led to invitations to attend rehearsals and productions around the world, leading eventually to a new career as a theatre director. In 1957, he had his first commission from the BBC Third Programme for a radio play, "All That Fall." He continued writing sporadically for radio and extended his scope to include cinema and television. He began to write in English again, although he also wrote in French until the end of his life.
Beckett bought some land in 1953 near a hamlet around northeast of Paris and built a cottage for himself with the help of some locals.
From the late 1950s until his death, Beckett had a relationship with Barbara Bray, a widow who worked as a script editor for the BBC. Knowlson wrote of them: "She was small and attractive, but, above all, keenly intelligent and well-read. Beckett seems to have been immediately attracted by her and she to him. Their encounter was highly significant for them both, for it represented the beginning of a relationship that was to last, in parallel with that with Suzanne, for the rest of his life." Barbara Bray died in Edinburgh on 25 February 2010.
In October 1969 while on holiday in Tunis with Suzanne, Beckett heard that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Anticipating that her intensely private husband would be saddled with fame from that moment on, Suzanne called the award a "catastrophe". While Beckett did not devote much time to interviews, he sometimes met the artists, scholars, and admirers who sought him out in the anonymous lobby of the Hotel PLM St. Jacques in Paris near his Montparnasse home. Although Beckett was an intensely private man, a review of the second volume of his letters by Roy Foster on 15 December 2011 issue of "The New Republic" reveals Beckett to be not only unexpectedly amiable but frequently prepared to talk about his work and the process behind it.
Suzanne died on 17 July 1989. Confined to a nursing home and suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson's disease, Beckett died on 22 December. The two were interred together in the cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris and share a simple granite gravestone that follows Beckett's directive that it should be "any colour, so long as it's grey".
Beckett's career as a writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which he wrote what are probably his best-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and his style more minimalist.
Beckett's earliest works are generally considered to have been strongly influenced by the work of his friend James Joyce. They are erudite and seem to display the author's learning merely for its own sake, resulting in several obscure passages. The opening phrases of the short-story collection "More Pricks than Kicks" (1934) affords a representative sample of this style:
It was morning and Belacqua was stuck in the first of the canti in the moon. He was so bogged that he could move neither backward nor forward. Blissful Beatrice was there, Dante also, and she explained the spots on the moon to him. She shewed him in the first place where he was at fault, then she put up her own explanation. She had it from God, therefore he could rely on its being accurate in every particular.
The passage makes reference to Dante's "Commedia", which can serve to confuse readers not familiar with that work. It also anticipates aspects of Beckett's later work: the physical inactivity of the character Belacqua; the character's immersion in his own head and thoughts; the somewhat irreverent comedy of the final sentence.
Similar elements are present in Beckett's first published novel, "Murphy" (1938), which also explores the themes of insanity and chess (both of which would be recurrent elements in Beckett's later works). The novel's opening sentence hints at the somewhat pessimistic undertones and black humour that animate many of Beckett's works: "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new". "Watt", written while Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes but less exuberant in its style. It explores human movement as if it were a mathematical permutation, presaging Beckett's later preoccupation—in both his novels and dramatic works—with precise movement.
Beckett's 1930 essay "Proust" was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer's pessimism and laudatory descriptions of saintly asceticism. At this time Beckett began to write creatively in the French language. In the late 1930s, he wrote a number of short poems in that language and their sparseness—in contrast to the density of his English poems of roughly the same period, collected in "Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates" (1935)—seems to show that Beckett, albeit through the medium of another language, was in process of simplifying his style, a change also evidenced in "Watt".
After World War II, Beckett turned definitively to the French language as a vehicle. It was this, together with the "revelation" experienced in his mother's room in Dublin—in which he realised that his art must be subjective and drawn wholly from his own inner world—that would result in the works for which Beckett is best remembered today.
During the 15 years following the war, Beckett produced four major full-length stage plays: "En attendant Godot" (written 1948–1949; "Waiting for Godot"), "Fin de partie" (1955–1957; "Endgame"), "Krapp's Last Tape" (1958), and "Happy Days" (1961). These plays—which are often considered, rightly or wrongly, to have been instrumental in the so-called "Theatre of the Absurd"—deal in a darkly humorous way with themes similar to those of the roughly contemporary existentialist thinkers. The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin in a book of the same name; Beckett and "Godot" were centrepieces of the book. Esslin argued these plays were the fulfilment of Albert Camus's concept of "the absurd"; this is one reason Beckett is often falsely labelled as an existentialist (this is based on the assumption that Camus was an existentialist, though he in fact broke off from the existentialist movement and founded his own philosophy). Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole.
Broadly speaking, the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in the face of an uncomprehending and incomprehensible world. The words of Nell—one of the two characters in "Endgame" who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speak—can best summarise the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. ... Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more."
Beckett's outstanding achievements in prose during the period were the three novels "Molloy" (1951), "Malone meurt" (1951; "Malone Dies") and "L'innommable" (1953: "The Unnamable"). In these novels—sometimes referred to as a "trilogy", though this is against the author's own explicit wishes—the prose becomes increasingly bare and stripped down. "Molloy", for instance, still retains many of the characteristics of a conventional novel (time, place, movement, and plot) and it makes use of the structure of a detective novel. In "Malone Dies", movement and plot are largely dispensed with, though there is still some indication of place and the passage of time; the "action" of the book takes the form of an interior monologue. Finally, in "The Unnamable", almost all sense of place and time are abolished, and the essential theme seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing, and its almost equally strong urge towards silence and oblivion. Despite the widely held view that Beckett's work, as exemplified by the novels of this period, is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out in the end; witness, for instance, the famous final phrase of "The Unnamable": 'I can't go on, I'll go on'.
After these three novels, Beckett struggled for many years to produce a sustained work of prose, a struggle evidenced by the brief "stories" later collected as "Texts for Nothing". In the late 1950s, however, he created one of his most radical prose works, "Comment c'est" (1961; "How It Is"). An early variant version of "Comment c'est", "L'Image", was published in the British arts review, "X: A Quarterly Review" (1959), and is the first appearance of the novel in any form.). This work relates the adventures of an unnamed narrator crawling through the mud while dragging a sack of canned food. It was written as a sequence of unpunctuated paragraphs in a style approaching telegraphese: "You are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it's over you are there no more alive no more than again you are there again alive again it wasn't over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in the dark" Following this work, it was almost another decade before Beckett produced a work of non-dramatic prose. "How It Is" is generally considered to mark the end of his middle period as a writer.
Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, Beckett's works exhibited an increasing tendency—already evident in much of his work of the 1950s—towards compactness. This has led to his work sometimes being described as minimalist. The extreme example of this, among his dramatic works, is the 1969 piece "Breath", which lasts for only 35 seconds and has no characters (though it was likely intended to offer ironic comment on "Oh! Calcutta!", the theatrical revue for which it served as an introductory piece).
In his theatre of the late period, Beckett's characters—already few in number in the earlier plays—are whittled down to essential elements. The ironically titled "Play" (1962), for instance, consists of three characters immersed up to their necks in large funeral urns. The television drama "Eh Joe" (1963), which was written for the actor Jack MacGowran, is animated by a camera that steadily closes in to a tight focus upon the face of the title character. The play "Not I" (1972) consists almost solely of, in Beckett's words, "a moving mouth with the rest of the stage in darkness". Following from "Krapp's Last Tape", many of these later plays explore memory, often in the form of a forced recollection of haunting past events in a moment of stillness in the present. They also deal with the theme of the self-confined and observed, with a voice that either comes from outside into the protagonist's head (as in "Eh Joe") or else another character comments on the protagonist silently, by means of gesture (as in "Not I"). Beckett's most politically charged play, "Catastrophe" (1982), which was dedicated to Václav Havel, deals relatively explicitly with the idea of dictatorship. After a long period of inactivity, Beckett's poetry experienced a revival during this period in the ultra-terse French poems of "mirlitonnades", with some as short as six words long. These defied Beckett's usual scrupulous concern to translate his work from its original into the other of his two languages; several writers, including Derek Mahon, have attempted translations, but no complete version of the sequence has been published in English.
Beckett's prose pieces during the late period were not so prolific as his theatre, as suggested by the title of the 1976 collection of short prose texts "Fizzles" (which the American artist Jasper Johns illustrated). Beckett experienced something of a renaissance with the novella "Company" (1980), which continued with "Ill Seen Ill Said" (1982) and "Worstward Ho" (1984), later collected in "Nohow On". In these three "'closed space' stories," Beckett continued his pre-occupation with memory and its effect on the confined and observed self, as well as with the positioning of bodies in space, as the opening phrases of "Company" make clear: "A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine." "To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in the dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said." Themes of aloneness and the doomed desire to successfully connect with other human beings are expressed in several late pieces, including "Company" and "Rockaby".
In the hospital and nursing home where he spent his final days, Beckett wrote his last work, the 1988 poem "What is the Word" ("Comment dire"). The poem grapples with an inability to find words to express oneself, a theme echoing Beckett's earlier work, though possibly amplified by the sickness he experienced late in life.
Jack MacGowran was the first actor to do a one-man show based on the works of Beckett. He debuted "End of Day" in Dublin in 1962, revising it as "Beginning To End" (1965). The show went through further revisions before Beckett directed it in Paris in 1970; MacGowran won the 1970–1971 Obie for Best Performance By an Actor when he performed the show off-Broadway as "Jack MacGowran in the Works of Samuel Beckett." Beckett wrote the radio play "Embers" and the teleplay "Eh Joe" specifically for MacGowran. The actor also appeared in various productions of "Waiting for Godot" and "Endgame," and did several readings of Beckett's plays and poems on BBC Radio; he also recorded the LP, "MacGowran Speaking Beckett" for Claddagh Records in 1966.
Billie Whitelaw worked with Beckett for 25 years on such plays as "Not I", "Eh Joe", "Footfalls" and "Rockaby." She first met Beckett in 1963. In her autobiography "Billie Whitelaw...: Who He?," she describes their first meeting in 1963 as "trust at first sight". Beckett went on to write many of his experimental theatre works for her. She came to be regarded as his muse, the "supreme interpreter of his work", perhaps most famous for her role as the mouth in "Not I". She said of the play "Rockaby": "I put the tape in my head. And I sort of look in a particular way, but not at the audience. Sometimes as a director Beckett comes out with absolute gems and I use them a lot in other areas. We were doing "Happy Days" and I just did not know where in the theatre to look during this particular section. And I asked, and he thought for a bit and then said, 'Inward' ". She said of her role in "Footfalls": "I felt like a moving, musical Edvard Munch painting and, in fact, when Beckett was directing "Footfalls" he was not only using me to play the notes but I almost felt that he did have the paintbrush out and was painting." "Sam knew that I would turn myself inside out to give him what he wanted", she explained. "With all of Sam's work, the scream was there, my task was to try to get it out." She stopped performing his plays in 1989 when he died.
The English stage designer Jocelyn Herbert was a close friend and influence on Beckett until his death. She worked with him on such plays as "Happy Days" (their third project) and "Krapp's Last Tape" at the Royal Court Theatre. Beckett said that Herbert became his closest friend in England: "She has a great feeling for the work and is very sensitive and doesn't want to bang the nail on the head. Generally speaking, there is a tendency on the part of designers to overstate, and this has never been the case with Jocelyn."
The German director Walter D. Asmus began his working relationship with Beckett in the Schiller Theatre in Berlin in 1974 and continued until 1989, the year of the playwright's death. Asmus has directed all of Beckett's plays internationally.
Of all the English-language modernists, Beckett's work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition. He opened up the possibility of theatre and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of time and place in order to focus on essential components of the human condition. Václav Havel, John Banville, Aidan Higgins, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter and Jon Fosse have publicly stated their indebtedness to Beckett's example. He has had a wider influence on experimental writing since the 1950s, from the Beat generation to the happenings of the 1960s and after. In an Irish context, he has exerted great influence on poets such as Derek Mahon and Thomas Kinsella, as well as writers like Trevor Joyce and Catherine Walsh who proclaim their adherence to the modernist tradition as an alternative to the dominant realist mainstream.
Many major 20th-century composers including Luciano Berio, György Kurtág, Morton Feldman, Pascal Dusapin, Philip Glass, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Heinz Holliger have created musical works based on Beckett's texts. His work has also influenced numerous international writers, artists and filmmakers including Edward Albee, Avigdor Arikha, Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee, Richard Kalich, Douglas Gordon, Bruce Nauman, Anthony Minghella, Damian Pettigrew and Charlie Kaufman.
Beckett is one of the most widely discussed and highly prized of 20th-century authors, inspiring a critical industry to rival that which has sprung up around James Joyce. He has divided critical opinion. Some early philosophical critics, such as Sartre and Theodor Adorno, praised him, one for his revelation of absurdity, the other for his works' critical refusal of simplicities; others such as Georg Lukács condemned him for 'decadent' lack of realism.
Since Beckett's death, all rights for performance of his plays are handled by the Beckett estate, currently managed by Edward Beckett (the author's nephew). The estate has a controversial reputation for maintaining firm control over how Beckett's plays are performed and does not grant licences to productions that do not adhere to the writer's stage directions.
Historians interested in tracing Beckett's blood line were, in 2004, granted access to confirmed trace samples of his DNA to conduct molecular genealogical studies to facilitate precise lineage determination.
Some of the best-known pictures of Beckett were taken by photographer John Minihan, who photographed him between 1980 and 1985 and developed such a good relationship with the writer that he became, in effect, his official photographer. Some consider one of these to be among the top three photographs of the 20th century. It was the theatre photographer John Haynes, however, who took possibly the most widely reproduced image of Beckett: it is used on the cover of the Knowlson biography, for instance. This portrait was taken during rehearsals of the San Quentin Drama Workshop at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where Haynes photographed many productions of Beckett's work.
An Post, the Irish postal service, issued a commemorative stamp of Beckett in 1994.
The Central Bank of Ireland launched two Samuel Beckett Centenary commemorative coins on 26 April 2006: €10 Silver Coin and €20 Gold Coin.
On 10 December 2009, the new bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin was opened and named the Samuel Beckett Bridge in his honour. Reminiscent of a harp on its side, it was designed by the celebrated Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who had also designed the James Joyce Bridge situated further upstream and opened on Bloomsday (16 June) 2003. Attendees at the official opening ceremony included Beckett's niece Caroline Murphy, his nephew Edward Beckett, poet Seamus Heaney and Barry McGovern.
The newest ship of the Irish Naval Service, the LÉ "Samuel Beckett" (P61), is named for Beckett. An Ulster History Circle blue plaque in his memory is located at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.
Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival is an annual multi-arts festival celebrating the work and influence of Beckett. The festival, founded in 2011, is held at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland where Beckett spent his formative years studying at Portora Royal School.
In 1983, the Samuel Beckett Award was established for writers who, in the opinion of a committee of critics, producers and publishers, showed innovation and excellence in writing for the performing arts. In 2003, The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust was formed to support the showcasing of new innovative theatre at the Barbican Centre in the City of London.
Music for three Samuel Beckett plays ("Words and Music", "Cascando", and "...but the clouds..."), was composed by Martin Pearlman which was commissioned by the 92nd Street Y in New York for the Beckett centennial and produced there and at Harvard University.
In January 2019 Beckett was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme "In Our Time".
Samuel Beckett's prolific career is spread across archives around the world. Significant collections include those at the Harry Ransom Center, Washington University, the University of Reading, Trinity College, Dublin, and Houghton Library. Given the scattered nature of these collections, an effort has been made to create a digital repository through the University of Antwerp.
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Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel Peckinpah (; February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American film director and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic "The Wild Bunch" (1969). He was known for the visually innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence as well as his revisionist approach to the Western genre.
Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals, as well as the corruption and violence in human society. His characters are often loners or losers who desire to be honorable, but are forced to compromise in order to survive in a world of nihilism and brutality. He was given the nickname "Bloody Sam" owing to the violence in his films.
Peckinpah's combative personality, marked by years of alcohol and drug abuse, affected his professional legacy. Many of his films were noted for behind-the-scenes battles with producers and crew members, damaging his reputation and career during his lifetime. Some of his films, including "Major Dundee" (1965), "Straw Dogs" (1971), "The Getaway" (1972), "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973), "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" (1974) and "Cross of Iron" (1977), remain controversial.
The Peckinpahs originated from the Frisian Islands in the northwest of Europe. Both sides of Peckinpah's family migrated to the American West by covered wagon in the mid-19th century. Peckinpah and several relatives often claimed Native American ancestry, but this has been denied by surviving family members. Peckinpah's great-grandfather, Rice Peckinpaugh, a merchant and farmer in Indiana, moved to Humboldt County, California, in the 1850s, working in the logging business, and changed the spelling of the family name to "Peckinpah".
Peckinpah Meadow and Peckinpah Creek, where the family ran a lumber mill on a mountain in the High Sierra north of Coarsegold, California, have been officially named on U.S. geographical maps. Peckinpah's maternal grandfather was Denver S. Church, a cattle rancher, Superior Court judge and United States Congressman of a California district including Fresno County.
Sam Peckinpah's nephew is David Peckinpah, who was a television producer and director, as well as a screenplay writer. He was a cousin of former New York Yankees shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh.
David Samuel Peckinpah was born February 21, 1925 to David Edward and Fern Louise (née Church) Peckinpah in Fresno, California, where he attended both grammar school and high school. He spent much time skipping classes with his brother to engage in cowboy activities on their grandfather Denver Church's ranch, including trapping, branding, and shooting. During the 1930s and 1940s, Coarsegold and Bass Lake were still populated with descendants of the miners and ranchers of the 19th century. Many of these descendants worked on Church's ranch. At that time, it was a rural area undergoing extreme change, and this exposure is believed to have affected Peckinpah's Western films later in life.
He played on the junior varsity football team while at Fresno High School, but frequent fighting and discipline problems caused his parents to enroll him in the San Rafael Military Academy for his senior year.
In 1943, he joined the United States Marine Corps. Within two years, his battalion was sent to China with the task of disarming Japanese soldiers and repatriating them following World War II. While his duty did not include combat, he claims to have witnessed acts of war between Chinese and Japanese soldiers. According to friends, these included several acts of torture and the murder of a laborer by sniper fire. The American Marines were not permitted to intervene. Peckinpah also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces. Also during his final weeks as a Marine, he applied for discharge in Peking, so he could marry a local woman, but was refused. His experiences in China reportedly deeply affected Peckinpah, and may have influenced his depictions of violence in his films.
After being discharged in Los Angeles, he attended California State University, Fresno, where he studied history. While a student, he met and married his first wife, Marie Selland, in 1947. A drama major, Selland introduced Peckinpah to the theater department and he became interested in directing for the first time. During his senior year, he adapted and directed a one-hour version of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie".
After graduation in 1948, Peckinpah enrolled in graduate studies in drama at University of Southern California. He spent two seasons as the director in residence at Huntington Park Civic Theatre near Los Angeles before obtaining his master's degree. He was asked to stay another year, but Peckinpah began working as a stagehand at KLAC-TV in the belief that television experience would eventually lead to work in films. Even during this early stage of his career, Peckinpah was developing a combative streak. Reportedly, he was kicked off the set of "The Liberace Show" for not wearing a tie, and he refused to cue a car salesman during a live feed because of his attitude towards stagehands.
In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as a dialogue coach for the film "Riot in Cell Block 11". His job entailed acting as an assistant for the movie's director, Don Siegel. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. Reportedly, the warden was reluctant to allow the filmmakers to work at the prison until he was introduced to Peckinpah. The warden knew his family from Fresno and was immediately cooperative. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as a dialogue coach on four additional Siegel films: "Private Hell 36" (1954), "An Annapolis Story", (1955, and co-starring L. Q. Jones), "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) and "Crime in the Streets" (1956).
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers", in which Peckinpah appeared as Charlie the meter reader, starred Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. It became one of the most critically praised science fiction films of the 1950s. Peckinpah claimed to have done an extensive rewrite on the film's screenplay, a statement which remains controversial.
Throughout much of his adult life, Peckinpah was affected by alcoholism, and, later, other forms of drug addiction. According to some accounts, he also suffered from mental illness, possibly manic depression or paranoia. It is believed his drinking problems began during his service in the military while stationed in China, when he frequented the saloons of Tianjin and Beijing. After divorcing Selland, the mother of his first four children, in 1960, he married Mexican actress Begoña Palacios in 1965. A stormy relationship developed, and over the years they married on three separate occasions. They had one daughter together. His personality reportedly often swung between a sweet, softly-spoken, artistic disposition, and bouts of rage and violence during which he verbally and physically abused himself and others. An experienced hunter, Peckinpah was fascinated with firearms and was known to shoot the mirrors in his house while abusing alcohol, an image which occurs several times in his films.
Peckinpah's reputation as a hard-living brute with a taste for violence, inspired by the content in his most popular films and in many ways perpetuated by himself, affected his artistic legacy. His friends and family have claimed this does a disservice to a man who was actually more complex than generally credited. He used such actors as Warren Oates, L. Q. Jones, R. G. Armstrong, James Coburn, Ben Johnson, and Kris Kristofferson, and collaborators (Jerry Fielding, Lucien Ballard, Gordon Dawson, and Martin Baum) in many of his films, and several of his friends and assistants stuck by him to the end of his life.
Peckinpah spent a great deal of his life in Mexico after his marriage to Palacios, eventually buying property in the country. He was reportedly fascinated by the Mexican lifestyle and Mexican culture, and he often portrayed it with an unusual sentimentality and romanticism in his films. Four of his films, "Major Dundee" (1965), "The Wild Bunch" (1969), "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973) and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" (1974), were filmed entirely on location within Mexico, while "The Getaway" (1972) concludes with a couple escaping to freedom there.
From 1979 until his death, Peckinpah lived at the Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana. Peckinpah was seriously ill during his final years, as a lifetime of hard living caught up with him. Regardless, he continued to work until his last months. He died of heart failure at age 59 on December 28, 1984 in Inglewood, California. At the time, he was working on the script for "On the Rocks", a projected independent film to be shot in San Francisco.
On the recommendation of Don Siegel, Peckinpah established himself during the late 1950s as a scriptwriter of western series of the era, selling scripts to "Gunsmoke", "Have Gun – Will Travel", "The Rifleman", "Broken Arrow", "Klondike", and "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre". He wrote one episode "The Town" (December 13, 1957) for the CBS series, "Trackdown", starring Robert Culp as the Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. The script is about a cowardly town afraid to resist the clutches of an outlaw gang.
Peckinpah wrote a screenplay from the novel "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones", a draft that evolved into the 1961 Marlon Brando film "One-Eyed Jacks". His writing led to directing, and he directed a 1958 episode of "Broken Arrow" (generally credited as his first official directing job) and several 1960 episodes of "Klondike", (co-starring James Coburn, L. Q. Jones, Ralph Taeger, Joi Lansing, and Mari Blanchard). He also directed the CBS sitcom "Mr. Adams and Eve", starring Howard Duff and Ida Lupino.
In 1958, Peckinpah wrote a script for "Gunsmoke" that was rejected due to content. He reworked the screenplay, titled "The Sharpshooter", and sold it to "Zane Grey Theater". The episode received popular response and became the television series "The Rifleman", starring Chuck Connors. Peckinpah directed four episodes of the series (with guest stars R. G. Armstrong and Warren Oates), but left after the first year. "The Rifleman" ran for five seasons and achieved enduring popularity in syndication.
During this time, he also created the television series "The Westerner", starring Brian Keith and in three episodes also featuring John Dehner. Peckinpah wrote and directed a pilot called "Trouble at Tres Cruzes", which was aired in March 1959 before the actual series was made in 1960. Peckinpah acted as producer of the series, having a hand in the writing of each episode and directing five of them. Critically praised, the show ran for only 13 episodes before cancellation mainly due to its gritty content detailing the drifting, laconic cowboy Dave Blassingame (Brian Keith). Especially noteworthy are the episodes "Jeff" and "Hand on the Gun", extraordinary in their depiction of violence and their imaginative directing, forerunners of his later feature films. Despite its short run, "The Westerner" and Peckinpah were nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Filmed Series. An episode of the series eventually served as the basis for Tom Gries' 1968 film "Will Penny" starring Charlton Heston. "The Westerner", which has since achieved cult status, further established Peckinpah as a talent to be reckoned with.
In 1962, Peckinpah directed two hour-long episodes for "The Dick Powell Theater". In the second of these, "The Losers", an updated remake of "The Westerner" set in the present day with Lee Marvin as Dave Blassingame and Keenan Wynn as Dehner's character Bergundy Smith, he mixed slow motion, fast motion and stills together to capture violence, a technique famously put to more sophisticated use in 1969s "The Wild Bunch".
After cancellation of "The Westerner", Brian Keith was cast as the male lead in the 1961 Western film "The Deadly Companions". He suggested Peckinpah as director and the project's producer Charles B. Fitzsimons accepted the idea. By most accounts, the low-budget film shot on location in Arizona was a learning process for Peckinpah, who feuded with Fitzsimons (brother of the film's star Maureen O'Hara) over the screenplay and staging of the scenes. Reportedly, Fitzsimons refused to allow Peckinpah to give direction to O'Hara. Unable to rewrite the screenplay or edit the picture, Peckinpah vowed to never again direct a film unless he had script control. "The Deadly Companions" passed largely without notice and is the least known of Peckinpah's films.
His second film, "Ride the High Country" (1962), was based on the screenplay "Guns in the Afternoon" written by N.B. Stone, Jr. Producer Richard Lyons admired Peckinpah's work on "The Westerner" and offered him the directing job. Peckinpah did an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, including personal references from his own childhood growing up on Denver Church's ranch, and even naming one of the mining towns "Coarsegold." He based the character of Steve Judd, a once-famous lawman fallen on hard times, on his own father David Peckinpah. In the screenplay, Judd and old friend Gil Westrum are hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. Westrum hopes to talk Judd into taking the gold for themselves. Along the way, following Judd's example, Westrum slowly realizes his own self-respect is far more important than profit. During the final shootout, when Judd and Westrum stand up to a trio of men, Judd is fatally wounded but his death serves as Westrum's salvation, a Catholic tragedy woven from the cloth of the Western genre. This sort of salvation became a major theme in many Peckinpah's later films. Starring aging Western stars Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott in their final major screen roles, the film initially went unnoticed in the United States but was an enormous success in Europe. Beating Federico Fellini's "8½" for first prize at the Belgium Film Festival, the film was hailed by foreign critics as a brilliant reworking of the Western genre. New York critics also discovered Peckinpah's unusual Western, with "Newsweek" naming "Ride the High Country" the best film of the year and "Time" placing it on its ten-best list. By some critics, the film is admired as one of Peckinpah's greatest works.
Peckinpah's next film, "Major Dundee" (1965), was the first of Peckinpah's many unfortunate experiences with the major studios that financed his productions. Based on a screenplay by Harry Julian Fink, the film was to star Charlton Heston. Peckinpah was hired as director after Heston viewed producer Jerry Bresler's private screening of "Ride the High Country". Heston liked the film and called Peckinpah, saying, "I'd like to work with you." The sprawling screenplay told the story of Union cavalry officer Major Dundee who commands a New Mexico outpost of Confederate prisoners. When an Apache war chief wipes out a company and kidnaps several children, Dundee throws together a makeshift army, including unwilling Confederate veterans, black Federal soldiers, and traditional Western types, and takes off after the Indians. Dundee becomes obsessed with his quest and heads deep into the wilderness of Mexico with his exhausted men in tow.
Filming began without a completed screenplay, and Peckinpah chose several remote locations in Mexico, causing the film to go heavily overbudget. Intimidated by the size and scope of the project, Peckinpah reportedly drank heavily each night after shooting. He also fired at least 15 crew members. At one point, Peckinpah's mean streak and abusiveness towards the actors so enraged Heston that the normally even-tempered star threatened to run the director through with his cavalry saber if he did not show more courtesy to the cast. Shooting ended 15 days over schedule and $1.5 million more than budgeted with Peckinpah and producer Bresler no longer on speaking terms. The movie, detailing themes and sequences Peckinpah mastered later in his career, was taken away from him and substantially reedited. An incomplete mess which today exists in a variety of versions, "Major Dundee" performed poorly at the box office and was trashed by critics (though its standing has improved over the years). Peckinpah maintained, nonetheless, throughout his life that his original version of "Major Dundee" was among his best films, but his reputation was severely damaged.
Peckinpah was next signed to direct "The Cincinnati Kid", a gambling drama about a young prodigy who takes on an old master during a big New Orleans poker match. Before filming started, producer Martin Ransohoff began to receive phone calls about the "Major Dundee" ordeal and was told Peckinpah was impossible to work with. Peckinpah decided to shoot in black and white and was hoping to transform the screenplay into a social realist saga about a kid surviving the tough streets of the Great Depression. After four days of filming, which reportedly included some nude scenes, Ransohoff disliked the rushes and immediately fired him. Eventually directed by Norman Jewison and starring Steve McQueen, the film went on to become a 1965 hit.
Peckinpah caught a lucky break in 1966 when producer Daniel Melnick needed a writer and director to adapt Katherine Anne Porter's short novel "Noon Wine" for television. Melnick was a big fan of "The Westerner" and "Ride the High Country", and had heard Peckinpah had been unfairly fired from "The Cincinnati Kid". Against the objections of many within the industry, Melnick hired Peckinpah and gave him free rein. Peckinpah completed the script, which Porter enthusiastically endorsed, and the project became an hour-long presentation for "ABC Stage 67".
Taking place in turn of the century West Texas, "Noon Wine" was a dark tragedy about a farmer's act of futile murder which leads to suicide. Starring Jason Robards and Olivia de Havilland, the film was a critical hit, with Peckinpah nominated by the Writers Guild for Best Television Adaptation and the Directors Guild of America for Best Television Direction. Robards kept a personal copy of the film in his private collection for years as he considered the project to be one of his most satisfying professional experiences. A rare film which had no home video release until 2014, "Noon Wine" is today considered one of Peckinpah's most intimate works, revealing his dramatic potential and artistic depth.
The surprising success of "Noon Wine" laid the groundwork for one of the most explosive comebacks in film history. In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film, "The Diamond Story". An alternative screenplay written by Roy Sickner and Walon Green was the western "The Wild Bunch". At the time, William Goldman's screenplay "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox.
It was quickly decided that "The Wild Bunch", which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced in order to beat "Butch Cassidy" to the theaters. By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay into what became "The Wild Bunch". Filmed on location in Mexico, Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by a number of forces—his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde", America's growing frustration with the Vietnam War, and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but the crude men attempting to survive the era. During this period, Peckinpah said that his life was changed by seeing Carlos Saura's "La Caza" (1966), which profoundly influenced his subsequent oeuvre.
The film detailed a gang of veteran outlaws on the Texas/Mexico border in 1913 trying to survive within a rapidly approaching modern world. "The Wild Bunch" is framed by two ferocious and infamous gunfights, beginning with a failed robbery of the railway company office and concluding with the outlaws battling the Mexican army in suicidal vengeance prompted by the brutal torture and murder of one of their members.
Irreverent and unprecedented in its explicit detail, the 1969 film was an instant success. Multiple scenes attempted in "Major Dundee", including slow motion action sequences, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, were perfected in "The Wild Bunch". Many critics denounced its violence as sadistic and exploitative. Other critics and filmmakers hailed the originality of its unique rapid editing style, created for the first time in this film and ultimately becoming a Peckinpah trademark, and praised the reworking of traditional Western themes. It was the beginning of Peckinpah's international fame, and he and his work remained controversial for the rest of his life. The film was ranked No. 80 on the American Film Institute's top 100 list of the greatest American films ever made and No. 69 as the most thrilling, but the controversy has not diminished.
"The Wild Bunch" was re-released for its 25th anniversary, and received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. Peckinpah received his only Academy Award nomination (for Best Original Screenplay) for this film.
Defying audience expectations, as he often did, Peckinpah immediately followed "The Wild Bunch" with the elegiac, funny and mostly non-violent 1970 Western "The Ballad of Cable Hogue". Using many of the same cast (L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin) and crew members of "The Wild Bunch", the film covered three years in the life of small-time entrepreneur Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) who decides to make his living by remaining in the desert after having miraculously discovered water when he had been abandoned there to die. He opens his business along a stagecoach line, only to see his dreams end with the appearance of the first automobile on the horizon.
Shot on location in the Valley of Fire in Nevada, the film was plagued by poor weather, Peckinpah's renewed drinking and his brusque firing of 36 crew members. The chaotic filming wrapped 19 days over schedule and $3 million over budget, effectively terminating his tenure with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. In retrospect, it was a damaging career move as "Deliverance" and "Jeremiah Johnson", critical and enduring box office hits, were in development at the time and Peckinpah was considered the first choice to direct both films.
Largely ignored upon its initial release, "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" has been rediscovered in recent years and is often held up by critics as exemplary of the breadth of Peckinpah's talents. They claim that the film proves Peckinpah's ability to make unconventional and original work without resorting to explicit violence. Over the years, Peckinpah cited the film as one of his favorites.
His alienation from Warner Brothers once again left him with a limited number of directing jobs. Peckinpah traveled to England to direct "Straw Dogs" (1971), one of his darkest and most psychologically disturbing films. Produced by Daniel Melnick, who had previously worked with Peckinpah on "Noon Wine", the film's screenplay was based on the novel "The Siege of Trencher's Farm" by Gordon Williams.
It starred Dustin Hoffman as David Sumner, a timid American mathematician who leaves the chaos of college anti-war protests to live with his young wife Amy (Susan George) in her native village in Cornwall, England. Resentment of David's presence by the locals slowly builds to a shocking climax when the mild-mannered academic is forced to violently defend his home. Peckinpah rewrote the existing screenplay, inspired by the books "African Genesis" and "The Territorial Imperative" by Robert Ardrey, which argued that man was essentially a carnivore who instinctively battled over control of territory.
The character of David Sumner, taunted and humiliated by the violent town locals, is eventually cornered within his home where he loses control and kills several of the men during the violent conclusion. "Straw Dogs" deeply divided critics, some of whom praised its artistry and its confrontation of human savagery, while others attacked it as a misogynistic and fascistic celebration of violence.
Much of the criticism centered on Amy's complicated and lengthy rape scene, which Peckinpah reportedly attempted to base on his own personal fears rooted in past failed marriages. To this day, the scene is attacked by some critics as an ugly male-chauvinist fantasy. The film was for many years banned on video in the UK.
Despite his growing alcoholism and controversial reputation, Peckinpah was prolific during this period of his life. In May 1971, weeks after completing "Straw Dogs", he returned to the United States to begin work on "Junior Bonner". The lyrical screenplay by Jeb Rosenbrook, depicting the changing times of society and binding family ties, appealed to Peckinpah's tastes. He accepted the project, at the time concerned with being typed as a director of violent action. The film was his final attempt to make a low-key, dramatic work in the vein of "Noon Wine" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue".
Filmed on location in Prescott, Arizona, the story covered a week in the life of aging rodeo rider Junior "JR" Bonner (Steve McQueen) who returns to his hometown to compete in an annual rodeo competition. Promoted as a Steve McQueen action vehicle, the film's reviews were mixed and the film performed poorly at the box office. Peckinpah remarked, "I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it." The film's reputation has grown over the years as many critics consider "Junior Bonner" to be one of Peckinpah's most sympathetic works, while also noting McQueen's earnest performance.
Eager to work with Peckinpah again, Steve McQueen presented him Walter Hill's screenplay to "The Getaway". Based on the Jim Thompson novel, the gritty crime thriller detailed lovers on the run following a dangerous robbery. Both Peckinpah and McQueen needed a hit, and they immediately began working on the film in February 1972. Peckinpah had no pretensions about making "The Getaway", as his only goal was to create a highly polished thriller to boost his market value. McQueen played Doc McCoy, a convicted robber who colludes with corrupt businessman Jack Beynon (Ben Johnson) to be released from prison and later masterminds a bank heist organized by Beynon.
A series of double-crosses ensues and Doc and his wife Carol (MacGraw) attempt to flee from their pursuers to Mexico. Replete with explosions, car chases and intense shootouts, the film became Peckinpah's biggest financial success to date earning more than $25 million at the box office. Though strictly a commercial product, Peckinpah's creative touches abound throughout, most notably during the intricately edited opening sequence when McQueen's character is suffering from the pressures of prison life. The film remains popular and was remade in 1994. starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
The year 1973 marked the beginning of the most difficult period of Peckinpah's life and career. While still filming "The Getaway" in El Paso, Texas, Peckinpah sneaked across the border into Juarez in April 1972 and married Joie Gould. He had met Gould in England while filming "Straw Dogs", and she had since been his companion and a part-time crew member. Peckinpah's intake of alcohol had increased dramatically while making "The Getaway", and he became fond of saying, "I can't direct when I'm sober." He began to have violent mood swings and explosions of rage, at one point assaulting Gould. After four months, she returned to England and filed for divorce. Devastated by the breakup, Peckinpah fell into a self-destructive pattern of almost continuous alcohol consumption, and his health was unstable for the remainder of his life.
It was in this state of mind that Peckinpah agreed to make "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Based on the screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer, who had previously penned "Two-Lane Blacktop", a film admired by Peckinpah, the director was convinced that he was about to make his definitive statement on the Western genre. The script offered Peckinpah the opportunity to explore themes that appealed to him: two former partners forced by changing times onto opposite sides of the law, manipulated by corrupt economic interests. Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay, establishing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as friends, and attempted to weave an epic tragedy from the historical legend. Filmed on location in the Mexican state of Durango, the film starred James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles, with a huge supporting cast including Bob Dylan, who composed the film's music, Jason Robards, R. G. Armstrong, Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, Matt Clark, L. Q. Jones, Rutanya Alda, Slim Pickens, and Harry Dean Stanton. From the beginning, Peckinpah began to have clashes with MGM and its president James Aubrey, known for his stifling of creative interests and eventual dismantling of the historic movie company. Numerous production difficulties, including an outbreak of influenza and malfunctioning cameras, combined with Peckinpah's alcoholism, resulted in one of the most troubled productions of his career. Principal photography finished 21 days behind schedule and $1.6 million over budget. Enraged, Aubrey severely cut Peckinpah's film from 124 to 106 minutes, resulting in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" being released in a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members. Critics complained that the film was incoherent, and the experience soured Peckinpah forever on Hollywood. In 1988, however, Peckinpah's director's cut was released on video and led to a reevaluation, with many critics hailing it as a mistreated classic and one of the era's best films. Filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, have praised the film as one of the greatest modern Westerns.
In the eyes of his admirers, "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" (1974) was the "last true Peckinpah film." The director himself claimed that it was the only one of his films to be released exactly as he intended it. A project in development for many years and based on an idea by Frank Kowalski, Peckinpah wrote the screenplay with the assistance of Kowalski, Walter Kelley and Gordon Dawson. An alcohol-soaked fever dream involving revenge, greed and murder in the Mexican countryside, the film featured Bennie (Warren Oates) as a thinly disguised self-portrait of Peckinpah, and co-starred a burlap bag containing the severed head of a gigolo being sought by a Mexican patrone for having impregnated his young granddaughter. Bennie is offered a reward of ten thousand dollars for Alfredo's death or proof thereof and Alfredo's head is demanded as proof that the contract has been fulfilled. The macabre drama was part black comedy, action film and tragedy, with a warped edge rarely seen in Peckinpah's works. Most critics were repulsed, and it was listed in the book "The 50 Worst Films of All Time" by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss. One of the few critics to praise the film was Roger Ebert, and in fact, the film's reputation has grown in recent years, with many noting its uncompromising vision as well as its anticipation of the violent black comedy which became famous in the works of such directors as David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. While a failure at the box office, the film today has a cult following. In 1991, UCLA's film school organized a festival of great but forgotten American films, and included "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" in the program. It is reportedly Takeshi Kitano's favorite film.
His career now suffering from consecutive box office failures, Peckinpah once again was in need of a hit on the level of "The Getaway". For his next film, he chose "The Killer Elite" (1975), an action-filled espionage thriller starring James Caan and Robert Duvall as rival American agents. Filmed on location in San Francisco, Peckinpah allegedly discovered cocaine for the first time thanks to Caan and his entourage. This led to increased paranoia and his once legendary dedication to detail deteriorated. Producers also refused to allow Peckinpah to rewrite the screenplay for the first time since his debut film "The Deadly Companions". Frustrated, the director spent large amounts of time in his on-location trailer, allowing assistants to direct many scenes. At one point he overdosed on cocaine, landing himself in a hospital and receiving a second pacemaker. The film was completed and was reasonably successful at the box office, although critics panned it. Today, the film is considered one of Peckinpah's weakest films, and an example of his decline as a major director.
Still renowned in 1975, Peckinpah was offered the opportunity to direct the eventual blockbusters "King Kong" (1976) and "Superman" (1978). He turned down both offers and chose instead the bleak and vivid World War II drama "Cross of Iron" (1977). The screenplay was based on a novel about a platoon of German soldiers in 1943 on the verge of utter collapse on the Taman Peninsula on the Eastern Front. The German production was filmed in Yugoslavia. Working with James Hamilton and Walter Kelley, Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay and screened numerous Nazi documentaries in preparation. Almost immediately, Peckinpah realized he was working on a low-budget production, as he had to spend $90,000 of his own money to hire experienced crew members. While not suffering from the cocaine abuse which marked "The Killer Elite", Peckinpah continued to drink heavily causing his direction to become confused and erratic. The production abruptly ran out of funds, and Peckinpah was forced to completely improvise the concluding sequence, filming the scene in one day. Despite these obstacles, the film's war footage was stunning and James Coburn, in the lead role of Rolf Steiner, gave one of the finest performances of his career. Co-starring James Mason, Maximilian Schell, David Warner and Senta Berger, "Cross of Iron" was noted for its opening montage utilizing documentary footage as well as the visceral impact of the unusually intense battle sequences. The film was a huge box office success in Europe, inspiring the sequel "Breakthrough" starring Richard Burton. "Cross of Iron" was reportedly a favorite of Orson Welles, who said that after "All Quiet on the Western Front" it was the finest anti-war film he had ever seen. The film performed poorly in the U.S., eclipsed ultimately by "Star Wars", though today it is highly regarded and considered the last gasp of Peckinpah's once-great talent.
Hoping to create a blockbuster, Peckinpah decided to take on "Convoy" (1978). His associates were perplexed, as they felt his choice to direct such substandard material was a result of his renewed cocaine use and continued alcoholism. Based on the hit song by C. W. McCall, the film was an attempt to capitalize on the huge success of "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977). In spite of his addictions, Peckinpah felt compelled to turn the genre exercise into something more significant. Unhappy with the screenplay written by B.W.L. Norton, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue. In another departure from the script, Peckinpah attempted to add a new dimension by casting a pair of black actors as members of the convoy, Madge Sinclair as Widow Woman and Franklyn Ajaye as Spider Mike. Filmed in New Mexico and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw and Ernest Borgnine, "Convoy" turned out to be yet another troubled Peckinpah production, with the director's health a continuing problem. Friend and actor James Coburn was brought in to serve as second unit director, and he filmed many of the scenes while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The film wrapped in September 1977, 11 days behind schedule and $5 million over budget. Surprisingly, "Convoy" was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office, but was panned by many critics, leaving his reputation seriously damaged. For the first time in almost a decade, Peckinpah finished a picture and found himself unemployed.
For the next three years, Peckinpah remained a professional outcast. But during the summer of 1981, his original mentor Don Siegel gave him a chance to return to filmmaking. While shooting "Jinxed!", a comedy drama starring Bette Midler and Rip Torn, Siegel asked Peckinpah if he would be interested in directing 12 days of second unit work. Peckinpah immediately accepted, and his earnest collaboration, while uncredited, was noted within the industry. For the final time, Peckinpah found himself back in the directing business.
By 1982, Peckinpah's health was poor. Producers Peter S. Davis and William N. Panzer were undaunted, as they felt that having Peckinpah's name attached to "The Osterman Weekend" (1983) would lend the suspense thriller an air of respectability. Peckinpah accepted the job but reportedly hated the convoluted screenplay based upon Robert Ludlum's novel, which he also disliked. Multiple actors in Hollywood auditioned for the film, intrigued by the opportunity. Many of those who signed on, including John Hurt, Burt Lancaster and Dennis Hopper, did so for less than their usual salaries for a chance to work with the legendary director. By the time shooting wrapped in January 1983 in Los Angeles, Peckinpah and the producers were hardly speaking. Nevertheless, Peckinpah brought the film in on time and on budget, delivering his director's cut to the producers. Davis and Panzer were unhappy with Peckinpah's version, which included an opening sequence of two characters making love. The producers changed the opening and also deleted other scenes they deemed unnecessary. "The Osterman Weekend" had some effective action sequences and some strong supporting performances, but Peckinpah's final film was critically panned. It grossed $6.5 million in the United States (nearly recouping its budget) and did well in Europe and on the new home-video market.
Peckinpah's last work as a filmmaker was undertaken two months before his death. He was hired by producer Martin Lewis to shoot two music videos featuring Julian Lennon—"Valotte" and "Too Late For Goodbyes." The critically acclaimed videos led to Lennon's nomination for Best New Video Artist at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27641 |
Shanghai
Shanghai (, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four municipalities of the People's Republic of China. It is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze, with the Huangpu River flowing through it. With a population of 24.28 million , it is the most populous urban area in China and the second most populous city proper in the world. Shanghai is a global center for finance, innovation and transportation and the Port of Shanghai is the world's busiest container port.
Originally a fishing village and market town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to trade and its favorable port location. The city was one of five treaty ports forced open to foreign trade after the First Opium War. The Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession were subsequently established. The city then flourished, becoming a primary commercial and financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region in the 1930s. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city was the site of the major Battle of Shanghai. After the war, with the CPC takeover of mainland China in 1949, trade was limited to other socialist countries and the city's global influence declined.
In the 1990s, economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense redevelopment of the city, especially the Pudong district, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment to the city. The city has since re-emerged as a hub for international trade and finance; it is the home of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world by market capitalization and the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, the first free-trade zone in China.
Shanghai has been described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of China. Featuring several architecture styles such as Art Deco and shikumen, the city is renowned for its Lujiazui skyline, museums and historic buildings—including the City God Temple, Yu Garden, the China Pavilion and buildings along the Bund. Shanghai is also known for its sugary cuisine, distinctive dialect and vibrant international flair. Every year, the city hosts numerous national and international events, including Shanghai Fashion Week, the Chinese Grand Prix and ChinaJoy.
Shanghai is governed as one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of Chinese central government and is thus under direct administration of the State Council.
The two Chinese characters in the city's name are (/"zan", "upon") and (/"hae", "sea"), together meaning "Upon the Sea". The earliest occurrence of this name dates from the 11th-century Song dynasty, when there was already a river confluence and a town with this name in the area. How the name should be understood has been disputed, but Chinese historians have concluded that during the Tang dynasty, the area of modern-day Shanghai was under the sea level, so the land appeared to be literally "on the sea".
Shanghai is officially abbreviated (/"Vu"2) in Chinese, a contraction of (/"Vu Doh", "Harpoon Ditch"), a 4th- or Jin name for the mouth of Suzhou Creek when it was the main conduit into the ocean. This character appears on all motor vehicle license plates issued in the municipality today.
("Shēn") or ("Shēnchéng", "Shen City") was an early name originating from Lord Chunshen, a 3rd-century BC nobleman and prime minister of the state of Chu, whose fief included modern Shanghai. Shanghainese sports teams and newspapers often use Shen in their names, such as Shanghai Shenhua F.C. and "Shen Bao".
The city has various nicknames in English, including "Pearl of the Orient" and "Paris of the East".
The western part of modern-day Shanghai was inhabited 6000 years ago. During the Spring and Autumn period (approximately 771 to 476 BC), it belonged to the Kingdom of Wu, which was conquered by the Kingdom of Yue, which in turn was conquered by the Kingdom of Chu. During the Warring States period (475 BC), Shanghai was part of the fief of Lord Chunshen of Chu, one of the Four Lords of the Warring States. He ordered the excavation of the Huangpu River. Its former or poetic name, the Chunshen River, gave Shanghai its nickname of "Shēn". Fishermen living in the Shanghai area then created a fish tool called the "hù", which lent its name to the outlet of Suzhou Creek north of the Old City and became a common nickname and abbreviation for the city.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, Qinglong Town () in modern Qingpu District was a major trading port. Established in 746 (the fifth year of the Tang Tianbao era), it developed into what historically called a "giant town of the Southeast", with thirteen temples and seven pagodas. Mi Fu, a scholar and artist of the Song dynasty, served as its mayor. The port experienced thriving trade with provinces along the Yangtze and the Chinese coast, as well as with foreign countries such as Japan and Silla.
By the end of the Song dynasty, the center of trading had moved downstream of the Wusong River to Shanghai. It was upgraded in status from a village to a market town in 1074, and in 1172, a second sea wall was built to stabilize the ocean coastline, supplementing an earlier dike. From the Yuan dynasty in 1292 until Shanghai officially became a municipality in 1927, central Shanghai was administered as a county under Songjiang Prefecture, which had its seat in the present-day Songjiang District.
Two important events helped promote Shanghai's developments in the Ming dynasty. A city wall was built for the first time in 1554 to protect the town from raids by Japanese pirates. It measured high and in circumference. A City God Temple was built in 1602 during the Wanli reign. This honor was usually reserved for prefectural capitals and not normally given to a mere county seat such as Shanghai. Scholars have theorized that this likely reflected the town's economic importance, as opposed to its low political status.
During the Qing dynasty, Shanghai became one of the most important sea ports in the Yangtze Delta region as a result of two important central government policy changes: in 1684, the Kangxi Emperor reversed the Ming dynasty prohibition on oceangoing vessels—a ban that had been in force since 1525; and in 1732, the Qianlong Emperor moved the customs office for Jiangsu province (; see Customs House, Shanghai) from the prefectural capital of Songjiang to Shanghai, and gave Shanghai exclusive control over customs collections for Jiangsu's foreign trade. As a result of these two critical decisions, Shanghai became the major trade port for all of the lower Yangtze region by 1735, despite still being at the lowest administrative level in the political hierarchy.
In the 19th century, international attention to Shanghai grew due to European recognition of its economic and trade potential at the Yangtze. During the First Opium War (1839–1842), British forces occupied the city. The war ended in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanking, which opened Shanghai as one of the five treaty ports for international trade. The Treaty of the Bogue, the Treaty of Wanghia, and the Treaty of Whampoa (signed in 1843, 1844, and 1844, respectively) forced Chinese concession to European and American desires for visitation and trade on Chinese soil. Britain, France, and the United States all carved out outside the walled city of Shanghai, which was still ruled by the Chinese.
The Chinese-held Old City of Shanghai fell to rebels from the Small Swords Society in 1853, but was recovered by the Qing government in February 1855. In 1854, the Shanghai Municipal Council was created to manage the foreign settlements. Between 1860 and 1862, the Taiping rebels twice attacked Shanghai and destroyed the city's eastern and southern suburbs, but failed to take the city. In 1863, the British settlement to the south of Suzhou Creek (northern Huangpu District) and the American settlement to the north (southern Hongkou District) joined in order to form the Shanghai International Settlement. The French opted out of the Shanghai Municipal Council and maintained its own concession to the south and southwest.
The First Sino-Japanese War concluded with the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, which elevated Japan to become another foreign power in Shanghai. Japan built the first factories in Shanghai, which was soon copied by other foreign powers. All this international activity gave Shanghai the nickname "the Great Athens of China". In 1914, the Old City walls were dismantled because they blocked the city's expansion. In July 1921, the Communist Party of China was founded in the French Concession. On May 30, 1925, the May Thirtieth Movement broke out when a worker in a Japanese-owned cotton mill was shot and killed by a Japanese foreman. Workers in the city then launched general strikes against imperialism, which became nation-wide protests that gave rise to Chinese nationalism.
The golden age of Shanghai began with its elevation to municipality on 7 July 1927. This new Chinese municipality covered an area of , including the modern-day districts of Baoshan, Yangpu, Zhabei, Nanshi, and Pudong, but excluded the foreign concessions territories. Headed by a Chinese mayor and municipal council, the new city government's first task—the Greater Shanghai Plan—was to create a new city center in Jiangwan town of Yangpu district, outside the boundaries of the foreign concessions. The plan included a public museum, library, sports stadium, and city hall, which were partially constructed before being interrupted by the Japanese invasion.
The city flourished, becoming a primary commercial and financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region in the 1930s. During the ensuing decades, citizens of many countries and all continents came to Shanghai to live and work; those who stayed for long periods—some for generations—called themselves "Shanghailanders". In the 1920s and 1930s, almost 20,000 White Russians fled the newly established Soviet Union to reside in Shanghai. These Shanghai Russians constituted the second-largest foreign community. By 1932, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city and home to 70,000 foreigners. In the 1930s, some 30,000 Ashkenazi Jewish refugees from Europe arrived in the city.
On 28 January 1932, Japanese forces invaded Shanghai while the Chinese resisted. More than 10,000 shops and hundreds of factories were destroyed, leaving Zhabei district ruined. About 18,000 civilians were either killed, injured, or declared missing. A ceasefire was brokered on 5 May. In 1937, the Battle of Shanghai resulted in the occupation of the Chinese-administered parts of Shanghai outside of the International Settlement and the French Concession. People who stayed in the occupied city suffered on a daily basis, experiencing hunger, oppression, or even death. The foreign concessions were ultimately occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 and remained occupied until Japan's surrender in 1945; multiple war crimes were committed during that time.
A side-effect of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai was the Shanghai Ghetto. Japanese consul to Kaunas, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees who were escaping the Nazi's Final Solution to the Jewish Question. They traveled from Keidan, Lithuania across Russia by railroad to the Vladivostok from where they traveled by ship to Kobe, Japan. However, the Jewish refugees' stay in Kobe was short as the Japanese government transferred them to Shanghai by November, 1941. Other Jewish refugees found haven in Shanghai, not through Sugihara, but came on ships from Italy. The refugees from Europe were interned into a cramped ghetto in the Hongkou District, and after the Japenese invasion of Pearl Harbor, even the Iraqi Jews who had been living in Shanghai from before the outbreak of WWII were interned. Among the refugees in the Shanghai Ghetto was the Mirrer Yeshiva, including its students and faculty. On September 3, 1945, the Chinese Army liberated the Ghetto and most of the Jews left over the next few years. By 1957, there were only one hundred Jews remaining in Shanghai.
On 27 May 1949, the People's Liberation Army took control of Shanghai through the Shanghai Campaign. Under the new People's Republic of China (PRC), Shanghai was one of only three municipalities not merged into neighboring provinces (the others being Beijing and Tianjin). Most foreign firms moved their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong, as part of a foreign divestment due to the PRC's victory.
After the war, Shanghai's economy was restored—from 1949 to 1952, the city's agricultural and industrial output increased by 51.5% and 94.2%, respectively. There were 20 urban districts and 10 suburbs at the time. On 17 January 1958, Jiading, Baoshan, and Shanghai County in Jiangsu became part of Shanghai Municipality, which expanded to . The following December, the land area of Shanghai was further expanded to after more surrounding suburban areas in Jiangsu were added: Chongming, Jinshan, Qingpu, Fengxian, Chuansha, and Nanhui. In 1964, the city's administrative divisions were rearranged to 10 urban districts and 10 counties.
As the industrial center of China with most skilled industrial workers, Shanghai became a center for radical leftism during the 1950s and 1960s. The radical leftist Jiang Qing and her three allies, together the Gang of Four, were based in the city. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), Shanghai's society was severely damaged, with 310,000 wrongful convictions involving more than 1 million people. About 11,500 people were unjustly persecuted to death. Yet, even during the most tumultuous times of the revolution, Shanghai was able to maintain economic production with positive annual growth rate.
Since 1949, Shanghai has been a comparatively heavy contributor of tax revenue to the central government; in 1983, the city's contribution in tax revenue was greater than investment received in the past 33 years combined. T. Its importance to the fiscal well-being of the central government also denied it from economic liberalizations begun in 1978. In 1990, Deng Xiaoping finally permitted Shanghai to initiate economic reforms, which reintroduced foreign capital to the city and developed the Pudong district, resulting in the birth of Lujiazui.
Shanghai is located on the Yangtze Estuary of China's east coast, with the Yangtze River to the north and Hangzhou Bay to the south. The land is formed by the Yangtze's natural deposition and modern land reclamation projects. As such, it has sandy soil, and skyscrapers are to be built with deep concrete piles to avoid sinking into the soft ground. The provincial-level Municipality of Shanghai administers both the estuary and many of its surrounding islands. It is roughly equidistant from Beijing and Guangzhou, bordering the East China Sea to the east, Zhejiang to the south, and Jiangsu to the west and north. The municipality's northernmost point is on Chongming Island, which is the second-largest island in mainland China after its expansion during the 20th century. However, it does not include an exclave of Jiangsu on northern Chongming or the two islands forming Shanghai's Yangshan Port, which are parts of Zhejiang's Shengsi County.
Shanghai is located on an alluvial plain. As such, the vast majority of its land area is flat, with an average elevation of . The city's few hills, such as She Shan, lie to the southwest, and its highest point is the peak of Dajinshan Island () in Hangzhou Bay. Shanghai has many rivers, canals, streams, and lakes, and it is known for its rich water resources as part of the Lake Tai drainage basin.
Downtown Shanghai is bisected by the Huangpu River, a man-made tributary of the Yangtze created by order of Lord Chunshen during the Warring States period. The historic center of the city was located on the west bank of the Huangpu (Puxi), near the mouth of Suzhou Creek, connecting it with Lake Tai and the Grand Canal. The central financial district, Lujiazui, has been established on the east bank of the Huangpu (Pudong). Along Shanghai's eastern shore, the destruction of local wetlands due to the construction of Pudong International Airport has been partially offset by the protection and expansion of a nearby shoal, Jiuduansha, as a nature preserve.
Shanghai has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cfa"), with an average annual temperature of for urban districts and for suburbs. The city experiences four distinct seasons. Winters are chilly and damp—northwesterly winds from Siberia can cause nighttime temperatures to drop below freezing. Each year, there are an average of 6.2 days with snowfall and 2.8 days with snow cover. Summers are hot and humid, and occasional downpours or freak thunderstorms can be expected. On average, 8.7 days exceed annually. In summer and the beginning of autumn, the city is susceptible to typhoons, which have not caused considerable damage in recent years.
The most pleasant seasons are generally spring, although changeable and often rainy, and autumn, which is usually sunny and dry. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 34% in March to 54% in August, the city receives 1,895 hours of bright sunshine annually. Extremes since 1951 have ranged from on 31 January 1977 (unofficial record of was set on 19 January 1893) to on 21 July 2017 at a weather station in Xujiahui.
Shanghai has a rich collection of buildings and structures of various architectural styles. The Bund, located by the bank of the Huangpu River, is home to a row of early 20th-century architecture, ranging in style from the neoclassical HSBC Building to the Art Deco Sassoon House (now part of the Peace Hotel). Many areas in the former foreign concessions are also well-preserved, the most notable being the French Concession. Shanghai is also home to many architecturally distinctive and even eccentric buildings, including the Shanghai Museum, the Shanghai Grand Theatre, the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, and the Oriental Pearl Tower. Despite rampant redevelopment, the Old City still retains some traditional architecture and designs, such as the Yu Garden, an elaborate Jiangnan style garden.
As a result of its construction boom during the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai has among the most Art Deco buildings in the world. One of the most famous architects working in Shanghai was László Hudec, a Hungarian-Slovak who lived in the city between 1918 and 1947. His most notable Art Deco buildings include the Park Hotel, the Grand Theatre, and the Paramount. Other prominent architects who contributed to the Art Deco style are Clement Palmer and Arthur Turner, who together designed the Peace Hotel, the Metropole Hotel, and the Broadway Mansions; and Austrian architect GH Gonda, who designed the Capitol Theater. The Bund has been revitalized several times. The first was in 1986, with a new promenade by the Dutch architect Paulus Snoeren. The second was before the 2010 Expo, which includes restoration of the century-old Waibaidu Bridge and reconfiguration of traffic flow.
One uniquely Shanghainese cultural element is the shikumen (, "stone storage door") residence, typically two- or three-story gray brick houses with the front yard protected by a heavy wooden door in a stylistic stone arch. Each residence is connected and arranged in straight alleys, known as longtang (). The house is similar to western-style terrace houses or townhouses, but distinguishes by the tall, heavy brick wall and archway in front of each house.
The shikumen is a cultural blend of elements found in Western architecture with traditional Jiangnan Chinese architecture and social behavior. Like almost all traditional Chinese dwellings, it has a courtyard, which reduces outside noise. Vegetation can be grown in the courtyard, and it can also allow for sunlight and ventilation to the rooms.
Some of Shanghai's buildings feature Soviet neoclassical architecture or Stalinist architecture, though the city has fewer such structures than Beijing. These buildings were mostly erected between the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and the Sino-Soviet Split in the late 1960s. During this time period, large numbers of Soviet experts, including architects, poured into China to aid the country in the construction of a communist state. An example of Soviet neoclassical architecture in Shanghai is the modern-day Shanghai Exhibition Center.
Shanghai—Lujiazui in particular—has numerous skyscrapers, making it the fifth city in the world with the most skyscrapers. Among the most prominent examples are the high Jin Mao Tower, the high Shanghai World Financial Center, and the high Shanghai Tower, which is the tallest building in China and the second tallest in the world. Completed in 2015, the tower takes the form of nine twisted sections stacked atop each other, totaling 128 floors. It is featured in its double-skin facade design, which eliminates the need for either layer to be opaqued for reflectivity as the double-layer structure has already reduced the heat absorption. The futuristic-looking Oriental Pearl Tower, at , is located nearby at the northern tip of Lujiazui. Skyscrapers outside of Lujiazui include the White Magnolia Plaza in Hongkou, the Shimao International Plaza in Huangpu, and the Shanghai Wheelock Square in Jing'an.
Like virtually all governing institutions in mainland China, Shanghai has a parallel party-government system, in which the Party Committee Secretary, officially termed the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary, outranks the Mayor. The acts as the top policy-formulation body, and is typically composed of 12 members (including the secretary).
Political power in Shanghai has frequently been a stepping stone to higher positions in the central government. Since Jiang Zemin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in June 1989, all former Shanghai party secretaries but one were elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, the "de facto" highest decision-making body in China, including Jiang himself (Party General Secretary), Zhu Rongji (Premier), Wu Bangguo (Chairman of the National People's Congress), Huang Ju (Vice Premier), Xi Jinping (current General Secretary), Yu Zhengsheng, and Han Zheng. Zeng Qinghong, a former deputy party secretary of Shanghai, also rose to the Politburo Standing Committee and became the Vice President and an influential power broker. The only exception is Chen Liangyu, who was fired in 2006 and later convicted of corruption.
Officials with ties to the Shanghai administration collectively form a powerful faction in the central government known as the Shanghai Clique, which has often been viewed to compete against the rival Youth League Faction over personnel appointments and policy decisions. However, Xi Jinping, successor to Hu Jintao as General Secretary and President, was largely an independent leader and took anti-corruption campaigns on both factions.
Shanghai is one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of the Government of the People's Republic of China, and is divided into 16 county-level districts.
Although every district has its own urban core, the city hall and major administrative units are located in Huangpu District, which also serves as a commercial area, including the famous Nanjing Road. Other major commercial areas include Xintiandi and Huaihai Road in Huangpu District, and Xujiahui in Xuhui District. Many universities in Shanghai are located in residential areas in Yangpu District and Putuo District.
Seven of the districts govern Puxi ( "The West Bank", or "West of the River Pu"), the older part of urban Shanghai on the west bank of the Huangpu River. These seven districts are collectively referred to as Shanghai Proper () or the core city (), which comprise Huangpu, Xuhui, Changning, Jing'an, Putuo, Hongkou, and Yangpu.
Pudong ( "The East Bank", or "East of the River Pu"), the newer part of urban and suburban Shanghai on the east bank of the Huangpu River, is governed by Pudong New Area ().
Seven of the districts govern suburbs, satellite towns, and rural areas farther away from the urban core: Baoshan, Minhang, Jiading, Jinshan, Songjiang, Qingpu, and Fengxian.
Chongming District comprises the islands of Changxing and Hengsha and most—but not all—of Chongming Island.
The former district of Nanhui was absorbed into Pudong District in 2009. In 2011, Luwan District merged with Huangpu District. , these county-level divisions are further divided into the following 210 township-level divisions: 109 towns, 2 townships, and 99 subdistricts. Those are in turn divided into the following village-level divisions: 3,661 neighborhood committees and 1,704 village committees.
Shanghai has been described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of China. The city is a global center for finance and innovation, and a national center for commerce, trade, and transportation, with the world's busiest container port—the Port of Shanghai. , Shanghai had a GDP of () that makes up 3.85% of China's GDP, and a GDP per capita of (). Shanghai's six largest industries—retail, finance, IT, real estate, machine manufacturing, and automotive manufacturing—comprise about half the city's GDP. In 2019, the average annual disposable income of Shanghai's residents was () per capita, making it one of the wealthiest cities in China, but also the most expensive city in mainland China to live in according to a 2017 study by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Shanghai was the largest and most prosperous city in East Asia during the 1930s, and rapid redevelopment began in the 1990s. In the last two decades, Shanghai has been one of the fastest-developing cities in the world; it has recorded double-digit GDP growth in almost every year between 1992 and 2008, before the financial crisis of 2007–08.
Shanghai is a global financial center, ranking fourth in the 26th edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (and third in Asia, after Singapore and Hong Kong), published in September 2019 by Z/Yen and China Development Institute. , the Shanghai Stock Exchange had a market capitalization of , making it the largest stock exchange in China and the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world. In 2009, the trading volume of six key commodities—including rubber, copper, and zinc—on the Shanghai Futures Exchange all ranked first globally. By the end of 2017, Shanghai had 1,491 financial institutions, of which 251 were foreign-invested.
In September 2013 with the backing of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the city launched the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free-Trade Zone—the first free-trade zone in mainland China. The zone introduced a number of pilot reforms designed to incentivize foreign investment. In April 2014, "The Banker" reported that Shanghai "has attracted the highest volumes of financial sector foreign direct investment in the Asia-Pacific region in the 12 months to the end of January 2014". In August 2014, "fDi magazine" named Shanghai the "Chinese Province of the Future 2014/15" due to "particularly impressive performances in the Business Friendliness and Connectivity categories, as well as placing second in the Economic Potential and Human Capital and Lifestyle categories".
As one of the main industrial centers of China, Shanghai plays a key role in domestic manufacturing and heavy industry. Several industrial zones—including Shanghai Hongqiao Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jinqiao Export Economic Processing Zone, Minhang Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Shanghai Caohejing High-Tech Development Zone—are backbones of Shanghai's secondary industry. Shanghai is home to China's largest steelmaker Baosteel Group, China's largest shipbuilding base Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group, and one of China's oldest shipbuilders, the Jiangnan Shipyard. Auto manufacturing is another important industry. The Shanghai-based SAIC Motor is one of the three largest automotive corporations in China, and has strategic partnerships with Volkswagen and General Motors.
Tourism is a major industry of Shanghai. In 2017, the number of domestic tourists increased by 7.5% to 318 million, while the number of overseas tourists increased by 2.2% to 8.73 million. , the city had 71 five star hotels, 61 four star hotels, 1,758 travel agencies, 113 rated tourist attractions, and 34 red tourist attractions.
The conference and meeting sector is also growing. According to the International Congress and Convention Association, Shanghai hosted 82 international meetings in 2018, a 34% increase from 61 in 2017.
Shanghai is home to China (Shanghai) Pilot Free-Trade Zone, the first free-trade zone in mainland China. , it is also the second largest free-trade zone in mainland China in terms of land area (behind , which covers the whole Hainan province) by covering an area of and integrating four existing bonded zones—Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, Waigaoqiao Free Trade Logistics Park, Yangshan Free Trade Port Area, and Pudong Airport Comprehensive Free Trade Zone. Several preferential policies have been implemented to attract foreign investment in various industries to the zone. Because the zone is not technically considered Chinese territory for tax purposes, commodities entering the zone are exempt from duty and customs clearance.
, Shanghai had a total population of 24,281,400, including 14,504,300 (59.7%) hukou holders (registered locally). According to the 2010 national census, 89.3% of Shanghai's population live in urban areas, and 10.7% live in rural areas. Based on the population of its total administrative area, Shanghai is the second largest of the four municipalities of China, behind Chongqing, but is generally considered the largest Chinese city because the urban population of Chongqing is much smaller. According to the OECD, Shanghai's metropolitan area has an estimated population of 34 million.
According to the Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, about 157,900 residents in Shanghai are foreigners, including 28,900 Japanese, 21,900 Americans and, 20,800 Koreans. However, the actual number of foreign citizens in the city is probably much higher. Shanghai is also a domestic immigration city—40.3% (9.8 million) of the city's residents are from other regions of China.
Shanghai has a life expectancy of 83.6 years for the city's registered population, the highest life expectancy of all cities in mainland China. However, this has also caused the city to experience population aging—in 2017, 33.1% (4.8 million) of the city's registered population was aged 60 or above. In 2017, the Chinese government implemented population controls for Shanghai, resulting in a population decline of 10,000 people by the end of the year.
Due to its cosmopolitan history, Shanghai has a blend of religious heritage; religious buildings and institutions are scattered around the city. According to a 2012 survey, only 13.1% of the city's population belongs to organized religions, including Buddhists with 10.4%, Protestants with 1.9%, Catholics with 0.7%, and other faiths with 0.1%. The remaining 86.9% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities and ancestors, Confucian churches, Taoism, or folk religious sects.
Buddhism, in its Chinese varieties, has had a presence in Shanghai since the Three Kingdoms period, during which the Longhua Temple—the largest temple in Shanghai—and the Jing'an Temple were founded. Another significant temple is the Jade Buddha Temple, which was named after a large statue of Buddha carved out of jade in the temple. , Buddhism in Shanghai had 114 temples, 1,182 clergical staff, and 453,300 registered followers. The religion also has its own college, the , and its own press, .
Catholicism was brought into Shanghai in 1608 by Italian missionary Lazzaro Cattaneo. The Apostolic Vicariate of Shanghai was erected in 1933, and was further elevated to the Diocese of Shanghai in 1946. Notable Catholic sites include the St. Ignatius Cathedral in Xujiahui—the largest Catholic church in the city, the St. Francis Xavier Church, and the She Shan Basilica. Other forms of Christianity in Shanghai include Eastern Orthodox minorities and, since 1996, registered Christian Protestant churches. During World War II, thousands of Jews emigrated to Shanghai in an effort to flee Nazi Germany. They lived in a designated area called the Shanghai Ghetto and formed a community centered on the Ohel Moishe Synagogue, which is now the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum.
Islam came into Shanghai during the Yuan dynasty. The city's first mosque, Songjiang Mosque, was built during the Zhizheng () era under Emperor Huizong. Shanghai's Muslim population increased in the 19th and early 20th centuries (when the city was a treaty port), during which time many mosques—including the Xiaotaoyuan Mosque, the Huxi Mosque, and the Pudong Mosque—were built. The Shanghai Islamic Association is located in the Xiaotaoyuan Mosque in Huangpu.
Shanghai has several folk religious temples, including the City God Temple at the heart of the Old City, the Dajing Ge Pavilion dedicated to the Three Kingdoms general Guan Yu, the Confucian Temple of Shanghai, and a major Taoist center where the Shanghai Taoist Association locates.
The vernacular language spoken in the city is Shanghainese, a dialect of the Taihu Wu subgroup of the Wu Chinese family. This is different from the official Chinese dialect, Mandarin, which is mutually unintelligible with Wu Chinese. Modern Shanghainese is based on other dialects of Taihu Wu: Suzhounese, Ningbonese, and the local dialect of Songjiang Prefecture.
Prior to its expansion, the language spoken in Shanghai was subordinate to those spoken around Jiaxing and later Suzhou, and was known as "the local tongue" (), which is now being used in suburbs only. In the late 19th century, downtown Shanghainese () appeared, undergoing rapid changes and quickly replacing Suzhounese as the prestige dialect of the Yangtze River Delta region. At the time, most of the city's residents were immigrants from the two adjacent provinces, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, so Shanghainese was mostly a hybrid between Southern Jiangsu and Ningbo dialects. After 1949, Putonghua has also had a great impact on Shanghainese as a result of being rigorously promoted by the government. Since the 1990s, many migrants outside of the Wu-speaking region have come to Shanghai for education and jobs. They often cannot speak the local language and therefore use Putonghua as a lingua franca. Because Putonghua and English were more favored, Shanghainese began to decline, and fluency among young speakers weakened. However, in recent years, there have been movements within the city to promote the local language and protect it from fading out.
Shanghai is a major center of higher education in China. By the end of 2019, Shanghai had 64 universities and colleges, 929 secondary schools, 698 primary schools, and 31 special schools. A number of China's most prestigious universities are based in Shanghai, including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tongji University, and East China Normal University. These universities were selected as "985 universities" by the Chinese government in order to build world-class universities. Fudan University established a joint EMBA program with Washington University in St. Louis in 2002 which has since consistently been ranked as one of the best in the world. The city government's education agency is the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.
The city has many , such as the Shanghai University–University of Technology Sydney Business School since 1994, the University of Michigan–Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute since 2006, and New York University Shanghai—the first China–U.S. joint venture university—since 2012. In 2013, the Shanghai Municipality and the Chinese Academy of Sciences founded the ShanghaiTech University in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong. Shanghai is also home to the cadre school China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong and the China Europe International Business School.
In Shanghai, the nine years of compulsory education—including five years of primary education and four years of junior secondary education—are free, with a gross enrollment ratio of over 99.9%. The city's compulsory education system is among the best in the world: in 2009 and 2012, 15-year-old students from Shanghai ranked first in every subject (math, reading, and science) in the Program for International Student Assessment, a worldwide study of academic performance conducted by the OECD. The consecutive three-year senior secondary education is priced and uses the Senior High School Entrance Examination ("Zhongkao") as a selection process, with a gross enrollment ratio of 98%. Among all senior high schools, the four with the best teaching quality—Shanghai High School, No. 2 High School Attached to East China Normal University, High School Affiliated to Fudan University, and High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University—are termed "The Four Schools" () of Shanghai. , the city's National College Entrance Examination ("Gaokao") is structured under the "3+3" system, in which all general senior high school students study three compulsory subjects (Chinese, English, and math) and three subjects chosen from six options (physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, and politics).
Shanghai has an extensive public transportation system comprising metros, buses, ferries, and taxis, all of which can be accessed using a Shanghai Public Transport Card.
Shanghai's rapid transit system, the Shanghai Metro, incorporates both subway and light metro lines and extends to every core urban district as well as neighboring suburban districts. , there are 17 metro lines (excluding the Shanghai maglev train and Jinshan Railway), 415 stations, and of lines in operation, making it the longest network in the world. On 8 March 2019, it set the city's daily metro ridership record with 13.3 million. The average fare ranges from () to (), depending on the travel distance.
Opened in 2004, the Shanghai maglev train is the first and the fastest commercial high-speed maglev in the world, with a maximum operation speed of . The train can complete the journey between Longyang Road Station and Pudong International Airport in 7 minutes 20 seconds, comparing to 32 minutes by Metro Line 2 and 30 minutes by car. A one-way ticket costs (), or () for those with airline tickets or public transportation cards. A round-trip ticket costs (), and VIP tickets cost double the standard fare.
With the first tram line been in service in 1908, trams were once popular in Shanghai in the early 20th century. By 1925, there were 328 tramcars and 14 routes operated by Chinese, French, and British companies collaboratively, all of which were nationalized after the PRC's victory in 1949. Since the 1960s, many tram lines were either dismantled or replaced by trolleybus or motorbus lines; the last tram line was demolished in 1975. Shanghai reintroduced trams in 2010, as a modern rubber-tire Translohr system in Zhangjiang area of East Shanghai as Zhangjiang Tram. In 2018, the steel wheeled Songjiang Tram started operating in Songjiang District. Additional tram lines are under planning in Hongqiao Subdistrict and Jiading District .
Shanghai also has the world's most extensive bus network, including the world's oldest continuously operating trolleybus system, with 1,575 lines covering a total length of by 2019. The system is operated by multiple companies. Bus fares generally cost ().
, a total of 40,000 taxis were in operation in Shanghai. The base fare for taxis is (), which covers the first and includes a () fuel surcharge. The base fare is () between 11:00 pm and 5:00 am. Each additional kilometer costs (), or () between 11:00 pm and 5:00 am. In addition to traditional taxis, ridesharing companies including DiDi and Uber play major roles in urban transportation. Ridesharing costs are comparable to those of taxis, and are sometimes even lower due to promotional discounts from ridesharing companies.
Shanghai is a major hub of China's expressway network. Many national expressways (prefixed with the letter G) pass through or end in Shanghai, including Jinghu Expressway (overlaps with Hurong Expressway), Shenhai Expressway, Hushaan Expressway, Huyu Expressway, Hukun Expressway (overlaps with Hangzhou Bay Ring Expressway), and Shanghai Ring Expressway. There are also numerous municipal expressways prefixed with the letter S. As of 2019, Shanghai has a total of 12 bridges and 14 tunnels crossing the Huangpu River. The Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge is the city's only bridge–tunnel complex across Yangtze River.
The expressway network within the city center consists of North–South Elevated Road, Yan'an Elevated Road, and Inner Ring Road. Other ring roads in Shanghai include Middle Ring Road, Outer Ring Expressway, and Shanghai Ring Expressway.
Bicycle lanes are common in Shanghai, separating non-motorized traffic from car traffic on most surface streets. However, on some main roads, including all expressways, bicycles and motorcycles are banned. In recent years, cycling has seen a resurgence in popularity due to the emergence of a large number of dockless app-based bicycle-sharing systems, such as Mobike, Bluegogo, and ofo. , these ridesharing systems have a joint average of 1.15 million daily riders within the city.
Private car ownership in Shanghai is rapidly increasing: in 2019, there were 3.40 million private cars in the city, a 12.5% increase from 2018. New private cars cannot be driven without a license plate, which are sold in monthly license plate auctions. Around 9,500 license plates are auctioned each month, and the average price is about () in 2019. According to the city's vehicle regulations introduced in June 2016, only locally registered residents and those who have paid social insurance or individual income taxes for over three years are eligible to be in the auction. The purpose of this policy is to limit the growth of automobile traffic and alleviate congestion.
Shanghai has four major railway stations: Shanghai railway station, Shanghai South railway station, Shanghai West railway station, and Shanghai Hongqiao railway station. All are connected to the metro network and serve as hubs in the railway network of China.
Built in 1876, the Woosung railway was the first railway in Shanghai and the first railway in operation in China By 1909, Shanghai–Nanjing railway and Shanghai–Hangzhou railway were in service. , the two railways have been integrated into two main railways in China: Beijing–Shanghai railway and Shanghai–Kunming railway, respectively.
Shanghai has three high-speed railways (HSRs): Beijing–Shanghai HSR (overlaps with Shanghai–Wuhan–Chengdu passenger railway), Shanghai–Nanjing intercity railway, and Shanghai–Kunming HSR. Two HSRs are under construction: Shanghai–Nantong railway and .
Shanghai also has four commuter railways: Pudong railway and Jinshan Railway operated by China Railway, and Line 16 and Line 17 operated by Shanghai Metro. , three additional lines—Chongming line, Jiamin line and —are under construction.
Shanghai is one of the largest air transportation hubs in Asia. The city has two commercial airports: Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. Pudong International Airport is the primary international airport, while Hongqiao International Airport mainly operates domestic flights with limited short-haul international flights. In 2018, Pudong International Airport served 74.0 million passengers and handled 3.8 million tons of cargo, making it the ninth-busiest airport by passenger volume and third-busiest airport by cargo volume. The same year, Hongqiao International Airport served 43.6 million passengers, making it the 19th-busiest airport by passenger volume.
Since its opening, the Port of Shanghai has rapidly grown to become the largest port in China. Yangshan Port was built in 2005 because the river was unsuitable for docking large container ships. The port is connected with the mainland through the long Donghai Bridge. Although the port is run by the Shanghai International Port Group under the government of Shanghai, it administratively belongs to Shengsi County, Zhejiang.
Overtaking the Port of Singapore in 2010, the Port of Shanghai has become world's busiest container port with an annual TEU transportation of 42 million in 2018. Besides cargo, the Port of Shanghai handled 259 cruises and 1.89 million passengers in 2019.
The culture of Shanghai was a combination of the nearby Wuyue culture and the "East Meets West" Haipai culture. Examples of the Wuyue culture's influence includes Shanghainese language developed from the nearby Jiaxing, Suzhou, and Ningbo dialect, and Shanghai cuisine influenced by the Jiangsu cuisine and Zhejiang cuisine. The Haipai culture emerged after Shanghai became a prosperous port in the early 20th century, with numerous foreigners from Europe, America, Japan, India moving into the city. The culture fuses elements of western cultures with the local Wuyue culture, and its influence extends to the city's literature, fashion, architecture, music, and even food and beverages. The term Haipai—originally referring to a painting school in Shanghai—was coined by a group of Beijing writers in 1920 to criticize some Shanghai scholars for admiring capitalism and western culture. In recent years, Shanghai has been recognized as a new influence and inspiration for cyberpunk culture. Futuristic buildings such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and the neon-illuminated Yan'an Elevated Road are examples that have boosted Shanghai's cyberpunk image.
Cultural curation in Shanghai has seen significant growth since 2013, with several new museums having been opened in the city. This is in part due to the city's most recently released city development plans, with aims in making the city "an excellent global city". As such, Shanghai has several museums of regional and national importance. The Shanghai Museum has one of the best collections of Chinese historical artifacts in the world, including a large collection of ancient Chinese bronzes. The China Art Museum, located in the former China Pavilion of Expo 2010, is the largest art museum in Asia. Power Station of Art is built in a converted power station, similar to London's Tate Modern. The Shanghai Natural History Museum and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum are major natural history and science museums. In addition, there is a variety of smaller, specialist museums housed in important archaeological and historical sites such as the Songze Museum, the Museum of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the site of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue (Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum), and the General Post Office Building (Shanghai Postal Museum). The Rockbund Art Museum is also in Shanghai. There are also many art galleries, concentrated in the M50 Art District and Tianzifang. Shanghai is also home to one of China's largest aquariums, the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. MoCA, Museum of Contemporary Art of Shanghai, is a private museum centrally located in People's Park on West Nanjing Road, and is committed to promote contemporary art and design.
Benbang cuisine () is Shanghai's traditional cooking style originated 400 years ago under profound influence of those of the surrounding provinces. It emphasises the use of condiments and meanwhile retaining the original flavours of the raw ingredients materials. Sugar is an important ingredient in Benbang cuisine, especially when used in combination with soy sauce. Another characteristic is the use of a great variety of seafood and freshwater food. Signature dishes of Benbang cuisine include Xiaolongbao, Red braised pork belly, and Shanghai hairy crab. Haipai cuisine, on the other hand, is a Western-style cooking originated in Shanghai but absorbs elements from French, British, Russian, German, and Italian cuisine and adapts them to suit the local taste according to the features of local ingredients. Famous dishes of Haipai cuisine include Shanghai-style borscht (, "Russian soup"), crispy pork cutlets, and derived from Olivier salad.
The Songjiang School (), containing the Huating School () founded by Gu Zhengyi, was a small painting school in Shanghai during the Ming and the Qing Dynasty. It was represented by Dong Qichang. The school was considered as a further development of the Wu School in Suzhou, the cultural center of the Jiangnan region at the time. In the mid 19th century, the Shanghai School movement commenced, focusing less on the symbolism emphasized by the Literati style but more on the visual content of the painting through the use of bright colors. Secular objects like flowers and birds were often selected as themes. Western art was introduced to Shanghai in 1847 by Spanish missionary Joannes Ferrer (), and the city's first western atelier was established in 1864 inside the . During the Republic of China, many famous artists including Zhang Daqian, Liu Haisu, Xu Beihong, Feng Zikai and Yan Wenliang settled in Shanghai thus it gradually became the art center of China. Various art forms—photography, wood carving, sculpture, comics (Manhua) and Lianhuanhua—thrived. Sanmao, one of the most well-known comics in China, was created then to dramatize the chaos brought to society by the Second Sino-Japanese War. Today, the most comprehensive art and cultural facility in Shanghai is the China Art Museum. In addition, the Chinese painting academy features the Guohua, while the Power Station of Art plays an important role in the contemporary art. First held in 1996, the Shanghai Biennale has now become an important place for Chinese and foreign arts to interact.
Traditional Xiqu became the main way of entertainment for the public in the late 19th century. In the early 20th century, monologue and burlesque in Shanghainese appeared in Shanghai, absorbing elements from traditional dramas. The Great World opened in 1912 is a significant stage at the time. In 1920s, Pingtan expanded from Suzhou to Shanghai. With the abundant commercial radio stations, Pingtan art developed rapidly to 103 programs every day by the 1930s. At the same time, Shanghai also formed a Shanghai-style Beijing Opera led by Zhou Xinfang and , and attracted lots of Xiqu masters like Mei Lanfang to the city. At the same time, a small troupe from Shengxian (now Shengzhou) also began to promote Yue opera on the Shanghainese stage. A unique style of opera, Shanghai opera, is formed when the local folksongs collided with modern operas. As of 2012, the well-known Xiqu troupes in Shanghai include Shanghai Jingju Theatre Company, , Shanghai Yue Opera House and Shanghai Huju Opera House.
Drama appeared in missionary schools in Shanghai in the late 19th century. Back then, it was mainly performed in English. "Scandals in Officialdom" (), staged in 1899, was one of the earliest recorded plays. In 1907, "Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly" () was performed at the . After the New Culture Movement, drama had become a popular way for students and intellectuals to express their views. Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, Shanghai Opera House and Shanghai Theatre Academy are four major institutes of theater training in Shanghai. Notable theaters in Shanghai include the Shanghai Grand Theatre, the Oriental Art Center and the People's Theatre.
Shanghai is considered to be the birthplace of Chinese cinema. China's first short film, "The Difficult Couple" (1913), and the country's first fictional feature film, "An Orphan Rescues His Grandfather" (, 1923) were both produced in Shanghai. Shanghai's film industry went on to blossom during the early 1930s, generating great stars such as Hu Die, Ruan Lingyu, Zhou Xuan, Jin Yan, and Zhao Dan. Another film star, Jiang Qing, went on to become Madame Mao Zedong. The exile of Shanghainese filmmakers and actors as a result of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Communist revolution contributed enormously to the development of the Hong Kong film industry. The movie "In the Mood for Love" directed by Wong Kar-wai, a native Shanghainese, depicts a slice of the displaced Shanghainese community in Hong Kong and the nostalgia for that era, featuring 1940s music by Zhou Xuan.
Since 2001, Shanghai has held its own fashion week called Shanghai Fashion Week twice every year in April and October. The April session is a part of the Shanghai International Fashion Culture Festival, which usually lasts for a month, while Shanghai Fashion Week lasts for seven days, and the main venue is in Fuxing Park, Shanghai, while the opening and closing ceremony is in Shanghai Fashion Center. Supported by the People's Republic Ministry of Commerce, Shanghai Fashion Week is a major business and culture event of national significance hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Government. Shanghai Fashion Week is aiming to build up an international and professional platform, gathering all of the top design talents of Asia.
The event features international designers but the primary purpose is to showcase Chinese designers. The international presence has included many of the most promising young British fashion designers.
Shanghai is home to several soccer teams, including two in the Chinese Super League: Shanghai Greenland Shenhua F.C. and Shanghai SIPG F.C.. China's top-tier basketball team, the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association, developed Yao Ming before he entered the NBA. Shanghai also has an ice hockey team, China Dragon, and a baseball team, the Shanghai Golden Eagles, which plays in the China Baseball League.
The Shanghai Cricket Club dates back to 1858 when the first recorded cricket match was played between a team of British Naval officers and a Shanghai 11. Following a 45-year dormancy after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the club was re-established in 1994 by expatriates living in the city and has since grown to over 300 members. The Shanghai cricket team was a cricket team that played various international matches between 1866 and 1948. With cricket in the rest of China almost non-existent, for that period they were the de facto China national cricket team.
Shanghai is home to many prominent Chinese professional athletes, such as basketball player Yao Ming, 110-meter hurdler Liu Xiang, table tennis player Wang Liqin, and badminton player Wang Yihan.
Shanghai is the annual host of several international sports events. Since 2004, it has hosted the annual Chinese Grand Prix, a round of the Formula One World Championship. The race is staged annually at the Shanghai International Circuit. It hosted the 1000th Formula One race on 14 April 2019. In 2010, Shanghai also became the host city of Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), which raced in a street circuit in Pudong. In 2012, Shanghai started to host 6 Hours of Shanghai as one round from the inaugural season of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The city also hosts the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament, which is part of ATP World Tour Masters 1000, as well as golf tournaments including the BMW Masters and WGC-HSBC Champions.
On 21 September 2017, Shanghai hosted a National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey exhibition game in an effort to increase fan interest for the 2017–18 NHL season.
Shanghai has an extensive public park system; by 2018, the city had 300 parks, of which 281 had free admission, and the per capita park area was . Some of the parks also have become popular tourist attractions due to their unique location, history, or architecture.
The People's Square park, located in the heart of downtown Shanghai, is especially well known for its proximity to other major landmarks in the city. Fuxing Park, located in the former French Concession, features formal French-style gardens and is surrounded by high-end bars and cafes.
Zhongshan Park in western central Shanghai is famous for its monument of Chopin, the tallest statue dedicated to the composer in the world. Built in 1914 as Jessfield Park, it once contained the campus of St. John's University, Shanghai's first international college; today, the park features sakura and peony gardens and a 150-year-old platanus, and it also serves as an interchange hub in the metro system.
One of Shanghai's newer parks is the Xujiahui Park, which was built in 1999, on the former grounds of the Great Chinese Rubber Works Factory and the EMI Recording Studio (now La Villa Rouge restaurant). The park has an artificial lake with a sky bridge running across the park. Shanghai Botanical Garden is located southwest of the city center and was established in 1978. In 2011, the largest botanical garden in Shanghai—Shanghai Chen Shan Botanical Garden—opened in Songjiang District.
Other notable parks in Shanghai include Lu Xun Park, Century Park, , Gongqing Forest Park, and Jing'an Park.
The Shanghai Disney Resort Project was approved by the government on 4 November 2009 and opened in 2016.
The $4.4 billion theme park and resort in Pudong features a castle that is the biggest among Disney's resorts. More than 11 million people visited the resort in its first year of operation.
Air pollution in Shanghai is not as severe as in many other Chinese cities, but is still considered substantial by world standards. During the December 2013 Eastern China smog, air pollution rates reached between 23 and 31 times the international standard. On 6 December 2013, levels of PM2.5 particulate matter in Shanghai rose above 600 micrograms per cubic meter and in the surrounding area, above 700 micrograms per cubic metre. Levels of PM2.5 in Putuo District reached 726 micrograms per cubic meter. As a result, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission received orders to suspend students' outdoor activities. Authorities pulled nearly one-third of government vehicles from the roads, while much construction work was halted. Most inbound flights were canceled, and more than 50 flights at Pudong International Airport were diverted.
On 23 January 2014, Yang Xiong, the mayor of Shanghai, announced that three main measures would be taken to manage the air pollution in Shanghai, along with surrounding Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces. The measures involved implementing the 2013 air-cleaning program, establishing a linkage mechanism with the three surrounding provinces, and improving the city's early-warning systems. On 12 February 2014, China's cabinet announced that a () fund will be set up to help companies meet the new environmental standards. The effect of the policy was significant. From 2013 to 2018, more than 3,000 treatment facilities for industrial waste gases were installed, and the city's annual smoke, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide emission decreased by 65%, 54%, and 95%, respectively.
Public awareness of the environment is growing, and the city is investing in a number of environmental protection projects. A 14-year cleanup of Suzhou Creek, which runs through the city, was finished in 2012, and 1.3 million cubic meters of sludge were removed. Additionally, the government has moved almost all the factories within the city center to either the outskirts or other provinces, and provided incentives for transportation companies to invest in LPG buses and taxis.
On 1 July 2019, Shanghai adopted a new garbage-classification system that sorts out waste into residual waste, kitchen waste, recyclable waste, and hazardous waste. The wastes are collected by separate vehicles and sent to incineration plants, landfills, recycling centers, and hazardous-waste-disposal facilities, respectively.
covers newspapers, publisher, broadcast, television, and Internet, with some media having influence over the whole country. In regard to foreign publications in Shanghai, Hartmut Walravens of the IFLA Newspapers Section said that when the Japanese controlled Shanghai in the 1940s "it was very difficult to publish good papers – one either had to concentrate on emigration problems, or cooperate like the "Chronicle"".
, newspapers publishing in Shanghai include:
Newspapers formerly published in Shanghai include:
The city's main broadcaster is Shanghai Media Group.
The city is the home of the New Development Bank, a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states, and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic, and security organization.
, Shanghai is twinned with the following regions, cities, and counties: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27643 |
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai (now usually , also and ) is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Sinai has a land area of about (6 percent of Egypt's total area) and a population of approximately 600,000 people. Administratively, the vast majority of the area of the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two governorates: the South Sinai Governorate and the North Sinai Governorate. Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north.
The peninsula acquired the name Sinai in modern times due to the assumption that a mountain near Saint Catherine's Monastery is the Biblical Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in the Abrahamic faiths.
The Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt ( BC). This comes in stark contrast to the region north of it, the Levant (present-day territories of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine), which, due largely to its strategic geopolitical location and cultural convergences, has historically been the center of conflict between Egypt and various states of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. In periods of foreign occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire (1517–1867) and the United Kingdom (1882–1956). Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis (known in Egypt as the "Tripartite Aggression" due to the simultaneous coordinated attack by the UK, France and Israel) of 1956, and during the Six-Day War of 1967. On 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was unsuccessful. In 1982, as a result of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel withdrew from all of the Sinai Peninsula except the contentious territory of Taba, which was returned after a ruling by a commission of arbitration in 1989.
Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its natural setting, rich coral reefs, and biblical history.
The peninsula acquired the name Sinai in modern times due to the assumption that a mountain near Saint Catherine's Monastery is the Biblical Mount Sinai. However this assumption is contested. The name "Sinai" (, ) may have been derived from the ancient moon-god Sin or from the Hebrew word "Seneh" ( "")
Its modern Arabic name is ' (Egyptian Arabic '; ).
The modern Arabic is an adoption of the biblical name, the 19th-century Arabic designation of Sinai was "Jebel el-Tûr".
In addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as "" ( 'the land of turquoise'). The ancient Egyptians called it "Ta Mefkat", or 'land of turquoise'.
In English, the name is now usually pronounced . The traditional pronunciation is or .
Sinai is triangular in shape, with northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and southwest and southeast shores on Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez, wide strip of land, containing the Suez Canal. The eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around wide. The peninsula's eastern shore separates the Arabian plate from the African plate.
The southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park.
Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt: South Sinai (Ganub Sina) and North Sinai (Shamal Sina). Together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 sq mi) and have a population (January 2013) of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez (el-Sewais) is on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia (el-Isma'ileyyah) in the centre, and Port Said in the north.
The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, with around 160,000 residents. Other larger settlements include Sharm el-Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid (effectively a desert), mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine and Nekhel.
Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinai's cities and towns reach .
A cave with paintings of people and animals was discovered about north of Mount Catherine in January 2020, dates back to the Chalcolithic Period, circa 5th–4th millenium BCE.
Sinai was called "Mafkat" ("Country of Turquoise") by the ancient Egyptians From the time of the First Dynasty or before, the Egyptians mined turquoise in Sinai at two locations, now called by their Egyptian Arabic names Wadi Magharah and Serabit El Khadim. The mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable. These may be the first historically attested mines.
The fortress Tjaru in western Sinai was a place of banishment for Egyptian criminals. The Way of Horus connected it across northern Sinai with ancient Canaan.
At the end of the time of Darius I, the Great (521–486 BCE) Sinai was part of the Persian province of Abar-Nahra, which means 'beyond the river [Euphrates]'.
Cambyses successfully managed the crossing of the hostile Sinai Desert, traditionally Egypt's first and strongest line of defence, and brought the Egyptians under Psamtik III, son and successor of Ahmose, to battle at Pelusium. The Egyptians lost and retired to Memphis; the city fell to the Persian control and the Pharaoh was carried off in captivity to Susa in Persia.
Rhinocorura (Greek for "Cut-off Noses") and the eponymous region around it were used by Ptolemaid Egypt as a place of banishment for criminals, today known as Arish.
After the death of the last Nabatean king, Rabbel II Soter, in 106, the Roman emperor Trajan faced practically no resistance and conquered the kingdom on 22 March 106. With this conquest, the Roman Empire went on to control all shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Sinai Peninsula became part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.
Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai was constructed by order of the Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565. Most of the Sinai Peninsula became part of the province of Palaestina Salutaris in the 6th century.
During the Crusades it was under the control of Fatimid Caliphate. Later, Sultan Saladin abolished the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt and took this region under his control too. It was the military route from Cairo to Damascus during the Crusades. And in order to secure this route, he built a citadel on the island of Pharaoh (near present Taba) known by his name 'Saladin's Citadel'.
The peninsula was governed as part of Egypt under the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt from 1260 until 1517, when the Ottoman Sultan, Selim the Grim, defeated the Egyptians at the Battles of Marj Dabiq and al-Raydaniyya, and incorporated Egypt into the Ottoman Empire. From then until 1906, Sinai was administered by the Ottoman provincial government of the "Pashalik" of Egypt, even following the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty's rule over the rest of Egypt in 1805.
In 1906, the Ottoman Porte formally transferred administration of Sinai to the Egyptian government, which essentially meant that it fell under the control of the United Kingdom, who had occupied and largely controlled Egypt since 1882. The border imposed by the British runs in an almost straight line from Rafah on the Mediterranean shore to Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba. This line has served as the eastern border of Egypt ever since.
In 1956, Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal, a waterway marking the boundary between Egyptian territory in Africa and the Sinai Peninsula. Thereafter, Israeli ships were prohibited from using the Canal, owing to the state of war between the two states. Egypt also prohibited ships from using Egyptian territorial waters on the eastern side of the peninsula to travel to and from Israel, effectively imposing a blockade on the Israeli port of Eilat. In October 1956, in what is known in Egypt as the Tripartite Aggression, Israeli forces, aided by Britain, and France (which sought to reverse the nationalization and regain control over the Suez Canal), invaded Sinai and occupied much of the peninsula within a few days. In March 1957, Israel withdrew its forces from Sinai, following strong pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union. Thereafter, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was stationed in Sinai to prevent any further conflict in the Sinai.
On 16 May 1967, Egypt ordered the UNEF out of Sinai and reoccupied it militarily. Secretary-General U Thant eventually complied and ordered the withdrawal without Security Council authorisation. In the course of the Six-Day War that broke out shortly thereafter, Israel occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula, and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan (which Jordan had controlled since 1949), and the Golan Heights from Syria. The Suez Canal, the east bank of which was now occupied by Israel, was closed. Israel commenced efforts at large scale Israeli settlement in the Sinai Peninsula.
Following the Israeli conquest of Sinai, Egypt launched the War of Attrition (1967–70) aimed at forcing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai. The war saw protracted conflict in the Suez Canal Zone, ranging from limited to large scale combat. Israeli shelling of the cities of Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez on the west bank of the canal, led to high civilian casualties (including the virtual destruction of Suez), and contributed to the flight of 700,000 Egyptian internal refugees. Ultimately, the war concluded in 1970 with no change in the front line.
On 6 October 1973, Egypt commenced Operation Badr to retake the Sinai, while Syria launched a simultaneous operation to retake the Golan Heights, thereby beginning the Yom Kippur War (known in Egypt and much of Europe as the "October War"). Egyptian engineering forces built pontoon bridges to cross the Suez Canal, and stormed the Bar-Lev Line, Israel's defensive line along the Suez Canal's east bank. Though the Egyptians maintained control of most of the east bank of the Suez Canal, in the later stages of the war, the Israeli military crossed the southern section of the Suez Canal, cutting off the Egyptian 3rd Army, and occupied a section of the Suez Canal's west bank. The war ended following a mutually agreed-upon ceasefire. After the war, as part of the subsequent Sinai Disengagement Agreements, Israel withdrew from immediate proximity with the Suez Canal, with Egypt agreeing to permit passage of Israeli ships. The canal was reopened in 1975, with President Sadat leading the first convoy through the canal aboard an Egyptian destroyer.
In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in which Israel agreed to withdraw from the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula. Israel subsequently withdrew in several stages, ending in 1982. The Israeli pull-out involved dismantling almost all Israeli settlements, including the settlement of Yamit in north-eastern Sinai. The exception was that the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh (which the Israelis had founded as Ofira during their occupation of the Sinai Peninsula) was not dismantled. The Treaty allows monitoring of Sinai by the Multinational Force and Observers, and limits the number of Egyptian military forces in the peninsula.
Article 2 of Annex I of the Peace Treaty called for the Sinai Peninsula to be divided into zones. Within these zones, Egypt and Israel were permitted varying degrees of military buildup:
Since the early 2000s, Sinai has been the site of several terror attacks against tourists, the majority of whom are Egyptian. Investigations have shown that these were mainly motivated by a resentment of the poverty faced by many Bedouin in the area. Attacking the tourist industry was viewed as a method of damaging the industry so that the government would pay more attention to their situation. (See 2004 Sinai bombings, 2005 Sharm El Sheikh bombings and 2006 Dahab bombings). Since the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, unrest has become more prevalent in the area including the 2012 Egyptian-Israeli border attack in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed by militants. (See Sinai insurgency.)
Also on the rise are kidnappings of refugees. According to Meron Estifanos, Eritrean refugees are often kidnapped by Bedouin in the northern Sinai, tortured, raped, and only released after receiving a large ransom.
Under President el-Sisi, Egypt has implemented a rigorous policy of controlling the border to the Gaza Strip, including the dismantling of tunnels between Gaza and Sinai.
The two governorates of North and South Sinai have a total population of 597,000 (January 2013). This figure rises to 1,400,000 by including Western Sinai, the parts of the Port Said, Ismailia and Suez Governorates lying east of the Suez Canal. Port Said alone has a population of roughly 500,000 people (January 2013). Portions of the populations of Ismailia and Suez live in west Sinai, while the rest live on the western side of the Suez Canal.
The population of Sinai has largely consisted of desert-dwelling Bedouins with their colourful traditional costumes and significant culture. Large numbers of Egyptians from the Nile Valley and Delta moved to the area to work in tourism, but development adversely affected the native Bedouin population. In order to help alleviate their problems, various NGOs began to operate in the region, including the Makhad Trust, a UK charity that assists the Bedouin in developing a sustainable income while protecting Sinai's natural environment, heritage and culture.
Since the Israeli–Egyptian peace treaty, Sinai's scenic spots (including coral reefs offshore) and religious structures have become important to the tourism industry. The most popular tourist destination in Sinai are Mount Sinai ("Jabal Musa") and St Catherine's Monastery, which is considered to be the oldest working Christian monastery in the world, and the beach resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba and Taba. Most tourists arrive at Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport, through Eilat, Israel and the Taba Border Crossing, by road from Cairo or by ferry from Aqaba in Jordan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27644 |
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device, emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure ("The Prisoner of Zenda", 1894, "The Scarlet Pimpernel", 1905), the thriller (such as the works of Edgar Wallace) and the politico-military thriller ("The Schirmer Inheritance", 1953, "The Quiet American", 1955).
Commentator William Bendler noted that "Chapter 2 of the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua might count as the first Spy Story in world literature.(...) Three thousand years before James Bond seduced Pussy Galore and turned her into his ally against Goldfinger, the spies sent by General Joshua into the city of Jericho did much the same with Rahab the Harlot."
Spy fiction as a genre started to emerge during the 19th Century. Early examples of the espionage novel are "The Spy" (1821) and "The Bravo" (1831), by American novelist James Fenimore Cooper. "The Bravo" attacks European anti-republicanism, by depicting Venice as a city-state where a ruthless oligarchy wears the mask of the "serene republic".
In nineteenth-century France, the Dreyfus Affair (1894–99) contributed much to public interest in espionage. For some twelve years (ca. 1894–1906), the Affair, which involved elements of international espionage, treason, and antisemitism, dominated French politics. The details were reported by the world press: an Imperial German penetration agent betraying to Germany the secrets of the General Staff of the French Army; the French counter-intelligence riposte of sending a charwoman to rifle the trash in the German Embassy in Paris, were news that inspired successful spy fiction.
The major themes of spy in the lead-up to the First World War were the continuing rivalry between the European colonial powers for control of Asia, the growing threat of conflict in Europe, the domestic threat of revolutionaries and anarchists, and historical romance.
"Kim" (1901) by Rudyard Kipling concerns the Anglo–Russian Great Game of imperial and geopolitical rivalry and strategic warfare for supremacy in Central Asia, usually in Afghanistan. "The Secret Agent" (1907) by Joseph Conrad examines the psychology and ideology motivating the socially marginal men and women of a revolutionary cell determined to provoke revolution in Britain with a terrorist bombing of the Greenwich Observatory. Conrad's next novel, "Under Western Eyes" (1911), follows a reluctant spy sent by the Russian Empire to infiltrate a group of revolutionaries based in Geneva. G. K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday" (1908) is a metaphysical thriller ostensibly based on the infiltration of an anarchist organisation by detectives; but the story is actually a vehicle for exploring society's power structures and the nature of suffering.
The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, served as a spyhunter for Britain in the stories "The Adventure of the Second Stain" (1904), and "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" (1912). In "His Last Bow" (1917), he served Crown and country as a double agent, transmitting false intelligence to Imperial Germany on the eve of the Great War.
"The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1905) by Baroness Orczy chronicled an English aristocrat's derring-do in rescuing French aristocrats from the Reign of Terror of the populist French Revolution (1789–99).
But the term "spy novel" was defined by "The Riddle of the Sands" (1903) by Irish author Erskine Childers. It described amateur spies discovering a German plan to invade Britain. Its success created a market for the invasion literature subgenre, which was flooded by imitators. William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim became the most widely read and most successful British writers of spy fiction, especially of invasion literature. Their prosaic style and formulaic stories, produced voluminously from 1900 to 1914, proved of low literary merit.
During the War, John Buchan became the pre-eminent British spy novelist. His well-written stories portray the Great War as a "clash of civilisations" between Western civilization and barbarism. His notable novels are "The Thirty-nine Steps" (1915), "Greenmantle" (1916) and sequels, all featuring the heroic Scotsman Richard Hannay. In France Gaston Leroux published the spy thriller "Rouletabille chez Krupp" (1917), in which a detective, Joseph Rouletabille, engages in espionage.
After the Russian Revolution (1917), the quality of spy fiction declined, perhaps because the Bolshevik enemy won the Russian Civil War (1917–23). Thus, the inter-war spy story usually concerns combating the Red Menace, which was perceived as another "clash of civilizations".
Spy fiction was dominated by British authors during this period, initially former intelligence officers and agents writing from inside the trade. Examples include "" (1928) by W. Somerset Maugham, which accurately portrays spying in the First World War, and "The Mystery of Tunnel 51" (1928) by Alexander Wilson whose novels convey an uncanny portrait of the first head of the Secret Intelligence Service, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the original 'C'.
At a more popular level, Leslie Charteris' popular and long-running "Saint" series began, featuring Simon Templar, with "Meet the Tiger" (1928). "Water on the Brain" (1933) by former intelligence officer Compton Mackenzie was the first successful spy novel satire. Prolific author Dennis Wheatley also wrote his first spy novel, "The Eunuch of Stamboul" (1935) during this period.
The growing threat of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain, and the imminence of war, attracted quality writers back to spy fiction.
British author Eric Ambler brought a new realism to spy fiction. "The Dark Frontier" (1936), "Epitaph for a Spy" (1938), "The Mask of Dimitrios" (US: "A Coffin for Dimitrios", 1939), and "Journey into Fear" (1940) feature amateurs entangled in espionage. The politics and ideology are secondary to the personal story that involved the hero or heroine. Ambler's Popular Front–period "œuvre" has a left-wing perspective about the personal consequences of "big picture" politics and ideology, which was notable, given spy fiction's usual right-wards tilt in defence of the Establishment attitudes underpinning empire and imperialism. Ambler's early novels "Uncommon Danger" (1937) and "Cause for Alarm" (1938), in which NKVD spies help the amateur protagonist survive, are especially remarkable among English-language spy fiction.
"Above Suspicion" (1939) by Helen MacInnes, about an anti-Nazi husband and wife spy team, features literate writing and fast-paced, intricate, and suspenseful stories occurring against contemporary historical backgrounds. MacInnes wrote many other spy novels in the course of a long career, including "Assignment in Brittany" (1942), "Decision at Delphi" (1961), and "Ride a Pale Horse" (1984).
Manning Coles published "Drink to Yesterday" (1940), a grim story occurring during the Great War, which introduces the hero Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon. However, later novels featuring Hambledon were lighter-toned, despite being set either in Nazi Germany or Britain during the Second World War (1939–45). After the War, the Hambledon adventures fell to formula, losing critical and popular interest.
The events leading up to the Second World War, and the War itself, continue to be fertile ground for authors of spy fiction. Notable examples include Ken Follett, "Eye of the Needle" (1978); Alan Furst, "Night Soldiers" (1988); and David Downing, the Station series, beginning with "Zoo Station" (2007).
The metamorphosis of the Second World War (1939–45) into the Soviet–American Cold War (1945–91) gave new impetus to spy novelists. "Atomsk" by Paul Linebarger (later known as Cordwainer Smith), written in 1948 and published in 1949, appears to be the first espionage novel of the dawning conflict.
With "Secret Ministry" (1951), Desmond Cory introduced Johnny Fedora, the secret agent with a licence to kill, the government-sanctioned assassin. Ian Fleming, a former member of naval intelligence, followed swiftly with the glamorous James Bond, secret agent 007 of the British Secret Service, a mixture of counter-intelligence officer, assassin and playboy. Perhaps the most famous fictional spy, Bond was introduced in "Casino Royale" (1953). After Fleming's death the franchise continued under other British and American authors, including Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver and William Boyd.
Despite the commercial success of Fleming's extravagant novels, John le Carré, himself a former spy, created anti-heroic protagonists who struggled with the ethical issues involved in espionage, and sometimes resorted to immoral tactics. Le Carré's middle-class George Smiley is a middle-aged spy burdened with an unfaithful, upper-class wife who publicly cuckolds him for sport.
Like Le Carré, former British Intelligence officer Graham Greene also examined the morality of espionage in left-leaning, anti-imperialist novels such as "The Heart of the Matter" (1948), set in Sierra Leone, the seriocomic "Our Man in Havana" (1959) occurring in the Cuba of dictator Fulgencio Batista before his deposition by Fidel Castro's popular Cuban Revolution (1953–59), and "The Human Factor" (1978) about British support for the apartheid National Party government of South Africa, against the Red Menace.
Other novelists followed a similar path. Len Deighton's anonymous spy, protagonist of "The IPCRESS File" (1962), "Horse Under Water" (1963), "Funeral in Berlin" (1964), and others, is a working-class man with a negative view of the Establishment.
Other notable examples of espionage fiction during this period were also built around recurring characters. These include James Mitchell's 'John Craig' series, written under his pseudonym 'James Munro', beginning with "The Man Who Sold Death" (1964); and Trevor Dudley-Smith's Quiller spy novel series written under the pseudonym 'Adam Hall', beginning with "The Berlin Memorandum" (US: "The Quiller Memorandum", 1965), a hybrid of glamour and dirt, Fleming and Le Carré; and William Garner's fantastic Michael Jagger in "Overkill" (1966), "The Deep, Deep Freeze" (1968), "The Us or Them War" (1969) and "A Big Enough Wreath" (1974).
Other important British writers who first became active in spy fiction during this period include Padraig Manning O'Brine, "Killers Must Eat" (1951); Michael Gilbert, "Be Shot for Sixpence" (1956); Alistair MacLean, "The Last Frontier" (1959); Brian Cleeve, "Assignment to Vengeance" (1961); Jack Higgins, "The Testament of Caspar Schulz" (1962); and Desmond Skirrow, "It Won't Get You Anywhere" (1966). Dennis Wheatley's 'Gregory Sallust' (1934-1968) and 'Roger Brook' (1947-1974) series were also largely written during this period.
During the war E. Howard Hunt wrote his first spy novel, "East of Farewell" (1943). In 1949 he joined the recently created CIA, and continued to write spy fiction for many years. Paul Linebarger, a China specialist for the CIA, published "Atomsk", the first novel of the Cold War, in 1949. In 1955, Edward S. Aarons began publishing the Sam Durell CIA "Assignment" series, which began with "Assignment to Disaster" (1955). Donald Hamilton published "Death of a Citizen" (1960) and "The Wrecking Crew" (1960), beginning the series featuring Matt Helm, a CIA assassin and counter-intelligence agent.
The Nick Carter-Killmaster series of spy novels, initiated by Michael Avallone and Valerie Moolman, but authored anonymously, ran to over 260 separate books between 1964 and the early 1990s and invariably pitted American, Soviet and Chinese spies against each other. With the proliferation of male protagonists in the spy fiction genre, writers and book packagers also started bringing out spy fiction with a female as the protagonist. One notable spy series is "The Baroness", featuring a sexy female superspy, with the novels being more action-oriented, in the mould of Nick Carter-Killmaster.
Other important American authors who became active in spy fiction during this period include Ross Thomas, "The Cold War Swap" (1966).
The June 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbours introduced new themes to espionage fiction - the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, against the backdrop of continuing Cold War tensions, and the increasing use of terrorism as a political tool.
Notable recurring characters from this era include Adam Diment's Philip McAlpine is a long-haired, hashish-smoking fop in the novels "The Dolly Dolly Spy" (1967), "The Great Spy Race" (1968), "The Bang Bang Birds" (1968) and "Think, Inc." (1971); James Mitchell's 'David Callan' series, written in his own name, beginning with "Red File for Callan" (1969); William Garner's John Morpurgo in "Think Big, Think Dirty" (1983), "Rats' Alley" (1984), and "Zones of Silence" (1986); and Joseph Hone's 'Peter Marlow' series, beginning with "The Private Sector" (1971), set during Israel's Six-Day War (1967) against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. In all of these series the writing is literary and the tradecraft believable.
Noteworthy examples of the journalistic style and successful integration of fictional characters with historical events were the politico–military novels "The Day of the Jackal" (1971) by Frederick Forsyth and "Eye of the Needle" (1978) by Ken Follett. With the explosion of technology, Craig Thomas, launched the techno-thriller with "Firefox" (1977), describing the Anglo–American theft of a superior Soviet jet aeroplane.
Other important British writers who first became active in spy fiction during this period include Ian Mackintosh, "A Slaying in September" (1967); Kenneth Benton, "Twenty-fourth Level" (1969); Desmond Bagley, "Running Blind" (1970); Anthony Price, "The Labyrinth Makers" (1971); Gerald Seymour, "Harry's Game" (1975); Brian Freemantle, "Charlie M" (1977); Bryan Forbes, "Familiar Strangers" (1979); Reginald Hill, "The Spy's Wife" (1980); and Raymond Harold Sawkins, writing as Colin Forbes, "Double Jeopardy" (1982).
"The Scarlatti Inheritance" (1971) by Robert Ludlum is usually considered the first American modern (glamour and dirt) spy thriller weighing action and reflection. In the 1970s, former CIA man Charles McCarry began the Paul Christopher series with "The Miernik Dossier" (1973) and "The Tears of Autumn" (1978), which were well written, with believable tradecraft.
The first American techno-thriller was "The Hunt for Red October" (1984) by Tom Clancy. It introduced CIA deskman (analyst) Jack Ryan as a field agent; he reprised the role in the sequel "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" (1987).
Other important American authors who became active in spy fiction during this period include Robert Littell, "The Defection of A. J. Lewinter" (1973); James Grady, "Six Days of the Condor" (1974); William F. Buckley Jr., "Saving the Queen" (1976); Nelson DeMille, "The Talbot Odyssey" (1984); W. E. B. Griffin, the "Men at War" series (1984–); Stephen Coonts, "Flight of the Intruder" (1986); Canadian-American author David Morrell, "The League of Night and Fog" (1987); David Hagberg, "Without Honor" (1989); Noel Hynd, "False Flags" (1990); and Richard Ferguson, "Oiorpata" (1990).
French journalist Gérard de Villiers began to write his "SAS" series in 1965. The franchise now extends to 200 titles and 150 million books.
Julian Semyonov was an influential spy novelist, writing in the Eastern Bloc, whose range of novels and novel series featured a White Russian spy in the USSR; Max Otto von Stierlitz, a Soviet mole in the Nazi High Command, and Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka. In his novels, Semyonov covered much Soviet intelligence history, ranging from the Russian Civil War (1917–1923), through the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), to the Russo–American Cold War (1945–91).
Swedish author Jan Guillou also began to write his "Coq Rouge" series, featuring Swedish spy Carl Hamilton, during this period, beginning in 1986.
The end of the Cold War in 1991 mooted the USSR, Russia and other Iron Curtain countries as credible enemies of democracy, and the US Congress even considered disestablishing the CIA. Espionage novelists found themselves at a temporary loss for obvious nemeses. "The New York Times" ceased publishing a spy novel review column. Nevertheless, counting on the aficionado, publishers continued to issue spy novels by writers popular during the Cold War era, among them "Harlot's Ghost" (1991) by Norman Mailer.
In the US, the new novels "Moscow Club" (1991) by Joseph Finder, "Coyote Bird" (1993) by Jim DeFelice, "Masquerade" (1996) by Gayle Lynds, and "The Unlikely Spy" (1996) by Daniel Silva maintained the spy novel in the post–Cold War world. Other important American authors who first became active in spy fiction during this period include David Ignatius, "Agents of Innocence" (1997); David Baldacci, "Saving Faith" (1999); and Vince Flynn, with "Term Limits" (1999) and a series of novels featuring counter-terrorism expert Mitch Rapp.
In the UK, Robert Harris entered the spy genre with "Enigma" (1995). Other important British authors who became active during this period include Hugh Laurie, "The Gun Seller" (1996); Andy McNab, "Remote Control" (1998); Henry Porter, "Remembrance Day" (2000); and Charles Cumming, "A Spy By Nature" (2001).
The terrorist attacks against the US on 11 September 2001, and the subsequent War on Terror, reawakened interest in the peoples and politics of the world beyond its borders. Espionage genre elders such as John le Carré, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Littell, and Charles McCarry resumed work, and many new authors emerged.
Important British writers who wrote their first spy novels during this period include Stephen Leather, "Hard Landing" (2004); and William Boyd, "Restless" (2006).
New American writers include Brad Thor, "The Lions of Lucerne" (2002); Ted Bell, "Hawke" (2003); Alex Berenson, with John Wells appearing for the first time in "The Faithful Spy" (2006); Brett Battles, "The Cleaner" (2007); Ellis Goodman, "Bear Any Burden" (2008); Olen Steinhauer, "The Tourist" (2009); and Richard Ferguson, "Oiorpata" (2012). A number of other established writers began to write spy fiction for the first time, including Kyle Mills, "Fade" (2005) and James Patterson, "Private" (2010).
Swede Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004, was the world's second best-selling author for 2008 due to his "Millennium series", featuring Lisbeth Salander, published posthumously between 2005 and 2007. Other authors of note include Australian James Phelan, beginning with "Fox Hunt" (2010).
Recognising the importance of the thriller genre, including spy fiction, International Thriller Writers (ITW) was established in 2004, and held its first conference in 2006.
Many authors of spy fiction have themselves been intelligence officers working for British agencies such as MI5 or MI6, or American agencies such as the OSS or its successor, the CIA. 'Insider' spy fiction has a special claim to authenticity, and overlaps with biographical and other documentary accounts of secret service.
The first insider fiction emerged after World War 1 as the thinly disguised reminiscences of former British intelligence officers such as W. Somerset Maugham, Alexander Wilson, and Compton Mackenzie. The tradition continued during World War II with Helen MacInnes and Manning Coles.
Notable British examples from the Cold War period and beyond include Ian Fleming, John le Carré, Graham Greene, Brian Cleeve, Ian Mackintosh, Kenneth Benton, Bryan Forbes, Andy McNab and Chris Ryan. Notable American examples include Charles McCarry, William F. Buckley Jr., W. E. B. Griffin and David Hagberg.
Many post-9/11 period novels are written by insiders. At the CIA, the number of manuscripts submitted for pre-publication vetting doubled between 1998 and 2005. American examples include Barry Eisler, "A Clean Kill in Tokyo" (2002); Charles Gillen, "Saigon Station" (2003); R J Hillhouse, "Rift Zone" (2004); Gene Coyle, "The Dream Merchant of Lisbon" (2004) and "No Game For Amateurs" (2009); Thomas F. Murphy, "Edge of Allegiance" (2005); Mike Ramsdell, "A Train to Potevka" (2005); T. H. E. Hill, "" (2008); Duane Evans, "North from Calcutta" (2009); Jason Matthews, "Red Sparrow" (2013).; and T.L. Williams, "Zero Day: China's Cyber Wars" (2017).
British examples include "The Code Snatch" (2001) by Alan Stripp, formerly a cryptographer at Bletchley Park; "At Risk" (2004), "Secret Asset" (2006), "Illegal Action" (2007), and "Dead Line" (2008), by Dame Stella Rimington (Director General of MI5 from 1992 to 1996); and Matthew Dunn's "Spycatcher" (2011) and sequels.
Much spy fiction was adapted as spy films in the 1960s, ranging from the fantastical James Bond series to the realistic "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1965), and the hybrid "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966). While Hamilton's Matt Helm novels were adult and well written, their cinematic interpretations were adolescent parody. This phenomenon spread widely in Europe in the 1960s and is known as the Eurospy genre.
English-language spy films of the 2000s include "The Bourne Identity" (2002), "" (1996); "Munich" (2005), "Syriana" (2005), and "The Constant Gardener" (2005).
Among the comedy films focusing on espionage are 1974's "S*P*Y*S" and 1985's "Spies Like Us".
In March 2015, filming of Howard Kaplan's best selling "The Damascus Cover" as "Damascus Cover" wrapped in Casablanca starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, John Hurt, Jurgen Prochnow and Olivia Thirlby. It is set in Damascus and Jerusalem circa 1989 at the time of the Berlin Wall falling.
The American adaptation of "Casino Royale" (1954) featured Jimmy Bond in an episode of the "Climax!" anthology series. The narrative tone of television espionage ranged from the drama of "Danger Man" (1960–68) to the sardonicism of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" (1964–68) and the flippancy of "I Spy" (1965–68) until the exaggeration, akin to that of William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim before the First World War (1914–18), degenerated to the parody of "Get Smart" (1965–70).
In 1973, Semyonov's novel "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (1968) was adapted to television as a twelve-part mini-series about the Soviet spy Maksim Isaev operating in wartime Nazi Germany as Max Otto von Stierlitz, charged with preventing a separate peace between Nazi Germany and America which would exclude the USSR. The programme "TASS Is Authorized to Declare..." also derives from his work.
However, the circle closed in the late 1970s when "The Sandbaggers" (1978–80) presented the grit and bureaucracy of espionage.
In the 1980s, US television featured the light espionage programmes "Airwolf" (1984–87) and "MacGyver" (1985–92), each rooted in the Cold War yet reflecting American citizens' distrust of their government, after the crimes of the Nixon Government (the internal, political espionage of the Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam War) were exposed. The spy heroes were independent of government; MacGyver, in later episodes and post-DXS employment, works for a non-profit, private think tank, and aviator Hawke and two friends work free-lance adventures. Although each series features an intelligence agency, the DXS in "MacGyver", and the FIRM, in "Airwolf", its agents could alternately serve as adversaries as well as allies for the heroes.
Television espionage programmes of the late 1990s to the early 2010s include "La Femme Nikita" (1997–2001), "Alias" (2001–2006), "24" (2001-2010, 2014), "Spooks" in the UK (release as "MI-5" in the USA and Canada) (2002-2011), CBBC's "The Secret Show" (2006-2011), NBC's "Chuck" (2007-2012), FX's "Archer" (2009–present), "Burn Notice", "Covert Affairs", "Homeland" and "The Americans".
In 2015, "Deutschland 83" is a German television series starring a 24-year-old native of East Germany who is sent to the West as an undercover spy for the HVA, the foreign intelligence agency of the Stasi.
In every medium, spy thrillers introduce children and adolescents to deception and espionage at earlier ages. The genre ranges from action adventure, such as Chris Ryan's "Alpha Force" series, through the historical espionage dramas of Y. S. Lee, to the girl orientation of Ally Carter's "Gallagher Girls" series, beginning with "I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You".
Leading examples include the "Agent Cody Banks" film, the Alex Rider adventure novels by Anthony Horowitz, and the CHERUB series, by Robert Muchamore. Ben Allsop, one of England's youngest novelists, also writes spy fiction. His titles include "Sharp" and "The Perfect Kill".
Spy-related films that are aimed towards younger audiences include movies such as the Spy Kids series of films and The Spy Next Door.
Other authors writing for adolescents include A. J. Butcher, Joe Craig, Charlie Higson, Andy McNab and Francine Pascal.
In contemporary digital video games, the player can be a vicarious spy, as in the "Metal Gear series", especially in the series' third installment, "Metal Gear Solid", unlike the games of the Third-Person Shooter genre, "Syphon Filter", and "Splinter Cell". The games feature complex stories and cinematic images. Games such as "No One Lives Forever" and the sequel "No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way" humorously combine espionage and 1960s design. "Evil Genius", contemporary to NOLF series, allows the player to be the villain and its strategy occurs real time.
The "Deus Ex" series, particularly "" and "", are also examples of spy fiction. Protagonist Adam Jensen must frequently use spycraft and stealth to obtain sensitive information for a variety of clients and associates.
The "Spyland" espionage theme park, in the Gran Scala pleasure dome, in Zaragoza province, Spain, opened in 2012. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27646 |
Star height problem
The star height problem in formal language theory is the question whether all regular languages can be expressed using regular expressions of limited star height, i.e. with a limited nesting depth of Kleene stars. Specifically, is a nesting depth of one always sufficient? If not, is there an algorithm to determine how many are required? The problem was raised by .
The first question was answered in the negative when in 1963, Eggan gave examples of regular languages of star height "n" for every "n". Here, the star height "h"("L") of a regular language "L" is defined as the minimum star height among all regular expressions representing "L". The first few languages found by are described in the following, by means of giving a regular expression for each language:
The construction principle for these expressions is that expression formula_2 is obtained by concatenating two copies of formula_3, appropriately renaming the letters of the second copy using fresh alphabet symbols, concatenating the result with another fresh alphabet symbol, and then by surrounding the resulting expression with a Kleene star. The remaining, more difficult part, is to prove that for formula_3 there is no equivalent regular expression of star height less than "n"; a proof is given in .
However, Eggan's examples use a large alphabet, of size 2"n"-1 for the language with star height "n". He thus asked whether we can also find examples over binary alphabets. This was proved to be true shortly afterwards by .
Their examples can be described by an inductively defined family of regular expressions over the binary alphabet formula_5 as follows–cf. :
Again, a rigorous proof is needed for the fact that formula_3 does not admit an equivalent regular expression of lower star height. Proofs are given by and by .
In contrast, the second question turned out to be much more difficult, and the question became a famous open problem in formal language theory for over two decades . For years, there was only little progress. The pure-group languages were the first interesting family of regular languages for which the star height problem was proved to be decidable . But the general problem remained open for more than 25 years until it was settled by Hashiguchi, who in 1988 published an algorithm to determine the star height of any regular language. The algorithm wasn't at all practical, being of non-elementary complexity. To illustrate the immense resource consumptions of that algorithm, Lombardy and Sakarovitch (2002) give some actual numbers:
Notice that alone the number formula_8 has 10 billion zeros when written down in decimal notation, and is already "by far" larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe.
A much more efficient algorithm than Hashiguchi's procedure was devised by Kirsten in 2005. This algorithm runs, for a given nondeterministic finite automaton as input, within double-exponential space. Yet the resource requirements of this algorithm still greatly exceed the margins of what is considered practically feasible.
This algorithm has been optimized and generalized to trees by Colcombet and Löding in 2008 , as part of the theory of regular cost functions.
It has been implemented in 2017 in the tool suite Stamina. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27647 |
William Crookes
Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry in London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube which was made in 1875. This was a foundational discovery that eventually changed the whole of chemistry and physics.
He is credited with discovering the element thallium, announced in 1861, with the help of spectroscopy. He was also the first to describe the spectrum of terrestrial helium, in 1865.
Crookes was the inventor of the Crookes radiometer, but did not discern the true explanation of the phenomenon he detected. Crookes also invented a 100% ultraviolet blocking sunglass lens.
For a time, he was interested in spiritualism and became president of the Society for Psychical Research.
Crookes' life was one of unbroken scientific activity that extended over sixty-seven years. He was considered remarkable for his industriousness and for his intellectual qualities.
His experiments in chemistry and physics were known for the originality of their design, and he is considered a "superb experimentalist". His interests, ranging over pure and applied science, economic and practical problems, and psychic research, made him a well-known personality and earned him a substantial income. He received many public and academic honours.
William Crookes was born in London in 1832, the eldest of 16 siblings. His father, Joseph Crookes, was a wealthy tailor and real estate investor, of north-country origin, at that time living with his second wife, Mary Scott Lewis Rutherford Johnson.
In 1848, at age 16, Crookes entered the Royal College of Chemistry to study organic chemistry. Crookes lived with his parents about three miles from the College in Oxford Street. His father's shop was about half a mile away. Crookes paid £25 for his first year's tuition and had to provide his own apparatus and some of the more expensive chemicals. At the end of his first year, Crookes won the Ashburton scholarship which covered his second year's tuition. At the end of his second year, Crookes became a junior assistant to August Wilhelm von Hofmann, doing laboratory demonmstrations and helping with research and commercial analysis. In October 1851, Crookes was promoted to senior assistant, a position he held until 1854.
Although Crookes revered Hofmann, he did not share his primary interest in organic chemistry.
One of Crookes' students was the Reverend John Barlow, Secretary of the Royal Institution, who chose to take a course in analytical chemistry. Through Barlow, Crookes met scientists such as George Gabriel Stokes and Michael Faraday.
Such friends reinforced Crookes' interest in optical physics which was respected by Hofmann.
By 1851, Crookes' interest in photography and optics caused his father to build him a laboratory in the garden at home for his research.
When Crookes embarked upon original work, it wasn't in organic chemistry, but rather into new compounds of selenium. These were the subject of his first published papers, in 1851. He worked with Manuel Johnson at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford in 1854, where he adapted the recent innovation of wax paper photography to machines built by Francis Ronalds to continuously record meteorological parameters. In 1855 he was appointed lecturer in chemistry at the Chester Diocesan Training College.
In April 1856 Crookes married Ellen, daughter of William Humphrey of Darlington. Since staff at Chester were required to be bachelors, he had to resign his position. William's father, Joseph Crookes, gave the couple a house at 15 Stanley Street, Brompton. Ellen's mother, Mrs. Humphrey, lived with them for the rest of her life, nearly forty years. A devoted couple, William and Ellen Crookes had six sons and three daughters. Their first child, Alice Mary (born 1857, later Mrs. Cowland) remained unmarried for forty years, living with her parents and working as an assistant to her father. Two of Crookes' sons became engineers, and two lawyers.
Married and living in London, Crookes sought to support his new family through independent work as a photographic chemist. In 1859, he founded the "Chemical News", a science magazine which he edited for many years and conducted on much less formal lines than was usual for the journals of scientific societies. Between 1864 and 1869, he was also involved with the "Quarterly Journal of Science". At various times he edited the "Journal of the Photographic Society" and the "Photographic News".
Crookes was effective in experimentation. The method of spectral analysis, introduced by Bunsen and Kirchhoff, was received by Crookes with great enthusiasm and to great effect.
His first important discovery was that of the element thallium, made with the help of flame spectroscopy. Crookes discovered a previously unknown element with a bright green emission line in its spectrum. He named the element thallium, from Greek , , meaning "a green shoot or twig". Crookes's findings were published on 30 March 1861.
Thallium was also independently discovered by Frenchman Claude Auguste Lamy, who had the advantage of access to large amounts of materials via his brother-in-law, Charles Frédéric Kuhlmann. Both Crookes and Lamy isolated the element in 1862.
Crookes was elected a fellow of the "Royal Society" in 1863.
Crookes wrote a standard treatise on "Select Methods in Chemical Analysis" in 1871.
In 1866, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld identified a rare mineral from Skrikerum as a selenide of
copper, silver, and thallium, and named the mineral crookesite in honor of Sir William Crookes.
Crookes developed the Crookes tubes, investigating cathode rays. He published numerous papers on spectroscopy and conducted research on a variety of minor subjects. In his investigations of the conduction of electricity in low pressure gases, he discovered that as the pressure was lowered, the negative electrode (cathode) appeared to emit rays (the so-called "cathode rays", now known to be a stream of free electrons, and used in cathode ray display devices). As these examples indicate, he was a pioneer in the construction and use of vacuum tubes for the study of physical phenomena. He was, as a consequence, one of the first scientists to investigate what is now called a plasma and identified it as the fourth state of matter in 1879. He also devised one of the first instruments for studying nuclear radioactivity, the spinthariscope.
Crookes investigated the properties of cathode rays, showing that they travel in straight lines, cause fluorescence when they fall on some substances, and that their impact can produce great heat. He believed that he had discovered a fourth state of matter, which he called "radiant matter", but his theoretical views on the nature of "radiant matter" were to be superseded. He believed the rays to consist of streams of particles of ordinary molecular magnitude. It remained for Sir J. J. Thomson to expound on the subatomic nature of cathode rays (consisting of streams of negative electrons). Nevertheless, Crookes's experimental work in this field was the foundation of discoveries which eventually changed the whole of chemistry and physics.
Crookes' attention had been attracted to the vacuum balance in the course of his research into thallium. He soon discovered the phenomenon which drives the movement in a Crookes radiometer, in which a set of vanes, each blackened on one side and polished on the other, rotate when exposed to radiant energy. Crookes did not, however, provide the true explanation of this apparent "attraction and repulsion resulting from radiation".
After 1880, Crookes lived at 7 Kensington Park Gardens in the fashionable area of Notting Hill. His household included a large multigenerational family and a number of servants. There all his later work was done, in what was then "the finest private laboratory in Britain". It comprised an entire floor of the house and included three interconnected laboratory rooms, for chemistry, physics, and mechanical construction, and a library. Crookes was able to purchase the house and build the laboratory because of his income from the National Guano Company and from various patents.
By 1880 Crookes employed a paid full-time scientific assistant (first Charles Gimingham and after 1883 James Gardiner). He was also helped by his daughter Alice, who was "adept at fractionating rare earth elements" and "no mean interpreter of spectra".
His daily routine was to manage his commercial affairs in the morning, do further business or go to scientific meetings in the afternoon, eat dinner at 7, work in his library from 8 to 9, and then in the laboratory until after midnight. From his home, Crookes could easily reach the "Chemical News" offices, the Royal Society, the Chemica Society, and the Athenaeum Club.
On 16 January 1884, Crookes' father died. Crookes' daughter Florence died of scarlet fever in the same week. Joseph Crookes' estate was left in trust, divided between his three surviving sons, Alfred, William and Frank. Combined with his previous income, this ensured that Crookes was very well off.
On 13 August 1894, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh and William Ramsay announced the detection of a new gas in the atmosphere. On 31 January 1895 they made a full report to the Royal Society on the new gas, argon. In addition, William Crookes, who had been asked to examine a sample, presented on the spectra of argon, reported that argon displayed two distinct spectra. In this way, Crookes identified the first known sample of terrestrial helium and established its correspondence to observations of solar helium. The discovery of argon and of helium led to identification of the noble gases and the reorganization of the periodic system.
Crookes himself suggested a design for a Periodic table in the style of a space lemniscate in 1898.
Crookes was knighted in 1897.
Crookes was named president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1898. In his inaugural address, he outlined in detail a coming catastrophe: The wheat-eating peoples of the world were going to start running out of food in the 1930s. The reason, he said, was a dearth of nitrogen fertilizer available from natural sources. Crookes called on chemists to develop new ways of making fertilizer from the enormous stock of nitrogen in the atmosphere (which is roughly 80 percent nitrogen). His remarks on the coming famine achieved wide distribution in the press and were turned into a popular book. Scientists addressing the problem in the first years of the twentieth century included Kristian Birkeland, whose technology helped found Norsk Hydro, and Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, whose Haber-Bosch process forms the foundation of today's nitrogen fertilizer industry.
In 1903, Crookes turned his attention to the newly discovered phenomenon of radioactivity, achieving the separation from uranium of its active transformation product, "uranium-X" (later established to be protactinium). Crookes observed the gradual decay of the separated transformation product, and the simultaneous reproduction of a fresh supply in the original uranium. At about the same time as this important discovery, he observed that when ""p-particles"", ejected from radio-active substances, impinge upon zinc sulfide, each impact is accompanied by a minute scintillation, an observation which forms the basis of one of the most useful methods in the technique of radioactivity.
In 1913, Crookes created a 100% ultraviolet and 90% infrared blocking lens made from glass containing cerium, but only lightly tinted. They were an unintended by-product of Crookes's research to find a lens glass formulation that would protect glass workers from cataracts. Crookes tested more than 300 formulations, each numbered and labelled. Crookes Glass 246 was the tint recommended for glassworkers. The best-known Crookes tints are "A" (withdrawn due to its uranium), "A1", "B", and "B2", which absorb all ultraviolet below 350 nm while darkening visual light. Crookes' samples were made by Whitefriars, London, stained glass makers, and Chance Brothers, Birmingham.
Crookes became interested in spiritualism in the late 1860s, and was most strongly involved around 1874–1875. Eric Deeson notes that Crookes' studies of the occult are related to his scientific work on radiometry in that both involved the detection of previously undiscovered forces.
Crookes was possibly influenced by the death of his younger brother Philip in 1867 at 21 from yellow fever contracted while he was on an expedition to lay a telegraph cable from Cuba to Florida.
In 1867, influenced by Cromwell Fleetwood Varley, Crookes attended a séance to try to get in touch with his brother.
Between 1871 and 1874, Crookes studied the mediums Kate Fox, Florence Cook, and Daniel Dunglas Home. After his investigation, he believed that the mediums could produce genuine paranormal phenomena and communicate with spirits. Psychologists Leonard Zusne and Warren H. Jones have described Crookes as gullible as he endorsed fraudulent mediums as genuine.
The anthropologist Edward Clodd noted that Crookes had poor eyesight, which may have explained his belief in spiritualist phenomena and quoted William Ramsay as saying that Crookes is "so shortsighted that, despite his unquestioned honesty, he cannot be trusted in what he tells you he has seen." Biographer William Hodson Brock wrote that Crookes was "evidently short-sighted, but did not wear spectacles until the 1890s. Until then he may have used a monocle or pocket magnifying glass when necessary. What limitations this imposed upon his psychic investigations we can only imagine."
After studying the reports of Florence Cook, the science historian Sherrie Lynne Lyons wrote that the alleged spirit "Katie King" was at times Cook herself and at other times an accomplice. Regarding Crookes, Lyons wrote, "Here was a man with a flawless scientific reputation, who discovered a new element, but could not detect a real live maiden who was masquerading as a ghost". Cook was repeatedly exposed as a fraudulent medium but she had been "trained in the arts of the séance" which managed to trick Crookes. Some researchers such as Trevor H. Hall suspected that Crookes had an affair with Cook.
In a series of experiments in London, England at the house of Crookes in February 1875, the medium Anna Eva Fay managed to fool Crookes into believing she had genuine psychic powers. Fay later confessed to her fraud and revealed the tricks that she had used. Regarding Crookes and his experiments with mediums, the magician Harry Houdini suggested that Crookes had been deceived. The physicist Victor Stenger wrote that the experiments were poorly controlled and "his desire to believe blinded him to the chicanery of his psychic subjects."
In 1897, John Grier Hibben wrote that Crookes' idea of ether waves explaining telepathy was not a scientific hypothesis "he presents no facts to indicate its probability or to save it from being relegated to the sphere of bare conjecture."
In 1906, William Hope tricked Crookes with a fake spirit photograph of his wife. Oliver Lodge revealed there had been obvious signs of double exposure, the picture of Lady Crookes had been copied from a wedding anniversary photograph, but Crookes was a convinced spiritualist and claimed it was genuine evidence for spirit photography.
The physiologist Gordon Stein suspected that Crookes was too ashamed to admit he had been duped by the medium Florence Cook or that he conspired with her for sexual favors. He also suggested that Crookes had conspired with Anna Eva Fay. He noted that contrary to popular belief, Hope had been exposed as a fraud on several occasions. Stein concluded that all feats of Hope were conjuring tricks. In a review biographer William Brock wrote that Stein made his "case against Crookes and Home clearly and logically."
Crookes joined the Society for Psychical Research, becoming its president in the 1890s: he also joined the Theosophical Society and The Ghost Club, of which he was president from 1907 to 1912. In 1890 he was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27648 |
Sonny Bono
Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono (; February 16, 1935 – January 5, 1998) was an American singer-songwriter, producer, actor, and politician who came to fame in partnership with his second wife Cher as the popular singing duo Sonny & Cher. He was mayor of Palm Springs, California from 1988 to 1992, and the Republican congressman for California's 44th district from 1995 until his death in 1998.
The United States Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which extended the term of copyright by 20 years, was named in honor of Bono when it was passed by Congress nine months after his death. Mary Bono (Sonny's last wife) had been one of the original sponsors of the legislation, commonly known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
Bono was born in Detroit to Santo Bono (born in Montelepre, Palermo, Italy) and Zena "Jean" Bono (née La Valle). His mother called him "Sono" as a term of endearment, which evolved over time into "Sonny". Sonny was the youngest of three siblings; he had two sisters, Fran and Betty. The family moved to Inglewood, California when he was seven, and his parents divorced soon afterwards. Bono decided early in life to become part of the music business, and began writing songs as a teenager. "Koko Joe", a song he wrote at age 16, was recorded by Don and Dewey in 1958, and later covered by several other artists including The Righteous Brothers. Bono attended Inglewood High School, but did not graduate, opting to drop out so he could begin to pursue a career as a songwriter and performer. He worked at a variety of jobs while trying to break into the music business, including waiter, truck driver, construction laborer, and butcher's helper.
Bono began his music career as a songwriter at Specialty Records, where his song "Things You Do to Me" was recorded by Sam Cooke, and went on to work for record producer Phil Spector in the early 1960s as a promotion man, percussionist and "gofer". One of his earliest songwriting efforts, "Needles and Pins" was co-written with Jack Nitzsche, another member of Spector's production team. Later in the same decade, he achieved commercial success with his wife Cher in the singing duo Sonny and Cher. Bono wrote, arranged and produced a number of hit records including the singles "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On", although Cher received more attention as a performer. He played a major part in Cher's solo recording career, writing and producing singles including "Bang Bang" and "You Better Sit Down Kids".
Bono co-wrote "She Said Yeah", covered by The Rolling Stones on their 1965 LP "December's Children". His lone hit single as a solo artist, "Laugh at Me", was released in 1965 and peaked at No. 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In live concerts, Bono introduced the song by saying "I'd like to sing a medley of my hit". His only other single as a solo artist, "The Revolution Kind", reached No. 70 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 later that year. His solo album, "Inner Views", was released in 1967.
Sonny continued to work with Cher through the early and mid-1970s, starring in a popular television variety show, "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," which ran on CBS from 1971 to 1974. From 1976 to 1977, the duo, since divorced, returned to perform together on "The Sonny and Cher Show". Their last appearance together was on "Late Night with David Letterman" on November 13, 1987, on which they sang "I Got You Babe".
In 2011, Sonny Bono was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Bono's acting career included bit parts as a guest performer in such television series as "Fantasy Island", "Charlie's Angels", "The Love Boat", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "CHiPs". In the 1975 TV movie "Murder on Flight 502", he played the role of rock star Jack Marshall. He appeared in the 1980 miniseries "Top of the Hill". He played the role of mad bomber Joe Selucci in "" (1982) and appeared in the horror film "Troll" (1986). He also portrayed racist entrepreneur Franklin von Tussle in the John Waters film "Hairspray" (1988). In "Men in Black" (1997), Bono is one of several oddball celebrities seen on a wall of video screens that monitor extraterrestrials living among us. He also appeared as the Mayor of Palm Springs (which he actually was at the time) in several episodes of "P.S. I Luv U" during the 1991–92 TV season, and on "" (in Season 1, Episode 9, which aired November 21, 1993), in which he played Mayor Frank Berkowitz. He also made a minor appearance as himself in the comedy film "First Kid" (1996).
Bono guest-starred as himself on "The Golden Girls" episode "Mrs. George Devereaux" (originally broadcast November 17, 1990), in which he vied with Lyle Waggoner for Dorothy's (Bea Arthur) affection in a dream sequence. In Blanche's (Rue McClanahan) dream, her husband is still alive, and Bono uses his power as Mayor of Palm Springs to have Waggoner falsely arrested so he can have Dorothy to himself.
Bono entered politics after experiencing great frustration with local government bureaucracy in trying to open a restaurant in Palm Springs, California. Bono placed a successful bid to become the new mayor of Palm Springs. He served four years, from 1988 to 1992. He was instrumental in spearheading the creation of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which is held each year in Bono's memory.
Bono ran for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in 1992, but the nomination went to the more conservative Bruce Herschensohn, and the election to the Democrat Barbara Boxer. Bono and Herschensohn became close friends after the campaign. Bono was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1994 to represent California's 44th congressional district. He was one of twelve co-sponsors of a House bill extending copyright. Although that bill was never voted on in the Senate, a similar Senate bill was passed after his death and named the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in his memory. It is also known (derisively) as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.
He championed the restoration of the Salton Sea, bringing the giant lake's plight to national attention. In 1998, then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made a public appearance and speech at the shore of the lake on Bono's behalf.
In their book "Tell Newt to Shut Up", David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf credit Bono with being the first person to recognize Gingrich's public relations problems in 1995. Drawing on his long experience as a celebrity and entertainment producer, Bono (according to Maraniss and Weisskopf) recognized that Gingrich's status had changed from politician to celebrity and that he was not making allowances for that change:
Bono remains the only member of Congress to have scored a number-one pop single on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart.
Bono married his first wife, Donna Rankin, on November 3, 1954. Their daughter Christine ("Christy") was born on June 24, 1958. They divorced in 1962.
In 1964, Bono married singer and actress Cher, who was 11 years his junior. They had one child, Chaz Bono, born March 4, 1969, and divorced in 1974.
Bono married actress-model Susie Coelho on New Year's Eve 1981; they divorced in 1984.
He wed Mary Whitaker in 1986 and they had two children, son Chesare Elan in 1988 and daughter Chianna Maria in 1991.
Bono was named a godparent of Anthony Kiedis, who became a musical artist with his band, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sonny was a close friend of Kiedis's father, Blackie Dammett, and often took the boy on weekend trips.
Bono was a champion of the Salton Sea in southeastern California, where a park was named in his honor. The 2005 documentary film "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea" (narrated by John Waters) features Bono and documented the lives of the inhabitants of Bombay Beach, Niland and Salton City, as well as the ecological issues associated with the Sea.
He became interested in Scientology and took Scientology courses partly because of the influence of Mimi Rogers, but stated that he was a Roman Catholic on all official documents, campaign materials and websites. His wife Mary also took Scientology courses. However, after his death, Mary Bono stated that "Sonny did try to break away [from the Church of Scientology] at one point, and they made it very difficult for him." The Church of Scientology said there was no estrangement from Bono.
Bono died on January 5, 1998, of injuries incurred when he hit a tree while skiing at Heavenly Mountain Resort in South Lake Tahoe, California. After Bono's death, Mary Bono said that Sonny had been addicted to prescription drugs (mainly Vicodin and Valium) and that she believed her husband's drug use caused the accident. However no drugs or alcohol were found in his body on autopsy. A wild conspiracy theory has been floated.
At Mary's request, Cher gave a eulogy at Sonny's funeral. He was buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. The epitaph on Bono's headstone reads "AND THE BEAT GOES ON".
Mary Bono was elected to fill the remainder of her husband's congressional term. She was elected in her own right seven subsequent times before being defeated in the election of 2012.
Sonny Bono has been honored and memorialized with: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27655 |
Special administrative regions of China
The special administrative regions (SAR) are one type of provincial-level administrative divisions of China directly under Central People's Government. They possess the highest degree of autonomy.
The legal basis for the establishment of SARs, unlike the administrative divisions of Mainland China, is provided for by Article 31, rather than Article 30, of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982. Article 31 reads: "The state may establish special administrative regions when necessary. The systems to be instituted in special administrative regions shall be prescribed by law enacted by the National People's Congress in the light of the specific conditions".
At present, there are two SARs established according to the Constitution, namely the Hong Kong SAR and the Macau SAR, former British and Portuguese dependencies, respectively, transferred to China in 1997 and 1999, respectively, pursuant to the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 and the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration of 1987. Pursuant to their Joint Declarations, which are binding inter-state treaties registered with the United Nations, and their Basic laws, the Chinese SARs "shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy". Generally, the two SARs are not considered to constitute a part of Mainland China, by both Chinese and SAR authorities.
There is additionally the Wolong Special Administrative Region in Sichuan province, which is however not established according to Article 31 of the Constitution.
The provision to establish special administrative regions appeared in the constitution in 1982, in anticipation of the talks with the United Kingdom over the question of the sovereignty over Hong Kong. It was envisioned as the model for the eventual reunification with Taiwan and other islands, where the Republic of China has resided since 1949. Special administrative regions should not be confused with special economic zones, which are areas in which special economic laws apply to promote trade and investments.
Under the One country, two systems principle, the two SARs continue to possess their own governments, multi-party legislatures, legal systems, police forces, monetary systems, separate customs territory, immigration policies, national sports teams, official languages, postal systems, academic and educational systems, and substantial competence in external relations that are different or independent from the People's Republic of China.
There are currently two special administrative regions established according to Article 31 of the Chinese Constitution. For the Wolong Special Administrative Region in Sichuan Province, please see the section Wolong below.
The two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau (created in 1997 and 1999 respectively) each have a codified constitution called Basic Law. The law provides the regions with a high degree of autonomy, a separate political system, and a capitalist economy under the principle of "one country, two systems" proposed by Deng Xiaoping.
Currently, the two SARs of Hong Kong and Macau are responsible for all affairs except those regarding diplomatic relations and national defense. Consequently, the National People's Congress authorizes the SAR to exercise a high degree of autonomy and enjoy executive, legislative and independent judicial power, and each with their own Courts of Final Appeal.
Special administrative regions are empowered to contract a wide range of agreements with other countries and territories such as mutual abolition of visa requirement, mutual legal aid, air services, extradition, handling of double taxation and others, with no Chinese Government involvement. However, in some diplomatic talks involving a SAR, the SAR concerned may choose to send officials to be part of the Chinese delegation. For example, when former Director of Health of Hong Kong Margaret Chan became the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, she served as a delegate from the People's Republic of China to the WHO.
In sporting events the SARs participate under the respective names of ""Hong Kong, China"" and ""Macau, China"", and compete as different entities as they had done since they were under foreign rules, but both SARs are usually allowed to omit the term "", China"" for informal use.
The Government of Hong Kong has established Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs) in few countries as well as Greater China Region. HKETOs serve as a quasi-interests section in favor of Hong Kong. For regions with no HKETOs, Chinese diplomatic missions take charge of protecting Hong Kong-related interests.
Some countries which have a diplomatic relationship with the central Chinese government maintain Consulate-General offices in Hong Kong.
The People's Liberation Army is garrisoned in both SARs. PRC authorities have said the PLA will not be allowed to interfere with the local affairs of Hong Kong and Macau, and must abide by its laws. In 1988, scholar Chen Fang of the Academy of Military Science even tried to propose the "One military, two systems" concept to separate the defence function and public functions in the army. The PLA does not participate in the governance of the SAR but the SAR may request them for civil-military participation, in times of emergency such as natural disasters. Defence is the responsibility of the PRC government.
A 1996 draft PRC law banned People's Liberation Army–run businesses in Hong Kong, but loopholes allow them to operate while the profits are ploughed back into the military. There are many PLA-run corporations in Hong Kong. The PLA also have sizable land holdings in Hong Kong worth billions of dollars.
Each of the SARs issues passports on its own to its permanent residents who are concurrently Chinese (PRC) citizens. PRC citizens must also satisfy one of the following conditions:
Apart from affording the holder consular protection by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, these passports also specify that the holder has right of abode in the issuing SAR.
The National People's Congress has also put each SAR in charge of administering the PRC's Nationality Law in its respective realms, namely naturalization, renunciation and restoration of PRC nationality and issuance of proof of nationality.
Due to their colonial past, many inhabitants of the SARs hold some form of non-Chinese nationality (e.g. British National (Overseas) status, British citizenship, British Overseas citizenship or Portuguese citizenship). However, SAR residents who are Chinese descent have always been considered as Chinese citizens by the PRC authorities, an exception to this case is Macau, wherein residents of Chinese descent may choose Chinese or Portuguese nationality. Special interpretation of the Nationality Law, while not recognizing dual nationality, has allowed Chinese citizens to keep their foreign "right of abode" and use travel documents issued by the foreign country. However, such travel documents cannot be used to travel to mainland China and persons concerned must use Home Return Permit. Therefore, master nationality rule applies so the holder may not enjoy consular protection while in mainland China. Chinese citizens who also have foreign citizenship may declare a change of nationality at the Immigration Department of the respective SARs, and upon approval, would no longer be considered Chinese citizens.
SAR permanent residents who are not Chinese citizens (including stateless persons) are not eligible for SAR passports. Persons who hold a non-Chinese citizenship must obtain passports from foreign diplomatic missions which represents their countries of citizenship. For those who are stateless, each SAR may issue its own form of certificates of identity, e.g. Document of Identity, in lieu of national passports to the persons concerned. Chinese citizens who are non-permanent residents of two SARs are also ineligible for SAR passports but may obtain CIs just like stateless persons.
The status of a special administrative region for Taiwan and other areas controlled by the Republic of China (ROC) was first proposed in 1981. The 1981 proposal was put forth by Ye Jianying called "Ye's nine points" (). A series of different offers have since appeared. On 25 June 1983 Deng Xiaoping appeared at Seton Hall University in the US to propose "Deng's six points" (), which called for a "Taiwan Special Administrative Region" (). It was envisioned that after Taiwan's unification with the PRC as an SAR, the PRC would become the sole representative of China. Under this proposal, Taiwan would be guaranteed its own military, its own administrative and legislative powers, an independent judiciary and the right of adjudication, although it would not be considered a separate government of China.
In 2005 the Anti-Secession Law of the PRC was enacted. It promises the lands currently ruled by the authorities of Taiwan a high degree of autonomy, among other things. The PRC can also employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to defend its claims to sovereignty over the ROC's territories in the event of an outright declaration of independence by Taiwan (ROC).
In January 2019, the 40 year anniversary of a statement made by the PRC to Taiwan in 1979, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping outlined in a speech how the "one country, two systems" principle would be applied to Taiwan. Several major points from the speech include:
The Wolong Special Administrative Region () is located in the southwest of Wenchuan County, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan. It was formerly known as Wolong Special Administrative Region of Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province and was founded in March 1983 with approval of the State Council. It was given its current name and placed under Sichuan provincial government with administrative supervision by the provincial department of forestry. Its area supersedes Sichuan Wolong National Nature Reserve and its administrative office is the same as the Administrative Bureau of the State Forestry Administration for the reserve. It currently has a population of 5343.
Despite its name, the Wolong Special Administrative Region is not an SAR as defined by Article 31 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China; as a result, it has been proposed the Wenchuan Wolong Special Administrative Region of Sichuan Province change its name, with designations such as special area or township.
In the Republic of China (ROC) era between 1912 and 1949, the "special administrative regions" () were historically used to designate special areas, most of which were eventually converted into provinces. All were suspended or abolished after the end of the Chinese Civil War, with the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the ROC government's retreat to Taiwan. The regions were:
Chahar was made a special administrative region in 1914 by the Republic of China, as a subdivision of the then Zhili Province, with 6 banners and 11 counties. In 1928 it became a province, with 5 of its counties partitioned to Suiyuan, and 10 counties were included from Hebei. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27658 |
Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle, Washington. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team in 1977 playing their home games in the Kingdome. Since July , the Mariners' home ballpark has been T-Mobile Park, located in the SoDo neighborhood of Seattle.
The "Mariners" name originates from the prominence of marine culture in the city of Seattle. They are nicknamed the Ms, a title featured in their primary logo from 1987 to 1992. They adopted their current team colors – navy blue, northwest green (teal), and silver – prior to the 1993 season, after having been royal blue and gold since the team's inception. Their mascot is the Mariner Moose.
The organization did not field a winning team until 1991, and any real success eluded them until when they won their first division championship and defeated the New York Yankees in the ALDS. The game-winning hit in Game 5, in which Edgar Martínez drove home Ken Griffey Jr. to win the game in the 11th inning, clinched a series win for the Mariners, served as a powerful impetus to preserve baseball in Seattle, and has since become an iconic moment in team history.
The Mariners won 116 games in , which set the American League record for most wins in a single season and tied the 1906 Chicago Cubs for the Major League record for most wins in a single season.
Through the end of the 2019 season, the franchise has finished with a losing record in 29 of 43 seasons. The Mariners are one of six Major League Baseball teams who have never won a World Series championship, and they are the only team to have never played in a World Series. They hold the longest playoff drought in all of the four major North American professional sports, having not qualified for the playoffs since their 116-win season in 2001.
The Mariners were created as a result of a lawsuit. In , in the aftermath of the Seattle Pilots' purchase and relocation to Milwaukee as the Milwaukee Brewers by Bud Selig, the city of Seattle, King County, and the state of Washington (represented by then-state Attorney General and future U.S. Senator Slade Gorton) sued the American League for breach of contract. Confident that Major League Baseball would return to Seattle within a few years, King County built the multi-purpose Kingdome, which would become home to the National Football League's expansion Seattle Seahawks in 1976. The name "Mariners" was chosen by club officials in August 1976 from over 600 names submitted by 15,000 entrants in a name-the-team contest.
The Mariners played their first game on April 6, , to a sold-out crowd of 57,762 at the Kingdome, losing 7–0 to the California Angels. The first home run in team history was hit on April 10, 1977, by designated hitter Juan Bernhardt.
That year, star pitcher Diego Seguí, in his last major league season, became the only player to play for both the Pilots and the Mariners. The Mariners finished with a 64–98 record, echoing the record the 1969 Pilots once held; however, the team was able to avoid last place in the AL West by half a game. In 1979, Seattle hosted the 50th Major League Baseball All-Star Game. After the 1981 season, the Mariners were sold to California businessman George Argyros, who in turn sold the team to Jeff Smulyan in 1989, and then to Nintendo of America in 1992.
During the 1992–93 offseason, the Mariners hired manager Lou Piniella, who had led the Cincinnati Reds to victory in the 1990 World Series. Mariner fans embraced Piniella, and he would helm the team from through , winning two American League Manager of the Year Awards along the way.
The Mariners club finished with a record of 116-46, leading all of Major League Baseball in winning percentage for the duration of the season and easily winning the American League West division championship. In doing so, the team broke the 1998 Yankees American League single-season record of 114 wins and matched the all-time MLB single-season record for wins set by the Chicago Cubs. At the end of the season, Ichiro Suzuki won the AL MVP, AL Rookie of the Year, and one of three outfield Gold Glove Awards, becoming the first player since the Boston Red Sox's Fred Lynn to win all three in the same season.
On October 22, the Mariners announced the hiring of Jack Zduriencik, formerly scouting director of the Milwaukee Brewers, as their general manager. Weeks later, on November 18, the team named Oakland Athletics bench coach Don Wakamatsu as its new field manager. Wakamatsu and Zduriencik hired an entirely new coaching staff for 2009, which included former World Series MVP John Wetteland as bullpen coach. The off-season also saw a litany of roster moves, headlined by a 12-player, 3-team trade that included sending All-Star closer J. J. Putz to the New York Mets and brought 5 players—including prospect Mike Carp and outfielder Endy Chávez from New York and outfielder Franklin Gutiérrez from the Cleveland Indians—to Seattle. Many of the moves, like the free agent signing of Mike Sweeney, were made in part with the hope of squelching the clubhouse infighting that plagued the Mariners in 2008. It also saw the return of Seattle favorite Griffey Jr. The 2009–10 offseason was highlighted by the trade for 2008 American League Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee from the Philadelphia Phillies, the signing of third baseman Chone Figgins and the contract extension of star pitcher "King" Félix Hernández.
Griffey Jr. announced his retirement on June 2, 2010, after 22 MLB seasons.
The Mariners fired field manager Don Wakamatsu along with bench coach Ty Van Burkleo, pitching coach Rick Adair and performance coach Steve Hecht on August 9, 2010. Daren Brown, the manager of the AAA affiliate Tacoma Rainiers, took over as interim field manager. Roger Hansen, the former Minor League catching coordinator, was promoted to bench coach. Carl Willis, the former Minor League pitching coordinator, was promoted to pitching coach.
The Mariners hired former Cleveland Indians manager Eric Wedge as their new manager on October 19, 2010.
Dave Niehaus, the Mariners' play-by-play announcer since the team's inception, died of a heart attack on November 10, 2010, at the age of 75. In memory of Niehaus, Seattle rapper Macklemore wrote a tribute song called "My Oh My" in December 2010. He performed the song at the Mariners' Opening Day game on April 8, .
On April 21, 2012, Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox threw the third perfect game in Chicago White Sox history against the Mariners at Safeco Field in Seattle. It was the 21st perfect game in MLB history. Mariners starting pitcher Kevin Millwood and five other pitchers combined to throw the tenth combined no-hitter in MLB history and the first in team history on June 8, 2012. The last combined one occurred in 2003, when six Houston Astros no-hit the New York Yankees in New York. The six pitchers used in a no-hitter is a major league record. Félix Hernández pitched the first perfect game in team history, shutting down the Tampa Bay Rays 1-0 at Safeco Field on August 15, 2012. It was the 23rd perfect game in Major League Baseball history. The Mariners became the first team in Major League Baseball to be involved in two perfect games in one season.
General Manager (GM) Jack Zduriencik was relieved of his position by the team on August 28, 2015. Jerry Dipoto, who formerly served as GM of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, was hired as the new GM of the Mariners one month later. On October 9, 2015, manager Lloyd McClendon was fired, and the search for a new manager was begun. Scott Servais was named the new Mariners' manager on October 23, 2015.
Nintendo of America issued a press release on April 27, 2016, stating it would sell most shares it held of Seattle Mariners ownership to First Avenue Entertainment limited partnership. Nintendo retained a 10% ownership share of the team after the sale was completed in August 2016.
The Mariners donned their current uniforms in (with a slight change to the color arrangement of the wordmarks made in 2015). White jerseys and pants are worn for most home games, while gray jerseys and pants are worn on the road. In 2011, the team brought back an alternate "Northwest Green" jersey that was previously part of the uniform set from 1994 to 1996 to be worn during Friday home games. A navy blue alternate jersey is worn for occasional road games; other variations of a navy jersey had been used as home alternates prior to the reintroduction of the Northwest Green jersey.
A navy blue cap that features a ball and compass "S" logo is paired with the home white, road gray, and navy blue jerseys. A variation of this cap with a Northwest Green brim is worn with the home alternate jersey.
In January 2015 the team announced a new alternate uniform to be worn for Sunday home games. This cream-colored "fauxback" uniform features the current logo and lettering style in a royal blue and gold color scheme, a throwback to the original team colors. Unlike the rest of the uniform set, the back of the jersey does not display the player name. The cap features the current cap logo in the throwback colors.
In January 2019, the Mariners announced a new home and away uniform as to be worn during Spring Training. The jersey has a design similar to their home white jerseys but features a powder blue throwback to the team colors during the 80's. The cap has the usual navy blue color but with a logo that features the signature compass rose but with a large M in the center.
The Peoria Sports Complex in Peoria, Arizona, has been the Mariners' home spring training facility since 1994. The complex is shared with the San Diego Padres. On March 25, 2013, in a 16-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds, the Mariners broke the team record for total home runs during a spring training season with 52.
"This is a partial list listing the past 21 completed regular seasons. For the full season records, see here."
T-Mobile Park (known as "Safeco Field" from 1999 to 2018) has been home to the Seattle Mariners since the first game vs. the San Diego Padres on July 15, 1999. There were 44,607 people in attendance that night.
Seattle Mariners former chairman and CEO John Ellis announced on June 14, 1997 the creation of a Mariners Hall of Fame. It is operated by the Seattle Mariners organization. It honors the players, staff and other individuals that greatly contributed to the history and success of the Mariners franchise. It is located at the Baseball Museum of the Pacific Northwest in T-Mobile Park.
The Mariners plan to retire uniform numbers only very selectively and subject to substantially higher expectations than those applied to the Mariners' Hall of Fame. To be eligible to have one's number retired, in addition to the criteria outlined for the Mariners' Hall of Fame, the former Mariners should have either: a) been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and been in a Mariner's uniform for at least five years, or b) come close to such election and have spent substantially his entire career with the Mariners. Eligibility shall not commence until after the former player has been voted on once for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, which for all practical purposes means six years after retirement.
Ken Griffey Jr.'s number 24 was retired at the beginning of the 2016 season, with the retirement ceremony taking place on August 6, 2016. Griffey had been elected to the Hall of Fame in January of that year.
Edgar Martínez's number 11 was retired during the 2017 season, with the retirement ceremony taking place on August 12, 2017. Martínez played his entire major-league career in Seattle and first appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot in . His number 11 was retired in 2017, predating his 2019 election to the Hall of Fame and seemingly establishing the 58.6% of the vote he received that year as sufficiently "close" to election to satisfy the club's bylaws. Jersey number 11 was not issued to anyone else between Martínez's retirement as a player in 2004 until his return to the Mariners as hitting coach in 2015.
Currently, only one other player has definitively met the requirements to have his number retired: Randy Johnson, who played 10 seasons with the Mariners (1989–1998) and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2015.
Despite not officially retiring number 19, the team has not reissued it since Jay Buhner left the team in 2001.
Number 51, worn by Randy Johnson, was withheld from players from 1998 until 2001, when it was issued to Ichiro Suzuki upon his request after wearing it for his entire career in Japan. It was presumably taken out of circulation again, following Ichiro's 2012 trade to the Yankees coupled with Johnson's 2015 election into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The number was once again worn by Ichiro upon his return to the Mariners in 2018, until retiring in 2019.
Number 14 (Lou Piniella) was not given to any uniformed personnel between Piniella's 2002 departure and 2015, but it was issued to third-base coach Manny Acta for the 2016 season.
Jackie Robinson's number 42 was retired throughout Major League Baseball on April 15, 1997.
Uniform number 00 is presumed off-limits, as it has been worn by the Mariner Moose since 1997 (outfielder Jeffrey Leonard was the last player to wear 00 for the M's, in 1990). From 1990 to 1996, the Moose wore the last 2 digits of the year of the current season.
As part of the seventh inning stretch, after the crowd is led in singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" or "God Bless America" the public address system plays the Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie". This commemorates a 1985 prank attempt to make "Louie Louie" the state song of Washington.
As part of the mid-inning entertainment during games, three animated hydroplanes race on the T-Mobile Park Jumbotron screen. Each boat is "sponsored" by a local business. Fans are encouraged to cheer the boats on. The hydroplane races are inspired by actual hydroplane races held annually during Seafair, Seattle's primary summer event.
Similarly, in a separate event, a baseball is hidden underneath one of three animated Mariners baseball caps and the fans are encouraged to shout out which cap they think the ball is under at the end of the caps' "dance." Both events are strictly for fun and no prizes are awarded.
In 1994, the Mariners started a promotion called "Buhner Buzz Cut Night" Inspired by Jay Buhner's shaved head; any fan who was willing to have their head shaved before the game—or was already bald—would receive a free ticket to the game and a T-shirt with a slogan such as "Bald is Buhnerful" or "Take Me Out To The Bald Game". Hair 10 inches or longer was collected for charity. The promotion continued until Buhner's retirement in 2001, with a year's hiatus in 2000, and is still remembered by fans today.
Rally Fries are a baseball tradition started by Mariners broadcaster Mike Blowers in 2007. During a game against the Cincinnati Reds, a fan tried to catch a foul ball along the right-field line but in turn spilled his tray of french fries along the track. While chatting on the air and seeing the mishap, Blowers' partner, Dave Sims, suggested that he should send a new tray of fries to the fan. Blowers agreed, and sent his intern to deliver a plate of fries to the man.
At the Mariners' next game, fans made signs and boards asking Blowers for fries as well. Coincidentally, every time the fries were delivered, the Mariners seem to score or rally from a deficit, and thus the "Rally Fries" were created. This became so popular with the fans that signs were even seen when the Mariners were the visiting team, although on August 1, 2009, Blowers established that he only gives out fries at home games.
Generally, Blowers would select a person or a group of people that appealed to him, whether it was through fans wearing elaborate costumes or waving funny signs and boards. The fries were usually delivered from Ivar's, a Seattle-based seafood restaurant with a location at T-Mobile Park. The amount of fries given out varied with the size of the winning group of fans. The winners were generally selected around the 5th or 6th inning, although potential candidates were shown in almost every inning beforehand.
As the 2011 season progressed, the Mariners marketing staff came up with an idea to encourage the growing fanbase of star pitcher "King" Félix Hernández. Every Hernandez start at T-Mobile Park was accompanied by the King's Court, a designated cheering section for fans to sing, chant, and cheer while donning yellow T-shirts and "K" cards that are supplied by the team.
The King's Court was both a personal rooting section for Hernandez and trend-setter for T-Mobile Park. The team encouraged fans to dress like Larry Bernandez, Hernandez's alter ego from a Mariners TV Commercial, or show up in wacky costumes, rewarding the best with a ceremonial turkey leg.
The Supreme Court was a special event where the King's Court section was extended to the entirety of T-Mobile Park. The first Supreme Court was Félix's first home game following his perfect game in 2012. Following opening day 2012, it occurred each year at Félix's first home game of each season.
Following Felix's departure from the Mariners at the end of the 2019 season, the King's Court is now officially retired.
The ultimately disappointing 2017 season had a few bright spots, including the establishment of the Maple Grove, a variation of the King’s Court which honors James Paxton rather than Félix Hernández. At home games where Paxton starts, a group of fans sit by a Maple Grove banner, typically in the left field bleachers. A potted maple tree is also present in their section, provided by the Mariners; the Grove dubbed the tree "Stick Rizzs", in honor of a long-time Mariner broadcaster Rick Rizzs.
When Paxton got to two strikes on a batter, the Grove held up “Eh” Cards, a tip of the cap to Paxton’s home country of Canada and a nod to the "K" (for strikeout) cards held up in King's Court. Variant cards have also been produced for special occasions, such as when a planned Paxton start turned into a Hernández start (a King's Grove, with "K'eh" cards to cheer for Hernández). Other examples include when celebrating Paxton reaching 300 strikeouts, or in tribute to broadcaster Angie Mentink ("A" cards, to show support after she had publicly disclosed her being diagnosed with breast cancer).
The Maple Grove differs from the King’s Court in that it was created and organized by fans, while the Court was promoted by the Mariners marketing team. When asked, Paxton stated that fans creating the Maple Grove was really special to him and that he never imagined that something of the sort would ever be done for him. The Grove continued until Paxton was traded to the Yankees following the 2018 season.
The following elected members of the Baseball Hall of Fame spent part of their careers with the Mariners.
The Seattle Mariners farm system consists of seven minor league affiliates.
The Mariners' flagship radio station is KIRO-AM (710 ESPN Radio), which previously broadcast Mariners contests from 1985 to 2002. Former flagship stations include KOMO-AM (2003–2008), and KVI-AM 570 (1977–1984). Television rights are held by Root Sports Northwest. During the 2016 season, the Mariners averaged a 5.84 rating and 103,000 viewers on primetime TV broadcasts. In years past, Mariners games have also appeared in Seattle on over-the-air stations KING-TV, KIRO-TV, KTZZ-TV (now KZJO), and KSTW. Selected Mariners games are also available on Canadian television, due to an agreement between Root Sports Northwest and Rogers Sportsnet Pacific.
Since 2013, Rick Rizzs and Aaron Goldsmith have called games on the radio. The television broadcasts are anchored by play-by-play announcer Dave Sims and color commentator (and former Mariners player) Mike Blowers. Seattle radio personality Matt Pitman hosts the post-game show on the Mariners' radio network, along with clubhouse reporter Shannon Drayer. Spanish-language radio broadcast duties are handled by Alex Rivera on play-by-play and former second baseman Julio Cruz providing color commentary.
The Mariners' broadcast team for 2010 featured Dave Niehaus and Rizzs—back for their 32nd and 23rd seasons with the club, respectively—as well as Sims and Blowers. For the first three innings of each game, Niehaus worked the television broadcast with Blowers while Rizzs and Sims handled radio duties; after the third inning, Niehaus and Sims traded places. Niehaus, who had broadcast for the Mariners since their inaugural season of 1977, died on November 10, 2010. For the 2011 season, Dave Niehaus' duties in the broadcast booth were filled by a collection of former Mariners broadcasters such as Ron Fairly, Ken Levine, and Ken Wilson; and former Mariners' players such as Dave Valle, Dan Wilson, Jay Buhner, and Dave Henderson.
Tom Hutyler has been the Mariners' public address announcer since 1987, first at the Kingdome, and presently at T-Mobile Park. While KOMO 1000 AM was the Mariners' flagship radio station, Hutyler occasionally hosted the post-game radio show. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27660 |
Source code
In computing, source code is any collection of code, possibly with comments, written using a "human-readable" programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source code. The source code is often transformed by an assembler or compiler into binary machine code that can be executed by the computer. The machine code might then be stored for execution at a later time. Alternatively, source code may be interpreted and thus immediately executed.
Most application software is distributed in a form that includes only executable files. If the source code were included it would be useful to a user, programmer or a system administrator, any of whom might wish to study or modify the program.
The Linux Information Project defines source code as:
Source code (also referred to as source or code) is the version of software as it is originally written (i.e., typed into a computer) by a human in plain text (i.e., human readable alphanumeric characters).
The notion of source code may also be taken more broadly, to include machine code and notations in graphical languages, neither of which are textual in nature. An example from an article presented on the annual IEEE conference and on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation:
For the purpose of clarity "source code" is taken to mean any fully executable description of a software system. It is therefore so construed as to include machine code, very high level languages and executable graphical representations of systems.
Often there are several steps of program translation or minification between the original source code typed by a human and an executable program. While some, like the FSF, argue that an intermediate file "is not real source code and does not count as source code", others find it convenient to refer to each intermediate file as the source code for the next steps.
The earliest programs for stored-program computers were entered in binary through the front panel switches of the computer. This first-generation programming language had no distinction between source code and machine code.
When IBM first offered software to work with its machine, the source code was provided at no additional charge. At that time, the cost of developing and supporting software was included in the price of the hardware. For decades, IBM distributed source code with its software product licenses, until 1983.
Most early computer magazines published source code as type-in programs.
Occasionally the entire source code to a large program is published as a hardback book, such as "Computers and Typesetting", vol. B: "TeX, The Program" by Donald Knuth, "PGP Source Code and Internals" by Philip Zimmermann, "PC SpeedScript" by Randy Thompson, and "µC/OS, The Real-Time Kernel" by Jean Labrosse.
The source code which constitutes a program is usually held in one or more text files stored on a computer's hard disk; usually these files are carefully arranged into a directory tree, known as a source tree. Source code can also be stored in a database (as is common for stored procedures) or elsewhere.
The source code for a particular piece of software may be contained in a single file or many files. Though the practice is uncommon, a program's source code can be written in different programming languages. For example, a program written primarily in the C programming language, might have portions written in assembly language for optimization purposes. It is also possible for some components of a piece of software to be written and compiled separately, in an arbitrary programming language, and later integrated into the software using a technique called library linking. In some languages, such as Java, this can be done at run time (each class is compiled into a separate file that is linked by the interpreter at runtime).
Yet another method is to make the main program an interpreter for a programming language, either designed specifically for the application in question or general-purpose, and then write the bulk of the actual user functionality as macros or other forms of add-ins in this language, an approach taken for example by the GNU Emacs text editor.
The code base of a computer programming project is the larger collection of all the source code of all the computer programs which make up the project. It has become common practice to maintain code bases in version control systems. Moderately complex software customarily requires the compilation or assembly of several, sometimes dozens or maybe even hundreds, of different source code files. In these cases, instructions for compilations, such as a Makefile, are included with the source code. These describe the programming relationships among the source code files and contain information about how they are to be compiled.
Source code is primarily used as input to the process that produces an executable program (i.e., it is compiled or interpreted). It is also used as a method of communicating algorithms between people (e.g., code snippets in books).
Computer programmers often find it helpful to review existing source code to learn about programming techniques. The sharing of source code between developers is frequently cited as a contributing factor to the maturation of their programming skills. Some people consider source code an expressive artistic medium.
Porting software to other computer platforms is usually prohibitively difficult without source code. Without the source code for a particular piece of software, portability is generally computationally expensive. Possible porting options include binary translation and emulation of the original platform.
Decompilation of an executable program can be used to generate source code, either in assembly code or in a high-level language.
Programmers frequently adapt source code from one piece of software to use in other projects, a concept known as software reusability.
The situation varies worldwide, but in the United States before 1974, software and its source code was not copyrightable and therefore always public domain software.
In 1974, the US Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) decided that "computer programs, to the extent that they embody an author's original creation, are proper subject matter of copyright".
In 1983 in the United States court case "Apple v. Franklin" it was ruled that the same applied to object code; and that the Copyright Act gave computer programs the copyright status of literary works.
In 1999, in the United States court case "Bernstein v. United States" it was further ruled that source code could be considered a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Proponents of free speech argued that because source code conveys information to programmers, is written in a language, and can be used to share humor and other artistic pursuits, it is a protected form of communication.
An author of a non-trivial work like software, has several exclusive rights, among them the copyright for the source code and object code. The author has the right and possibility to grant customers and users of his software some of his exclusive rights in form of software licensing. Software, and its accompanying source code, can be associated with several licensing paradigms; the most important distinction is open source vs proprietary software. This is done by including a copyright notice that declares licensing terms. If no notice is found, then the default of "All rights reserved" is implied.
Generally speaking, software is "open source" if the source code is free to use, distribute, modify and study, and "proprietary" if the source code is kept secret, or is privately owned and restricted. One of the first software licenses to be published and to explicitly grant these freedoms was the GNU General Public License in 1989; the BSD license is another early example from 1990.
For proprietary software, the provisions of the various copyright laws, trade secrecy and patents are used to keep the source code closed. Additionally, many pieces of retail software come with an end-user license agreement (EULA) which typically prohibits decompilation, reverse engineering, analysis, modification, or circumventing of copy protection. Types of source code protection—beyond traditional compilation to object code—include code encryption, code obfuscation or code morphing.
The way a program is written can have important consequences for its maintainers. Coding conventions, which stress readability and some language-specific conventions, are aimed at the maintenance of the software source code, which involves debugging and updating. Other priorities, such as the speed of the program's execution, or the ability to compile the program for multiple architectures, often make code readability a less important consideration, since code "quality" generally depends on its "purpose". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27661 |
Space
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.
Debates concerning the nature, essence and the mode of existence of space date back to antiquity; namely, to treatises like the "Timaeus" of Plato, or Socrates in his reflections on what the Greeks called "khôra" (i.e. "space"), or in the "Physics" of Aristotle (Book IV, Delta) in the definition of "topos" (i.e. place), or in the later "geometrical conception of place" as "space "qua" extension" in the "Discourse on Place" ("Qawl fi al-Makan") of the 11th-century Arab polymath Alhazen. Many of these classical philosophical questions were discussed in the Renaissance and then reformulated in the 17th century, particularly during the early development of classical mechanics. In Isaac Newton's view, space was absolute—in the sense that it existed permanently and independently of whether there was any matter in the space. Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried Leibniz, thought instead that space was in fact a collection of relations between objects, given by their distance and direction from one another. In the 18th century, the philosopher and theologian George Berkeley attempted to refute the "visibility of spatial depth" in his "Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision". Later, the metaphysician Immanuel Kant said that the concepts of space and time are not empirical ones derived from experiences of the outside world—they are elements of an already given systematic framework that humans possess and use to structure all experiences. Kant referred to the experience of "space" in his "Critique of Pure Reason" as being a subjective "pure "a priori" form of intuition".
In the 19th and 20th centuries mathematicians began to examine geometries that are non-Euclidean, in which space is conceived as "curved", rather than "flat". According to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, space around gravitational fields deviates from Euclidean space. Experimental tests of general relativity have confirmed that non-Euclidean geometries provide a better model for the shape of space.
Galilean and Cartesian theories about space, matter, and motion are at the foundation of the Scientific Revolution, which is understood to have culminated with the publication of Newton's "Principia" in 1687. Newton's theories about space and time helped him explain the movement of objects. While his theory of space is considered the most influential in Physics, it emerged from his predecessors' ideas about the same.
As one of the pioneers of modern science, Galileo revised the established Aristotelian and Ptolemaic ideas about a geocentric cosmos. He backed the Copernican theory that the universe was heliocentric, with a stationary sun at the center and the planets—including the Earth—revolving around the sun. If the Earth moved, the Aristotelian belief that its natural tendency was to remain at rest was in question. Galileo wanted to prove instead that the sun moved around its axis, that motion was as natural to an object as the state of rest. In other words, for Galileo, celestial bodies, including the Earth, were naturally inclined to move in circles. This view displaced another Aristotelian idea—that all objects gravitated towards their designated natural place-of-belonging.
Descartes set out to replace the Aristotelian worldview with a theory about space and motion as determined by natural laws. In other words, he sought a metaphysical foundation or a mechanical explanation for his theories about matter and motion. Cartesian space was Euclidean in structure—infinite, uniform and flat. It was defined as that which contained matter; conversely, matter by definition had a spatial extension so that there was no such thing as empty space.
The Cartesian notion of space is closely linked to his theories about the nature of the body, mind and matter. He is famously known for his "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am), or the idea that we can only be certain of the fact that we can doubt, and therefore think and therefore exist. His theories belong to the rationalist tradition, which attributes knowledge about the world to our ability to think rather than to our experiences, as the empiricists believe. He posited a clear distinction between the body and mind, which is referred to as the Cartesian dualism.
Following Galileo and Descartes, during the seventeenth century the philosophy of space and time revolved around the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz, a German philosopher–mathematician, and Isaac Newton, who set out two opposing theories of what space is. Rather than being an entity that independently exists over and above other matter, Leibniz held that space is no more than the collection of spatial relations between objects in the world: "space is that which results from places taken together". Unoccupied regions are those that "could" have objects in them, and thus spatial relations with other places. For Leibniz, then, space was an idealised abstraction from the relations between individual entities or their possible locations and therefore could not be continuous but must be discrete.
Space could be thought of in a similar way to the relations between family members. Although people in the family are related to one another, the relations do not exist independently of the people.
Leibniz argued that space could not exist independently of objects in the world because that implies a difference between two universes exactly alike except for the location of the material world in each universe. But since there would be no observational way of telling these universes apart then, according to the identity of indiscernibles, there would be no real difference between them. According to the principle of sufficient reason, any theory of space that implied that there could be these two possible universes must therefore be wrong.
Newton took space to be more than relations between material objects and based his position on observation and experimentation. For a relationist there can be no real difference between inertial motion, in which the object travels with constant velocity, and non-inertial motion, in which the velocity changes with time, since all spatial measurements are relative to other objects and their motions. But Newton argued that since non-inertial motion generates forces, it must be absolute. He used the example of water in a spinning bucket to demonstrate his argument. Water in a bucket is hung from a rope and set to spin, starts with a flat surface. After a while, as the bucket continues to spin, the surface of the water becomes concave. If the bucket's spinning is stopped then the surface of the water remains concave as it continues to spin. The concave surface is therefore apparently not the result of relative motion between the bucket and the water. Instead, Newton argued, it must be a result of non-inertial motion relative to space itself. For several centuries the bucket argument was considered decisive in showing that space must exist independently of matter.
In the eighteenth century the German philosopher Immanuel Kant developed a theory of knowledge in which knowledge about space can be both "a priori" and "synthetic". According to Kant, knowledge about space is "synthetic", in that statements about space are not simply true by virtue of the meaning of the words in the statement. In his work, Kant rejected the view that space must be either a substance or relation. Instead he came to the conclusion that space and time are not discovered by humans to be objective features of the world, but imposed by us as part of a framework for organizing experience.
Euclid's "Elements" contained five postulates that form the basis for Euclidean geometry. One of these, the parallel postulate, has been the subject of debate among mathematicians for many centuries. It states that on any plane on which there is a straight line "L1" and a point "P" not on "L1", there is exactly one straight line "L2" on the plane that passes through the point "P" and is parallel to the straight line "L1". Until the 19th century, few doubted the truth of the postulate; instead debate centered over whether it was necessary as an axiom, or whether it was a theory that could be derived from the other axioms. Around 1830 though, the Hungarian János Bolyai and the Russian Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky separately published treatises on a type of geometry that does not include the parallel postulate, called hyperbolic geometry. In this geometry, an infinite number of parallel lines pass through the point "P". Consequently, the sum of angles in a triangle is less than 180° and the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is greater than pi. In the 1850s, Bernhard Riemann developed an equivalent theory of elliptical geometry, in which no parallel lines pass through "P". In this geometry, triangles have more than 180° and circles have a ratio of circumference-to-diameter that is less than pi.
Although there was a prevailing Kantian consensus at the time, once non-Euclidean geometries had been formalised, some began to wonder whether or not physical space is curved. Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German mathematician, was the first to consider an empirical investigation of the geometrical structure of space. He thought of making a test of the sum of the angles of an enormous stellar triangle, and there are reports that he actually carried out a test, on a small scale, by triangulating mountain tops in Germany.
Henri Poincaré, a French mathematician and physicist of the late 19th century, introduced an important insight in which he attempted to demonstrate the futility of any attempt to discover which geometry applies to space by experiment. He considered the predicament that would face scientists if they were confined to the surface of an imaginary large sphere with particular properties, known as a sphere-world. In this world, the temperature is taken to vary in such a way that all objects expand and contract in similar proportions in different places on the sphere. With a suitable falloff in temperature, if the scientists try to use measuring rods to determine the sum of the angles in a triangle, they can be deceived into thinking that they inhabit a plane, rather than a spherical surface. In fact, the scientists cannot in principle determine whether they inhabit a plane or sphere and, Poincaré argued, the same is true for the debate over whether real space is Euclidean or not. For him, which geometry was used to describe space was a matter of convention. Since Euclidean geometry is simpler than non-Euclidean geometry, he assumed the former would always be used to describe the 'true' geometry of the world.
In 1905, Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity, which led to the concept that space and time can be viewed as a single construct known as "spacetime". In this theory, the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers—which has the result that two events that appear simultaneous to one particular observer will not be simultaneous to another observer if the observers are moving with respect to one another. Moreover, an observer will measure a moving clock to tick more slowly than one that is stationary with respect to them; and objects are measured to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.
Subsequently, Einstein worked on a general theory of relativity, which is a theory of how gravity interacts with spacetime. Instead of viewing gravity as a force field acting in spacetime, Einstein suggested that it modifies the geometric structure of spacetime itself. According to the general theory, time goes more slowly at places with lower gravitational potentials and rays of light bend in the presence of a gravitational field. Scientists have studied the behaviour of binary pulsars, confirming the predictions of Einstein's theories, and non-Euclidean geometry is usually used to describe spacetime.
In modern mathematics spaces are defined as sets with some added structure. They are frequently described as different types of manifolds, which are spaces that locally approximate to Euclidean space, and where the properties are defined largely on local connectedness of points that lie on the manifold. There are however, many diverse mathematical objects that are called spaces. For example, vector spaces such as function spaces may have infinite numbers of independent dimensions and a notion of distance very different from Euclidean space, and topological spaces replace the concept of distance with a more abstract idea of nearness.
Space is one of the few fundamental quantities in physics, meaning that it cannot be defined via other quantities because nothing more fundamental is known at the present. On the other hand, it can be related to other fundamental quantities. Thus, similar to other fundamental quantities (like time and mass), space can be explored via measurement and experiment.
Today, our three-dimensional space is viewed as embedded in a four-dimensional spacetime, called Minkowski space (see special relativity). The idea behind space-time is that time is hyperbolic-orthogonal to each of the three spatial dimensions.
Before Albert Einstein's work on relativistic physics, time and space were viewed as independent dimensions. Einstein's discoveries showed that due to relativity of motion our space and time can be mathematically combined into one object–spacetime. It turns out that distances in space or in time separately are not invariant with respect to Lorentz coordinate transformations, but distances in Minkowski space-time along space-time intervals are—which justifies the name.
In addition, time and space dimensions should not be viewed as exactly equivalent in Minkowski space-time. One can freely move in space but not in time. Thus, time and space coordinates are treated differently both in special relativity (where time is sometimes considered an imaginary coordinate) and in general relativity (where different signs are assigned to time and space components of spacetime metric).
Furthermore, in Einstein's general theory of relativity, it is postulated that space-time is geometrically distorted – "curved" – near to gravitationally significant masses.
One consequence of this postulate, which follows from the equations of general relativity, is the prediction of moving ripples of space-time, called gravitational waves. While indirect evidence for these waves has been found (in the motions of the Hulse–Taylor binary system, for example) experiments attempting to directly measure these waves are ongoing at the LIGO and Virgo collaborations. LIGO scientists reported the first such direct observation of gravitational waves on 14 September 2015.
Relativity theory leads to the cosmological question of what shape the universe is, and where space came from. It appears that space was created in the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. The overall shape of space is not known, but space is known to be expanding very rapidly due to the cosmic inflation.
The measurement of "physical space" has long been important. Although earlier societies had developed measuring systems, the International System of Units, (SI), is now the most common system of units used in the measuring of space, and is almost universally used.
Currently, the standard space interval, called a standard meter or simply meter, is defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum during a time interval of exactly 1/299,792,458 of a second. This definition coupled with present definition of the second is based on the special theory of relativity in which the speed of light plays the role of a fundamental constant of nature.
Geography is the branch of science concerned with identifying and describing places on Earth, utilizing spatial awareness to try to understand why things exist in specific locations. Cartography is the mapping of spaces to allow better navigation, for visualization purposes and to act as a locational device. Geostatistics apply statistical concepts to collected spatial data of Earth to create an estimate for unobserved phenomena.
Geographical space is often considered as land, and can have a relation to ownership usage (in which space is seen as property or territory). While some cultures assert the rights of the individual in terms of ownership, other cultures will identify with a communal approach to land ownership, while still other cultures such as Australian Aboriginals, rather than asserting ownership rights to land, invert the relationship and consider that they are in fact owned by the land. Spatial planning is a method of regulating the use of space at land-level, with decisions made at regional, national and international levels. Space can also impact on human and cultural behavior, being an important factor in architecture, where it will impact on the design of buildings and structures, and on farming.
Ownership of space is not restricted to land. Ownership of airspace and of waters is decided internationally. Other forms of ownership have been recently asserted to other spaces—for example to the radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum or to cyberspace.
Public space is a term used to define areas of land as collectively owned by the community, and managed in their name by delegated bodies; such spaces are open to all, while private property is the land culturally owned by an individual or company, for their own use and pleasure.
Abstract space is a term used in geography to refer to a hypothetical space characterized by complete homogeneity. When modeling activity or behavior, it is a conceptual tool used to limit extraneous variables such as terrain.
Psychologists first began to study the way space is perceived in the middle of the 19th century. Those now concerned with such studies regard it as a distinct branch of psychology. Psychologists analyzing the perception of space are concerned with how recognition of an object's physical appearance or its interactions are perceived, see, for example, visual space.
Other, more specialized topics studied include amodal perception and object permanence. The perception of surroundings is important due to its necessary relevance to survival, especially with regards to hunting and self preservation as well as simply one's idea of personal space.
Several space-related phobias have been identified, including agoraphobia (the fear of open spaces), astrophobia (the fear of celestial space) and claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed spaces).
The understanding of three-dimensional space in humans is thought to be learned during infancy using unconscious inference, and is closely related to hand-eye coordination. The visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions is called depth perception.
Space has been studied in the social sciences from the perspectives of Marxism, feminism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, urban theory and critical geography. These theories account for the effect of the history of colonialism, transatlantic slavery and globalization on our understanding and experience of space and place. The topic has garnered attention since the 1980s, after the publication of Henri Lefebvre's "The Production of Space ." In this book, Lefebvre applies Marxist ideas about the production of commodities and accumulation of capital to discuss space as a social product. His focus is on the multiple and overlapping social processes that produce space.
In his book "The Condition of Postmodernity," David Harvey describes what he terms the "time-space compression." This is the effect of technological advances and capitalism on our perception of time, space and distance. Changes in the modes of production and consumption of capital affect and are affected by developments in transportation and technology. These advances create relationships across time and space, new markets and groups of wealthy elites in urban centers, all of which annihilate distances and affect our perception of linearity and distance.
In his book "Thirdspace," Edward Soja describes space and spatiality as an integral and neglected aspect of what he calls the "trialectics of being," the three modes that determine how we inhabit, experience and understand the world. He argues that critical theories in the Humanities and Social Sciences study the historical and social dimensions of our lived experience, neglecting the spatial dimension. He builds on Henri Lefebvre's work to address the dualistic way in which humans understand space—as either material/physical or as represented/imagined. Lefebvre's "lived space" and Soja's "thridspace" are terms that account for the complex ways in which humans understand and navigate place, which "firstspace" and "Secondspace" (Soja's terms for material and imagined spaces respectively) do not fully encompass.
Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha's concept of Third Space is different from Soja's Thirdspace, even though both terms offer a way to think outside the terms of a binary logic. Bhabha's Third Space is the space in which hybrid cultural forms and identities exist. In his theories, the term hybrid describes new cultural forms that emerge through the interaction between colonizer and colonized. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27667 |
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela (or Saint James of Compostella in English) is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St. James, a leading Catholic pilgrimage route since the 9th century. In 1985, the city's Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
"Santiago" is the local Galician evolution of Vulgar Latin "Sanctus Iacobus" "Saint James". According to legend, "Compostela" derives from the Latin "Campus Stellae" (i.e., "field of the star"); it seems unlikely, however, that this phrase could have yielded the modern "Compostela" under normal evolution from Latin to Medieval Galician.
Other etymologies derive the name from Latin "compositum", local Vulgar Latin "Composita Tella", meaning "burial ground", or simply from Latin "compositella", meaning "the well-composed one". Other sites in Galicia share this toponym, akin to "Compostilla" in the province of León.
The cathedral borders the main plaza of the old and well-preserved city. According to medieval legend, the remains of the apostle James were brought to Galicia for burial; in 813, the light of a bright star guided a shepherd who was watching his flock at night to the burial site in Santiago de Compostela. This site was originally called Mount Libredon and its physical topography leads prevalent sea borne winds to clear the cloud deck immediately overhead. The shepherd quickly reported his discovery to the bishop of Iria, Bishop Teodomiro. The bishop declared that the remains were those of the apostle James and immediately notified King Alfonso II in Oviedo. To honour St. James, the cathedral was built on the spot where his remains were said to have been found. The legend, which included numerous miraculous events, enabled the Catholic faithful to bolster support for their stronghold in northern Spain during the Christian crusades against the Moors, but also led to the growth and development of the city.
Along the western side of the "Praza do Obradoiro" is the elegant 18th-century Pazo de Raxoi, now the city hall. Across the square is the Pazo de Raxoi (Raxoi's Palace), the town hall, and on the right from the cathedral steps is the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, founded in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand II of Aragon, as a pilgrims' hospice (now a parador). The Obradoiro façade of the cathedral, the best known, is depicted on the Spanish euro coins of 1 cent, 2 cents, and 5 cents (€0.01, €0.02, and €0.05).
Santiago is the site of the University of Santiago de Compostela, established in the early 16th century. The main campus can be seen best from an alcove in the large municipal park in the centre of the city.
Within the old town there are many narrow winding streets full of historic buildings. The new town all around it has less character though some of the older parts of the new town have some big flats in them.
Santiago de Compostela has a substantial nightlife. Both in the new town ("a zona nova" in Galician, "la zona nueva" in Spanish or "ensanche") and the old town ("a zona vella" in Galician or "la zona vieja" in Spanish, trade-branded as "zona monumental"), a mix of middle-aged residents and younger students maintain a lively presence until the early hours of the morning. Radiating from the centre of the city, the historic cathedral is surrounded by paved granite streets, tucked away in the old town, and separated from the newer part of the city by the largest of many parks throughout the city, "Parque da Alameda".
Santiago gives its name to one of the four military orders of Spain: Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa.
One of the most important economic centres in Galicia, Santiago is the seat for organisations like Association for Equal and Fair Trade Pangaea.
Under the Köppen climate classification, Santiago de Compostela has a temperate oceanic ("Cfb") climate, with mild to warm and somewhat dry summers and mild, wet winters. The prevailing winds from the Atlantic and the surrounding mountains combine to give Santiago some of Spain's highest rainfall: about annually. The climate is mild: frosts are common only in December, January and February, with an average of just 8 days per year, while snow is rare; temperatures over are exceptional.
The city is governed by a mayor–council form of government. Following the May 24, 2015 municipal elections the mayor of Santiago is Martiño Noriega Sánchez of Compostela Aberta (CA). No party has a majority in the city council ().
The population of the city in 2019 was 96,260 inhabitants, while the metropolitan area reaches 178,695.
In 2010 there were 4,111 foreigners living in the city, representing 4.3% of the total population. The main nationalities are Brazilians (11%), Portuguese (8%) and Colombians (7%).
By language, according to 2008 data, 21.17% of the population always speak in Galician, 15% always speak in Spanish, 31% mostly in Galician and the 32.17% mostly in Spanish. According to a Xunta de Galicia 2010 study the 38.5% of the city primary and secondary education students had Galician as their mother tongue.
The area of Santiago de Compostela was a Roman cemetery by the 4th century and was occupied by the Suebi in the early 5th century, when they settled in Galicia and Portugal during the initial collapse of the Roman Empire. The area was later attributed to the bishopric of Iria Flavia in the 6th century, in the partition usually known as Parochiale Suevorum, ordered by King Theodemar. In 585, the settlement was annexed along with the rest of Suebi Kingdom by Leovigild as the sixth province of the Visigothic Kingdom.
Possibly raided from 711 to 739 by the Arabs, the bishopric of Iria was incorporated into the Kingdom of Asturias c. 750. At some point between 818 and 842, during the reign of Alfonso II of Asturias, bishop Theodemar of Iria (d. 847) claimed to have found some remains which were attributed to Saint James the Greater. This discovery was accepted in part because the Leo III and Charlemagne—who had died in 814—had acknowledged Asturias as a kingdom and Alfonso II as king, and had also crafted close political and ecclesiastic ties. Around the place of the discovery a new settlement and centre of pilgrimage emerged, which was known to the author Usuard in 865 and which was called "Compostella" by the 10th century.
The cult of Saint James of Compostela was just one of many arising throughout northern Iberia during the 10th and 11th centuries, as rulers encouraged their own region-specific cults, such as Saint Eulalia in Oviedo and Saint Aemilian in Castile. After the centre of Asturian political power moved from Oviedo to León in 910, Compostela became more politically relevant, and several kings of Galicia and of León were acclaimed by the Galician noblemen and crowned and anointed by the local bishop at the cathedral, among them Ordoño IV in 958, Bermudo II in 982, and Alfonso VII in 1111, by which time Compostela had become capital of the Kingdom of Galicia. Later, 12th-century kings were also sepulchered in the cathedral, namely Fernando II and Alfonso IX, last of the Kings of León and Galicia before both kingdoms were united with the Kingdom of Castile.
During this same 10th century and in the first years of the 11th century Viking raiders tried to assault the town—Galicia is known in the Nordic sagas as "Jackobsland" or "Gallizaland"—and bishop Sisenand II, who was killed in battle against them in 968, ordered the construction of a walled fortress to protect the sacred place. In 997 Compostela was assaulted and partially destroyed by Ibn Abi Aamir (known as al-Mansur), Andalusian leader accompanied in his raid by Christian lords, who all received a share of the booty. However, the Andalusian commander showed no interest in the alleged relics of St James. In response to these challenges bishop Cresconio, in the mid-11th century, fortified the entire town, building walls and defensive towers.
According to some authors, by the middle years of the 11th century the site had already become a pan-European place of peregrination, while others maintain that the cult to Saint James was before 11-12th centuries an essentially Galician affair, supported by Asturian and Leonese kings to win over faltering Galician loyalties. Santiago would become in the course of the following century a main Catholic shrine second only to Rome and Jerusalem. In the 12th century, under the impulse of bishop Diego Gelmírez, Compostela became an archbishopric, attracting a large and multinational population. Under the rule of this prelate, the townspeople rebelled, headed by the local council, beginning a secular tradition of confrontation by the people of the city—who fought for self-government—against the local bishop, the secular and jurisdictional lord of the city and of its fief, the semi-independent "Terra de Santiago" ("land of Saint James"). The culminating moment in this confrontation was reached in the 14th century, when the new prelate, the Frenchman Bérenger de Landore, treacherously executed the counselors of the city in his castle of "A Rocha Forte" ("the strong rock, castle"), after inviting them for talks.
Santiago de Compostela was captured and sacked by the French during the Napoleonic Wars; as a result, the remains attributed to the apostle were lost for near a century, hidden inside a cist in the crypts of the cathedral of the city.
The excavations conducted in the cathedral during the 19th and 20th centuries uncovered a Roman "cella memoriae" or martyrium, around which grew a small cemetery in Roman and Suevi times which was later abandoned. This "martyrium", which proves the existence of an old Christian holy place, has been sometimes attributed to Priscillian, although without further proof.
Santiago's economy, although still heavily dependent on public administration (i.e. being the headquarters of the autonomous government of Galicia), cultural tourism, industry, and higher education through its university, is becoming increasingly diversified. New industries such as timber transformation (FINSA), the automotive industry (UROVESA), and telecommunications and electronics (Blusens and Televés) have been established. Banco Gallego, a banking institution owned by Novacaixagalicia, has its headquarters in downtown "rúa do Hórreo".
Tourism is very important thanks to the Way of St. James, particularly in Holy Compostelan Years (when 25 July falls on a Sunday). Following the Xunta's considerable investment and hugely successful advertising campaign for the Holy Year of 1993, the number of pilgrims completing the route has been steadily rising. More than 272,000 pilgrims made the trip during the course of the Holy Year of 2010. Following 2010, the next Holy Year will not be for another 11 years when St James feast day again falls on a Sunday. Outside of Holy Years, the city still receives a remarkable number of pilgrims. In 2013, 215,880 people completed the pilgrimage. In 2014, there were 237,983 persons. In 2015, there were 262,513 persons and in 2016, there were 277,854 persons.
Editorial Compostela owns daily newspaper El Correo Gallego, a local TV, and a radio station. Galician language online news portal Galicia Hoxe is also based in the city. Televisión de Galicia, the public broadcaster corporation of Galicia, has its headquarters in Santiago.
The legend that St James found his way to the Iberian Peninsula and had preached there is one of a number of early traditions concerning the missionary activities and final resting places of the apostles of Jesus. Although the 1884 Bull of Pope Leo XIII "Omnipotens Deus" accepted the authenticity of the relics at Compostela, the Vatican remains uncommitted as to whether the relics are those of Saint James the Greater, while continuing to promote the more general benefits of pilgrimage to the site. Pope Benedict XVI undertook a ceremonial pilgrimage to the site on his visit to Spain in 2010.
According to a tradition that can be traced back at least to the 12th century, when it was recorded in the "Codex Calixtinus", Saint James decided to return to the Holy Land after preaching in Galicia. There he was beheaded, but his disciples got his body to Jaffa, where they found a marvelous stone ship which miraculously conducted them and the apostle's body to Iria Flavia, back in Galicia. There, the disciples asked the local pagan queen "Loba" ('She-wolf') for permission to bury the body; she, annoyed, decided to deceive them, sending them to pick a pair of oxen she allegedly had by the "Pico Sacro", a local sacred mountain where a dragon dwelt, hoping that the dragon would kill the Christians, but as soon as the beast attacked the disciples, at the sight of the cross, the dragon exploded. Then the disciples marched to collect the oxen, which were actually wild bulls which the queen used to punish her enemies; but again, at the sight of the Christian's cross, the bulls calmed down, and after being subjected to a yoke they carried the apostle's body to the place where now Compostela is. The legend was again referred with minor changes by the Czech traveller Jaroslav Lev of Rožmitál, in the 15th century.
The relics were said to have been later rediscovered in the 9th century by a hermit named Pelagius, who after observing strange lights in a local forest went for help after the local bishop, Theodemar of Iria, in the west of Galicia. The legend affirms that Theodemar was then guided to the spot by a star, drawing upon a familiar myth-element, hence "Compostela" was given an etymology as a corruption of Campus Stellae, "Field of Stars."
In the 15th century, the red banner which guided the Galician armies to battle, was still preserved in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in the centre Saint James riding a white horse and wearing a white cloak, sword in hand: The legend of the miraculous armed intervention of Saint James, disguised as a white knight to help the Christians when battling the Muslims, was a recurrent myth during the High Middle Ages.
The 1,000-year-old pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is known in English as the Way of St. James and in Spanish as the "Camino de Santiago". Over 200,000 pilgrims travel to the city each year from points all over Europe and other parts of the world. The pilgrimage has been the subject of many books, television programmes, and films, notably Brian Sewell's "The Naked Pilgrim" produced for the British television channel Channel 5 and the Martin Sheen/Emilio Estevez collaboration "The Way".
As the lowest-lying land on that stretch of coast, the city's site took on added significance. Legends supposed of Celtic origin made it the place where the souls of the dead gathered to follow the sun across the sea. Those unworthy of going to the Land of the Dead haunted Galicia as the "Santa Compaña" or "Estadea".
Santiago de Compostela is featured prominently in the 1988 historical fiction novel "Sharpe's Rifles", by Bernard Cornwell, which takes place during the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars.
The music video for "Una Cerveza", by Ráfaga, is set in the historic part of Santiago de Compostela.
A pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela provides the narrative framework of the Luis Buñuel film La Voie lactée (The Milky Way).
A mystic pilgrimage was portrayed in the autobiography and romance The Pilgrimage ("O Diário de um Mago") of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, published in 1987.
Santiago de Compostela is served by Santiago de Compostela Airport and a rail service.
Santiago de Compostela Airport is the 2nd busiest airport in northern Spain after Bilbao Airport. The airport is located in the parish of Lavacolla, 12 km from the city center and handled 2,644,925 passengers in 2017.
Santiago de Compostela railway station is linked to the Spanish High Speed Railway Network. Madrid is reached in about 5 hours and 10 minutes.
Porto can also be reached in less than 5 hours changing to the Celta train in Vigo.
On 24 July 2013 there was a serious rail accident near the city in which 79 people died and at least 130 were injured when a train derailed on a bend as it approached Compostela station.
Santiago de Compostela is twinned with: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27670 |
Sailing
Sailing
employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the "water" (sailing ship, sailboat, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on "ice" (iceboat) or on "land" (land yacht) over a chosen course, which is often part of a larger plan of navigation.
A course defined with respect to the true wind direction is called a point of sail.
Conventional sailing craft cannot derive power from sails on a point of sail that is too close into the wind. On a given point of sail, the sailor adjusts the alignment of each sail with respect to the apparent wind direction (as perceived on the craft) to mobilize the power of the wind. The forces transmitted via the sails are resisted by forces from the hull, keel, and rudder of a sailing craft, by forces from skate runners of an iceboat, or by forces from wheels of a land sailing craft to allow steering the course.
In the 21st century, most sailing represents a form of recreation or sport. Recreational sailing or yachting can be divided into racing and cruising. Cruising can include extended offshore and ocean-crossing trips, coastal sailing within sight of land, and daysailing.
Until the mid of the 19th century, sailing ships were the primary means for marine commerce, this period is known as Age of Sail.
Throughout history sailing has been instrumental in the development of civilization, affording humanity greater mobility than travel over land, whether for trade, transport or warfare, and the capacity for fishing. The earliest representation of a ship under sail appears on a painted disc found in Kuwait dating between 5500 and 5000 BCE. They would go selling and teaching other civilizations how to build, sail and navigate the ships.
Austronesian oceanfarers traveled vast distances of open ocean in outrigger canoes using navigation methods such as stick charts. Advances in sailing technology from the Middle Ages onward enabled Arab, Chinese, Indian and European explorers to make longer voyages into regions with extreme weather and climatic conditions. There were improvements in sails, masts and rigging; improvements in marine navigation, including the cross tree and charts of both the sea and constellations, allowed more certainty in sea travel. From the 15th century onwards, European ships went further north, stayed longer on the Grand Banks and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and eventually began to explore the Pacific Northwest and the Western Arctic. Sailing has contributed to many great explorations in the world.
According to Jett, the Egyptians used a bipod mast to support a sail that allowed a reed craft to travel upriver with a following wind, as late as 3,500 BCE. Such sails evolved into the square-sail rig that persisted up to the 19th century. Such rigs generally could not sail much closer than 80° to the wind. Fore-and-aft rigs appear to have evolved in Southeast Asia—dates are uncertain—allowing for rigs that could sail as close as 60–75° off the wind.
The physics of sailing arises from a balance of forces between the wind powering the sailing craft as it passes over its sails and the resistance by the sailing craft against being blown off course, which is provided in the water by the keel, rudder, underwater foils and other elements of the underbody of a sailboat, on ice by the runners of an ice boat, or on land by the wheels of a sail-powered land vehicle.
Forces on sails depend on wind speed and direction and the speed and direction of the craft. The speed of the craft at a given point of sail contributes to the "apparent wind"—the wind speed and direction as measured on the moving craft. The apparent wind on the sail creates a total aerodynamic force, which may be resolved into drag—the force component in the direction of the apparent wind—and lift—the force component normal (90°) to the apparent wind. Depending on the alignment of the sail with the apparent wind ("angle of attack"), lift or drag may be the predominant propulsive component. Depending on the angle of attack of a set of sails with respect to the apparent wind, each sail is providing motive force to the sailing craft either from lift-dominant attached flow or drag-dominant separated flow. Additionally, sails may interact with one another to create forces that are different from the sum of the individual contributions of each sail, when used alone.
The term "velocity" refers both to speed and direction. As applied to wind, "apparent wind velocity" (VA) is the air velocity acting upon the leading edge of the most forward sail or as experienced by instrumentation or crew on a moving sailing craft. In nautical terminology, wind speeds are normally expressed in knots and wind angles in degrees. All sailing craft reach a constant "forward velocity" (VB) for a given "true wind velocity" (VT) and "point of sail". The craft's point of sail affects its velocity for a given true wind velocity. Conventional sailing craft cannot derive power from the wind in a "no-go" zone that is approximately 40° to 50° away from the true wind, depending on the craft. Likewise, the directly downwind speed of all conventional sailing craft is limited to the true wind speed. As a sailboat sails further from the wind, the apparent wind becomes smaller and the lateral component becomes less; boat speed is highest on the beam reach. In order to act like an airfoil, the sail on a sailboat is sheeted further out as the course is further off the wind. As an iceboat sails further from the wind, the apparent wind increases slightly and the boat speed is highest on the broad reach. In order to act like an airfoil, the sail on an iceboat is sheeted in for all three points of sail.
"Lift" on a sail, acting as an airfoil, occurs in a direction "perpendicular" to the incident airstream (the apparent wind velocity for the head sail) and is a result of pressure differences between the windward and leeward surfaces and depends on angle of attack, sail shape, air density, and speed of the apparent wind. The lift force results from the average pressure on the windward surface of the sail being higher than the average pressure on the leeward side. These pressure differences arise in conjunction with the curved air flow. As air follows a curved path along the windward side of a sail, there is a pressure gradient perpendicular to the flow direction with higher pressure on the outside of the curve and lower pressure on the inside. To generate lift, a sail must present an "angle of attack" between the chord line of the sail and the apparent wind velocity. Angle of attack is a function of both the craft's point of sail and how the sail is adjusted with respect to the apparent wind.
As the lift generated by a sail increases, so does lift-induced drag, which together with parasitic drag constitute total "drag", which acts in a direction "parallel" to the incident airstream. This occurs as the angle of attack increases with sail trim or change of course and causes the lift coefficient to increase up to the point of aerodynamic stall along with the lift-induced drag coefficient. At the onset of stall, lift is abruptly decreased, as is lift-induced drag. Sails with the apparent wind behind them (especially going downwind) operate in a stalled condition.
Lift and drag are components of the total aerodynamic force on sail, which are resisted by forces in the water (for a boat) or on the traveled surface (for an ice boat or land sailing craft). Sails act in two basic modes; under the "lift-predominant" mode, the sail behaves in a manner analogous to a "wing" with airflow attached to both surfaces; under the "drag-predominant" mode, the sail acts in a manner analogous to a "parachute" with airflow in detached flow, eddying around the sail.
Sails allow progress of a sailing craft to windward, thanks to their ability to generate lift (and the craft's ability to resist the lateral forces that result). Each sail configuration has a characteristic coefficient of lift and attendant coefficient of drag, which can be determined experimentally and calculated theoretically. Sailing craft orient their sails with a favorable angle of attack between the entry point of the sail and the apparent wind even as their course changes. The ability to generate lift is limited by sailing too close to the wind when no effective angle of attack is available to generate lift (causing luffing) and sailing sufficiently off the wind that the sail cannot be oriented at a favorable angle of attack to prevent the sail from stalling with flow separation.
When sailing craft are on a course where the angle between the sail and the apparent wind (the angle of attack) exceeds the point of maximum lift, separation of flow occurs. Drag increases and lift decreases with increasing angle of attack as the separation becomes progressively pronounced until the sail is perpendicular to the apparent wind, when lift becomes negligible and drag predominates. In addition to the sails used upwind, spinnakers provide area and curvature appropriate for sailing with separated flow on downwind points of sail, analogous to parachutes, which provide both lift and drag.
Wind speed increases with height above the surface; at the same time, wind speed may vary over short periods of time as gusts.
Wind shear affects sailing craft in motion by presenting a different wind speed and direction at different heights along the mast. Wind shear occurs because of friction above a water surface slowing the flow of air. The ratio of wind at the surface to wind at a height above the surface varies by a power law with an exponent of 0.11-0.13 over the ocean. This means that a 5-m/s (≈10-knot) wind at 3 m above the water would be approximately 6 m/s (≈12 knots) at 15 m above the water. In hurricane-force winds with 40-m/s (≈78 knots) at the surface the speed at 15 m would be 49 m/s (≈95 knots). This suggests that sails that reach higher above the surface can be subject to stronger wind forces that move the centre of effort on them higher above the surface and increase the heeling moment. Additionally, apparent wind direction moves aft with height above water, which may necessitate a corresponding twist in the shape of the sail to achieve attached flow with height.
Gusts may be predicted by the same value that serves as an exponent for wind shear, serving as a gust factor. So, one can expect gusts to be about 1.5 times stronger than the prevailing wind speed (a 10-knot wind might gust up to 15 knots). This, combined with changes in wind direction suggest the degree to which a sailing craft must adjust sail angle to wind gusts on a given course.
A sailing craft's ability to derive power from the wind depends on the point of sail it is on—the direction of travel under sail in relation to the true wind direction over the surface. The principal points of sail roughly correspond to 45° segments of a circle, starting with 0° directly into the wind. For many sailing craft 45° on either side of the wind is a "no-go" zone, where a sail is unable to mobilize power from the wind. Sailing on a course as close to the wind as possible—approximately 45°—is termed "close-hauled". At 90° off the wind, a craft is on a "beam reach". At 135° off the wind, a craft is on a "broad reach". At 180° off the wind (sailing in the same direction as the wind), a craft is "running downwind".
In points of sail that range from close-hauled to a broad reach, sails act substantially like a wing, with lift predominantly propelling the craft. In points of sail from a broad reach to down wind, sails act substantially like a parachute, with drag predominantly propelling the craft. For craft with little forward resistance ice boats and land yachts, this transition occurs further off the wind than for sailboats and sailing ships.
Wind direction for points of sail always refers to the "true wind"—the wind felt by a stationary observer. The "apparent wind"—the wind felt by an observer on a moving sailing craft—determines the motive power for sailing craft.
The waves give an indication of the "true wind" direction. The pennant (Canadian flag) gives an indication of "apparent wind" direction.
True wind velocity (VT) combines with the sailing craft's velocity (VB) to be the "apparent wind velocity" (VA), the air velocity experienced by instrumentation or crew on a moving sailing craft. Apparent wind velocity provides the motive power for the sails on any given point of sail. It varies from being the true wind velocity of a stopped craft in irons in the no-go zone to being faster than the true wind speed as the sailing craft's velocity adds to the true windspeed on a reach, to diminishing towards zero, as a sailing craft sails dead downwind.
Sailing craft A is close-hauled. Sailing craft B is on a beam reach. Sailing craft C is on a broad reach.Boat velocity (in black) generates an equal and opposite apparent wind component (not shown), which adds to the true wind to become apparent wind.
The speed of sailboats through the water is limited by the resistance that results from hull drag in the water. Ice boats typically have the least resistance to forward motion of any sailing craft. Consequently, a sailboat experiences a wider range of apparent wind angles than does an ice boat, whose speed is typically great enough to have the apparent wind coming from a few degrees to one side of its course, necessitating sailing with the sail sheeted in for most points of sail. On conventional sail boats, the sails are set to create lift for those points of sail where it's possible to align the leading edge of the sail with the apparent wind.
For a sailboat, point of sail affects lateral force significantly. The higher the boat points to the wind under sail, the stronger the lateral force, which requires resistance from a keel or other underwater foils, including daggerboard, centerboard, skeg and rudder. Lateral force also induces heeling in a sailboat, which requires resistance by weight of ballast from the crew or the boat itself and by the shape of the boat, especially with a catamaran. As the boat points off the wind, lateral force and the forces required to resist it become less important.
On ice boats, lateral forces are countered by the lateral resistance of the blades on ice and their distance apart, which generally prevents heeling.
Wind and currents are important factors to plan on for both offshore and inshore sailing. Predicting the availability, strength and direction of the wind is key to using its power along the desired course. Ocean currents, tides and river currents may deflect a sailing vessel from its desired course.
If the desired course is within the no-go zone, then the sailing craft must follow a zig-zag route into the wind to reach its waypoint or destination. Downwind, certain high-performance sailing craft can reach the destination more quickly by following a zig-zag route on a series of broad reaches.
Negotiating obstructions or a channel may also require a change direction of with respect to the wind, necessitating changing of tack with the wind on the opposite side of the craft, from before.
Changing tack is called "tacking" when the wind crosses over the bow of the craft as it turns and "jibing" (or "gybing") if the wind passes over the stern.
Winds and oceanic currents are both the result of the sun powering their respective fluid media. Wind powers the sailing craft and the ocean bears the craft on its course, as currents may alter the course of a sailing vessel on the ocean or a river.
Local temporary wind shifts are called "lifts", when they improve the sailing craft's ability travel along its "rhumb line" in the direction of the next waypoint. Unfavorable wind shifts are called "headers".
Major oceanic currents, like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean and the Kuroshio Current in the Pacific Ocean require planning for the effect that they will have on a transiting vessel's track. Likewise, tides affect a vessel's track, especially in areas with large tidal ranges, like the Bay of Fundy or along Southeast Alaska, or where the tide flows through straits, like Deception Pass in Puget Sound. Mariners use tide and current tables to inform their navigation. Before the advent of motors, it was advantageous for sailing vessels to enter or leave port or to pass through a strait with the tide.
A sailing craft can sail on a course anywhere outside of its no-go zone. If the next waypoint or destination is within the arc defined by the no-go zone from the craft's current position, then it must perform a series of tacking maneuvers to get there on a dog-legged route, called "beating to windward". The progress along that route is called the "course made good"; the speed between the starting and ending points of the route is called the "speed made good" and is calculated by the distance between the two points, divided by the travel time. The limiting line to the waypoint that allows the sailing vessel to leave it to leeward is called the "layline". Whereas some Bermuda-rigged sailing yachts can sail as close as 30° to the wind, most 20th-Century square riggers are limited to 60° off the wind. Fore-and-aft rigs are designed to operate with the wind on either side, whereas square rigs and kites are designed to have the wind come from one side of the sail only.
Because the lateral wind forces are highest on a sailing vessel, close-hauled and beating to windward, the resisting water forces around the vessel's keel, centerboard, rudder and other foils is also highest to mitigate leeway—the vessel sliding to leeward of its course. Ice boats and land yachts minimize lateral motion with sidewise resistance from their blades or wheels.
"Tacking" or "coming about" is a maneuver by which a sailing craft turns its bow into and through the wind (called the "eye of the wind") so that the apparent wind changes from one side to the other, allowing progress on the opposite tack. The type of sailing rig dictates the procedures and constraints on achieving a tacking maneuver. Fore-and-aft rigs allow their sails to hang limp as they tack; square rigs must present the full frontal area of the sail to the wind, when changing from side to side; and windsurfers have flexibly pivoting and fully rotating masts that get flipped from side to side.
A sailing craft can travel directly downwind only at a speed that is less than the wind speed. However, a variety of sailing craft can achieve a higher downwind velocity made good by traveling on a series of broad reaches, punctuated by jibes in between. This is true of ice boats and sand yachts. On the water it was explored by sailing vessels, starting in 1975, and now extends to high-performance skiffs, catamarans and foiling sailboats.
Navigating a channel or a downwind course among obstructions may necessitate changes in direction that require a change of tack, accomplished with a jibe.
"Jibing" or "gybing" is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing craft turns its stern past the eye of the wind so that the apparent wind changes from one side to the other, allowing progress on the opposite tack. This maneuver can be done on smaller boats by pulling the tiller towards yourself (the opposite side of the sail). As with tacking, the type of sailing rig dictates the procedures and constraints for jibing. Fore-and-aft sails with booms, gaffs or sprits are unstable when the free end points into the eye of the wind and must be controlled to avoid a violent change to the other side; square rigs as they present the full area of the sail to the wind from the rear experience little change of operation from one tack to the other; and windsurfers again have flexibly pivoting and fully rotating masts that get flipped from side to side.
The most basic control of the sail consists of setting its angle relative to the wind. The control line that accomplishes this is called a "sheet." If the sheet is too loose the sail will flap in the wind, an occurrence that is called "luffing." Optimum sail angle can be approximated by pulling the sheet in just so far as to make the luffing stop, or by using tell-tails – small ribbons or yarn attached each side of the sail that both stream horizontally to indicate a properly trimmed sail. Finer controls adjust the overall shape of the sail.
Two or more sails are frequently combined to maximize the smooth flow of air. The sails are adjusted to create a smooth laminar flow over the sail surfaces. This is called the "slot effect". The combined sails fit into an imaginary aerofoil outline, so that the most forward sails are more in line with the wind, whereas the more aft sails are more in line with the course followed. The combined efficiency of this sail plan is greater than the sum of each sail used in isolation.
More detailed aspects include specific control of the sail's shape, e.g.:
An important safety aspect of sailing is to adjust the amount of sail to suit the wind conditions. As the wind speed increases the crew should progressively reduce the amount of sail. On a small boat with only jib and mainsail this is done by furling the jib and by partially lowering the mainsail, a process called 'reefing the main'.
Reefing means reducing the area of a sail without actually changing it for a smaller sail. Ideally, reefing does not only result in a reduced sail area but also in a lower centre of effort from the sails, reducing the heeling moment and keeping the boat more upright.
There are three common methods of reefing the mainsail:
Mainsail furling systems have become increasingly popular on cruising yachts, as they can be operated shorthanded and from the cockpit, in most cases. However, the sail can become jammed in the mast or boom slot if not operated correctly. Mainsail furling is almost never used while racing because it results in a less efficient sail profile. The classical slab-reefing method is the most widely used. Mainsail furling has an additional disadvantage in that its complicated gear may somewhat increase weight aloft. However, as the size of the boat increases, the benefits of mainsail roller furling increase dramatically.
An old saying goes, "Once you've realized it's time to reef, it's too late". A similar one says, "The time to reef is when you first think about it".
Hull trim is the adjustment of a boat's loading so as to change its fore-and-aft attitude in the water. In small boats, it is done by positioning the crew. In larger boats, the weight of a person has less effect on the hull trim, but it can be adjusted by shifting gear, fuel, water, or supplies. Different hull trim efforts are required for different kinds of boats and different conditions. Here are just a few examples: In a lightweight racing dinghy like a Thistle, the hull should be kept level, on its designed water line for best performance in all conditions. In many small boats, weight too far aft can cause drag by submerging the transom, especially in light to moderate winds. Weight too far forward can cause the bow to dig into the waves. In heavy winds, a boat with its bow too low may capsize by pitching forward over its bow (pitch-pole) or dive under the waves (submarine). On a run in heavy winds, the forces on the sails tend to drive a boat's bow down, so the crew weight is moved far aft.
When a ship or boat leans over to one side, from the action of waves or from the centrifugal force of a turn or under wind pressure or from the amount of exposed topsides, it is said to 'heel'. A sailing boat that is over-canvassed and therefore heeling excessively, may sail less efficiently. This is caused by factors such as wind gusts, crew ability, the point of sail, or hull size and design.
When a vessel is subject to a heeling force (such as wind pressure), vessel buoyancy and beam of the hull will counteract the heeling force. A weighted keel provides additional means to right the boat. In some high-performance racing yachts, water ballast or the angle of a canting keel can be changed to provide additional righting force to counteract heeling. The crew may move their personal weight to the high (upwind) side of the boat, this is called "hiking", which also changes the centre of gravity and produces a righting lever to reduce the degree of heeling. Incidental benefits include faster vessel speed caused by more efficient action of the hull and sails. Other options to reduce heeling include reducing exposed sail area and efficiency of the sail setting and a variant of hiking called "trapezing". This can only be done if the vessel is designed for this, as in dinghy sailing. A sailor can (usually involuntarily) try turning upwind in gusts (it is known as "rounding up"). This can lead to difficulties in controlling the vessel if over-canvassed. Wind can be spilled from the sails by 'sheeting out', or loosening them. The number of sails, their size and shape can be altered. Raising the dinghy centreboard can reduce heeling by allowing more leeway.
The increasingly asymmetric underwater shape of the hull matching the increasing angle of heel may generate an increasing directional turning force into the wind. The sails' centre of effort will also increase this turning effect or force on the vessel's motion due to increasing lever effect with increased heeling which shows itself as increased human effort required to steer a straight course. Increased heeling reduces exposed sail area relative to the wind direction, so leading to an equilibrium state. As more heeling force causes more heel, weather helm may be experienced. This condition has a braking effect on the vessel but has the safety effect in that an excessively hard pressed boat will try and turn into the wind, therefore, reducing the forces on the sail. Small amounts (≤5 degrees) of weather helm are generally considered desirable because of the consequent aerofoil lift effect from the rudder. This aerofoil lift produces helpful motion to windward and the corollary of the reason why lee helm is dangerous. Lee helm, the opposite of weather helm, is generally considered to be dangerous because the vessel turns away from the wind when the helm is released, thus increasing forces on the sail at a time when the helmsperson is not in control.
Multihulls use flotation and/or weight positioned away from the centre line of the sailboat to counter the force of the wind. This is in contrast to heavy ballast that can account for up to 90% (in extreme cases like AC boats) of the weight of a monohull sailboat. In the case of a standard catamaran, there are two similarly-sized and -shaped slender hulls connected by beams, which are sometimes overlaid by a deck superstructure. Another catamaran variation is the proa. In the case of trimarans, which have an unballasted centre hull similar to a monohull, two smaller amas are situated parallel to the centre hull to resist the sideways force of the wind. The advantage of multihulled sailboats is that they do not suffer the performance penalty of having to carry heavy ballast, and their relatively lesser draft reduces the amount of drag, caused by friction and inertia when moving through the water.
One of the most common dinghy hulls in the world is the Laser hull. It was designed by Bruce Kirby in 1969 and unveiled at the New York boat show (1971). It was designed with speed and simplicity in mind. The Laser is 13 feet 10.5 inches long and a 12.5 foot water line and of sail.
Nautical terms for elements of a vessel: starboard (right-hand side), port or larboard (left-hand side), forward or fore (frontward), aft or abaft (rearward), bow (forward part of the hull), stern (aft part of the hull), beam (the widest part). Spars, supporting sails, include masts, booms, yards, gaffs and poles.
In most cases, "rope" is the term used only for raw material. Once a section of rope is designated for a particular purpose on a vessel, it generally is called a "line," as in "outhaul line" or "dock line". A very thick line is considered a "cable." Lines that are attached to sails to control their shapes are called "sheets", as in "mainsheet". If a rope is made of wire, it maintains its rope name as in 'wire rope' halyard.
Lines (generally steel cables) that support masts are stationary and are collectively known as a vessel's standing rigging, and individually as "shrouds" or "stays". The stay running forward from a mast to the bow is called the "forestay" or "headstay". Stays running aft are backstays or after stays.
Moveable lines that control sails or other equipment are known collectively as a vessel's running rigging. Lines that raise sails are called "halyards" while those that strike them are called "downhauls". Lines that adjust (trim) the sails are called "sheets". These are often referred to using the name of the sail they control (such as "main sheet" or "jib sheet"). Sail trim may also be controlled with smaller lines attached to the forward section of a boom such as a cunningham; a line used to hold the boom down is called a "vang", or a "kicker" in the United Kingdom. A "topping lift" is used to hold a boom up in the absence of sail tension. "Guys" are used to control the ends of other spars such as spinnaker poles.
Lines used to tie a boat up when alongside are called "docklines", "docking cables" or "mooring warps". In dinghies, the single line from the bow is referred to as the "painter". A "rode" is what attaches an anchored boat to its anchor. It may be made of chain, rope, or a combination of the two.
Some lines are referred to as ropes:
Walls are called "bulkheads" or "ceilings", while the surfaces referred to as ceilings on land are called "overheads" or "deckheads". Floors are called "soles" or "decks". The toilet is traditionally called the "head", the kitchen is the "galley". When lines are tied off, this may be referred to as "made fast" or "belayed." Sails in different sail plans have unchanging names, however. For the naming of sails, see sail-plan.
The following knots are regarded as integral to handling ropes and lines, while sailing:
Lines and halyards are typically coiled neatly for stowage and reuse.
Every vessel in coastal and offshore waters is subject to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (the COLREGS). On inland waterways and lakes other similar regulations, such as CEVNI in Europe, may apply. In some sailing events, such as the Olympic Games, which are held on closed courses where no other boating is allowed, specific racing rules such as the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) may apply. Often, in club racing, specific club racing rules, perhaps based on RRS, may be "superimposed" onto the more general regulations such as COLREGS or CEVNI.
In general, regardless of the activity, every sailor must
The stand-on vessel must hold a steady course and speed but be prepared to take late avoiding action to prevent an actual collision if the other vessel does not do so in time. The give-way vessel must take early, positive and obvious avoiding action, without crossing ahead of the other vessel. (Rules 16–17)
The COLREGS go on to describe the lights to be shown by vessels under way at night or in restricted visibility. Specifically, for sailing boats, red and green sidelights and a white sternlight are required, although for vessels under 7 metres (23.0 ft) in length, these may be substituted by a torch or white all-round lantern. (Rules 22 & 25)
Sailors are required to be aware not only of the requirements for their own boat, but of all the other lights, shapes and flags that may be shown by other vessels, such as those fishing, towing, dredging, diving etc., as well as sound signals that may be made in restricted visibility and at close quarters, so that they can make decisions under the COLREGS in good time, should the need arise. (Rules 32–37)
In addition to the COLREGS, CEVNI and/or any specific racing rules that apply to a sailing boat, there are also
Licensing regulations vary widely across the world. While boating on international waters does not require any license, a license may be required to operate a vessel on coastal waters or inland waters. Some jurisdictions require a license when a certain size is exceeded (e.g., a length of 20 meters), others only require licenses to pilot passenger ships, ferries or tugboats. For example, the European Union issues the International Certificate of Competence, which is required to operate pleasure craft in most inland waterways within the union. The United States, in contrast, has no licensing, but instead has voluntary certification organizations such as the American Sailing Association. These US certificates are often required to charter a boat, but are not required by any federal or state law.
Sailboat racing generally fits into one of two categories:
Sailing is a diverse sport with many pinnacles from the Olympic Games to many world championships titles to development based campaigns for the America's Cup to round the world races such as the Vendee Globe and Volvo Ocean Race.
Sailboat racing ranges from single person dinghy racing to large boats with 10 or more crew and from small boats costing a few thousand dollars to multimillion-dollar America's Cup campaigns. The costs of participating in the high-end large boat competitions make this type of sailing one of the most expensive sports in the world. However, there are inexpensive ways to get involved in sailboat racing, such as at community sailing clubs, classes offered by local recreation organizations and in some inexpensive dinghy and small catamaran classes. Under these conditions, sailboat racing can be comparable to or less expensive than sports such as golf and skiing. Sailboat racing is one of the few sports in which people of all ages and genders can regularly compete with and against each other.
The sport of Sailboat racing is governed by the World Sailing with most racing formats using the Racing Rules of Sailing.
Sailing regattas contain events which are defined by a combination of discipline, equipment, gender and sailor categories.
Common categories of equipment include the following dinghies, multihulls, keelboats sailing yacht windsurfers, kiteboarding and radio-controlled sailboats.
The following are the main disciplines:
The majority of sailing events are "open" events in which males and females compete together on equal terms either as individuals or part of a team. Sailing has had female only World Championships since the 1970s to encourage participation and now host more than 30 such World Championship titles each year. While many mixed-gender crews have competed in open events compulsory mixed gender are now included as events in both Olympic (Nacra 17) and Paralympic (SKUD 18).
In addition, the following categories are sometimes applied to events:
Most sailboat and yacht racing is done in coastal or inland waters. However, in terms of endurance and risk to life, ocean races such as the Volvo Ocean Race, the solo Velux 5 Oceans Race, and the non-stop solo Vendée Globe, rate as some of the most extreme and dangerous sporting events. Not only do participants compete for days with little rest, but an unexpected storm, a single equipment failure, or collision with an ice floe could result in the sailboat being disabled or sunk hundreds or thousands of miles from search and rescue.
Class racing can be further subdivided into measurement controlled and manufacturer controlled classes.
Manufacturer controlled classes strictly control the production and source of equipment. (e.g. 29er, Laser, Farr 40, RS Feva, Soling, etc.)
However, it is measurement controlled classes that offer the diversity in equipment. Some classes use measurement control to tightly control the boats as much as manufacturer class (e.g., 470, Contender, Star etc.)
At the other end of the extreme are the development classes which freely allow development within a defined framework. These are most commonly either formula based like the metre class or a box-rule that defines key criteria like maximum length, minimum weight, and maximum sail area. (e.g. Moth (dinghy), the A Class Catamaran, TP 52, and IMOCA 60.
Sailing for pleasure can involve short trips across a bay, day sailing, coastal cruising, and more extended offshore or 'blue-water' cruising. These trips can be singlehanded or the vessel may be crewed by families or groups of friends. Sailing vessels may proceed on their own, or be part of a flotilla with other like-minded voyagers. Sailing boats may be operated by their owners, who often also gain pleasure from maintaining and modifying their craft to suit their needs and taste, or may be rented for the specific trip or cruise. A professional skipper and even crew may be hired along with the boat in some cases. People take cruises in which they crew and 'learn the ropes' aboard craft such as tall ships, classic sailing vessels and restored working boats.
Cruising trips of several days or longer can involve a deep immersion in logistics, navigation, meteorology, local geography and history, fishing lore, sailing knowledge, general psychological coping, and serendipity. Once the boat is acquired it is not all that expensive an endeavor, often much less expensive than a normal vacation on land. It naturally develops self-reliance, responsibility, economy, and many other useful skills. Besides improving sailing skills, all the other normal needs of everyday living must also be addressed. There are work roles that can be done by everyone in the family to help contribute to an enjoyable outdoor adventure for all.
A style of casual coastal cruising called gunkholing is a popular summertime family recreational activity. It consists of taking a series of day sails to out of the way places and anchoring overnight while enjoying such activities as exploring isolated islands, swimming, fishing, etc. Many nearby local waters on rivers, bays, sounds, and coastlines can become great natural cruising grounds for this type of recreational sailing. Casual sailing trips with friends and family can become lifetime bonding experiences.
Long-distance voyaging, such as that across oceans and between far-flung ports, can be considered the near-absolute province of the cruising sailboat. Most modern yachts of 25–55 feet long, propelled solely by mechanical powerplants, cannot carry the fuel sufficient for a point-to-point voyage of even 250–500 miles without needing to resupply; but a well-prepared sail-powered yacht of similar length is theoretically capable of sailing anywhere its crew is willing to guide it. Even considering that the cost benefits are offset by a much-reduced cruising speed, many people traveling distances in small boats come to appreciate the more leisurely pace and increased time spent on the water.
Since the solo circumnavigation of Joshua Slocum in the 1890s, long-distance cruising under sail has inspired thousands of otherwise normal people to explore distant seas and horizons. The important voyages of Robin Lee Graham, Eric Hiscock, Don Street and others have shown that, while not strictly racing, ocean voyaging carries with it an inherent sense of competition, especially that between man and the elements.
Such a challenging enterprise requires keen knowledge of sailing in general as well as maintenance, navigation (especially celestial navigation), and often even international diplomacy (for which an entire set of protocols should be learned and practiced). But one of the great benefits of sailboat ownership is that one may at least imagine the type of adventure that the average affordable powerboat could never accomplish. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27672 |
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is a communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. As an Internet standard, SMTP was first defined in 1982 by , and updated in 2008 by to Extended SMTP additions, which is the protocol variety in widespread use today. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. Proprietary systems such as Microsoft Exchange and IBM Notes and webmail systems such as Outlook.com, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail may use non-standard protocols internally, but all use SMTP when sending to or receiving email from outside their own systems. SMTP servers commonly use the Transmission Control Protocol on port number 25.
User-level email clients typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying, and typically submit outgoing email to the mail server on port 587 or 465 as per RFC 8314. For retrieving messages, IMAP and POP3 are standard, but proprietary servers also often implement proprietary protocols, e.g., Exchange ActiveSync.
Various forms of one-to-one electronic messaging were used in the 1960s. Users communicated using systems developed for specific mainframe computers. As more computers were interconnected, especially in the U.S. Government's ARPANET, standards were developed to permit exchange of messages between different operating systems. SMTP grew out of these standards developed during the 1970s.
SMTP traces its roots to two implementations described in 1971: the Mail Box Protocol, whose implementation has been disputed, but is discussed in and other RFCs, and the SNDMSG program, which, according to , Ray Tomlinson of BBN invented for TENEX computers to send mail messages across the ARPANET. Fewer than 50 hosts were connected to the ARPANET at this time.
Further implementations include FTP Mail and Mail Protocol, both from 1973. Development work continued throughout the 1970s, until the ARPANET transitioned into the modern Internet around 1980. Jon Postel then proposed a Mail Transfer Protocol in 1980 that began to remove the mail's reliance on FTP. SMTP was published as in November 1981, also by Postel.
The SMTP standard was developed around the same time as Usenet, a one to many communication network with some similarities.
SMTP became widely used in the early 1980s. At the time, it was a complement to Unix to Unix Copy Program (UUCP) mail, which was better suited for handling email transfers between machines that were intermittently connected. SMTP, on the other hand, works best when both the sending and receiving machines are connected to the network all the time. Both use a store and forward mechanism and are examples of push technology. Though Usenet's newsgroups are still propagated with UUCP between servers, UUCP as a mail transport has virtually disappeared along with the "bang paths" it used as message routing headers.
Sendmail, released with 4.1cBSD in 1982, soon after was published in November 1981, was one of the first mail transfer agents to implement SMTP. Over time, as BSD Unix became the most popular operating system on the Internet, Sendmail became the most common MTA (mail transfer agent). Some other popular SMTP server programs include Postfix, qmail, Novell GroupWise, Exim, Novell NetMail, Microsoft Exchange Server and Oracle Communications Messaging Server.
Message submission () and SMTP-AUTH () were introduced in 1998 and 1999, both describing new trends in email delivery. Originally, SMTP servers were typically internal to an organization, receiving mail for the organization "from the outside", and relaying messages from the organization "to the outside". But as time went on, SMTP servers (mail transfer agents), in practice, were expanding their roles to become message submission agents for Mail user agents, some of which were now relaying mail "from the outside" of an organization. (e.g. a company executive wishes to send email while on a trip using the corporate SMTP server.) This issue, a consequence of the rapid expansion and popularity of the World Wide Web, meant that SMTP had to include specific rules and methods for relaying mail and authenticating users to prevent abuses such as relaying of unsolicited email (spam). Work on message submission () was originally started because popular mail servers would often rewrite mail in an attempt to fix problems in it, for example, adding a domain name to an unqualified address. This behavior is helpful when the message being fixed is an initial submission, but dangerous and harmful when the message originated elsewhere and is being relayed. Cleanly separating mail into submission and relay was seen as a way to permit and encourage rewriting submissions while prohibiting rewriting relay. As spam became more prevalent, it was also seen as a way to provide authorization for mail being sent out from an organization, as well as traceability. This separation of relay and submission quickly became a foundation for modern email security practices.
As this protocol started out purely ASCII text-based, it did not deal well with binary files, or characters in many non-English languages. Standards such as Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) were developed to encode binary files for transfer through SMTP. Mail transfer agents (MTAs) developed after Sendmail also tended to be implemented 8-bit-clean, so that the alternate "just send eight" strategy could be used to transmit arbitrary text data (in any 8-bit ASCII-like character encoding) via SMTP. Mojibake was still a problem due to differing character set mappings between vendors, although the email addresses themselves still allowed only ASCII. 8-bit-clean MTAs today tend to support the 8BITMIME extension, permitting binary files to be transmitted almost as easily as plain text. Recently the SMTPUTF8 extension was created to support UTF-8 text, allowing international content and addresses in non-Latin scripts like Cyrillic or Chinese.
Many people contributed to the core SMTP specifications, among them Jon Postel, Eric Allman, Dave Crocker, Ned Freed, Randall Gellens, John Klensin, and Keith Moore.
Email is submitted by a mail client (mail user agent, MUA) to a mail server (mail submission agent, MSA) using SMTP on TCP port 587. Most mailbox providers still allow submission on traditional port 25. The MSA delivers the mail to its mail transfer agent (mail transfer agent, MTA). Often, these two agents are instances of the same software launched with different options on the same machine. Local processing can be done either on a single machine, or split among multiple machines; mail agent processes on one machine can share files, but if processing is on multiple machines, they transfer messages between each other using SMTP, where each machine is configured to use the next machine as a smart host. Each process is an MTA (an SMTP server) in its own right.
The boundary MTA uses the Domain name system (DNS) to look up the mail exchanger record (MX record) for the recipient's domain (the part of the email address on the right of @). The MX record contains the name of the target host. Based on the target host and other factors, the MTA selects an exchange server: see the article MX record. The MTA connects to the exchange server as an SMTP client.
Message transfer can occur in a single connection between two MTAs, or in a series of hops through intermediary systems. A receiving SMTP server may be the ultimate destination, an intermediate "relay" (that is, it stores and forwards the message) or a "gateway" (that is, it may forward the message using some protocol other than SMTP). Each hop is a formal handoff of responsibility for the message, whereby the receiving server must either deliver the message or properly report the failure to do so.
Once the final hop accepts the incoming message, it hands it to a mail delivery agent (MDA) for local delivery. An MDA saves messages in the relevant mailbox format. As with sending, this reception can be done using one or multiple computers, but in the diagram above the MDA is depicted as one box near the mail exchanger box. An MDA may deliver messages directly to storage, or forward them over a network using SMTP or other protocol such as Local Mail Transfer Protocol (LMTP), a derivative of SMTP designed for this purpose.
Once delivered to the local mail server, the mail is stored for batch retrieval by authenticated mail clients (MUAs). Mail is retrieved by end-user applications, called email clients, using Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), a protocol that both facilitates access to mail and manages stored mail, or the Post Office Protocol (POP) which typically uses the traditional mbox mail file format or a proprietary system such as Microsoft Exchange/Outlook or Lotus Notes/Domino. Webmail clients may use either method, but the retrieval protocol is often not a formal standard.
SMTP defines message "transport", not the message "content". Thus, it defines the mail "envelope" and its parameters, such as the envelope sender, but not the header (except "trace information") nor the body of the message itself. STD 10 and define SMTP (the envelope), while STD 11 and define the message (header and body), formally referred to as the Internet Message Format.
SMTP is a connection-oriented, text-based protocol in which a mail sender communicates with a mail receiver by issuing command strings and supplying necessary data over a reliable ordered data stream channel, typically a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection. An "SMTP session" consists of commands originated by an SMTP client (the initiating agent, sender, or transmitter) and corresponding responses from the SMTP server (the listening agent, or receiver) so that the session is opened, and session parameters are exchanged. A session may include zero or more SMTP transactions. An "SMTP transaction" consists of three command/reply sequences:
Besides the intermediate reply for DATA, each server's reply can be either positive (2xx reply codes) or negative. Negative replies can be permanent (5xx codes) or transient (4xx codes). A reject is a permanent failure and the client should send a bounce message to the server it received it from. A drop is a positive response followed by message discard rather than delivery.
The initiating host, the SMTP client, can be either an end-user's email client, functionally identified as a mail user agent (MUA), or a relay server's mail transfer agent (MTA), that is an SMTP server acting as an SMTP client, in the relevant session, in order to relay mail. Fully capable SMTP servers maintain queues of messages for retrying message transmissions that resulted in transient failures.
A MUA knows the "outgoing mail" SMTP server from its configuration. A relay server typically determines which server to connect to by looking up the MX (Mail eXchange) DNS resource record for each recipient's domain name. If no MX record is found, a conformant relaying server (not all are) instead looks up the A record. Relay servers can also be configured to use a smart host. A relay server initiates a TCP connection to the server on the "well-known port" for SMTP: port 25, or for connecting to an MSA, port 587. The main difference between an MTA and an MSA is that connecting to an MSA requires SMTP Authentication.
SMTP is a delivery protocol only. In normal use, mail is "pushed" to a destination mail server (or next-hop mail server) as it arrives. Mail is routed based on the destination server, not the individual user(s) to which it is addressed. Other protocols, such as the Post Office Protocol (POP) and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) are specifically designed for use by individual users retrieving messages and managing mail boxes. To permit an intermittently-connected mail server to "pull" messages from a remote server on demand, SMTP has a feature to initiate mail queue processing on a remote server (see Remote Message Queue Starting below). POP and IMAP are unsuitable protocols for relaying mail by intermittently-connected machines; they are designed to operate after final delivery, when information critical to the correct operation of mail relay (the "mail envelope") has been removed.
Remote Message Queue Starting is a feature of SMTP that permits a remote host to start processing of the mail queue on a server so it may receive messages destined to it by sending the TURN command. This feature however was deemed insecure and was extended in with the ETRN command which operates more securely using an authentication method based on Domain Name System information.
An email client needs to know the IP address of its initial SMTP server and this has to be given as part of its configuration (usually given as a DNS name). This server will deliver outgoing messages on behalf of the user.
Server administrators need to impose some control on which clients can use the server. This enables them to deal with abuse, for example spam. Two solutions have been in common use:
Under this system, an ISP's SMTP server will not allow access by users who are outside the ISP's network. More precisely, the server may only allow access to users with an IP address provided by the ISP, which is equivalent to requiring that they are connected to the Internet using that same ISP. A mobile user may often be on a network other than that of their normal ISP, and will then find that sending email fails because the configured SMTP server choice is no longer accessible.
This system has several variations. For example, an organisation's SMTP server may only provide service to users on the same network, enforcing this by firewalling to block access by users on the wider Internet. Or the server may perform range checks on the client's IP address. These methods were typically used by corporations and institutions such as universities which provided an SMTP server for outbound mail only for use internally within the organisation. However, most of these bodies now use client authentication methods, as described below.
Where a user is mobile, and may use different ISPs to connect to the internet, this kind of usage restriction is onerous, and altering the configured outbound email SMTP server address is impractical. It is highly desirable to be able to use email client configuration information that does not need to change.
Modern SMTP servers typically require authentication of clients by credentials before allowing access, rather than restricting access by location as described earlier. This more flexible system is friendly to mobile users and allows them to have a fixed choice of configured outbound SMTP server. SMTP Authentication, often abbreviated SMTP AUTH, is an extension of the SMTP in order to log in using an authentication mechanism.
A server that is accessible on the wider Internet and does not enforce these kinds of access restrictions is known as an open relay. This is now generally considered a bad practice worthy of blacklisting.
Communication between mail servers generally uses the standard TCP port 25 designated for SMTP.
Mail "clients" however generally don't use this, instead using specific "submission" ports. Mail services generally accept email submission from clients on one of:
Port 2525 and others may be used by some individual providers, but have never been officially supported.
Most Internet service providers now block all outgoing port 25 traffic from their customers as an anti-spam measure.
For the same reason, businesses will typically configure their firewall to only allow outgoing port 25 traffic from their designated mail servers.
A typical example of sending a message via SMTP to two mailboxes ("alice" and "theboss") located in the same mail domain ("example.com" or "localhost.com") is reproduced in the following session exchange. (In this example, the conversation parts are prefixed with "S:" and "C:", for "server" and "client", respectively; these labels are not part of the exchange.)
After the message sender (SMTP client) establishes a reliable communications channel to the message receiver (SMTP server), the session is opened with a greeting by the server, usually containing its fully qualified domain name (FQDN), in this case "smtp.example.com". The client initiates its dialog by responding with a codice_1 command identifying itself in the command's parameter with its FQDN (or an address literal if none is available).
The client notifies the receiver of the originating email address of the message in a codice_2 command. This is also the return or bounce address in case the message cannot be delivered. In this example the email message is sent to two mailboxes on the same SMTP server: one for each recipient listed in the To and Cc header fields. The corresponding SMTP command is codice_3. Each successful reception and execution of a command is acknowledged by the server with a result code and response message (e.g., 250 Ok).
The transmission of the body of the mail message is initiated with a codice_4 command after which it is transmitted verbatim line by line and is terminated with an end-of-data sequence. This sequence consists of a new-line (), a single full stop (period), followed by another new-line. Since a message body can contain a line with just a period as part of the text, the client sends "two" periods every time a line starts with a period; correspondingly, the server replaces every sequence of two periods at the beginning of a line with a single one. Such escaping method is called "dot-stuffing".
The server's positive reply to the end-of-data, as exemplified, implies that the server has taken the responsibility of delivering the message. A message can be doubled if there is a communication failure at this time, e.g. due to a power shortage: Until the sender has received that 250 reply, it must assume the message was not delivered. On the other hand, after the receiver has decided to accept the message, it must assume the message has been delivered to it. Thus, during this time span, both agents have active copies of the message that they will try to deliver. The probability that a communication failure occurs exactly at this step is directly proportional to the amount of filtering that the server performs on the message body, most often for anti-spam purposes. The limiting timeout is specified to be 10 minutes.
The codice_5 command ends the session. If the email has other recipients located elsewhere, the client would codice_5 and connect to an appropriate SMTP server for subsequent recipients after the current destination(s) had been queued. The information that the client sends in the codice_1 and codice_2 commands are added (not seen in example code) as additional header fields to the message by the receiving server. It adds a codice_9 and codice_10 header field, respectively.
Some clients are implemented to close the connection after the message is accepted (codice_11), so the last two lines may actually be omitted. This causes an error on the server when trying to send the codice_12 reply.
The original SMTP protocol supported only unauthenticated unencrypted ASCII text communications susceptible to a man-in-the-middle attack, spoofing, and spamming, and requiring any binary data to be encoded to readable text before transmission. A number of optional extensions specify various mechanisms to address these problems.
Clients learn a server's supported options by using the codice_13 greeting, as exemplified below, instead of the original codice_1 (example above). Clients fall back to codice_1 only if the server does not support SMTP extensions.
Modern clients may use the ESMTP extension keyword codice_16 to query the server for the maximum message size that will be accepted. Older clients and servers may try to transfer excessively sized messages that will be rejected after consuming network resources, including connect time to network links that is paid by the minute.
Users can manually determine in advance the maximum size accepted by ESMTP servers. The client replaces the codice_1 command with the codice_13 command.
Thus "smtp2.example.com" declares that it can accept a fixed maximum message size no larger than 14,680,064 octets (8-bit bytes).
In the simplest case, an ESMTP server declares a maximum codice_16 immediately after receiving an codice_13. According to , however, the numeric parameter to the codice_16 extension in the codice_13 response is optional. Clients may instead, when issuing a codice_2 command, include a numeric estimate of the size of the message they are transferring, so that the server can refuse receipt of overly-large messages.
Original SMTP supports only a single body of ASCII text, therefore any binary data needs to be encoded as text into that body of the message before transfer, and then decoded by the recipient. Binary-to-text encodings, such as uuencode and BinHex were typically used.
The 8BITMIME command was developed to address this. It was standardized in 1994 as It facilitates the transparent exchange of e-mail messages containing octets outside the seven-bit ASCII character set by encoding them as MIME content parts, typically encoded with Base64.
On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR) is an SMTP extension standardized in that allows an intermittently-connected SMTP server to receive email queued for it when it is connected.
Original SMTP supports email addresses composed of ASCII characters only, which is inconvenient for users whose native script is not Latin based, or who use diacritic not in the ASCII character set. This limitation was alleviated via extensions enabling UTF-8 in address names. introduced experimental codice_24 command and later was superseded by that introduced codice_25 command. These extensions provide support for multi-byte and non-ASCII characters in email addresses, such as those with diacritics and other language characters such as Greek and Chinese.
Current support is limited, but there is strong interest in broad adoption of and the related RFCs in countries like China that have a large user base where Latin (ASCII) is a foreign script.
Mail delivery can occur both over plain text and encrypted connections, however the communicating parties might not know in advance of other party's ability to use secure channel.
SMTP Authentication, often abbreviated SMTP AUTH, describes a mechanism for a client to log in using any authentication mechanism supported by the server. It is mainly used by submission servers, where authentication is mandatory. Multiple RFCs exist that provide different variations of the mechanism and update each other.
SMTP extensions describe STARTTLS command that enables server to tell client that it supports encrypted communications and client to request an upgrade to a secure channel. STARTTLS is effective only against passive observation attacks, since the STARTTLS negotiation happens in plain text and an active attacker can trivially remove STARTTLS command, such attack is sometimes called STRIPTLS (client would think that server did not send STARTTLS header so does not support STARTTLS, while server would think that client did not respond to STARTTLS header and thus does not support STARTTLS). Note that STARTTLS is also defined for IMAP and POP3 in other RFCs, but these protocols serve different purposes: SMTP is used for communication between message transfer agents, while IMAP and POP3 are for end clients and message transfer agents.
Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains a "STARTTLS Everywhere" list that similarly to "HTTPS Everywhere" list allows relying parties to discover others supporting secure communication without prior communication.
A newer 2018 called "SMTP MTA Strict Transport Security (MTA-STS)" aims to addresses the problem of active adversary by defining a protocol for mail servers to declare their ability to use secure channels in specific files on the server and specific DNS TXT records. The relying party would regularly check existence of such record, and cache it for the amount of time specified in the record and never communicate over insecure channels until record expires. Note that MTA-STS records apply only to SMTP traffic between mail servers while communications between end client and the mail server are protected by HTTPS, HTTP Strict Transport Security.
In April 2019 Google Mail announced support for MTA-STS.
A number of protocols allows secure delivery of messages, but they can fail due to misconfigurations or deliberate active interference, leading to undelivered messages or delivery over unencrypted or unauthenticated channels. "SMTP TLS Reporting" describes a reporting mechanism and format for sharing statistics and specific information about potential failures with recipient domains. Recipient domains can then use this information to both detect potential attacks and diagnose unintentional misconfigurations.
In April 2019 Google Mail announced support for SMTP TLS Reporting.
The original design of SMTP had no facility to authenticate senders, or check that servers were authorized to send on their behalf, with the result that email spoofing is possible, and commonly used in email spam and phishing.
Occasional proposals are made to modify SMTP extensively or replace it completely. One example of this is Internet Mail 2000, but neither it, nor any other has made much headway in the face of the network effect of the huge installed base of classic SMTP. Instead, mail servers now use a range of techniques, including DomainKeys Identified Mail, Sender Policy Framework and DMARC, DNSBLs and greylisting to reject or quarantine suspicious emails.
There is also SMTP proxy implementation as for example nginx. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27675 |
Soldering iron
A soldering iron is a hand tool used in soldering. It supplies heat to melt solder so that it can flow into the joint between two workpieces.
A soldering iron is composed of a heated metal tip and an insulated handle. Heating is often achieved electrically, by passing an electric current (supplied through an electrical cord or battery cables) through a resistive heating element. Cordless irons can be heated by combustion of gas stored in a small tank, often using a catalytic heater rather than a flame. Simple irons less commonly used today than in the past were simply a large copper bit on a handle, heated in a flame.
Soldering irons are most often used for installation, repairs, and limited production work in electronics assembly. High-volume production lines use other soldering methods. Large irons may be used for soldering joints in sheet metal objects. Less common uses include pyrography (burning designs into wood) and plastic welding.
In 1894, the American Electrical Heater Company began manufacturing electrical soldering irons on a large scale in Detroit. They started producing them shortly after American Beauty released their line of soldering irons.
In 1921, a German company founded by Ernst Sachs developed an electrical soldering iron similar to American Electrical Heater Company iron.
For electrical and electronics work, a low-power iron, a power rating between 15 and 35 watts, is used. Higher ratings are available, but do not run at higher temperature; instead there is more heat available for making soldered connections to things with large thermal capacity, for example, a metal chassis. Some irons are temperature-controlled, running at a fixed temperature in the same way as a soldering station, with higher power available for joints with large heat capacity. Simple irons run at an uncontrolled temperature determined by thermal equilibrium; when heating something large their temperature drops.
Small irons heated by a battery, or by combustion of a gas such as butane in a small self-contained tank, can be used when electricity is unavailable or cordless operation is required. The operating temperature of these irons is not regulated directly; gas irons may change power by adjusting gas flow. Gas-powered irons may have interchangeable tips including different size soldering tips, hot knife for cutting plastics, miniature blow-torch with a hot flame, and small hot air blower for such applications as shrinking heat shrink tubing.
Simple soldering irons reach a temperature determined by thermal equilibrium, dependent upon power input and cooling by the environment and the materials it comes into contact with. The iron temperature will drop when in contact with a large mass of metal such as a chassis; a small iron will lose too much temperature to solder a large connection. More advanced irons for use in electronics have a mechanism with a temperature sensor and method of temperature control to keep the tip temperature steady; more power is available if a connection is large. Temperature-controlled irons may be free-standing, or may comprise a head with heating element and tip, controlled by a base called a soldering station, with control circuitry and temperature adjustment and sometimes display.
A variety of means are used to control temperature. The simplest of these is a variable power control, much like a light dimmer, which changes the equilibrium temperature of the iron without automatically measuring or regulating the temperature. Another type of system uses a thermostat, often inside the iron's tip, which automatically switches power on and off to the element. A thermal sensor such as a thermocouple may be used in conjunction with circuitry to monitor the temperature of the tip and adjust power delivered to the heating element to maintain a desired temperature. In some models, the firmware for the control circuitry is free software that can be modified by the end-user.
Another approach is to use magnetized soldering tips which lose their magnetic properties at a specific temperature, the Curie point. As long as the tip is magnetic, it closes a switch to supply power to the heating element. When it exceeds the design temperature it opens the contacts, cooling until the temperature drops enough to restore magnetisation. More complex Curie-point irons circulate a high-frequency AC current through the tip, using magnetic physics to direct heating only where the surface of the tip drops below the Curie point.
A soldering station has a temperature control and consists of an electrical power supply, control circuitry with provision for user adjustment of temperature and display, and a soldering iron or soldering head with a tip temperature sensor. The station will normally have a stand for the hot iron when not in use, and a wet sponge for cleaning. It is most commonly used for soldering electronic components. Other functions may be combined; for example a rework station, mainly for surface-mount components may have a hot air gun, vacuum pickup tool, and a soldering head; a desoldering station will have a desoldering head with vacuum pump for desoldering through-hole components, and a soldering iron head.
For soldering and desoldering small surface-mount components with two terminals, such as some links, resistors, capacitors, and diodes, soldering tweezers can be used; they can be either free-standing or controlled from a soldering station. The tweezers have two heated tips mounted on arms whose separation can be manually varied by squeezing gently against spring force, like simple tweezers; the tips are applied to the two ends of the component. The main purpose of the soldering tweezers is to melt solder in the correct place; components are usually moved by simple tweezers or vacuum pickup.
A hot knife is a form of soldering iron equipped with a double-edged blade that is situated on a heating element. These tools can reach temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 degrees Celsius) allowing for cuts of fabric and foam materials without worry of fraying or beading. Hot knives can be utilized in automotive, marine, and carpeting applications, as well as other industrial and personal uses.
A soldering iron stand keeps the iron away from flammable materials, and often also comes with a cellulose sponge and flux pot for cleaning the tip. Some soldering irons for continuous and professional use come as part of a "soldering station," which allows the exact temperature of the tip to be adjusted, kept constant, and sometimes displayed.
Most soldering irons for electronics have interchangeable tips, also known as "bits", that vary in size and shape for different types of work. Common tip shapes include: "bevel" (aka ""hoof"", especially if featuring concavity), "chisel", and "conical".
Pyramid tips with a triangular flat face and chisel tips with a wide flat face are useful for soldering sheet metal. Fine conical or tapered chisel tips are typically used for electronics work. Tips may be straight or have a bend. Concave or wicking tips with a chisel face with a concave well in the flat face to hold a small amount of solder are available. Tip selection depends upon the type of work and access to the joint; soldering of 0.5mm pitch surface-mount ICs, for example, is quite different from soldering a through-hole connection to a large area. A concave tip well is said to help prevent bridging of closely spaced leads; different shapes are recommended to correct bridging that has occurred. Due to patent restrictions not all manufacturers offer concave tips everywhere; in particular there are restrictions in the USA.
Older and very cheap irons typically use a bare copper tip, which is shaped with a file or sandpaper. This dissolves gradually into the solder, suffering pitting and erosion of the shape. Copper tips are sometimes filed when worn down. Iron-plated copper tips have become increasingly popular since the 1980s. Because iron is not readily dissolved by molten solder, the plated tip is more durable than a bare copper one, though it will eventually wear out and need replacing. This is especially important when working at the higher temperatures needed for modern lead-free solders. Solid iron and steel tips are seldom used because they store less heat, conduct it poorly, and rusting can break the heating element.
Iron-plated tips may feature a layer of nickel between the copper core and the iron surface. A nickel-chrome outer plating may be used further back from the very tip, as solder does not stick well to this material: this avoids solder wetting parts of the tip where it would be unwanted.
Some tips have a heater and a thermocouple-based temperature sensor embedded to facilitate a more precise temperature control (TS100 and T12, for instance).
When the iron tip oxidises and burnt flux accumulates on it, solder no longer wets the tip, impeding heat transfer and making soldering difficult or impossible; tips must be periodically cleaned in use. Such problems happen with all kinds of solder, but are much more severe with the lead-free solders which have become widespread in electronics work, which require higher temperatures than solders containing lead. Exposed iron plating oxidises; if the tip is kept tinned with molten solder oxidation is inhibited. A clean unoxidised tip is tinned by applying a little solder and flux.
A wet small sponge, often supplied with soldering equipment, can be used to wipe the tip. For lead-free solder a slightly more aggressive cleaning, with brass shavings, can be used. Soldering flux will help to remove oxide; the more active the flux the better the cleaning, although acidic flux used on circuit boards that is not carefully cleaned off will cause corrosion. A tip which is cleaned but not retinned is susceptible to oxidation.
Soldering iron tips are made of a copper core plated with iron. The copper is used for heat transfer and the iron plating is used for durability. Copper is very easily corroded, eating away the tip, particularly in lead-free work; iron is not. Cleaning tips requires the removal of oxide without damaging the iron plating and exposing the copper to rapid corrosion. The use of solder already containing a small amount of copper can slow corrosion of copper tips.
In cases of severe oxidation not removable by gentler methods, abrasion with something hard enough to remove oxide but not so hard as to scratch the iron plating can be used. A brass wire scourer, brush, or wheel on a bench grinder, can be used with care. Sandpaper and other tools may be used but are likely to damage the plating.
Not all soldering irons are ESD-safe.
Although some manufacturers' mains-powered models are built with the element shaft (and hence the tip) electrically connected to ground via the iron's mains lead, other models' tips may float at arbitrary voltages unless an additional grounding wire is used. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27679 |
Supernova
A supernova ( plural: supernovae or supernovas, abbreviations: SN and SNe) is a powerful and luminous stellar explosion. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. The original object, called the "progenitor", either collapses to a neutron star or black hole, or it is completely destroyed. The peak optical luminosity of a supernova can be comparable to that of an entire galaxy, before fading over several weeks or months.
Supernovae are more energetic than novae. In Latin, "nova" means "new", referring astronomically to what appears to be a temporary new bright star. Adding the prefix "super-" distinguishes supernovae from ordinary novae, which are far less luminous. The word "supernova" was coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in 1929.
The most recent directly observed supernova in the Milky Way was Kepler's Supernova in 1604, but the remnants of more recent supernovae have been found. Observations of supernovae in other galaxies suggest they occur in the Milky Way on average about three times every century. These supernovae would almost certainly be observable with modern astronomical telescopes. The most recent naked-eye supernova was SN 1987A, the explosion of a blue supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of the Milky Way.
Theoretical studies indicate that most supernovae are triggered by one of two basic mechanisms: the sudden re-ignition of nuclear fusion in a degenerate star; or the sudden gravitational collapse of a massive star's core. In the first class of events, the object's temperature is raised enough to trigger runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting the star. Possible causes are an accumulation of material from a binary companion through accretion or a stellar merger. In the massive star case, the core of a massive star may undergo sudden collapse, releasing gravitational potential energy as a supernova. While some observed supernovae are more complex than these two simplified theories, the astrophysical mechanics have been established and accepted by most astronomers for some time.
Supernovae can expel several solar masses of material at speeds up to several percent of the speed of light. This drives an expanding shock wave into the surrounding interstellar medium, sweeping up an expanding shell of gas and dust observed as a supernova remnant. Supernovae are a major source of elements in the interstellar medium from oxygen to rubidium. The expanding shock waves of supernovae can trigger the formation of new stars. Supernova remnants might be a major source of cosmic rays. Supernovae might produce gravitational waves, though, thus far, gravitational waves have only been detected from the mergers of black holes and neutron stars.
Compared to a star's entire history, the visual appearance of a supernova is very brief, perhaps spanning several months, so that the chances of observing one with the naked eye is roughly once in a lifetime. Only a tiny fraction of the 100 billion stars in a typical galaxy have the capacity to become a supernova, restricted to either those having large mass or extraordinarily rare kinds of binary stars containing white dwarfs.
The earliest possible recorded supernova, known as HB9, could have been viewed and recorded by unknown Indian observers in . Later, SN 185 was viewed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD. The brightest recorded supernova was SN 1006, which occurred in 1006 AD and was described by observers across China, Japan, Iraq, Egypt, and Europe. The widely observed supernova SN 1054 produced the Crab Nebula. Supernovae SN 1572 and SN 1604, the latest to be observed with the naked eye in the Milky Way galaxy, had notable effects on the development of astronomy in Europe because they were used to argue against the Aristotelian idea that the universe beyond the Moon and planets was static and unchanging. Johannes Kepler began observing SN 1604 at its peak on October 17, 1604, and continued to make estimates of its brightness until it faded from naked eye view a year later. It was the second supernova to be observed in a generation (after SN 1572 seen by Tycho Brahe in Cassiopeia).
There is some evidence that the youngest galactic supernova, G1.9+0.3, occurred in the late 19th century, considerably more recently than Cassiopeia A from around 1680. Neither supernova was noted at the time. In the case of G1.9+0.3, high extinction along the plane of the galaxy could have dimmed the event sufficiently to go unnoticed. The situation for Cassiopeia A is less clear. Infrared light echos have been detected showing that it was a type IIb supernova and was not in a region of especially high extinction.
Observation and discovery of extragalactic supernovae are now far more common. The first such observation was of SN 1885A in the Andromeda Galaxy. Today, amateur and professional astronomers are finding several hundred every year, some when near maximum brightness, others on old astronomical photographs or plates. American astronomers Rudolph Minkowski and Fritz Zwicky developed the modern supernova classification scheme beginning in 1941. During the 1960s, astronomers found that the maximum intensities of supernovae could be used as standard candles, hence indicators of astronomical distances. Some of the most distant supernovae observed in 2003, appeared dimmer than expected. This supports the view that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Techniques were developed for reconstructing supernovae events that have no written records of being observed. The date of the Cassiopeia A supernova event was determined from light echoes off nebulae, while the age of supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 was estimated from temperature measurements and the gamma ray emissions from the radioactive decay of titanium-44.
The most luminous supernova ever recorded is ASASSN-15lh. It was first detected in June 2015 and peaked at , which is twice the bolometric luminosity of any other known supernova. However, the nature of this supernova continues to be debated and several alternative explanations have been suggested, e.g. tidal disruption of a star by a black hole.
Among the earliest detected since time of detonation, and for which the earliest spectra have been obtained (beginning at 6 hours after the actual explosion), is the Type II SN 2013fs (iPTF13dqy) which was recorded 3 hours after the supernova event on 6 October 2013 by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF). The star is located in a spiral galaxy named NGC 7610, 160 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus.
On 20 September 2016, amateur astronomer Victor Buso from Rosario, Argentina was testing his telescope. When taking several photographs of galaxy NGC 613, Buso chanced upon a supernova that had just become visible on Earth. After examining the images he contacted the Instituto de Astrofísica de La Plata. "It was the first time anyone had ever captured the initial moments of the “shock breakout” from an optical supernova, one not associated with a gamma-ray or X-ray burst." The odds of capturing such an event were put between one in ten million to one in a hundred million, according to astronomer Melina Bersten from the Instituto de Astrofísica.
The supernova Buso observed was a Type IIb made by a star twenty times the mass of the sun. Astronomer Alex Filippenko, from the University of California, remarked that professional astronomers had been searching for such an event for a long time. He stated: "Observations of stars in the first moments they begin exploding provide information that cannot be directly obtained in any other way."
Early work on what was originally believed to be simply a new category of novae was performed during the 1920s. These were variously called "upper-class Novae", "Hauptnovae", or "giant novae". The name "supernovae" is thought to have been coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in lectures at Caltech during 1931. It was used, as "super-Novae", in a journal paper published by Knut Lundmark in 1933, and in a 1934 paper by Baade and Zwicky. By 1938, the hyphen had been lost and the modern name was in use. Because supernovae are relatively rare events within a galaxy, occurring about three times a century in the Milky Way, obtaining a good sample of supernovae to study requires regular monitoring of many galaxies.
Supernovae in other galaxies cannot be predicted with any meaningful accuracy. Normally, when they are discovered, they are already in progress. To use supernovae as standard candles for measuring distance, observation of their peak luminosity is required. It is therefore important to discover them well before they reach their maximum. Amateur astronomers, who greatly outnumber professional astronomers, have played an important role in finding supernovae, typically by looking at some of the closer galaxies through an optical telescope and comparing them to earlier photographs.
Toward the end of the 20th century astronomers increasingly turned to computer-controlled telescopes and CCDs for hunting supernovae. While such systems are popular with amateurs, there are also professional installations such as the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope. The Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) project uses a network of neutrino detectors to give early warning of a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy. Neutrinos are particles that are produced in great quantities by a supernova, and they are not significantly absorbed by the interstellar gas and dust of the galactic disk.
Supernova searches fall into two classes: those focused on relatively nearby events and those looking farther away. Because of the expansion of the universe, the distance to a remote object with a known emission spectrum can be estimated by measuring its Doppler shift (or redshift); on average, more-distant objects recede with greater velocity than those nearby, and so have a higher redshift. Thus the search is split between high redshift and low redshift, with the boundary falling around a redshift range of "z"=0.1–0.3—where "z" is a dimensionless measure of the spectrum's frequency shift.
High redshift searches for supernovae usually involve the observation of supernova light curves. These are useful for standard or calibrated candles to generate Hubble diagrams and make cosmological predictions. Supernova spectroscopy, used to study the physics and environments of supernovae, is more practical at low than at high redshift. Low redshift observations also anchor the low-distance end of the Hubble curve, which is a plot of distance versus redshift for visible galaxies.
Supernova discoveries are reported to the International Astronomical Union's Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, which sends out a circular with the name it assigns to that supernova. The name is formed from the prefix "SN", followed by the year of discovery, suffixed with a one or two-letter designation. The first 26 supernovae of the year are designated with a capital letter from "A" to "Z". Afterward pairs of lower-case letters are used: "aa", "ab", and so on. Hence, for example, "SN 2003C" designates the third supernova reported in the year 2003. The last supernova of 2005, SN 2005nc, was the 367th (14 × 26 + 3 = 367). The suffix "nc" acts as a bijective base-26 encoding, with "a" = 1, "b" = 2, "c" = 3, ... "z" = 26. Since 2000, professional and amateur astronomers have been finding several hundreds of supernovae each year (572 in 2007, 261 in 2008, 390 in 2009; 231 in 2013).
Historical supernovae are known simply by the year they occurred: SN 185, SN 1006, SN 1054, SN 1572 (called "Tycho's Nova") and SN 1604 ("Kepler's Star"). Since 1885 the additional letter notation has been used, even if there was only one supernova discovered that year (e.g. SN 1885A, SN 1907A, etc.) — this last happened with SN 1947A. "SN", for SuperNova, is a standard prefix. Until 1987, two-letter designations were rarely needed; since 1988, however, they have been needed every year. Since 2016, the increasing number of discoveries has regularly led to the additional use of three-digit designations.
Astronomers classify supernovae according to their light curves and the absorption lines of different chemical elements that appear in their spectra. If a supernova's spectrum contains lines of hydrogen (known as the Balmer series in the visual portion of the spectrum) it is classified "Type II"; otherwise it is "Type I". In each of these two types there are subdivisions according to the presence of lines from other elements or the shape of the light curve (a graph of the supernova's apparent magnitude as a function of time).
Type I supernovae are subdivided on the basis of their spectra, with Type Ia showing a strong ionised silicon absorption line. Type I supernovae without this strong line are classified as Type Ib and Ic, with Type Ib showing strong neutral helium lines and Type Ic lacking them. The light curves are all similar, although Type Ia are generally brighter at peak luminosity, but the light curve is not important for classification of Type I supernovae.
A small number of Type Ia supernovae exhibit unusual features, such as non-standard luminosity or broadened light curves, and these are typically classified by referring to the earliest example showing similar features. For example, the sub-luminous SN 2008ha is often referred to as SN 2002cx-like or class Ia-2002cx.
A small proportion of type Ic supernovae show highly broadened and blended emission lines which are taken to indicate very high expansion velocities for the ejecta. These have been classified as type Ic-BL or Ic-bl.
The supernovae of Type II can also be sub-divided based on their spectra. While most Type II supernovae show very broad emission lines which indicate expansion velocities of many thousands of kilometres per second, some, such as SN 2005gl, have relatively narrow features in their spectra. These are called Type IIn, where the 'n' stands for 'narrow'.
A few supernovae, such as SN 1987K and SN 1993J, appear to change types: they show lines of hydrogen at early times, but, over a period of weeks to months, become dominated by lines of helium. The term "Type IIb" is used to describe the combination of features normally associated with Types II and Ib.
Type II supernovae with normal spectra dominated by broad hydrogen lines that remain for the life of the decline are classified on the basis of their light curves. The most common type shows a distinctive "plateau" in the light curve shortly after peak brightness where the visual luminosity stays relatively constant for several months before the decline resumes. These are called Type II-P referring to the plateau. Less common are Type II-L supernovae that lack a distinct plateau. The "L" signifies "linear" although the light curve is not actually a straight line.
Supernovae that do not fit into the normal classifications are designated peculiar, or 'pec'.
Fritz Zwicky defined additional supernovae types based on a very few examples that did not cleanly fit the parameters for Type I or Type II supernovae. SN 1961i in NGC 4303 was the prototype and only member of the Type III supernova class, noted for its broad light curve maximum and broad hydrogen Balmer lines that were slow to develop in the spectrum. SN 1961f in NGC 3003 was the prototype and only member of the Type IV class, with a light curve similar to a Type II-P supernova, with hydrogen absorption lines but weak hydrogen emission lines. The Type V class was coined for SN 1961V in NGC 1058, an unusual faint supernova or supernova impostor with a slow rise to brightness, a maximum lasting many months, and an unusual emission spectrum. The similarity of SN 1961V to the Eta Carinae Great Outburst was noted. Supernovae in M101 (1909) and M83 (1923 and 1957) were also suggested as possible Type IV or Type V supernovae.
These types would now all be treated as peculiar Type II supernovae (IIpec), of which many more examples have been discovered, although it is still debated whether SN 1961V was a true supernova following an LBV outburst or an impostor.
Supernovae type codes, as described above, are "taxonomic": the type number describes the light observed from the supernova, not necessarily its cause. For example, Type Ia supernovae are produced by runaway fusion ignited on degenerate white dwarf progenitors, while the spectrally similar Type Ib/c are produced from massive Wolf–Rayet progenitors by core collapse. The following summarizes what is currently believed to be the most plausible explanations for supernovae.
A white dwarf star may accumulate sufficient material from a stellar companion to raise its core temperature enough to ignite carbon fusion, at which point it undergoes runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting it. There are three avenues by which this detonation is theorized to happen: stable accretion of material from a companion, the collision of two white dwarfs, or accretion that causes ignition in a shell that then ignites the core. The dominant mechanism by which Type Ia supernovae are produced remains unclear. Despite this uncertainty in how Type Ia supernovae are produced, Type Ia supernovae have very uniform properties and are useful standard candles over intergalactic distances. Some calibrations are required to compensate for the gradual change in properties or different frequencies of abnormal luminosity supernovae at high redshift, and for small variations in brightness identified by light curve shape or spectrum.
There are several means by which a supernova of this type can form, but they share a common underlying mechanism. If a carbon-oxygen white dwarf accreted enough matter to reach the Chandrasekhar limit of about 1.44 solar masses () (for a non-rotating star), it would no longer be able to support the bulk of its mass through electron degeneracy pressure and would begin to collapse. However, the current view is that this limit is not normally attained; increasing temperature and density inside the core ignite carbon fusion as the star approaches the limit (to within about 1%) before collapse is initiated. For a core primarily composed of oxygen, neon and magnesium, the collapsing white dwarf will typically form a neutron star. In this case, only a fraction of the star's mass will be ejected during the collapse.
Within a few seconds, a substantial fraction of the matter in the white dwarf undergoes nuclear fusion, releasing enough energy (1–) to unbind the star in a supernova. An outwardly expanding shock wave is generated, with matter reaching velocities on the order of 5,000–20,000 km/s, or roughly 3% of the speed of light. There is also a significant increase in luminosity, reaching an absolute magnitude of −19.3 (or 5 billion times brighter than the Sun), with little variation.
The model for the formation of this category of supernova is a close binary star system. The larger of the two stars is the first to evolve off the main sequence, and it expands to form a red giant. The two stars now share a common envelope, causing their mutual orbit to shrink. The giant star then sheds most of its envelope, losing mass until it can no longer continue nuclear fusion. At this point, it becomes a white dwarf star, composed primarily of carbon and oxygen. Eventually, the secondary star also evolves off the main sequence to form a red giant. Matter from the giant is accreted by the white dwarf, causing the latter to increase in mass. Despite widespread acceptance of the basic model, the exact details of initiation and of the heavy elements produced in the catastrophic event are still unclear.
Type Ia supernovae follow a characteristic light curve—the graph of luminosity as a function of time—after the event. This luminosity is generated by the radioactive decay of nickel-56 through cobalt-56 to iron-56. The peak luminosity of the light curve is extremely consistent across normal Type Ia supernovae, having a maximum absolute magnitude of about −19.3. This allows them to be used as a secondary standard candle to measure the distance to their host galaxies.
Another model for the formation of Type Ia supernovae involves the merger of two white dwarf stars, with the combined mass momentarily exceeding the Chandrasekhar limit. There is much variation in this type of event, and, in many cases, there may be no supernova at all, in which case they will have a broader and less luminous light curve than the more normal SN Type Ia.
Abnormally bright Type Ia supernovae occur when the white dwarf already has a mass higher than the Chandrasekhar limit, possibly enhanced further by asymmetry, but the ejected material will have less than normal kinetic energy.
There is no formal sub-classification for the non-standard Type Ia supernovae. It has been proposed that a group of sub-luminous supernovae that occur when helium accretes onto a white dwarf should be classified as Type Iax. This type of supernova may not always completely destroy the white dwarf progenitor and could leave behind a zombie star.
One specific type of non-standard Type Ia supernova develops hydrogen, and other, emission lines and gives the appearance of mixture between a normal Type Ia and a Type IIn supernova. Examples are SN 2002ic and SN 2005gj. These supernovae have been dubbed Type Ia/IIn, Type Ian, Type IIa and Type IIan.
Very massive stars can undergo core collapse when nuclear fusion becomes unable to sustain the core against its own gravity; passing this threshold is the cause of all types of supernova except Type Ia. The collapse may cause violent expulsion of the outer layers of the star resulting in a supernova, or the release of gravitational potential energy may be insufficient and the star may collapse into a black hole or neutron star with little radiated energy.
Core collapse can be caused by several different mechanisms: electron capture; exceeding the Chandrasekhar limit; pair-instability; or photodisintegration. When a massive star develops an iron core larger than the Chandrasekhar mass it will no longer be able to support itself by electron degeneracy pressure and will collapse further to a neutron star or black hole. Electron capture by magnesium in a degenerate O/Ne/Mg core causes gravitational collapse followed by explosive oxygen fusion, with very similar results. Electron-positron pair production in a large post-helium burning core removes thermodynamic support and causes initial collapse followed by runaway fusion, resulting in a pair-instability supernova. A sufficiently large and hot stellar core may generate gamma-rays energetic enough to initiate photodisintegration directly, which will cause a complete collapse of the core.
The table below lists the known reasons for core collapse in massive stars, the types of stars in which they occur, their associated supernova type, and the remnant produced. The metallicity is the proportion of elements other than hydrogen or helium, as compared to the Sun. The initial mass is the mass of the star prior to the supernova event, given in multiples of the Sun's mass, although the mass at the time of the supernova may be much lower.
Type IIn supernovae are not listed in the table. They can be produced by various types of core collapse in different progenitor stars, possibly even by Type Ia white dwarf ignitions, although it seems that most will be from iron core collapse in luminous supergiants or hypergiants (including LBVs). The narrow spectral lines for which they are named occur because the supernova is expanding into a small dense cloud of circumstellar material. It appears that a significant proportion of supposed Type IIn supernovae are supernova impostors, massive eruptions of LBV-like stars similar to the Great Eruption of Eta Carinae. In these events, material previously ejected from the star creates the narrow absorption lines and causes a shock wave through interaction with the newly ejected material.
When a stellar core is no longer supported against gravity, it collapses in on itself with velocities reaching 70,000 km/s (0.23"c"), resulting in a rapid increase in temperature and density. What follows next depends on the mass and structure of the collapsing core, with low mass degenerate cores forming neutron stars, higher mass degenerate cores mostly collapsing completely to black holes, and non-degenerate cores undergoing runaway fusion.
The initial collapse of degenerate cores is accelerated by beta decay, photodisintegration and electron capture, which causes a burst of electron neutrinos. As the density increases, neutrino emission is cut off as they become trapped in the core. The inner core eventually reaches typically 30 km diameter and a density comparable to that of an atomic nucleus, and neutron degeneracy pressure tries to halt the collapse. If the core mass is more than about then neutron degeneracy is insufficient to stop the collapse and a black hole forms directly with no supernova.
In lower mass cores the collapse is stopped and the newly formed neutron core has an initial temperature of about 100 billion kelvin, 6000 times the temperature of the sun's core. At this temperature, neutrino-antineutrino pairs of all flavors are efficiently formed by thermal emission. These thermal neutrinos are several times more abundant than the electron-capture neutrinos. About 1046 joules, approximately 10% of the star's rest mass, is converted into a ten-second burst of neutrinos which is the main output of the event. The suddenly halted core collapse rebounds and produces a shock wave that stalls within milliseconds in the outer core as energy is lost through the dissociation of heavy elements. A process that is is necessary to allow the outer layers of the core to reabsorb around 1044 joules (1 foe) from the neutrino pulse, producing the visible brightness, although there are also other theories on how to power the explosion.
Some material from the outer envelope falls back onto the neutron star, and, for cores beyond about , there is sufficient fallback to form a black hole. This fallback will reduce the kinetic energy created and the mass of expelled radioactive material, but in some situations, it may also generate relativistic jets that result in a gamma-ray burst or an exceptionally luminous supernova.
The collapse of a massive non-degenerate core will ignite further fusion. When the core collapse is initiated by pair instability, oxygen fusion begins and the collapse may be halted. For core masses of , the collapse halts and the star remains intact, but collapse will occur again when a larger core has formed. For cores of around , the fusion of oxygen and heavier elements is so energetic that the entire star is disrupted, causing a supernova. At the upper end of the mass range, the supernova is unusually luminous and extremely long-lived due to many solar masses of ejected 56Ni. For even larger core masses, the core temperature becomes high enough to allow photodisintegration and the core collapses completely into a black hole.
Stars with initial masses less than about never develop a core large enough to collapse and they eventually lose their atmospheres to become white dwarfs. Stars with at least (possibly as much as ) evolve in a complex fashion, progressively burning heavier elements at hotter temperatures in their cores. The star becomes layered like an onion, with the burning of more easily fused elements occurring in larger shells. Although popularly described as an onion with an iron core, the least massive supernova progenitors only have oxygen-neon(-magnesium) cores. These super AGB stars may form the majority of core collapse supernovae, although less luminous and so less commonly observed than those from more massive progenitors.
If core collapse occurs during a supergiant phase when the star still has a hydrogen envelope, the result is a Type II supernova. The rate of mass loss for luminous stars depends on the metallicity and luminosity. Extremely luminous stars at near solar metallicity will lose all their hydrogen before they reach core collapse and so will not form a Type II supernova. At low metallicity, all stars will reach core collapse with a hydrogen envelope but sufficiently massive stars collapse directly to a black hole without producing a visible supernova.
Stars with an initial mass up to about 90 times the sun, or a little less at high metallicity, result in a Type II-P supernova, which is the most commonly observed type. At moderate to high metallicity, stars near the upper end of that mass range will have lost most of their hydrogen when core collapse occurs and the result will be a Type II-L supernova. At very low metallicity, stars of around will reach core collapse by pair instability while they still have a hydrogen atmosphere and an oxygen core and the result will be a supernova with Type II characteristics but a very large mass of ejected 56Ni and high luminosity.
These supernovae, like those of Type II, are massive stars that undergo core collapse. However the stars which become Types Ib and Ic supernovae have lost most of their outer (hydrogen) envelopes due to strong stellar winds or else from interaction with a companion. These stars are known as Wolf–Rayet stars, and they occur at moderate to high metallicity where continuum driven winds cause sufficiently high mass loss rates. Observations of Type Ib/c supernova do not match the observed or expected occurrence of Wolf–Rayet stars and alternate explanations for this type of core collapse supernova involve stars stripped of their hydrogen by binary interactions. Binary models provide a better match for the observed supernovae, with the proviso that no suitable binary helium stars have ever been observed. Since a supernova can occur whenever the mass of the star at the time of core collapse is low enough not to cause complete fallback to a black hole, any massive star may result in a supernova if it loses enough mass before core collapse occurs.
Type Ib supernovae are the more common and result from Wolf–Rayet stars of Type WC which still have helium in their atmospheres. For a narrow range of masses, stars evolve further before reaching core collapse to become WO stars with very little helium remaining and these are the progenitors of Type Ic supernovae.
A few percent of the Type Ic supernovae are associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRB), though it is also believed that any hydrogen-stripped Type Ib or Ic supernova could produce a GRB, depending on the circumstances of the geometry. The mechanism for producing this type of GRB is the jets produced by the magnetic field of the rapidly spinning magnetar formed at the collapsing core of the star. The jets would also transfer energy into the expanding outer shell, producing a super-luminous supernova.
Ultra-stripped supernovae occur when the exploding star has been stripped (almost) all the way to the metal core, via mass transfer in a close binary. As a result, very little material is ejected from the exploding star (c. ). In the most extreme cases, ultra-stripped supernovae can occur in naked metal cores, barely above the Chandrasekhar mass limit. SN 2005ek might be an observational example of an ultra-stripped supernova, giving rise to a relatively dim and fast decaying light curve. The nature of ultra-stripped supernovae can be both iron core-collapse and electron capture supernovae, depending on the mass of the collapsing core.
The core collapse of some massive stars may not result in a visible supernova. The main model for this is a sufficiently massive core that the kinetic energy is insufficient to reverse the infall of the outer layers onto a black hole. These events are difficult to detect, but large surveys have detected possible candidates. The red supergiant N6946-BH1 in NGC 6946 underwent a modest outburst in March 2009, before fading from view. Only a faint infrared source remains at the star's location.
A historic puzzle concerned the source of energy that can maintain the optical supernova glow for months. Although the energy that disrupts each type of supernovae is delivered promptly, the light curves are dominated by subsequent radioactive heating of the rapidly expanding ejecta. Some have considered rotational energy from the central pulsar. The ejecta gases would dim quickly without some energy input to keep it hot. The intensely radioactive nature of the ejecta gases, which is now known to be correct for most supernovae, was first calculated on sound nucleosynthesis grounds in the late 1960s. It was not until SN 1987A that direct observation of gamma-ray lines unambiguously identified the major radioactive nuclei.
It is now known by direct observation that much of the light curve (the graph of luminosity as a function of time) after the occurrence of a Type II Supernova, such as SN 1987A, is explained by those predicted radioactive decays. Although the luminous emission consists of optical photons, it is the radioactive power absorbed by the ejected gases that keeps the remnant hot enough to radiate light. The radioactive decay of 56Ni through its daughters 56Co to 56Fe produces gamma-ray photons, primarily of 847keV and 1238keV, that are absorbed and dominate the heating and thus the luminosity of the ejecta at intermediate times (several weeks) to late times (several months). Energy for the peak of the light curve of SN1987A was provided by the decay of 56Ni to 56Co (half-life 6 days) while energy for the later light curve in particular fit very closely with the 77.3 day half-life of 56Co decaying to 56Fe. Later measurements by space gamma-ray telescopes of the small fraction of the 56Co and 57Co gamma rays that escaped the SN 1987A remnant without absorption confirmed earlier predictions that those two radioactive nuclei were the power sources.
The visual light curves of the different supernova types all depend at late times on radioactive heating, but they vary in shape and amplitude because of the underlying mechanisms, the way that visible radiation is produced, the epoch of its observation, and the transparency of the ejected material. The light curves can be significantly different at other wavelengths. For example, at ultraviolet wavelengths there is an early extremely luminous peak lasting only a few hours corresponding to the breakout of the shock launched by the initial event, but that breakout is hardly detectable optically.
The light curves for Type Ia are mostly very uniform, with a consistent maximum absolute magnitude and a relatively steep decline in luminosity. Their optical energy output is driven by radioactive decay of ejected nickel-56 (half-life 6 days), which then decays to radioactive cobalt-56 (half-life 77 days). These radioisotopes excite the surrounding material to incandescence. Studies of cosmology today rely on 56Ni radioactivity providing the energy for the optical brightness of supernovae of Type Ia, which are the "standard candles" of cosmology but whose diagnostic 847keV and 1238keV gamma rays were first detected only in 2014. The initial phases of the light curve decline steeply as the effective size of the photosphere decreases and trapped electromagnetic radiation is depleted. The light curve continues to decline in the B band while it may show a small shoulder in the visual at about 40 days, but this is only a hint of a secondary maximum that occurs in the infra-red as certain ionised heavy elements recombine to produce infra-red radiation and the ejecta become transparent to it. The visual light curve continues to decline at a rate slightly greater than the decay rate of the radioactive cobalt (which has the longer half-life and controls the later curve), because the ejected material becomes more diffuse and less able to convert the high energy radiation into visual radiation. After several months, the light curve changes its decline rate again as positron emission becomes dominant from the remaining cobalt-56, although this portion of the light curve has been little-studied.
Type Ib and Ic light curves are basically similar to Type Ia although with a lower average peak luminosity. The visual light output is again due to radioactive decay being converted into visual radiation, but there is a much lower mass of the created nickel-56. The peak luminosity varies considerably and there are even occasional Type Ib/c supernovae orders of magnitude more and less luminous than the norm. The most luminous Type Ic supernovae are referred to as hypernovae and tend to have broadened light curves in addition to the increased peak luminosity. The source of the extra energy is thought to be relativistic jets driven by the formation of a rotating black hole, which also produce gamma-ray bursts.
The light curves for Type II supernovae are characterised by a much slower decline than Type I, on the order of 0.05 magnitudes per day, excluding the plateau phase. The visual light output is dominated by kinetic energy rather than radioactive decay for several months, due primarily to the existence of hydrogen in the ejecta from the atmosphere of the supergiant progenitor star. In the initial destruction this hydrogen becomes heated and ionised. The majority of Type II supernovae show a prolonged plateau in their light curves as this hydrogen recombines, emitting visible light and becoming more transparent. This is then followed by a declining light curve driven by radioactive decay although slower than in Type I supernovae, due to the efficiency of conversion into light by all the hydrogen.
In Type II-L the plateau is absent because the progenitor had relatively little hydrogen left in its atmosphere, sufficient to appear in the spectrum but insufficient to produce a noticeable plateau in the light output. In Type IIb supernovae the hydrogen atmosphere of the progenitor is so depleted (thought to be due to tidal stripping by a companion star) that the light curve is closer to a Type I supernova and the hydrogen even disappears from the spectrum after several weeks.
Type IIn supernovae are characterised by additional narrow spectral lines produced in a dense shell of circumstellar material. Their light curves are generally very broad and extended, occasionally also extremely luminous and referred to as a superluminous supernova. These light curves are produced by the highly efficient conversion of kinetic energy of the ejecta into electromagnetic radiation by interaction with the dense shell of material. This only occurs when the material is sufficiently dense and compact, indicating that it has been produced by the progenitor star itself only shortly before the supernova occurs.
Large numbers of supernovae have been catalogued and classified to provide distance candles and test models. Average characteristics vary somewhat with distance and type of host galaxy, but can broadly be specified for each supernova type.
Notes:
A long-standing puzzle surrounding Type II supernovae is why the remaining compact object receives a large velocity away from the epicentre; pulsars, and thus neutron stars, are observed to have high velocities, and black holes presumably do as well, although they are far harder to observe in isolation. The initial impetus can be substantial, propelling an object of more than a solar mass at a velocity of 500 km/s or greater. This indicates an expansion asymmetry, but the mechanism by which momentum is transferred to the compact object a puzzle. Proposed explanations for this kick include convection in the collapsing star and jet production during neutron star formation.
One possible explanation for this asymmetry is large-scale convection above the core. The convection can create variations in the local abundances of elements, resulting in uneven nuclear burning during the collapse, bounce and resulting expansion.
Another possible explanation is that accretion of gas onto the central neutron star can create a disk that drives highly directional jets, propelling matter at a high velocity out of the star, and driving transverse shocks that completely disrupt the star. These jets might play a crucial role in the resulting supernova. (A similar model is now favored for explaining long gamma-ray bursts.)
Initial asymmetries have also been confirmed in Type Ia supernovae through observation. This result may mean that the initial luminosity of this type of supernova depends on the viewing angle. However, the expansion becomes more symmetrical with the passage of time. Early asymmetries are detectable by measuring the polarization of the emitted light.
Although supernovae are primarily known as luminous events, the electromagnetic radiation they release is almost a minor side-effect. Particularly in the case of core collapse supernovae, the emitted electromagnetic radiation is a tiny fraction of the total energy released during the event.
There is a fundamental difference between the balance of energy production in the different types of supernova. In Type Ia white dwarf detonations, most of the energy is directed into heavy element synthesis and the kinetic energy of the ejecta. In core collapse supernovae, the vast majority of the energy is directed into neutrino emission, and while some of this apparently powers the observed destruction, 99%+ of the neutrinos escape the star in the first few minutes following the start of the collapse.
Type Ia supernovae derive their energy from a runaway nuclear fusion of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf. The details of the energetics are still not fully understood, but the end result is the ejection of the entire mass of the original star at high kinetic energy. Around half a solar mass of that mass is 56Ni generated from silicon burning. 56Ni is radioactive and decays into 56Co by beta plus decay (with a half life of six days) and gamma rays. 56Co itself decays by the beta plus (positron) path with a half life of 77 days into stable 56Fe. These two processes are responsible for the electromagnetic radiation from Type Ia supernovae. In combination with the changing transparency of the ejected material, they produce the rapidly declining light curve.
Core collapse supernovae are on average visually fainter than Type Ia supernovae, but the total energy released is far higher. In these type of supernovae, the gravitational potential energy is converted into kinetic energy that compresses and collapses the core, initially producing electron neutrinos from disintegrating nucleons, followed by all flavours of thermal neutrinos from the super-heated neutron star core. Around 1% of these neutrinos are thought to deposit sufficient energy into the outer layers of the star to drive the resulting catastrophe, but again the details cannot be reproduced exactly in current models. Kinetic energies and nickel yields are somewhat lower than Type Ia supernovae, hence the lower peak visual luminosity of Type II supernovae, but energy from the de-ionisation of the many solar masses of remaining hydrogen can contribute to a much slower decline in luminosity and produce the plateau phase seen in the majority of core collapse supernovae.
In some core collapse supernovae, fallback onto a black hole drives relativistic jets which may produce a brief energetic and directional burst of gamma rays and also transfers substantial further energy into the ejected material. This is one scenario for producing high luminosity supernovae and is thought to be the cause of Type Ic hypernovae and long duration gamma-ray bursts. If the relativistic jets are too brief and fail to penetrate the stellar envelope then a low luminosity gamma-ray burst may be produced and the supernova may be sub-luminous.
When a supernova occurs inside a small dense cloud of circumstellar material, it will produce a shock wave that can efficiently convert a high fraction of the kinetic energy into electromagnetic radiation. Even though the initial energy was entirely normal the resulting supernova will have high luminosity and extended duration since it does not rely on exponential radioactive decay. This type of event may cause Type IIn hypernovae.
Although pair-instability supernovae are core collapse supernovae with spectra and light curves similar to Type II-P, the nature after core collapse is more like that of a giant Type Ia with runaway fusion of carbon, oxygen, and silicon. The total energy released by the highest mass events is comparable to other core collapse supernovae but neutrino production is thought to be very low, hence the kinetic and electromagnetic energy released is very high. The cores of these stars are much larger than any white dwarf and the amount of radioactive nickel and other heavy elements ejected from their cores can be orders of magnitude higher, with consequently high visual luminosity.
The supernova classification type is closely tied to the type of star at the time of the collapse. The occurrence of each type of supernova depends dramatically on the metallicity, and hence the age of the host galaxy.
Type Ia supernovae are produced from white dwarf stars in binary systems and occur in all galaxy types. Core collapse supernovae are only found in galaxies undergoing current or very recent star formation, since they result from short-lived massive stars. They are most commonly found in Type Sc spirals, but also in the arms of other spiral galaxies and in irregular galaxies, especially starburst galaxies.
Type Ib/c and II-L, and possibly most Type IIn, supernovae are only thought to be produced from stars having near-solar metallicity levels that result in high mass loss from massive stars, hence they are less common in older, more-distant galaxies. The table shows the progenitor for the main types of core collapse supernova, and the approximate proportions that have been observed in the local neighbourhood.
There are a number of difficulties reconciling modelled and observed stellar evolution leading up to core collapse supernovae. Red supergiants are the progenitors for the vast majority of core collapse supernovae, and these have been observed but only at relatively low masses and luminosities, below about and respectively. Most progenitors of Type II supernovae are not detected and must be considerably fainter, and presumably less massive. It is now proposed that higher mass red supergiants do not explode as supernovae, but instead evolve back towards hotter temperatures. Several progenitors of Type IIb supernovae have been confirmed, and these were K and G supergiants, plus one A supergiant. Yellow hypergiants or LBVs are proposed progenitors for Type IIb supernovae, and almost all Type IIb supernovae near enough to observe have shown such progenitors.
Until just a few decades ago, hot supergiants were not considered likely to explode, but observations have shown otherwise. Blue supergiants form an unexpectedly high proportion of confirmed supernova progenitors, partly due to their high luminosity and easy detection, while not a single Wolf–Rayet progenitor has yet been clearly identified. Models have had difficulty showing how blue supergiants lose enough mass to reach supernova without progressing to a different evolutionary stage. One study has shown a possible route for low-luminosity post-red supergiant luminous blue variables to collapse, most likely as a Type IIn supernova. Several examples of hot luminous progenitors of Type IIn supernovae have been detected: SN 2005gy and SN 2010jl were both apparently massive luminous stars, but are very distant; and SN 2009ip had a highly luminous progenitor likely to have been an LBV, but is a peculiar supernova whose exact nature is disputed.
The progenitors of Type Ib/c supernovae are not observed at all, and constraints on their possible luminosity are often lower than those of known WC stars. WO stars are extremely rare and visually relatively faint, so it is difficult to say whether such progenitors are missing or just yet to be observed. Very luminous progenitors have not been securely identified, despite numerous supernovae being observed near enough that such progenitors would have been clearly imaged. Population modelling shows that the observed Type Ib/c supernovae could be reproduced by a mixture of single massive stars and stripped-envelope stars from interacting binary systems. The continued lack of unambiguous detection of progenitors for normal Type Ib and Ic supernovae may be due to most massive stars collapsing directly to a black hole without a supernova outburst. Most of these supernovae are then produced from lower-mass low-luminosity helium stars in binary systems. A small number would be from rapidly-rotating massive stars, likely corresponding to the highly-energetic Type Ic-BL events that are associated with long-duration gamma-ray bursts.
Supernovae are a major source of elements in the interstellar medium from oxygen through to rubidium, though the theoretical abundances of the elements produced or seen in the spectra varies significantly depending on the various supernova types. Type Ia supernovae produce mainly silicon and iron-peak elements, metals such as nickel and iron. Core collapse supernovae eject much smaller quantities of the iron-peak elements than type Ia supernovae, but larger masses of light alpha elements such as oxygen and neon, and elements heavier than zinc. The latter is especially true with electron capture supernovae. The bulk of the material ejected by type II supernovae is hydrogen and helium. The heavy elements are produced by: nuclear fusion for nuclei up to 34S; silicon photodisintegration rearrangement and quasiequilibrium during silicon burning for nuclei between 36Ar and 56Ni; and rapid capture of neutrons (r-process) during the supernova's collapse for elements heavier than iron. The r-process produces highly unstable nuclei that are rich in neutrons and that rapidly beta decay into more stable forms. In supernovae, r-process reactions are responsible for about half of all the isotopes of elements beyond iron, although neutron star mergers may be the main astrophysical source for many of these elements.
In the modern universe, old asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars are the dominant source of dust from s-process elements, oxides, and carbon. However, in the early universe, before AGB stars formed, supernovae may have been the main source of dust.
Remnants of many supernovae consist of a compact object and a rapidly expanding shock wave of material. This cloud of material sweeps up surrounding interstellar medium during a free expansion phase, which can last for up to two centuries. The wave then gradually undergoes a period of adiabatic expansion, and will slowly cool and mix with the surrounding interstellar medium over a period of about 10,000 years.
The Big Bang produced hydrogen, helium, and traces of lithium, while all heavier elements are synthesized in stars and supernovae. Supernovae tend to enrich the surrounding interstellar medium with elements other than hydrogen and helium, which usually astronomers refer to as "metals".
These injected elements ultimately enrich the molecular clouds that are the sites of star formation. Thus, each stellar generation has a slightly different composition, going from an almost pure mixture of hydrogen and helium to a more metal-rich composition. Supernovae are the dominant mechanism for distributing these heavier elements, which are formed in a star during its period of nuclear fusion. The different abundances of elements in the material that forms a star have important influences on the star's life, and may decisively influence the possibility of having planets orbiting it.
The kinetic energy of an expanding supernova remnant can trigger star formation by compressing nearby, dense molecular clouds in space. The increase in turbulent pressure can also prevent star formation if the cloud is unable to lose the excess energy.
Evidence from daughter products of short-lived radioactive isotopes shows that a nearby supernova helped determine the composition of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago, and may even have triggered the formation of this system.
On 1 June 2020, astronomers reported narrowing down the source of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which may now plausably include "compact-object mergers and magnetars arising from normal core collapse supernovae".
Supernova remnants are thought to accelerate a large fraction of galactic primary cosmic rays, but direct evidence for cosmic ray production has only been found in a small number of remnants. Gamma-rays from pion-decay have been detected from the supernova remnants IC 443 and W44. These are produced when accelerated protons from the SNR impact on interstellar material.
Supernovae are potentially strong galactic sources of gravitational waves, but none have so far been detected. The only gravitational wave events so far detected are from mergers of black holes and neutron stars, probable remnants of supernovae.
A near-Earth supernova is a supernova close enough to the Earth to have noticeable effects on its biosphere. Depending upon the type and energy of the supernova, it could be as far as 3000 light-years away.
In 1996 it was theorized that traces of past supernovae might be detectable on Earth in the form of metal isotope signatures in rock strata. Iron-60 enrichment was later reported in deep-sea rock of the Pacific Ocean. In 2009, elevated levels of nitrate ions were found in Antarctic ice, which coincided with the 1006 and 1054 supernovae. Gamma rays from these supernovae could have boosted levels of nitrogen oxides, which became trapped in the ice.
Type Ia supernovae are thought to be potentially the most dangerous if they occur close enough to the Earth. Because these supernovae arise from dim, common white dwarf stars in binary systems, it is likely that a supernova that can affect the Earth will occur unpredictably and in a star system that is not well studied. The closest known candidate is IK Pegasi (see below). Recent estimates predict that a Type II supernova would have to be closer than eight parsecs (26 light-years) to destroy half of the Earth's ozone layer, and there are no such candidates closer than about 500 light years.
The next supernova in the Milky Way will likely be detectable even if it occurs on the far side of the galaxy. It is likely to be produced by the collapse of an unremarkable red supergiant and it is very probable that it will already have been catalogued in infrared surveys such as 2MASS. There is a smaller chance that the next core collapse supernova will be produced by a different type of massive star such as a yellow hypergiant, luminous blue variable, or Wolf–Rayet. The chances of the next supernova being a Type Ia produced by a white dwarf are calculated to be about a third of those for a core collapse supernova. Again it should be observable wherever it occurs, but it is less likely that the progenitor will ever have been observed. It isn't even known exactly what a Type Ia progenitor system looks like, and it is difficult to detect them beyond a few parsecs. The total supernova rate in our galaxy is estimated to be between 2 and 12 per century, although we haven't actually observed one for several centuries.
Statistically, the next supernova is likely to be produced from an otherwise unremarkable red supergiant, but it is difficult to identify which of those supergiants are in the final stages of heavy element fusion in their cores and which have millions of years left. The most-massive red supergiants shed their atmospheres and evolve to Wolf–Rayet stars before their cores collapse. All Wolf–Rayet stars end their lives from the Wolf–Rayet phase within a million years or so, but again it is difficult to identify those that are closest to core collapse. One class that is expected to have no more than a few thousand years before exploding are the WO Wolf–Rayet stars, which are known to have exhausted their core helium. Only eight of them are known, and only four of those are in the Milky Way.
A number of close or well known stars have been identified as possible core collapse supernova candidates: the red supergiants Antares and Betelgeuse; the yellow hypergiant Rho Cassiopeiae; the luminous blue variable Eta Carinae that has already produced a supernova impostor; and the brightest component, a Wolf–Rayet star, in the Regor or Gamma Velorum system. Others have gained notoriety as possible, although not very likely, progenitors for a gamma-ray burst; for example WR 104.
Identification of candidates for a Type Ia supernova is much more speculative. Any binary with an accreting white dwarf might produce a supernova although the exact mechanism and timescale is still debated. These systems are faint and difficult to identify, but the novae and recurrent novae are such systems that conveniently advertise themselves. One example is U Scorpii. The nearest known Type Ia supernova candidate is IK Pegasi (HR 8210), located at a distance of 150 light-years, but observations suggest it will be several million years before the white dwarf can accrete the critical mass required to become a Type Ia supernova. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27680 |
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (; ; 27 April [O.S. 15 April] 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian Soviet composer, pianist and conductor. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from "The Love for Three Oranges," the suite "Lieutenant Kijé", the ballet "Romeo and Juliet"—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and "Peter and the Wolf." Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created – excluding juvenilia – seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.
A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant and virtuosic works for his instrument, including his first two piano concertos. In 1915, Prokofiev made a decisive break from the standard composer-pianist category with his orchestral "Scythian Suite", compiled from music originally composed for a ballet commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned three further ballets from Prokofiev—"Chout," "Le pas d'acier" and "The Prodigal Son"—which at the time of their original production all caused a sensation among both critics and colleagues. Prokofiev's greatest interest, however, was opera, and he composed several works in that genre, including "The Gambler" and "The Fiery Angel". Prokofiev's one operatic success during his lifetime was "The Love for Three Oranges", composed for the Chicago Opera and subsequently performed over the following decade in Europe and Russia.
After the Revolution of 1917, Prokofiev left Russia with the official blessing of the Soviet minister Anatoly Lunacharsky, and resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist and conductor. During that time, he married a Spanish singer, Carolina (Lina) Codina, with whom he had two sons. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev's ballets and operas to be staged in America and western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, and increasingly turned to the Soviet Union for commissions of new music; in 1936, he finally returned to his homeland with his family. He enjoyed some success there – notably with "Lieutenant Kijé," "Peter and the Wolf," "Romeo and Juliet," and perhaps above all with "Alexander Nevsky."
The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred him to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". In 1948, Prokofiev was attacked for producing "anti-democratic formalism." Nevertheless, he enjoyed personal and artistic support from a new generation of Russian performers, notably Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich: he wrote his ninth piano sonata for the former and his Symphony-Concerto for the latter.
Prokofiev was born in 1891 in Sontsovka (now Sontsivka, Pokrovsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine), a remote rural estate in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. His father, Sergei Alexeyevich Prokofiev, was an agronomist. Prokofiev's mother, Maria (née Zhitkova), came from a family of former serfs who had been owned by the Sheremetev family, under whose patronage serf-children were taught theatre and arts from an early age. She was described by Reinhold Glière (Prokofiev's first composition teacher) as "a tall woman with beautiful, clever eyes … who knew how to create an atmosphere of warmth and simplicity about her." After their wedding in the summer of 1877, the Prokofievs moved to a small estate in the Smolensk governorate. Eventually, Sergei Alexeyevich found employment as a soil engineer, employed by one of his former fellow-students, Dmitri Sontsov, to whose estate in the Ukrainian steppes the Prokofievs moved.
By the time of Prokofiev's birth, Maria—having previously lost two daughters—had devoted her life to music; during her son's early childhood, she spent two months a year in Moscow or St Petersburg taking piano lessons. Sergei Prokofiev was inspired by hearing his mother practising the piano in the evenings, mostly works by Chopin and Beethoven, and wrote his first piano composition at the age of five, an "Indian Gallop", which was written down by his mother: it was in the F Lydian mode (a major scale with a raised 4th scale degree), as the young Prokofiev felt "reluctance to tackle the black notes". By seven, he had also learned to play chess. Chess would remain a passion of his, and he became acquainted with world chess champions José Raúl Capablanca, whom he beat in a simultaneous exhibition match in 1914, and Mikhail Botvinnik, with whom he played several matches in the 1930s. At the age of nine, he was composing his first opera, "The Giant", as well as an overture and various other pieces.
In 1902, Prokofiev's mother met Sergei Taneyev, director of the Moscow Conservatory, who initially suggested that Prokofiev should start lessons in piano and composition with Alexander Goldenweiser. Unable to arrange that, Taneyev instead arranged for composer and pianist Reinhold Glière to spend the summer of 1902 in Sontsovka teaching Prokofiev. The first series of lessons culminated, at the 11-year-old Prokofiev's insistence, with the budding composer making his first attempt to write a symphony. The following summer, Glière revisited Sontsovka to give further tuition. When, decades later, Prokofiev wrote about his lessons with Glière, he gave due credit to his teacher's sympathetic method but complained that Glière had introduced him to "square" phrase structure and conventional modulations, which he subsequently had to unlearn. Nonetheless, equipped with the necessary theoretical tools, Prokofiev started experimenting with dissonant harmonies and unusual time signatures in a series of short piano pieces he called "ditties" (after the so-called "song form", more accurately ternary form, on which they were based), laying the basis for his own musical style.
Despite his growing talent, Prokofiev's parents hesitated over starting their son on a musical career at such an early age, and considered the possibility of his attending a good high school in Moscow. By 1904, his mother had decided instead on Saint Petersburg, and she and Prokofiev visited the then capital to explore the possibility of moving there for his education. They were introduced to composer Alexander Glazunov, a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, who asked to see Prokofiev and his music; Prokofiev had composed two more operas, "Desert Islands" and "The Feast during the Plague", and was working on his fourth, "Undina". Glazunov was so impressed that he urged Prokofiev's mother to have her son apply for admission to the Conservatory. He passed the introductory tests and enrolled that year.
Several years younger than most of his class, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant, and annoyed a number of his classmates by keeping statistics on their errors. During that period, he studied under, among others, Alexander Winkler for piano, Anatoly Lyadov for harmony and counterpoint, Nikolai Tcherepnin for conducting, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for orchestration (though when Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908, Prokofiev noted that he had only studied with him "after a fashion"—he was just one of many students in a heavily attended class—and regretted that he otherwise "never had the opportunity to study with him"). He also shared classes with the composers Boris Asafyev and Nikolai Myaskovsky, the latter becoming a relatively close and lifelong friend.
As a member of the Saint Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev developed a reputation as a musical rebel, while getting praise for his original compositions, which he performed himself on the piano. In 1909, he graduated from his class in composition with unimpressive marks. He continued at the Conservatory, studying piano under Anna Yesipova and continuing his conducting lessons under Tcherepnin.
In 1910, Prokofiev's father died and Sergei's financial support ceased. Fortunately, he had started making a name for himself as a composer and pianist outside the Conservatory, making appearances at the St Petersburg Evenings of Contemporary Music. There he performed several of his more adventurous piano works, such as his highly chromatic and dissonant Etudes, Op. 2 (1909). His performance of it impressed the organisers of the Evenings sufficiently for them to invite Prokofiev to give the Russian premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11. Prokofiev's harmonic experimentation continued with "Sarcasms" for piano, Op. 17 (1912), which makes extensive use of polytonality. He composed his first two piano concertos around then, the latter of which caused a scandal at its premiere (23 August 1913, Pavlovsk). According to one account, the audience left the hall with exclamations of "'To hell with this futuristic music! The cats on the roof make better music!'", but the modernists were in rapture.
In 1911, help arrived from renowned Russian musicologist and critic Alexander Ossovsky, who wrote a supportive letter to music publisher Boris P. Jurgenson (son of publishing-firm founder Peter Jurgenson [1836–1904]); thus a contract was offered to the composer. Prokofiev made his first foreign trip in 1913, travelling to Paris and London where he first encountered Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
In 1914, Prokofiev finished his career at the Conservatory by entering the 'battle of the pianos', a competition open to the five best piano students for which the prize was a Schroeder grand piano: Prokofiev won by performing his own Piano Concerto No. 1.
Soon afterwards, he journeyed to London where he made contact with the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev commissioned Prokofiev's first ballet, "Ala and Lolli"; but when Prokofiev brought the work in progress to him in Italy in 1915 he rejected it as "non-Russian". Urging Prokofiev to write "music that was national in character", Diaghilev then commissioned the ballet "Chout" ("The Buffoon"). (The original Russian-language full title was Сказка про шута, семерых шутов перешутившего, meaning "The Tale of the Buffoon who Outwits Seven Other Buffoons".) Under Diaghilev's guidance, Prokofiev chose his subject from a collection of folk tales by the ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev; the story, concerning a buffoon and a series of confidence tricks, had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape it into a ballet scenario. Prokofiev's inexperience with ballet led him to revise the work extensively in the 1920s, following Diaghilev's detailed critique, prior to its first production.
The ballet's premiere in Paris on 17 May 1921 was a huge success and was greeted with great admiration by an audience that included Jean Cocteau, Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel. Stravinsky called the ballet "the single piece of modern music he could listen to with pleasure," while Ravel called it "a work of genius."
During World War I, Prokofiev returned to the Conservatory and studied organ to avoid conscription. He composed "The Gambler" based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel of the same name, but rehearsals were plagued by problems, and the scheduled 1917 première had to be cancelled because of the February Revolution. In the summer of that year, Prokofiev composed his first symphony, the "Classical". The name was Prokofiev's own; the music is in a style that, according to Prokofiev, Joseph Haydn would have used if he were alive at the time. The music is more or less Classical in style but incorporates more modern musical elements (see Neoclassicism).
The symphony was also an exact contemporary of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, which was scheduled to premiere in November 1917. The first performances of both works had to wait until 21 April 1918 and 18 October 1923, respectively. Prokofiev stayed briefly with his mother in Kislovodsk in the Caucasus.
After completing the score of "Seven, They Are Seven", a "Chaldean invocation" for chorus and orchestra, Prokofiev was "left with nothing to do and time hung heavily on my hands". Believing that Russia "had no use for music at the moment", Prokofiev decided to try his fortunes in America until the turmoil in his homeland had passed. He set out for Moscow and Petersburg in March 1918 to sort out financial matters and to arrange for his passport. In May, he headed for the US, having obtained official permission to do so from Anatoly Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar for Education, who told him: "You are a revolutionary in music, we are revolutionaries in life. We ought to work together. But if you want to go to America I shall not stand in your way."
Arriving in San Francisco after having been released from questioning by immigration officials on Angel Island on 11 August 1918, Prokofiev was soon compared to other famous Russian exiles, such as Sergei Rachmaninoff. His debut solo concert in New York led to several further engagements. He also received a contract from the music director of the Chicago Opera Association, Cleofonte Campanini, for the production of his new opera "The Love for Three Oranges"; however, due to Campanini's illness and death, the premiere was postponed. The delay was another example of Prokofiev's bad luck in operatic matters. The failure also cost him his American solo career since the opera took too much time and effort. He soon found himself in financial difficulties, and in April 1920, he left for Paris, not wanting to return to Russia as a failure.
In Paris, Prokofiev reaffirmed his contacts with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He also completed some of his older, unfinished works, such as his Third Piano Concerto. "The Love for Three Oranges" finally premièred in Chicago, under the composer's baton, on 30 December 1921. Diaghilev became sufficiently interested in the opera to request Prokofiev play the vocal score to him in June 1922, while they were both in Paris for a revival of "Chout", so he could consider it for a possible production. Stravinsky, who was present at the audition, refused to listen to more than the first act. When he then accused Prokofiev of "wasting time composing operas", Prokofiev retorted that Stravinsky "was in no position to lay down a general artistic direction, since he is himself not immune to error". According to Prokofiev, Stravinsky "became incandescent with rage" and "we almost came to blows and were separated only with difficulty". As a result, "our relations became strained and for several years Stravinsky's attitude toward me was critical."
In March 1922, Prokofiev moved with his mother to the town of Ettal in the Bavarian Alps, where for over a year he concentrated on an opera project, "The Fiery Angel", based on the novel by Valery Bryusov. His later music had acquired a following in Russia, and he received invitations to return there, but decided to stay in Europe. In 1923, Prokofiev married the Spanish singer Carolina Codina (1897–1989, stage name Lina Llubera) before moving back to Paris.
In Paris, several of his works, including the Second Symphony, were performed, but their reception was lukewarm and Prokofiev sensed that he "was evidently no longer a sensation". Still, the Symphony appeared to prompt Diaghilev to commission "Le pas d'acier" ("The Steel Step"), a "modernist" ballet score intended to portray the industrialisation of the Soviet Union. It was enthusiastically received by Parisian audiences and critics.
Around 1924, Prokofiev was introduced to Christian Science. He began to practice its teachings, which he believed to be beneficial to his health and to his fiery temperament and to which he remained faithful for the rest of his life, according to biographer Simon Morrison.
Prokofiev and Stravinsky restored their friendship, though Prokofiev particularly disliked Stravinsky's "stylization of Bach" in such recent works as the Octet and the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments. For his part, Stravinsky described Prokofiev as the greatest Russian composer of his day, after himself.
In 1927, Prokofiev made his first concert tour in the Soviet Union. Over the course of more than two months, he spent time in Moscow and Leningrad (as St Petersburg had been renamed), where he enjoyed a very successful staging of "The Love for Three Oranges" in the Mariinsky Theatre. In 1928, Prokofiev completed his Third Symphony, which was broadly based on his unperformed opera "The Fiery Angel". The conductor Serge Koussevitzky characterized the Third as "the greatest symphony since Tchaikovsky's Sixth."
In the meantime, however, Prokofiev, under the influence of the teachings of Christian Science, had turned against the expressionist style and the subject matter of "The Fiery Angel". He now preferred what he called a "new simplicity", which he believed more sincere than the "contrivances and complexities" of so much modern music of the 1920s. During 1928–29, Prokofiev composed what was to be his last ballet for Diaghilev, "The Prodigal Son". When first staged in Paris on 21 May 1929, choreographed by George Balanchine with Serge Lifar in the title role, the audience and critics were particularly struck by the final scene in which the prodigal son drags himself across the stage on his knees to be welcomed by his father. Diaghilev had recognised that in the music to the scene, Prokofiev had "never been more clear, more simple, more melodious, and more tender". Only months later, Diaghilev died.
That summer, Prokofiev completed the Divertimento, Op. 43 (which he had started in 1925) and revised his Sinfonietta, Op. 5/48, a work started in his days at the Conservatory. In October of that year, he had a car crash while driving his family back to Paris from their holiday: as the car turned over, Prokofiev pulled some muscles on his left hand. Prokofiev was therefore unable to perform in Moscow during his tour shortly after the accident, but he was able to enjoy watching performances of his music from the audience. Prokofiev also attended the Bolshoi Theatre's "audition" of his ballet "Le pas d'acier", and was interrogated by members of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) about the work: he was asked whether the factory portrayed "a capitalist factory, where the worker is a slave, or a Soviet factory, where the worker is the master? If it is a Soviet factory, when and where did Prokofiev examine it, since from 1918 to the present he has been living abroad and came here for the first time in 1927 for two weeks [sic]?" Prokofiev replied, "That concerns politics, not music, and therefore I won't answer." The RAPM condemned the ballet as a "flat and vulgar anti-Soviet anecdote, a counter-revolutionary composition bordering on Fascism". The Bolshoi had no option but to reject the ballet.
With his left hand healed, Prokofiev toured the United States successfully at the start of 1930, propped up by his recent European success. That year, Prokofiev began his first non-Diaghilev ballet "On the Dnieper", Op. 51, a work commissioned by Serge Lifar, who had been appointed "maitre de ballet" at the Paris Opéra. In 1931 and 1932, he completed his fourth and fifth piano concertos. The following year saw the completion of the Symphonic Song, Op. 57, which Prokofiev's friend Myaskovsky—thinking of its potential audience in the Soviet Union—told him "isn't quite for us… it lacks that which we mean by monumentalism—a familiar simplicity and broad contours, of which you are extremely capable, but temporarily are carefully avoiding."
By the early 1930s, both Europe and America were suffering from the Great Depression, which inhibited both new opera and ballet productions, though audiences for Prokofiev's appearances as a pianist were, in Europe at least, undiminished. However, Prokofiev, who saw himself as a composer first and foremost, increasingly resented the amount of time that was lost to composition through his appearances as a pianist. Having been homesick for some time, Prokofiev began to build substantial bridges with the Soviet Union.
Following the dissolution of the RAPM in 1932, he acted increasingly as a musical ambassador between his homeland and western Europe, and his premieres and commissions were increasingly under the auspices of the Soviet Union. One such was "Lieutenant Kijé", which was commissioned as the score to a Soviet film.
Another commission, from the Kirov Theatre (as the Mariinsky had now been renamed) in Leningrad, was the ballet "Romeo and Juliet", composed to a scenario created by Adrian Piotrovsky and Sergei Radlov following the precepts of "drambalet" (dramatised ballet, officially promoted at the Kirov to replace works based primarily on choreographic display and innovation). Following Radlov's acrimonious resignation from the Kirov in June 1934, a new agreement was signed with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on the understanding that Piotrovsky would remain involved. However, the ballet's original happy ending (contrary to Shakespeare) provoked controversy among Soviet cultural officials; the ballet's production was then postponed indefinitely when the staff of the Bolshoi was overhauled at the behest of the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, Platon Kerzhentsev. Nikolai Myaskovsky, one of his closest friends, mentioned in a number of letters how he would like Prokofiev to stay in Russia.
In 1936, Prokofiev and his family settled permanently in Moscow, after shifting back and forth between Moscow and Paris for the previous four years. That year, he composed one of his most famous works, "Peter and the Wolf", for Natalya Sats' Central Children's Theatre. Sats also persuaded Prokofiev to write two songs for children, "Sweet Song", and "Chatterbox"; they were eventually joined by "The Little Pigs" and published as "Three Children's Songs", Op. 68. Prokofiev also composed the gigantic "Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution," originally intended for performance during the anniversary year but effectively blocked by Kerzhentsev, who demanded at the work's audition before the Committee on Arts Affairs, "Just what do you think you're doing, Sergey Sergeyevich, taking texts that belong to the people and setting them to such incomprehensible music?" The Cantata had to wait until 5 April 1966 for a partial premiere, just over 13 years after the composer's death.
Forced to adapt to the new circumstances (whatever private misgivings he had about them), Prokofiev wrote a series of "mass songs" (Opp. 66, 79, 89), using the lyrics of officially approved Soviet poets. In 1938, Prokofiev collaborated with Eisenstein on the historical epic "Alexander Nevsky", some of his most inventive and dramatic music. Although the film had very poor sound recording, Prokofiev adapted much of his score into a large-scale cantata for mezzo-soprano, orchestra and chorus, which was extensively performed and recorded. In the wake of "Alexander Nevsky"'s success, Prokofiev composed his first Soviet opera "Semyon Kotko", which was intended to be produced by the director Vsevolod Meyerhold. However, the première of the opera was postponed because Meyerhold was arrested on 20 June 1939 by the NKVD (Joseph Stalin's Secret Police), and shot on 2 February 1940. Only months after Meyerhold's arrest, Prokofiev was 'invited' to compose "Zdravitsa" (literally translated 'Cheers!', but more often given the English title "Hail to Stalin") (Op. 85) to celebrate Joseph Stalin's 60th birthday.
Later in 1939, Prokofiev composed his Piano Sonatas Nos. 6, 7, and 8, Opp. 82–84, widely known today as the "War Sonatas." Premiered respectively by Prokofiev (No. 6: 8 April 1940), Sviatoslav Richter (No. 7: Moscow, 18 January 1943) and Emil Gilels (No. 8: Moscow, 30 December 1944), they were subsequently championed in particular by Richter. Biographer Daniel Jaffé argued that Prokofiev, "having forced himself to compose a cheerful evocation of the nirvana Stalin wanted everyone to believe he had created" (i.e. in "Zdravitsa") then subsequently, in the three sonatas, "expressed his true feelings". As evidence, Jaffé has pointed out that the central movement of Sonata No. 7 opens with a theme based on a Robert Schumann lied "Wehmut" ("Sadness", which appears in Schumann's "Liederkreis", Op. 39): its words translate, "I can sometimes sing as if I were glad, yet secretly tears well and so free my heart. Nightingales… sing their song of longing from their dungeon's depth… everyone delights, yet no one feels the pain, the deep sorrow in the song." Ironically (it appears no one noticed his allusion), Sonata No. 7 received a Stalin Prize (Second Class), and No. 8 a Stalin Prize (First Class).
In the meantime, "Romeo and Juliet" was finally staged by the Kirov Ballet, choreographed by Leonid Lavrovsky, on 11 January 1940. To the surprise of all of its participants, the dancers having struggled to cope with the music's syncopated rhythms and almost having boycotted the production, the ballet was an instant success, and became recognised as the crowning achievement of Soviet dramatic ballet.
Prokofiev had been considering making an opera out of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace", when news of the German invasion of Russia on 22 June 1941 made the subject seem all the more timely. Prokofiev took two years to compose his original version of "War and Peace". Because of the war, he was evacuated together with a large number of other artists, initially to the Caucasus, where he composed his Second String Quartet. By now, his relationship with the 25-year-old writer and librettist Mira Mendelssohn (1915–1968) had finally led to his separation from his wife Lina, although they never divorced; indeed, Prokofiev had tried to persuade Lina and their sons to accompany him as evacuees out of Moscow, but Lina opted to stay.
During the war years, restrictions on style and the demand that composers write in a 'socialist realist' style were slackened, and Prokofiev was generally able to compose in his own way. The Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 80, "The Year 1941", Op. 90, and the "Ballade for the Boy Who Remained Unknown", Op. 93 all came from this period. In 1943, Prokofiev joined Eisenstein in Alma-Ata, the largest city in Kazakhstan, to compose more film music ("Ivan the Terrible"), and the ballet "Cinderella" (Op. 87), one of his most melodious and celebrated compositions. Early that year, he also played excerpts from "War and Peace" to members of the Bolshoi Theatre collective, but the Soviet government had opinions about the opera that resulted in many revisions. In 1944, Prokofiev composed his Fifth Symphony (Op. 100) at a composer's colony outside Moscow. He conducted its first performance on 13 January 1945, just a fortnight after the triumphant premieres on 30 December 1944 of his Eighth Piano Sonata and, on the same day, the first part of Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible".
With the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, which was programmed alongside "Peter and the Wolf" and the "Classical" Symphony (conducted by Nikolai Anosov), Prokofiev appeared to reach the peak of his celebrity as a leading composer of the Soviet Union. Shortly afterwards, he suffered a concussion after a fall due to chronic high blood pressure. He never fully recovered from the injury, and he was forced on medical advice to restrict his composing activity.
Prokofiev had time to write his postwar Sixth Symphony and his Ninth Piano Sonata (for Sviatoslav Richter) before the so-called "Zhdanov Decree". In early 1948, following a meeting of Soviet composers convened by Andrei Zhdanov, the Politburo issued a resolution denouncing Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Myaskovsky, and Khachaturian of the crime of "formalism", described as a "renunciation of the basic principles of classical music" in favour of "muddled, nerve-racking" sounds that "turned music into cacophony". Eight of Prokofiev's works were banned from performance: "The Year 1941", "Ode to the End of the War", "Festive Poem", "Cantata for the Thirtieth Anniversary of October", "Ballad of an Unknown Boy", the 1934 piano cycle "Thoughts", and Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 and 8. Such was the perceived threat behind the banning of the works that even works that had avoided censure were no longer programmed: by August 1948, Prokofiev was in severe financial straits, his personal debt amounting to 180,000 rubles.
Meanwhile, on 20 February 1948, Prokofiev's estranged wife Lina was arrested for 'espionage', as she had tried to send money to her mother in Spain. After nine months of interrogation, she was sentenced by a three-member Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to 20 years of hard labour. She was eventually released after Stalin's death in 1953 and in 1974 left the Soviet Union.
Prokofiev's latest opera projects, among them his desperate attempt to appease the cultural authorities, "The Story of a Real Man", were quickly cancelled by the Kirov Theatre. The snub, in combination with his declining health, caused Prokofiev to progressively withdraw from public life and from various activities, even his beloved chess, and increasingly devote himself to his own work. After a serious relapse in 1949, his doctors ordered him to limit his composing to an hour a day.
In spring 1949, he wrote his Cello Sonata in C, Op. 119, for the 22-year-old Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the first performance in 1950, with Sviatoslav Richter. For Rostropovich, Prokofiev also extensively recomposed his Cello Concerto, transforming it into a Symphony-Concerto, a landmark in the cello and orchestra repertory today. The last public performance he attended, on 11 October 1952, was the première of the Seventh Symphony, his final masterpiece and last completed work. The symphony was written for the Children's Radio Division.
Prokofiev died at the age of 61 on 5 March 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin. He had lived near Red Square, and for three days the throngs gathered to mourn Stalin, making it impossible to hold Prokofiev's funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composers' Union. Because the hearse was not allowed near Prokofiev's house, his coffin had to be moved by hand through back streets in the opposite direction of the masses of people going to visit Stalin's body. About 30 people attended the funeral, Shostakovich among them. Although they had not seemed to get along when they met, in the later years their interactions had become far more amicable, with Shostakovich writing to Prokofiev that "I wish you at least another hundred years to live and create. Listening to such works as your Seventh Symphony makes it much easier and more joyful to live." Prokofiev is buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.
The leading Soviet musical periodical reported Prokofiev's death as a brief item on page 116. (The first 115 pages were devoted to the death of Stalin.) Prokofiev's death is usually attributed to cerebral hemorrhage. He had been chronically ill for the prior eight years; the precise nature of Prokofiev's terminal illness remains uncertain.
Lina Prokofiev outlived her estranged husband by many years, dying in London in early 1989. Royalties from her late husband's music provided her with a modest income, and she acted as storyteller for a recording of her husband's "Peter and the Wolf" (currently released on CD by Chandos Records) with Neeme Järvi conducting the Scottish National Orchestra. Their sons Sviatoslav (1924–2010), an architect, and Oleg (1928–1998), an artist, painter, sculptor and poet, dedicated a large part of their lives to the promotion of their father's life and work.
Arthur Honegger proclaimed that Prokofiev would "remain for us the greatest figure of contemporary music," and the American scholar Richard Taruskin has recognised Prokofiev's "gift, virtually unparalleled among 20th-century composers, for writing distinctively original diatonic melodies." Yet for some time Prokofiev's reputation in the West suffered as a result of Cold War antipathies, and his music has never won from Western academics and critics the kind of esteem enjoyed by Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg, composers purported to have had a greater influence on younger generations of musicians.
Today Prokofiev may well be the most popular composer of 20th-century music. His orchestral music alone is played more frequently in the United States than that of any other composer of the last hundred years save Richard Strauss, while his operas, ballets, chamber works, and piano music appear regularly throughout major concert halls worldwide.
The composer was honoured in his native Donetsk Oblast when the Donetsk International Airport was renamed "Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport" and the Donetsk Musical and Pedagogical Institute was renamed the "S.S. Prokofiev State Music Academy of Donetsk" in 1988.
The All-Ukrainian open pianists' competition named after S.S. Prokofiev is held annually in Kiev (Ukraine) and comprises three categories: piano, composition, and symphony conducting.
Important works include (in chronological order):
Prokofiev was a soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Piero Coppola, in the first recording of his Piano Concerto No. 3, recorded in London by His Master's Voice in June 1932. Prokofiev also recorded some of his solo piano music for HMV in Paris in February 1935; these recordings were issued on CD by Pearl and Naxos. In 1938, he conducted the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in a recording of the second suite from his "Romeo and Juliet" ballet; this performance was later released on LP and CD. Another reported recording with Prokofiev and the Moscow Philharmonic was of the First Violin Concerto with David Oistrakh as soloist; Everest Records later released this recording on an LP. Despite the attribution, the conductor was Aleksandr Gauk. A short sound film of Prokofiev playing some of the music from his opera "War and Peace" and then explaining the music has been discovered. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27681 |
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object that has been intentionally placed into orbit. These objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earth's Moon.
On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Since then, about 8,900 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched. According to a 2018 estimate, some 5,000 remain in orbit. Of those about 1,900 were operational, while the rest have lived out their useful lives and become space debris. Approximately 63% of operational satellites are in low Earth orbit, 6% are in medium-Earth orbit (at 20,000 km), 29% are in geostationary orbit (at 36,000 km) and the remaining 2% are in elliptic orbit.
A few large space stations have been launched in parts and assembled in orbit. Over a dozen space probes have been placed into orbit around other bodies and become artificial satellites of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, a few asteroids, a comet and the Sun.
Satellites are used for many purposes. Among several other applications, they can be used to make star maps and maps of planetary surfaces, and also take pictures of planets they are launched into. Common types include military and civilian Earth observation satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, and space telescopes. Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites.
Satellites can operate by themselves or as part of a larger system, a satellite formation or satellite constellation.
Satellite orbits vary greatly, depending on the purpose of the satellite, and are classified in a number of ways. Well-known (overlapping) classes include low Earth orbit, polar orbit, and geostationary orbit.
A launch vehicle is a rocket that places a satellite into orbit. Usually, it lifts off from a launch pad on land. Some are launched at sea from a submarine or a mobile maritime platform, or aboard a plane (see air launch to orbit).
Satellites are usually semi-independent computer-controlled systems. Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control, scientific instrumentation, communication, etc.
The first published mathematical study of the possibility of an artificial satellite was Newton's cannonball, a thought experiment in A Treatise of the System of the World by Isaac Newton (1687). The first fictional depiction of a satellite being launched into orbit was a short story by Edward Everett Hale, "The Brick Moon". The idea surfaced again in Jules Verne's "The Begum's Fortune" (1879).
In 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) published "Exploring Space Using Jet Propulsion Devices", which is the first academic treatise on the use of rocketry to launch spacecraft. He calculated the orbital speed required for a minimal orbit, and that a multi-stage rocket fueled by liquid propellants could achieve this.
In 1928, Herman Potočnik (1892–1929) published his sole book, "The Problem of Space Travel – The Rocket Motor". He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for observation of the ground and described how the special conditions of space could be useful for scientific experiments.
In a 1945 "Wireless World" article, the English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in detail the possible use of communications satellites for mass communications. He suggested that three geostationary satellites would provide coverage over the entire planet.
In May 1946, the United States Air Force's Project RAND released the Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship, which stated that "A satellite vehicle with appropriate instrumentation can be expected to be one of the most potent scientific tools of the Twentieth Century." The United States had been considering launching orbital satellites since 1945 under the Bureau of Aeronautics of the United States Navy. Project RAND eventually released the report, but considered the satellite to be a tool for science, politics, and propaganda, rather than a potential military weapon. In February 1954 Project RAND released "Scientific Uses for a Satellite Vehicle," written by R.R. Carhart. This expanded on potential scientific uses for satellite vehicles and was followed in June 1955 with "The Scientific Use of an Artificial Satellite," by H.K. Kallmann and W.W. Kellogg.
In the context of activities planned for the International Geophysical Year (1957–58), the White House announced on 29 July 1955 that the U.S. intended to launch satellites by the spring of 1958. This became known as Project Vanguard. On 31 July, the Soviets announced that they intended to launch a satellite by the fall of 1957.
The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 under the Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer. Sputnik 1 helped to identify the density of high atmospheric layers through measurement of its orbital change and provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1's success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the so-called Space Race within the Cold War.
Sputnik 2 was launched on 3 November 1957 and carried the first living passenger into orbit, a dog named Laika.
In early 1955, following pressure by the American Rocket Society, the National Science Foundation, and the International Geophysical Year, the Army and Navy were working on Project Orbiter with two competing programs. The army used the Jupiter C rocket, while the civilian/Navy program used the Vanguard rocket to launch a satellite. Explorer 1 became the United States' first artificial satellite on 31 January 1958.
In June 1961, three-and-a-half years after the launch of Sputnik 1, the United States Space Surveillance Network cataloged 115 Earth-orbiting satellites.
Early satellites were constructed to unique designs. With advancements in technology, multiple satellites began to be built on single model platforms called satellite buses. The first standardized satellite bus design was the HS-333 geosynchronous (GEO) communication satellite launched in 1972.
Currently the largest artificial satellite ever is the International Space Station.
Satellites can be tracked from Earth stations and also from other satellites.
The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN), a division of the United States Strategic Command, has been tracking objects in Earth's orbit since 1957 when the Soviet Union opened the Space Age with the launch of Sputnik I. Since then, the SSN has tracked more than 26,000 objects. The SSN currently tracks more than 8,000-artificial orbiting objects. The rest have re-entered Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated, or survived re-entry and impacted the Earth. The SSN tracks objects that are 10 centimeters in diameter or larger; those now orbiting Earth range from satellites weighing several tons to pieces of spent rocket bodies weighing only 10 pounds. About seven percent are operational satellites (i.e. ~560 satellites), the rest are space debris. The United States Strategic Command is primarily interested in the active satellites, but also tracks space debris which upon reentry might otherwise be mistaken for incoming missiles.
There are three basic categories of (non-military) satellite services:
Fixed satellite services handle hundreds of billions of voice, data, and video transmission tasks across all countries and continents between certain points on the Earth's surface.
Mobile satellite systems help connect remote regions, vehicles, ships, people and aircraft to other parts of the world and/or other mobile or stationary communications units, in addition to serving as navigation systems.
Scientific research satellites provide meteorological information, land survey data (e.g. remote sensing), Amateur (HAM) Radio, and other different scientific research applications such as earth science, marine science, and atmospheric research.
The first satellite, Sputnik 1, was put into orbit around Earth and was therefore in geocentric orbit. This is the most common type of orbit by far, with approximately 1,886 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. Geocentric orbits may be further classified by their altitude, inclination and eccentricity.
The commonly used altitude classifications of geocentric orbit are Low Earth orbit (LEO), Medium Earth orbit (MEO) and High Earth orbit (HEO). Low Earth orbit is any orbit below 2,000 km. Medium Earth orbit is any orbit between 2,000 and 35,786 km. High Earth orbit is any orbit higher than 35,786 km.
The satellite's functional versatility is embedded within its technical components and its operations characteristics. Looking at the "anatomy" of a typical satellite, one discovers two modules. Note that some novel architectural concepts such as Fractionated spacecraft somewhat upset this taxonomy.
The bus module consists of the following subsystems:
The structural subsystem provides the mechanical base structure with adequate stiffness to withstand stress and vibrations experienced during launch, maintain structural integrity and stability while on station in orbit, and shields the satellite from extreme temperature changes and micro-meteorite damage.
The telemetry subsystem (aka Command and Data Handling, C&DH) monitors the on-board equipment operations, transmits equipment operation data to the earth control station, and receives the earth control station's commands to perform equipment operation adjustments.
The power subsystem consists of solar panels to convert solar energy into electrical power, regulation and distribution functions, and batteries that store power and supply the satellite when it passes into the Earth's shadow. Nuclear power sources (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator) have also been used in several successful satellite programs including the Nimbus program (1964–1978).
The thermal control subsystem helps protect electronic equipment from extreme temperatures due to intense sunlight or the lack of sun exposure on different sides of the satellite's body (e.g. optical solar reflector)
The attitude and orbit control subsystem consists of sensors to measure vehicle orientation, control laws embedded in the flight software, and actuators (reaction wheels, thrusters). These apply the torques and forces needed to re-orient the vehicle to a desired attitude, keep the satellite in the correct orbital position, and keep antennas pointed in the right directions.
The second major module is the communication payload, which is made up of transponders. A transponder is capable of :
When satellites reach the end of their mission (this normally occurs within 3 or 4 years after launch), satellite operators have the option of de-orbiting the satellite, leaving the satellite in its current orbit or moving the satellite to a graveyard orbit. Historically, due to budgetary constraints at the beginning of satellite missions, satellites were rarely designed to be de-orbited. One example of this practice is the satellite Vanguard 1. Launched in 1958, Vanguard 1, the 4th artificial satellite put in Geocentric orbit, was still in orbit , as well as the upper stage of its launch rocket.
Instead of being de-orbited, most satellites are either left in their current orbit or moved to a graveyard orbit. As of 2002, the FCC requires all geostationary satellites to commit to moving to a graveyard orbit at the end of their operational life prior to launch. In cases of uncontrolled de-orbiting, the major variable is the solar flux, and the minor variables the components and form factors of the satellite itself, and the gravitational perturbations generated by the Sun and the Moon (as well as those exercised by large mountain ranges, whether above or below sea level). The nominal breakup altitude due to aerodynamic forces and temperatures is 78 km, with a range between 72 and 84 km. Solar panels, however, are destroyed before any other component at altitudes between 90 and 95 km.
This list includes countries with an independent capability to place satellites in orbit, including production of the necessary launch vehicle. Note: many more countries have the capability to design and build satellites but are unable to launch them, instead relying on foreign launch services. This list does not consider those numerous countries, but only lists those capable of launching satellites indigenously, and the date this capability was first demonstrated. The list does not include the European Space Agency, a multi-national state organization, nor private consortiums.
Orbital Sciences Corporation launched a satellite into orbit on the Pegasus in 1990. SpaceX launched a satellite into orbit on the Falcon 1 in 2008. Rocket Lab launched three cubesats into orbit on the Electron in 2018.
While Canada was the third country to build a satellite which was launched into space, it was launched aboard an American rocket from an American spaceport. The same goes for Australia, who launched first satellite involved a donated U.S. Redstone rocket and American support staff as well as a joint launch facility with the United Kingdom. The first Italian satellite San Marco 1 launched on 15 December 1964 on a U.S. Scout rocket from Wallops Island (Virginia, United States) with an Italian launch team trained by NASA. By similar occasions, almost all further first national satellites was launched by foreign rockets.
†-note: Both Chile and Belarus used Russian companies as principal contractors to build their satellites, they used Russian-Ukrainian manufactured rockets and launched either from Russia or Kazakhstan.
Since the mid-2000s, satellites have been hacked by militant organizations to broadcast propaganda and to pilfer classified information from military communication networks.
For testing purposes, satellites in low earth orbit have been destroyed by ballistic missiles launched from earth. Russia, the United States, China and India have demonstrated the ability to eliminate satellites. In 2007 the Chinese military shot down an aging weather satellite, followed by the US Navy shooting down a defunct spy satellite in February 2008. On 27 March 2019 India shot down a live test satellite at 300 km altitude in 3 minutes. India became the fourth country to having capability to destroy live satellite.
Due to the low received signal strength of satellite transmissions, they are prone to jamming by land-based transmitters. Such jamming is limited to the geographical area within the transmitter's range. GPS satellites are potential targets for jamming, but satellite phone and television signals have also been subjected to jamming.
Also, it is very easy to transmit a carrier radio signal to a geostationary satellite and thus interfere with the legitimate uses of the satellite's transponder. It is common for Earth stations to transmit at the wrong time or on the wrong frequency in commercial satellite space, and dual-illuminate the transponder, rendering the frequency unusable. Satellite operators now have sophisticated monitoring that enables them to pinpoint the source of any carrier and manage the transponder space effectively.
During the last five decades, space agencies have sent thousands of space crafts, space capsules, or satellites to the universe. In fact, weather forecasters make predictions on the weather and natural calamities based on observations from these satellites.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) requested the National Academies to publish a report entitled, Earth Observations from Space; The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements in 2008. It described how the capability to view the whole globe simultaneously from satellite observations revolutionized studies about the planet Earth. This development brought about a new age of combined Earth sciences. The National Academies report concluded that continuing Earth observations from the galaxy are necessary to resolve scientific and social challenges in the future.
The NASA introduced an Earth Observing System (EOS) composed of several satellites, science component, and data system described as the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). It disseminates numerous science data products as well as services designed for interdisciplinary education. EOSDIS data can be accessed online and accessed through File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). Scientists and researchers perform EOSDIS science operations within a distributed platform of multiple interconnected nodes or Science Investigator-led Processing Systems (SIPS) and discipline-specific Distributed Active Archive Centers (DACCs).
The European Space Agency have been operating Earth Observation satellites since the launch of Meteosat 1 in November 1977. ESA currently has plans to launch a satellite equipped with an artificial intelligence (AI) processor that will allow the spacecraft to make decisions on images to capture and data to transmit to the Earth. BrainSat will use the Intel Myriad X vision processing unit (VPU). The launching will be scheduled in 2019. ESA director for Earth Observation Programs Josef Aschbacher made the announcement during the PhiWeek in November 2018. This is the five-day meet that focused on the future of Earth observation. The conference was held at the ESA Center for Earth Observation in Frascati, Italy. ESA also launched the PhiLab, referring to the future-focused team that works to harness the potentials of AI and other disruptive innovations. Meanwhile, the ESA also announced that it expects to commence the qualification flight of the Space Rider space plane in 2021. This will come after several demonstration missions. Space Rider is the sequel of the Agency's Intermediate Experimental vehicle (IXV) which was launched in 2015. It has the capacity payload of 800 kilograms for orbital missions that will last a maximum of two months.
SpaceX was scheduled to launch a multiple satellite mission on 28 November 2018 from the United States Vandenberg Air Force Base after an initial 19 November schedule. The launch is expected to be visible once the rocket heads toward the south into an Earth observation trajectory traveling over the poles. However, the second supposed launched was delayed again because of poor weather conditions and the actual launch occurred on 3 December 2018. The mission is known as the SSO-A Smallsat Express was executed by Spaceflight, a rideshare and mission management provider based in Seattle, Wash. The launch was a landmark for Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX which had 19 rocket launches in 2018 alone. The estimated cost of this Falcon 9 rocket is approximately $62 million. The rocket has 60 satellites with each one going separate ways. On April 22, 2020, SpaceX launched their 7th constellation of 60 satellites, boosting the StarLink constellation to a total of 420 satellites in low Earth orbit.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Lockheed Martin entered into a strategic partnership for the purpose of integrating the AWS ground station service with Lockheed's verge antenna network. These two corporations aim to merge these highly-capable systems that will provide clients with robust satellite uplinks and downlinks. Through these systems, users can incorporate satellite data with various AWS services which include computing, storage, analytics, and machine-learning.
Generally liability has been covered by the Liability Convention.
Issues like space debris, radio and light pollution are increasing in magnitude and at the same time lack progress in national or international regulation.
With future increase in numbers of satellite constellations, like SpaceX's Starlink, it is feared especially by the astronomical community, such as the IAU, that orbital pollution will increase significantly. Some notable satellite failures that polluted and dispersed radioactive materials are Kosmos 954, Kosmos 1402 and the Transit 5-BN-3. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27683 |
Steampunk
Steampunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century British Victorian era or the American "Wild West", in a future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. However, steampunk and neo-Victorian are different in that the neo-Victorian movement does not extrapolate on technology while technology is a key aspect of steampunk.
Steampunk most recognizably features anachronistic technologies or retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technologies may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Other examples of steampunk contain alternative-history-style presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.
Steampunk may also incorporate additional elements from the genres of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, or other branches of speculative fiction, making it often a hybrid genre. The first known appearance of the term "steampunk" was in 1987, though it now retroactively refers to many works of fiction created as far back as the 1950s or earlier A popular subgenre is Japanese steampunk, consisting of steampunk-themed manga and anime, with steampunk elements having appeared in mainstream manga since the 1940s.
Steampunk also refers to any of the artistic styles, clothing fashions, or subcultures that have developed from the aesthetics of steampunk fiction, Victorian-era fiction, art nouveau design, and films from the mid-20th century. Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual artisans into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.
Steampunk is influenced by and often adopts the style of the 19th-century scientific romances of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Edward S. Ellis's "The Steam Man of the Prairies". Several more modern works of art and fiction significant to the development of the genre were produced before the genre had a name. "Titus Alone" (1959), by Mervyn Peake, is widely regarded by scholars as the first novel in the genre proper, while others point to Michael Moorcock's 1971 novel "The Warlord of the Air", which was heavily influenced by Peake's work. The film "Brazil" (1985) was an important early cinematic influence that helped codify the aesthetics of the genre. "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" was an early (1970s) comic version of the Moorcock-style mover between timestreams.
In fine art, Remedios Varo's paintings combine elements of Victorian dress, fantasy, and technofantasy imagery. In television, one of the earliest manifestations of the steampunk ethos in the mainstream media was the CBS television series "The Wild Wild West" (1965–69), which inspired the later film.
Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the term "steampunk" originated in the late 1980s as a tongue-in-cheek variant of "cyberpunk". It was coined by science fiction author K. W. Jeter, who was trying to find a general term for works by Tim Powers ("The Anubis Gates", 1983), James Blaylock ("Homunculus", 1986), and himself ("Morlock Night", 1979, and "Infernal Devices", 1987)—all of which took place in a 19th-century (usually Victorian) setting and imitated conventions of such actual Victorian speculative fiction as H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine". In a letter to science fiction magazine "Locus", printed in the April 1987 issue, Jeter wrote:
While Jeter's "Morlock Night" and "Infernal Devices", Powers' "The Anubis Gates", and Blaylock's "Lord Kelvin's Machine" were the first novels to which Jeter's neologism would be applied, the three authors gave the term little thought at the time. They were far from the first modern science fiction writers to speculate on the development of steam-based technology or alternative histories. Keith Laumer's "Worlds of the Imperium" (1962) and Ronald W. Clark's "Queen Victoria's Bomb" (1967) apply modern speculation to past-age technology and society. Michael Moorcock's "Warlord of the Air" (1971) is another early example. Professor Finbarr Calamitous quote is relevant here; "SteamPunk: Colonizing the Past so we can dream the future". Harry Harrison's novel "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" (1973) portrays a British Empire of an alternative year 1973, full of atomic locomotives, coal-powered flying boats, ornate submarines, and Victorian dialogue. "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" (mid-1970s) was one of the first steampunk comics. In February 1980, Richard A. Lupoff and Steve Stiles published the first "chapter" of their 10-part comic strip "The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer".
The first use of the word "steampunk" in a title was in Paul Di Filippo's 1995 "Steampunk Trilogy", consisting of three short novels: "Victoria", "Hottentots", and "Walt and Emily", which, respectively, imagine the replacement of Queen Victoria by a human/newt clone, an invasion of Massachusetts by Lovecraftian monsters, and a love affair between Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.
Japanese steampunk consists of steampunk manga comics and anime productions from Japan. Steampunk elements have consistently appeared in mainstream manga since the 1940s, dating back to Osamu Tezuka's epic science-fiction trilogy consisting of "Lost World" (1948), "Metropolis" (1949) and "Nextworld" (1951). The steampunk elements found in manga eventually made their way into mainstream anime productions starting in the 1970s, including television shows such as Leiji Matsumoto's "Space Battleship Yamato" (1974) and the 1979 anime adaptation of Riyoko Ikeda's manga "Rose of Versailles" (1972). Influenced by 19th-century European authors such as Jules Verne, steampunk anime and manga arose from a Japanese fascination with an imaginary fantastical version of old Industrial Europe, linked to a phenomenon called "akogare no Pari" ("the Paris of our dreams"), comparable to the West's fascination with an "exotic" East.
The most influential steampunk animator was Hayao Miyazaki, who was creating steampunk anime since the 1970s, starting with the television show "Future Boy Conan" (1978). His manga "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1982) and its 1984 anime film adaptation also contained steampunk elements. Miyazaki's most influential steampunk production was the Studio Ghibli anime film "" (1986), which became a major milestone in the genre and has been described by "The Steampunk Bible" as "one of the first modern steampunk classics." Archetypal steampunk elements in "Laputa" include airships, air pirates, steam-powered robots, and a view of steam power as a limitless but potentially dangerous source of power.
The success of "Laputa" inspired Hideaki Anno and Studio Gainax to create their first hit production, "" (1990), a steampunk anime show which loosely adapts elements from Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", with Captain Nemo making an appearance. Based on a concept by Miyazaki, "Nadia" was influential on later steampunk anime such as Katsuhiro Otomo's anime film "Steamboy" (2004). Disney's animated steampunk film "" (2001) was influenced by anime, particularly Miyazaki's works and possibly "Nadia". Other popular Japanese steampunk works include Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli anime films "Porco Rosso" (1992) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004), Sega's video game and anime franchise "Sakura Wars" (1996) which is set in a steampunk version of Meiji/Taishō era Japan, and Square Enix's manga and anime franchise "Fullmetal Alchemist" (2001).
Superficially, steampunk may resemble retrofuturism. Indeed, both sensibilities recall "the older but still modern eras in which technological change seemed to anticipate a better world, one remembered as relatively innocent of industrial decline."
One of steampunk's most significant contributions is the way in which it mixes digital media with traditional handmade art forms. As scholars Rachel Bowser and Brian Croxall put it, "the tinkering and tinker-able technologies within steampunk invite us to roll up our sleeves and get to work re-shaping our contemporary world." In this respect, steampunk bears more in common with DIY craft and making.
Many of the visualisations of steampunk have their origins with, among others, Walt Disney's film "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), including the design of the story's submarine the "Nautilus", its interiors, and the crew's underwater gear; and George Pal's film "The Time Machine" (1960), especially the design of the time machine itself. This theme is also carried over to Six Flags Magic Mountain and Disney parks, in the themed area the "Screampunk District" at Six Flags Magic Mountain and in the designs of The Mysterious Island section of Tokyo DisneySea theme park and Disneyland Paris' Discoveryland area.
Aspects of steampunk design emphasise a balance between form and function. In this it is like the Arts and Crafts Movement. But John Ruskin, William Morris, and the other reformers in the late nineteenth century rejected machines and industrial production. On the other hand, steampunk enthusiasts present a "non-luddite critique of technology".
Various modern utilitarian objects have been modified by enthusiasts into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style. Examples include computer keyboards and electric guitars. The goal of such redesigns is to employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass, iron, wood, and leather) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era, rejecting the aesthetic of industrial design.
In 1994, the Paris Metro station at Arts et Métiers was redesigned by Belgian artist Francois Schuiten in steampunk style, to honor the works of Jules Verne. The station is reminiscent of a submarine, sheathed in brass with giant cogs in the ceiling and portholes that look out onto fanciful scenes.
The artist group "Kinetic Steam Works" brought a working steam engine to the Burning Man festival in 2006 and 2007. The group's founding member, Sean Orlando, created a Steampunk Tree House (in association with a group of people who would later form the "Five Ton Crane Arts Group") that has been displayed at a number of festivals. The Steampunk Tree House is now permanently installed at the Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware.
The Neverwas Haul is a three-story, self-propelled mobile art vehicle built to resemble a Victorian house on wheels. Designed by Shannon O’Hare, it was built by volunteers in 2006 and presented at the Burning Man festival from 2006 through 2015. When fully built, the Haul propelled itself at a top speed of 5 miles per hour and required a crew of ten people to operate safely. Currently, the Neverwas Haul makes her home at Obtainium Works, an "art car factory" in Vallejo, CA, owned by O’Hare and home to several other self-styled "contraptionists".
In May–June 2008, multimedia artist and sculptor Paul St George exhibited outdoor interactive video installations linking London and Brooklyn, New York, in a Victorian era-styled telectroscope. Utilizing this device, New York promoter Evelyn Kriete organised a transatlantic wave between steampunk enthusiasts from both cities, prior to White Mischief's "Around the World in 80 Days" steampunk-themed event.
In 2009, for Questacon, artist Tim Wetherell created a large wall piece that represented the concept of the clockwork universe. This steel artwork contains moving gears, a working clock, and a movie of the moon's terminator in action. The 3D moon movie was created by Antony Williams.
From October 2009 through February 2010, the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, hosted the first major exhibition of steampunk art objects, curated and developed by New York artist and designer Art Donovan, who also exhibited his own "electro-futuristic" lighting sculptures, and presented by Dr. Jim Bennett, museum director. From redesigned practical items to fantastical contraptions, this exhibition showcased the work of eighteen steampunk artists from across the globe. The exhibition proved to be the most successful and highly attended in the museum's history and attracted more than eighty thousand visitors. The event was detailed in the official artist's journal "The Art of Steampunk", by curator Donovan.
In November 2010, The Libratory Steampunk Art Gallery was opened by Damien McNamara in Oamaru, New Zealand. Created from papier-mâché to resemble a large cave and filled with industrial equipment from yesteryear, rayguns, and general steampunk quirks, its purpose is to provide a place for steampunkers in the region to display artwork for sale all year long. A year later, a more permanent gallery, Steampunk HQ, was opened in the former Meeks Grain Elevator Building across the road from The Woolstore, and has since become a notable tourist attraction for Oamaru.
In 2012, the "Mobilis in Mobili: An Exhibition of Steampunk Art and Appliance" made its debut. Originally located at New York City's Wooster Street Social Club (itself the subject of the television series "NY Ink"), the exhibit featured working steampunk tattoo systems designed by Bruce Rosenbaum, of ModVic and owner of the Steampunk House, Joey "Dr. Grymm" Marsocci, and Christopher Conte. with different approaches. "[B]icycles, cell phones, guitars, timepieces and entertainment systems" rounded out the display. The opening night exhibition featured a live performance by steampunk band Frenchy and the Punk.
Steampunk fashion has no set guidelines but tends to synthesize modern styles with influences from the Victorian era. Such influences may include bustles, corsets, gowns, and petticoats; suits with waistcoats, coats, top hats and bowler hats (themselves originating in 1850 England), tailcoats and spats; or military-inspired garments. Steampunk-influenced outfits are usually accented with several technological and "period" accessories: timepieces, parasols, flying/driving goggles, and ray guns. Modern accessories like cell phones or music players can be found in steampunk outfits, after being modified to give them the appearance of Victorian-era objects. Post-apocalyptic elements, such as gas masks, ragged clothing, and tribal motifs, can also be included. Aspects of steampunk fashion have been anticipated by mainstream high fashion, the Lolita and aristocrat styles, neo-Victorianism, and the romantic goth subculture.
In 2005, Kate Lambert, known as "Kato", founded the first steampunk clothing company, "Steampunk Couture", mixing Victorian and post-apocalyptic influences. In 2013, IBM predicted, based on an analysis of more than a half million public posts on message boards, blogs, social media sites, and news sources, "that 'steampunk,' a subgenre inspired by the clothing, technology and social mores of Victorian society, will be a major trend to bubble up and take hold of the retail industry". Indeed, high fashion lines such as Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Chanel, and Christian Dior had already been introducing steampunk styles on the fashion runways. And in episode 7 of "Lifetime"'s "Project Runway: Under the Gunn" reality series, contestants were challenged to create "avant-garde" "steampunk chic" looks. America's Next Top Model tackled Steampunk fashion in a 2012 episode where models competed in a Steampunk themed photo shoot, posing in front of a steam train while holding a live owl.
The educational book "Elementary BASIC - Learning to Program Your Computer in BASIC with Sherlock Holmes" (1981), by Henry Singer and Andrew Ledgar, may have been the first fictional work to depict the use of Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine in an adventure story. The instructional book, aimed at young programming students, depicts Holmes using the engine as an aid in his investigations, and lists programs that perform simple data processing tasks required to solve the fictional cases. The book even describes a device that allows the engine to be used remotely, over telegraph lines, as a possible enhancement to Babbage's machine. Companion volumes—"Elementary Pascal - Learning to Program Your Computer in Pascal with Sherlock Holmes" and "From Baker Street to Binary - An Introduction to Computers and Computer Programming with Sherlock Holmes"—were also written.
In 1988, the first version of the science fiction tabletop role-playing game "" was published. The game is set in an alternative history in which certain now discredited Victorian scientific theories were probable and led to new technologies. Contributing authors included Frank Chadwick, Loren Wiseman, and Marcus Rowland.
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's novel "The Difference Engine" (1990) is often credited with bringing about widespread awareness of steampunk. This novel applies the principles of Gibson and Sterling's cyberpunk writings to an alternative Victorian era where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage's proposed steam-powered mechanical computer, which Babbage called a difference engine (a later, more general-purpose version was known as an analytical engine), was actually built, and led to the dawn of the information age more than a century "ahead of schedule". This setting was different from most steampunk settings in that it takes a dim and dark view of this future, rather than the more prevalent utopian versions.
Nick Gevers's original anthology "Extraordinary Engines" (2008) features newer steampunk stories by some of the genre's writers, as well as other science fiction and fantasy writers experimenting with neo-Victorian conventions. A retrospective reprint anthology of steampunk fiction was released, also in 2008, by Tachyon Publications. Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and appropriately entitled "Steampunk", it is a collection of stories by James Blaylock, whose "Narbondo" trilogy is typically considered steampunk; Jay Lake, author of the novel "Mainspring", sometimes labeled "clockpunk"; the aforementioned Michael Moorcock; as well as Jess Nevins, known for his annotations to "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (first published in 1999).
Younger readers have also been targeted by steampunk themes, by authors such as Philip Reeve and Scott Westerfeld. Reeve's quartet "Mortal Engines" is set far in Earth's future where giant moving cities consume each other in a battle for resources, a concept Reeve coined as "Municipal Darwinism". Westerfeld's "Leviathan" trilogy is set during an alternate First World War fought between the "clankers" (Central Powers), who use steam technology, and "darwinists" (Allied Powers), who use genetically engineered creatures instead of machines.
"Mash-ups" are also becoming increasingly popular in books aimed at younger readers, mixing steampunk with other genres. Suzanne Lazear's "Aether Chronicles" series mixes steampunk with faeries, and "The Unnaturalists", by Tiffany Trent, combines steampunk with mythological creatures and alternate history.
While most of the original steampunk works had a historical setting, later works often place steampunk elements in a fantasy world with little relation to any specific historic era. Historical steampunk tends to be science fiction that presents an alternate history; it also contains real locales and persons from history with alternative fantasy technology. "Fantasy-world steampunk", such as China Miéville's "Perdido Street Station", Alan Campbell's "Scar Night", and Stephen Hunt's Jackelian novels, on the other hand, presents steampunk in a completely imaginary fantasy realm, often populated by legendary creatures coexisting with steam-era and other anachronistic technologies. However, the works of China Miéville and similar authors are sometimes referred to as belonging to the "New Weird" rather than steampunk.
Self-described author of "far-fetched fiction" Robert Rankin has increasingly incorporated elements of steampunk into narrative worlds that are both Victorian and re-imagined contemporary. In 2009, he was made a Fellow of the Victorian Steampunk Society.
The comic book series "Hellboy", created by Mike Mignola, and the two Hellboy films featuring Ron Perlman and directed by Guillermo del Toro, all have steampunk elements. In the comic book and the first (2004) film, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is a Nazi SS scientist who has an addiction to having himself surgically altered, and who has many mechanical prostheses, including a clockwork heart. The character Johann Krauss is featured in the comic and in the second film, "" (2008), as an ectoplasmic medium (a gaseous form in a partly mechanical suit). This second film also features the Golden Army itself, which is a collection of 4,900 mechanical steampunk warriors.
Since the 1990s, the application of the steampunk label has expanded beyond works set in recognisable historical periods, to works set in fantasy worlds that rely heavily on steam- or spring-powered technology. One of the earliest short stories relying on steam-powered flying machines is "The Aerial Burglar" of 1844. An example from juvenile fiction is "The Edge Chronicles" by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.
Fantasy steampunk settings abound in tabletop and computer role-playing games. Notable examples include "Skies of Arcadia", "", and "".
One of the first steampunk novels set in a Middle-earth-like world was the "Forest of Boland Light Railway" by BB, about gnomes who build a steam locomotive. 50 years later, Terry Pratchett wrote the Discworld novel "Raising Steam," about the ongoing industrial revolution and railway mania in Ankh-Morpork.
The gnomes and goblins in "World of Warcraft" also have technological societies that could be described as steampunk, as they are vastly ahead of the technologies of men, but still run on steam and mechanical power.
The Dwarves of the "Elder Scrolls" series, described therein as a race of Elves called the Dwemer, also use steam powered machinery, with gigantic brass-like gears, throughout their underground cities. However, magical means are used to keep ancient devices in motion despite the Dwemer's ancient disappearance.
The 1998 game "", as well as the other sequels including its 2014 reboot, feature heavy steampunk-inspired architecture, setting, and technology.
Amidst the historical and fantasy subgenres of steampunk is a type that takes place in a hypothetical future or a fantasy equivalent of our future involving the domination of steampunk-style technology and aesthetics. Examples include Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's "The City of Lost Children" (1995), "Turn A Gundam" (1999–2000), "Trigun", and Disney's film "Treasure Planet" (2002). In 2011, musician Thomas Dolby heralded his return to music after a 20-year hiatus with an online steampunk alternate fantasy world called the Floating City, to promote his album "A Map of the Floating City".
Another setting is "Western" steampunk, which overlaps with both the Weird West and Science fiction Western subgenres. One of the earliest steampunk books set in America was "The Steam Man of the Prairies" by Edward S. Ellis. Several other categories have arisen, sharing similar names, including dieselpunk, clockwork-punk, and others. Most of these terms were coined as supplements to the GURPS role playing game, and are not used in other contexts.
Kaja Foglio introduced the term "Gaslight Romance", gaslamp fantasy, which John Clute and John Grant define as "steampunk stories ... most commonly set in a romanticised, smoky, 19th-century London, as are Gaslight Romances. But the latter category focuses nostalgically on icons from the late years of that century and the early years of the 20th century—on Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and even Tarzan—and can normally be understood as combining supernatural fiction and recursive fantasy, though some gaslight romances can be read as fantasies of history." Author/artist James Richardson-Brown coined the term "steamgoth" to refer to steampunk expressions of fantasy and horror with a "darker" bent.
Mary Shelley's "The Last Man", set near the end of the 21st century after a plague had brought down civilization, was probably the ancestor of post-apocalyptic steampunk literature. Post-apocalyptic steampunk is set in a world where some cataclysm has precipitated the fall of civilization and steam power is once again ascendant, such as in Hayao Miyazaki's post-apocalyptic anime "Future Boy Conan" (1978), where a war fought with superweapons has devastated the planet. Robert Brown's novel, "The Wrath of Fate" (as well as much of Abney Park's music) is set in A Victorianesque world where an apocalypse was set into motion by a time-traveling mishap. Cherie Priest's Boneshaker series is set in a world where a zombie apocalypse happened during the Civil War era. The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which a meteor shower in 1878 caused the collapse of Industrialized civilization. The movie 9 (which might be better classified as "stitchpunk" but was largely influenced by steampunk) is also set in a post-apocalyptic world after a self-aware war machine ran amok. "Steampunk Magazine" even published a book called "A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse", about how steampunks could survive should such a thing actually happen.
In general, this category includes any recent science fiction that takes place in a recognizable historical period (sometimes an alternate history version of an actual historical period) in which the Industrial Revolution has already begun, but electricity is not yet widespread, "usually Britain of the early to mid-nineteenth century or the fantasized Wild West-era United States", with an emphasis on steam- or spring-propelled gadgets. The most common historical steampunk settings are the Victorian and Edwardian eras, though some in this "Victorian steampunk" category are set as early as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and as late as the end of World War I.
Some examples of this type include the novel "The Difference Engine", the comic book series "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", the Disney animated film "", Scott Westerfeld's "Leviathan" trilogy, and the roleplaying game "." The anime film "Steamboy" (2004) is another good example of Victorian steampunk, taking place in an alternate 1866 where steam technology is more advanced than it ever was in real life. Some, such as the comic series "Girl Genius", have their own unique times and places despite partaking heavily of the flavor of historic settings. Other comic series are set in a more familiar London, as in the "Victorian Undead", which has Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, and others taking on zombies, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and Count Dracula, with advanced weapons and devices.
Karel Zeman's film "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" (1958) is a very early example of cinematic steampunk. Based on Jules Verne novels, Zeman's film imagines a past that never was, based on those novels. Other early examples of historical steampunk in cinema include Hayao Miyazaki's anime films such as "" (1986) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004), which contain many archetypal anachronisms characteristic of the steampunk genre.
"Historical" steampunk usually leans more towards science fiction than fantasy, but a number of historical steampunk stories have incorporated magical elements as well. For example, "Morlock Night", written by K. W. Jeter, revolves around an attempt by the wizard Merlin to raise King Arthur to save the Britain of 1892 from an invasion of Morlocks from the future.
Paul Guinan's "Boilerplate", a "biography" of a robot in the late 19th century, began as a website that garnered international press coverage when people began believing that Photoshop images of the robot with historic personages were real. The site was adapted into the illustrated hardbound book "Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel", which was published by Abrams in October 2009. Because the story was not set in an alternative history, and in fact contained accurate information about the Victorian era, some booksellers referred to the tome as "historical steampunk".
Fictional settings inspired by Asian rather than Western history have been called "silkpunk". The term appears to originate with the author Ken Liu, who defined it as "a blend of science fiction and fantasy [that] draws inspiration from classical East Asian antiquity", with a "technology vocabulary (...) based on organic materials historically important to East Asia (bamboo, paper, silk) and seafaring cultures of the Pacific (coconut, feathers, coral)", rather than the brass and leather associated with steampunk. Other authors whose work has been described as silkpunk are JY Yang and Elizabeth Bear.
Steampunk music is very broadly defined. Abney Park's lead singer Robert Brown defined it as "mixing Victorian elements and modern elements". There is a broad range of musical influences that make up the Steampunk sound, from industrial dance and world music to folk rock, dark cabaret to straightforward punk, Carnatic to industrial, hip-hop to opera (and even industrial hip-hop opera), darkwave to progressive rock, barbershop to big band.
Joshua Pfeiffer (of Vernian Process) is quoted as saying, "As for Paul Roland, if anyone deserves credit for spearheading Steampunk music, it is him. He was one of the inspirations I had in starting my project. He was writing songs about the first attempt at manned flight, and an Edwardian airship raid in the mid-80s long before almost anyone else..." Thomas Dolby is also considered one of the early pioneers of retro-futurist (i.e., Steampunk and Dieselpunk) music. Amanda Palmer was once quoted as saying, "Thomas Dolby is to Steampunk what Iggy Pop was to Punk!"
Steampunk has also appeared in the work of musicians who do not specifically identify as Steampunk. For example, the music video of "Turn Me On", by David Guetta and featuring Nicki Minaj, takes place in a Steampunk universe where Guetta creates human droids. Another music video is "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", by Panic! at the Disco, which has a distinct Victorian Steampunk theme. A continuation of this theme has in fact been used throughout the 2011 album "Vices & Virtues", in the music videos, album art, and tour set and costumes. In addition, the album "Clockwork Angels" (2012) and its supporting tour by progressive rock band Rush contain lyrics, themes, and imagery based around Steampunk. Similarly, Abney Park headlined the first "Steamstock" outdoor steampunk music festival in Richmond, California, which also featured Thomas Dolby, Frenchy and the Punk, Lee Presson and the Nails, Vernian Process, and others.
The music video for the Lindsey Stirling song "Roundtable Rival", has a Western Steampunk setting.
"The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" (1958) and "The Fabulous Baron Munchausen" (1962), both directed by Karel Zeman, have steampunk elements. The 1965 television series "The Wild Wild West", as well as the 1999 film of the same name, features many elements of advanced steam-powered technology set in the Wild West time period of the United States. "Two Years' Vacation" (or "The Stolen Airship") (1967) directed by Karel Zeman contains steampunk elements.
The BBC series "Doctor Who" also incorporates steampunk elements. During season 14 of the show (in 1976), the formerly futuristic looking interior set was replaced with a Victorian-styled wood-panel and brass affair. In the 1996 American co-production, the TARDIS interior was re-designed to resemble an almost Victorian library with the central control console made up of an eclectic array of anachronistic objects. Modified and streamlined for the 2005 revival of the series, the TARDIS console continued to incorporate steampunk elements, including a Victorian typewriter and gramophone. Several storylines can be classed as steampunk, for example: "The Evil of the Daleks" (1966), wherein Victorian scientists invent a time travel device. "Dinner for Adele" (1977) directed by Oldřich Lipský involves steampunk contraptions. The 1979 film "Time After Time" has Herbert George "H.G." Wells following a surgeon named John Leslie Stevenson into the future, as John is suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Both separately use Wells's time machine to travel.
"The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians" (1981) directed by Oldřich Lipský contains steampunk elements. The 1982 American TV series "Q.E.D." is set in Edwardian England, stars Sam Waterston as Professor Quentin Everett Deverill (from whose initials, by which he is primarily known, the series title is derived, initials which also stand for the Latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum", which translates as "which was to be demonstrated"). The Professor is an inventor and scientific detective, in the mold of Sherlock Holmes. The plot of the Soviet film "Kin-dza-dza!" (1986) centers on a desert planet, depleted of its resources, where an impoverished dog-eat-dog society uses steam-punk machines, the movements and functions of which defy earthly logic.
In making his 1986 Japanese film "Castle in the Sky", Hayao Miyazaki was heavily influenced by steampunk culture, the film featuring various air ships and steam-powered contraptions as well as a mysterious island that floats through the sky, accomplished not through magic as in most stories, but instead by harnessing the physical properties of a rare crystal—analogous to the lodestone used in the Laputa of Swift's Gulliver's Travels—augmented by massive propellers, as befitting the Victorian motif. The first "Wallace & Gromit" animation "A Grand Day Out" (1989) features a space rocket in the steampunk style. "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.", a 1993 Fox Network TV science fiction-western set in the 1890s, features elements of steampunk as represented by the character Professor Wickwire, whose inventions were described as "the coming thing". The short-lived 1995 TV show "Legend", on UPN, set in 1876 Arizona, features such classic inventions as a steam-driven "quadrovelocipede", trigoggle and night-vision goggles (à la teslapunk), and stars John de Lancie as a thinly disguised Nikola Tesla.
Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's 1999 "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" graphic novel series (and the subsequent 2003 film adaption) greatly popularised the steampunk genre.
"Steamboy" (2004) is a Japanese animated action film directed and co-written by Katsuhiro Otomo ("Akira"). It is a retro science-fiction epic set in a Steampunk Victorian England. It features steamboats, trains, airships and inventors. The 2004 film "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" contains Steam Punk-esque themes, such as the costumery and vehicle interiors. The 2007 Syfy miniseries "Tin Man" incorporates a considerable number of steampunk-inspired themes into a re-imagining of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Despite leaning more towards gothic influences, the "parallel reality" of Meanwhile City, within the 2009 film "Franklyn", contains many steampunk themes, such as costumery, architecture, minimal use of electricity (with a preference for gaslight), and absence of modern technology (such as there being no motorised vehicles or advanced weaponry, and the manual management of information with no use of computers).
The 2009–2014 Syfy television series "Warehouse 13" features many steampunk-inspired objects and artifacts, including computer designs created by steampunk artisan Richard Nagy, a.k.a. "Datamancer". The 2010 episode of the TV series "Castle" entitled "Punked" (which first aired on October 11, 2010) prominently features the steampunk subculture and uses Los Angeles-area steampunks (such as the League of STEAM) as extras. The 2011 film "The Three Musketeers" has many steampunk elements, including gadgets and airships.
"The Legend of Korra", a 2012–2014 Nickelodeon animated series, incorporates steampunk elements in an industrialized world with East Asian themes.
The "Penny Dreadful" (2014) television series is a Gothic Victorian fantasy series with steampunk props and costumes.
The 2015 GSN reality television game show "Steampunk'd" features a competition to create steampunk-inspired art and designs which are judged by notable Steampunks Thomas Willeford, Kato, and Matthew Yang King (as Matt King). Based on the work of cartoonist Jacques Tardi, "April and the Extraordinary World" (2015) is an animated movie set in a steampunk Paris. It features airships, trains, submarines, and various other steam-powered contraptions. Tim Burton's 2016 film "Alice Through the Looking Glass" features steampunk costumes, props, and vehicles.
Japanese anime "Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress" (2016) features a steampunk zombie apocalypse.
A variety of styles of video games have used steampunk settings.
"Steel Empire" (1992), a shoot 'em up game originally released as "Koutetsu Teikoku" on the Sega Mega Drive console in Japan, is considered to be the first steampunk video game. Designed by Yoshinori Satake and inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's anime film "" (1986), "Steel Empire" is set in an alternate timeline dominated by steam-powered technology and presents anti-imperialist themes. The commercial success of "Steel Empire", both in Japan and the West, helped propel steampunk into the video game market, and had a significant influence on later steampunk games. The most notable steampunk game it influenced is "Final Fantasy VI" (1994), a Japanese role-playing game developed by Squaresoft and designed by Hiroyuki Ito for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. "Final Fantasy VI" was both critically and commercially successful, and had a considerable influence on later steampunk video games.
"The Chaos Engine" (1993) is a run and gun video game inspired by the Gibson/Sterling novel "The Difference Engine" (1990), set in a Victorian steampunk age. Developed by the Bitmap Brothers, it was first released on the Amiga in 1993; a sequel was released in 1996. The graphic adventure puzzle video games "Myst" (1993), "Riven" (1997), "" (2001), and "" (all produced by or under the supervision of Cyan Worlds) take place in an alternate steampunk universe, where elaborate infrastructures have been built to run on steam power. "The Elder Scrolls" (since 1994, last release in 2014) is an action role-playing game where one can find an ancient extinct race called dwemers or dwarves, whose steampunk technology is based on steam-powered levers and gears made of copper–bronze material, which are maintained by magical techniques that have kept them in working order over the centuries.
"Sakura Wars" (1996), a visual novel and tactical role-playing game developed by Sega for the Saturn console, is set in a steampunk version of Japan during the Meiji and Taishō periods, and features steam-powered mecha robots. "" (1998) and its sequel, "Thief II" (2000), are set in a steampunk metropolis. The 2001 computer role-playing game "" mixed fantasy tropes with steampunk.
The "Professor Layton" series of games (2007 debut) has several entries showcasing steampunk machinary and vehicles. Notably "Professor Layton and the Unwound Future" features a quasi-steampunk future setting. "Solatorobo" (2010) is a role-playing video game developed by CyberConnect2 set in a floating island archipelago populated by anthropomorphic cats and dogs, who pilot steampunk airships and engage in combat with robots. "Resonance of Fate" (2010) is a role-playing video game developed by tri-Ace and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is set in a steampunk environment with combat involving guns.
The "SteamWorld" series of games (2010 debut) has the player controlling steam-powered robots. "Minecraft" (2011) has a steampunk-themed texture pack. "Terraria" (2011) is a video game developed by Re-Logic. It is a 2D action-adventure, open-world sandbox / platformer game in which the player controls a single character in a generated world. It has a Steampunker non-player character in the game who sells items referencing Steampunk. "Guns of Icarus Online" (2012) is multiplayer game with steampunk thematic. "Dishonored" (2012) and "Dishonored 2" (2016) are set within a fictional world with heavy steampunk influences, wherein whale oil, as opposed to coal, served as catalyst of their industrial revolution.
"BioShock Infinite" (2013) is a first-person shooter FPS game set in 1912, in a fictional city called Columbia, which uses technology to float in the sky and has many historical and religious scenes.
"" (2014), a Japanese otome game for the PS Vita is set in a steampunk Victorian London, and features a cast with several historical figures with steampunk aesthetics. "Code Name S.T.E.A.M." (2015), a Japanese tactical RPG game for the 3DS sets in a steampunk fantasy version of London and where you are conscript in the strike force S.T.E.A.M. (short for Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace). "They Are Billions" (2017), is a steampunk strategy game in a post-apocalyptic setting. Players build a colony and attempt to ward off waves of zombies. "Frostpunk" (2018) is a city-building game set in 1888, but where the Earth is in the midst of a great ice age. Players must construct a city around a large steampunk heat generator with many steampunk aesthetics and mechanics, such as a "Steam Core."
Mattel's "Monster High" dolls Rebecca Steam and Hexiciah Steam.
The "Pullip Dolls" by Japanese manufacturer Dal have a steampunk range.
Hornby's world of Bassett-Lowke steampunk models
Because of the popularity of steampunk, there is a growing movement of adults that want to establish steampunk as a culture and lifestyle. Some fans of the genre adopt a steampunk aesthetic through fashion, home decor, music, and film. While Steampunk is considered the amalgamation of Victorian aesthetic principles with modern sensibilities and technologies, it can be more broadly categorised as neo-Victorianism, described by scholar Marie-Luise Kohlke as "the afterlife of the nineteenth century in the cultural imaginary". The subculture has its own magazine, blogs, and online shops.
In September 2012, a panel, chaired by steampunk entertainer Veronique Chevalier and with panelists including magician Pop Hadyn and members of the steampunk performance group the League of STEAM, was held at Stan Lee's Comikaze Expo. The panel suggested that because steampunk was inclusive of and incorporated ideas from various other subcultures such as goth, neo-Victorian, and cyberpunk, as well as a growing number of fandoms, it was fast becoming a "super-culture" rather than a mere subculture. Other steampunk notables such as Professor Elemental have expressed similar views about steampunk's inclusive diversity.
Some have proposed a steampunk philosophy that incorporates punk-inspired anti-establishment sentiments typically bolstered by optimism about human potential.
Steampunk became a common descriptor for homemade objects sold on the craft network Etsy between 2009 and 2011, though many of the objects and fashions bear little resemblance to earlier established descriptions of steampunk. Thus the craft network may not strike observers as "sufficiently steampunk" to warrant its use of the term. Comedian April Winchell, author of the book "Regretsy: Where DIY meets WTF", cataloged some of the most egregious and humorous examples on her website "Regretsy". The blog was popular among steampunks and even inspired a music video that went viral in the community and was acclaimed by steampunk "notables".
June 19, 2005 marked the grand opening of the world's first steampunk club night, "Malediction Society", in Los Angeles. The event ran for nearly 12 years at The Monte Cristo nightclub, interrupted by a single year residency at Argyle Hollywood, until both the club night and The Monte Cristo closed in April 2017. Though the steampunk aesthetic eventually gave way to a more generic goth and industrial aesthetic, Malediction Society celebrated its roots every year with "The Steampunk Ball".
2006 saw the first "SalonCon", a neo-Victorian/steampunk convention. It ran for three consecutive years and featured artists, musicians (Voltaire and Abney Park), authors (Catherynne M. Valente, Ekaterina Sedia, and G. D. Falksen), salons led by people prominent in their respective fields, workshops and panels on steampunk—as well as a seance, ballroom dance instruction, and the Chrononauts' Parade. The event was covered by MTV and "The New York Times". Since then, a number of popular steampunk conventions have sprung up the world over, with names like Steamcon (Seattle), the Steampunk World's Fair (Piscataway, New Jersey), Up in the Aether: The Steampunk Convention (Dearborn, Michigan), Steampunk NZ (Oamaru, New Zealand), Steampunk Unlimited (Strasburg Railroad, Lancaster, PA). Each year, on Mother's Day weekend, the city of Waltham, MA, turns over its city center and surrounding areas to host the Watch City Steampunk Festival, a US outdoor steampunk festival. During the first weekend of May, the Australian town of Nimmitabel celebrates Steampunk @ Altitude with some 2,000 attendance.
In recent years, steampunk has also become a regular feature at San Diego Comic-Con International, with the Saturday of the four-day event being generally known among steampunks as "Steampunk Day", and culminating with a photo-shoot for the local press. In 2010, this was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest steampunk photo shoot. In 2013, Comic-Con announced four official 2013 T-shirts, one of them featuring the official Rick Geary Comic-Con toucan mascot in steampunk attire. The Saturday steampunk "after-party" has also become a major event on the steampunk social calendar: in 2010, the headliners included The Slow Poisoner, Unextraordinary Gentlemen, and Voltaire, with Veronique Chevalier as Mistress of Ceremonies and special appearance by the League of STEAM; in 2011, UXG returned with Abney Park.
Steampunk has also sprung up recently at Renaissance Festivals and Renaissance Faires, in the US. Some festivals have organised events or a "Steampunk Day", while others simply support an open environment for donning steampunk attire. The Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the Wisconsin/Illinois border, featured a Steampunk costume contest during the 2012 season, the previous two seasons having seen increasing participation in the phenomenon.
Steampunk also has a growing following in the UK and Europe. The largest European event is "Weekend at the Asylum", held at The Lawn, Lincoln, every September since 2009. Organised as a not-for-profit event by the Victorian Steampunk Society, the Asylum is a dedicated steampunk event which takes over much of the historical quarter of Lincoln, England, along with Lincoln Castle. In 2011, there were over 1000 steampunks in attendance. The event features the Empire Ball, Majors Review, Bazaar Eclectica, and the international Tea Duelling final.
The Surrey Steampunk Convivial was originally held in New Malden, but since 2019 has been held in Stoneleigh in southwestern London, within walking distance of H. G. Wells's home. The Surrey Steampunk Convivial started as an annual event in 2012, and now takes place thrice a year, and has spanned three boroughs and five venues. Attendees have been interviewed by BBC Radio 4 for Phill Jupitus and filmed by the BBC World Service. The West Yorkshire village of Haworth has held an annual Steampunk weekend since 2013, on each occasion as a charity event raising funds for Sue Ryder's "Manorlands" hospice in Oxenhope.
Since 2015, in the vein of Jules Verne's prescient writings, life has once again begun to imitate art, as steampunk has entered the realm of legitimate science. In early 2020, an article in Scientific American titled "Quantum Steampunk: 19th-Century Science Meets Technology of Today" discussed a major movement in cross-disciplinary study, in which information theory is being used to update the basis of steam technology: Thermodynamics. A flurry of publications and citations surrounding Nicole Yunger Halpern supports the emerging subfield she has dubbed "Quantum Steampunk" in her 2018 dissertation.
In the realm of science closer to the fringe, at least one published paper claims, via revisionist history, that modern physics is indistinguishable from a straightforward advancement of aether theory. This same author's lectures at steampunk conventions, while appearing half theater and half legitimate science discussion, have heralded a "neoclassical revolution" of physics and a return of the aether. The oft-repeated quotation of Einstein that "space without ether is unthinkable" intimates that there may indeed exist some scientifically legitimate and conceptually advanced versions of the aether concept which fit into a modern physics context.
Fully within the realm of conventional science, however, the interpretation of concepts such as space-time curvature and random effects in Quantum Mechanics (QM) have been interpreted through the lens of fluid dynamics by various scientists starting as far back as when Erwin Madelung proposed the Madelung equations as an alternative form of the Schrödinger equation and aspects of fluid rotation/turbulence are found more recently in Superfluid vacuum theory, although concepts of a superfluid electromagnetic medium compatible with relativity have been traced as far back as 1909, to the seminal work of micropolar elasticity Eugène Cosserat produced, by the english translator of that work: David Delphenich. However, in April 2020 Dr. Mrittunjoy Guha Majumdar of Cambridge released a Gauge theory formulation of Lord Kelvin's Vortex theory of the atom
Research at MIT by John Bush in Hydrodynamic quantum analogs casts the random effects and other "spooky behaviors" of QM as an expression of Chaos Theory in a fluid medium, thus returning a very "Clockwork Universe" aesthetic to modern physics via the inference of deterministic chaos underlying a complex fluid-like substrate responsible for particle emergence. This surge in legitimate science surrounding steampunk may be a repetition of the historical trend of sci-fi predictions inspiring the course of future science. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27684 |
Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cells of a table. Each cell may contain either numeric or text data, or the results of formulas that automatically calculate and display a value based on the contents of other cells. A spreadsheet may also refer to one such electronic document.
Spreadsheet users can adjust any stored value and observe the effects on calculated values. This makes the spreadsheet useful for "what-if" analysis since many cases can be rapidly investigated without manual recalculation. Modern spreadsheet software can have multiple interacting sheets, and can display data either as text and numerals, or in graphical form.
Besides performing basic arithmetic and mathematical functions, modern spreadsheets provide built-in functions for common financial and statistical operations. Such calculations as net present value or standard deviation can be applied to tabular data with a pre-programmed function in a formula. Spreadsheet programs also provide conditional expressions, functions to convert between text and numbers, and functions that operate on strings of text.
Spreadsheets have replaced paper-based systems throughout the business world. Although they were first developed for accounting or bookkeeping tasks, they now are used extensively in any context where tabular lists are built, sorted, and shared.
LANPAR, available in 1969, was the first electronic spreadsheet on mainframe and time sharing computers. LANPAR was an acronym: LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random. VisiCalc was the first electronic spreadsheet on a microcomputer, and it helped turn the Apple II computer into a popular and widely used system. Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet when DOS was the dominant operating system. Excel now has the largest market share on the Windows and Macintosh platforms. A spreadsheet program is a standard feature of an office productivity suite; since the advent of web apps, office suites now also exist in web app form. Web based spreadsheets are a relatively new category.
A spreadsheet consists of a table of "cells" arranged into rows and columns and referred to by the X and Y locations. X locations, the columns, are normally represented by letters, "A", "B", "C", etc., while rows are normally represented by numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc. A single cell can be referred to by addressing its row and column, "C10" for instance. This electronic concept of cell references was first introduced in LANPAR (Language for Programming Arrays at Random) (co-invented by Rene Pardo and Remy Landau) and a variant used in VisiCalc, and known as "A1 notation".
Additionally, spreadsheets have the concept of a "range", a group of cells, normally contiguous. For instance, one can refer to the first ten cells in the first column with the range "A1:A10". LANPAR innovated forward referencing/natural order calculation which didn't re-appear until Lotus 123 and Microsoft's MultiPlan Version 2.
In modern spreadsheet applications, several spreadsheets, often known as "worksheets" or simply "sheets", are gathered together to form a "workbook". A workbook is physically represented by a file, containing all the data for the book, the sheets and the cells with the sheets. Worksheets are normally represented by tabs that flip between pages, each one containing one of the sheets, although Numbers changes this model significantly. Cells in a multi-sheet book add the sheet name to their reference, for instance, "Sheet 1!C10". Some systems extend this syntax to allow cell references to different workbooks.
Users interact with sheets primarily through the cells. A given cell can hold data by simply entering it in, or a formula, which is normally created by preceding the text with an equals sign. Data might include the string of text codice_1, the number codice_2 or the date codice_3. A formula would begin with the equals sign, codice_4, but this would normally be invisible because the display shows the "result" of the calculation, codice_5 in this case, not the formula itself. This may lead to confusion in some cases.
The key feature of spreadsheets is the ability for a formula to refer to the contents of other cells, which may in turn be the result of a formula. To make such a formula, one simply replaces a number with a cell reference. For instance, the formula codice_6 would produce the result of multiplying the value in cell C10 by the number 5. If C10 holds the value codice_7 the result will be codice_5. But C10 might also hold its own formula referring to other cells, and so on.
The ability to chain formulas together is what gives a spreadsheet its power. Many problems can be broken down into a series of individual mathematical steps, and these can be assigned to individual formulas in cells. Some of these formulas can apply to ranges as well, like the codice_9 function that adds up all the numbers within a range.
Spreadsheets share many principles and traits of databases, but spreadsheets and databases are not the same thing. A spreadsheet is essentially just one table, whereas a database is a collection of many tables with machine-readable semantic relationships between them. While it is true that a workbook that contains three sheets is indeed a file containing multiple tables that can interact with each other, it lacks the relational structure of a database. Spreadsheets and databases are interoperable—sheets can be imported into databases to become tables within them, and database queries can be exported into spreadsheets for further analysis.
A spreadsheet program is one of the main components of an office productivity suite, which usually also contains a word processor, a presentation program, and a database management system. Programs within a suite use similar commands for similar functions. Usually sharing data between the components is easier than with a non-integrated collection of functionally equivalent programs. This was particularly an advantage at a time when many personal computer systems used text-mode displays and commands, instead of a graphical user interface.
The word 'spreadsheet' came from 'spread' in its sense of a newspaper or magazine item (text or graphics) that covers two facing pages, extending across the center fold and treating the two pages as one large page. The compound word 'spread-sheet' came to mean the format used to present book-keeping ledgers—with columns for categories of expenditures across the top, invoices listed down the left margin, and the amount of each payment in the cell where its row and column intersect—which were, traditionally, a "spread" across facing pages of a bound ledger (book for keeping accounting records) or on oversized sheets of paper (termed 'analysis paper') ruled into rows and columns in that format and approximately twice as wide as ordinary paper.
A batch "spreadsheet" is indistinguishable from a batch compiler with added input data, producing an output report, "i.e.", a 4GL or conventional, non-interactive, batch computer program. However, this concept of an electronic spreadsheet was outlined in the 1961 paper "Budgeting Models and System Simulation" by Richard Mattessich. The subsequent work by Mattessich (1964a, Chpt. 9, "Accounting and Analytical Methods") and its companion volume, Mattessich (1964b, "Simulation of the Firm through a Budget Computer Program") applied computerized spreadsheets to accounting and budgeting systems (on mainframe computers programmed in FORTRAN IV). These batch Spreadsheets dealt primarily with the addition or subtraction of entire columns or rows (of input variables), rather than individual "cells".
In 1962 this concept of the spreadsheet, called BCL for Business Computer Language, was implemented on an IBM 1130 and in 1963 was ported to an IBM 7040 by R. Brian Walsh at Marquette University, Wisconsin. This program was written in Fortran. Primitive timesharing was available on those machines. In 1968 BCL was ported by Walsh to the IBM 360/67 timesharing machine at Washington State University. It was used to assist in the teaching of finance to business students. Students were able to take information prepared by the professor and manipulate it to represent it and show ratios etc. In 1964, a book entitled "Business Computer Language" was written by Kimball, Stoffells and Walsh and both the book and program were copyrighted in 1966 and years later that copyright was renewed
Applied Data Resources had a FORTRAN preprocessor called Empires.
In the late 1960s Xerox used BCL to develop a more sophisticated version for their timesharing system.
A key invention in the development of electronic spreadsheets was made by Rene K. Pardo and Remy Landau, who filed in 1970 on a spreadsheet automatic natural order calculation algorithm. While the patent was initially rejected by the patent office as being a purely mathematical invention, following 12 years of appeals, Pardo and Landau won a landmark court case at the Predecessor Court of the Federal Circuit (CCPA), overturning the Patent Office in 1983 — establishing that "something does not cease to become patentable merely because the point of novelty is in an algorithm." However, in 1995 the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled the patent unenforceable.
The actual software was called LANPAR — LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random. This was conceived and entirely developed in the summer of 1969, following Pardo and Landau's recent graduation from Harvard University. Co-inventor Rene Pardo recalls that he felt that one manager at Bell Canada should not have to depend on programmers to program and modify budgeting forms, and he thought of letting users type out forms in any order and having an electronic computer calculate results in the right order ("Forward Referencing/Natural Order Calculation"). Pardo and Landau developed and implemented the software in 1969.
LANPAR was used by Bell Canada, AT&T and the 18 operating telephone companies nationwide for their local and national budgeting operations. LANPAR was also used by General Motors. Its uniqueness was Pardo's co-invention incorporating forward referencing/natural order calculation (one of the first "non-procedural" computer languages) as opposed to left-to-right, top to bottom sequence for calculating the results in each cell that was used by VisiCalc, SuperCalc, and the first version of MultiPlan. Without forward referencing/natural order calculation, the user had to refresh the spreadsheet until the values in all cells remained unchanged. Once the cell values stayed constant, the user was assured that there were no remaining forward references within the spreadsheet.
In 1968, three former employees from the General Electric computer company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona set out to start their own software development house. A. Leroy Ellison, Harry N. Cantrell, and Russell E. Edwards found themselves doing a large number of calculations when making tables for the business plans that they were presenting to venture capitalists. They decided to save themselves a lot of effort and wrote a computer program that produced their tables for them. This program, originally conceived as a simple utility for their personal use, would turn out to be the first software product offered by the company that would become known as Capex Corporation. "AutoPlan" ran on GE's Time-sharing service; afterward, a version that ran on IBM mainframes was introduced under the name "AutoTab". (National CSS offered a similar product, CSSTAB, which had a moderate timesharing user base by the early 1970s. A major application was opinion research tabulation.)
AutoPlan/AutoTab was not a WYSIWYG interactive spreadsheet program, it was a simple scripting language for spreadsheets. The user defined the names and labels for the rows and columns, then the formulas that defined each row or column. In 1975, Autotab-II was advertised as extending the original to a maximum of ""1,500 rows and columns, combined in any proportion the user requires...""
GE Information Services, which operated the time-sharing service, also launched its own spreadsheet system, Financial Analysis Language (FAL), circa 1974. It was later supplemented by an additional spreadsheet language, TABOL, which was developed by an independent author, Oliver Vellacott in the UK. Both FAL and TABOL were integrated with GEIS's database system, DMS.
The IBM Financial Planning and Control System was developed in 1976, by Brian Ingham at IBM Canada. It was implemented by IBM in at least 30 countries. It ran on an IBM mainframe and was among the first applications for financial planning developed with APL that completely hid the programming language from the end-user. Through IBM's VM operating system, it was among the first programs to auto-update each copy of the application as new versions were released. Users could specify simple mathematical relationships between rows and between columns. Compared to any contemporary alternatives, it could support very large spreadsheets. It loaded actual financial data drawn from the legacy batch system into each user's spreadsheet on a monthly basis. It was designed to optimize the power of APL through object kernels, increasing program efficiency by as much as 50 fold over traditional programming approaches.
An example of an early "industrial weight" spreadsheet was APLDOT, developed in 1976 at the United States Railway Association on an IBM 360/91, running at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. The application was used successfully for many years in developing such applications as financial and costing models for the US Congress and for Conrail. APLDOT was dubbed a "spreadsheet" because financial analysts and strategic planners used it to solve the same problems they addressed with paper spreadsheet pads.
Because of Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston's implementation of VisiCalc on the Apple II in 1979 and the IBM PC in 1981, the spreadsheet concept became widely known in the early 1980s. VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet that combined all essential features of modern spreadsheet applications (except for forward referencing/natural order recalculation), such as WYSIWYG interactive user interface, automatic recalculation, status and formula lines, range copying with relative and absolute references, formula building by selecting referenced cells. Unaware of LANPAR at the time "PC World" magazine called VisiCalc the first electronic spreadsheet.
Bricklin has spoken of watching his university professor create a table of calculation results on a blackboard. When the professor found an error, he had to tediously erase and rewrite a number of sequential entries in the table, triggering Bricklin to think that he could replicate the process on a computer, using the blackboard as the model to view results of underlying formulas. His idea became VisiCalc, the first application that turned the personal computer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a business tool.
VisiCalc went on to become the first "killer application", an application that was so compelling, people would buy a particular computer just to use it. VisiCalc was in no small part responsible for the Apple II's success. The program was later ported to a number of other early computers, notably CP/M machines, the Atari 8-bit family and various Commodore platforms. Nevertheless, VisiCalc remains best known as an Apple II program.
SuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980, and originally bundled (along with WordStar) as part of the CP/M software package included with the Osborne 1 portable computer. It quickly became the de facto standard spreadsheet for CP/M and was ported to MS-DOS in 1982.
The acceptance of the IBM PC following its introduction in August, 1981, began slowly, because most of the programs available for it were translations from other computer models. Things changed dramatically with the introduction of Lotus 1-2-3 in November, 1982, and release for sale in January, 1983. Since it was written especially for the IBM PC, it had good performance and became the killer app for this PC. Lotus 1-2-3 drove sales of the PC due to the improvements in speed and graphics compared to VisiCalc on the Apple II.
Lotus 1-2-3, along with its competitor Borland Quattro, soon displaced VisiCalc. Lotus 1-2-3 was released on January 26, 1983, started outselling then-most-popular VisiCalc the very same year, and for a number of years was the leading spreadsheet for DOS.
Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on September 30, 1985, and then ported it to Windows, with the first version being numbered 2.05 (to synchronize with the Macintosh version 2.2) and released in November 1987. The Windows 3.x platforms of the early 1990s made it possible for Excel to take market share from Lotus. By the time Lotus responded with usable Windows products, Microsoft had begun to assemble their Office suite. By 1995, Excel was the market leader, edging out Lotus 1-2-3, and in 2013, IBM discontinued Lotus 1-2-3 altogether.
With the advent of advanced web technologies such as Ajax circa 2005, a new generation of online spreadsheets has emerged. Equipped with a rich Internet application user experience, the best web based online spreadsheets have many of the features seen in desktop spreadsheet applications. Some of them such as EditGrid, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel Online, Smartsheet, or Zoho Sheet also have strong multi-user collaboration features or offer real time updates from remote sources such as stock prices and currency exchange rates.
Gnumeric is a free, cross-platform spreadsheet program that is part of the GNOME Free Software Desktop Project. OpenOffice.org Calc and the closely related LibreOffice Calc (using the LGPL license) are free and open-source spreadsheets.
Notable current spreadsheet software:
Discontinued spreadsheet software:
A number of companies have attempted to break into the spreadsheet market with programs based on very different paradigms. Lotus introduced what is likely the most successful example, Lotus Improv, which saw some commercial success, notably in the financial world where its powerful data mining capabilities remain well respected to this day.
Spreadsheet 2000 attempted to dramatically simplify formula construction, but was generally not successful.
The main concepts are those of a grid of cells, called a sheet, with either raw data, called values, or formulas in the cells. Formulas say how to mechanically compute new values from existing values. Values are generally numbers, but can also be pure text, dates, months, etc. Extensions of these concepts include logical spreadsheets. Various tools for programming sheets, visualizing data, remotely connecting sheets, displaying cells' dependencies, etc. are commonly provided.
A "cell" can be thought of as a box for holding data. A single cell is usually referenced by its column and row (C2 would represent the cell containing the value 30 in the example table below). Usually rows, representing the dependent variables, are referenced in decimal notation starting from 1, while columns representing the independent variables use 26-adic bijective numeration using the letters A-Z as numerals. Its physical size can usually be tailored to its content by dragging its height or width at box intersections (or for entire columns or rows by dragging the column- or row-headers).
An array of cells is called a "sheet" or "worksheet". It is analogous to an array of variables in a conventional computer program (although certain unchanging values, once entered, could be considered, by the same analogy, constants). In most implementations, many worksheets may be located within a single spreadsheet. A worksheet is simply a subset of the spreadsheet divided for the sake of clarity. Functionally, the spreadsheet operates as a whole and all cells operate as global variables within the spreadsheet (each variable having 'read' access only except its own containing cell).
A cell may contain a value or a formula, or it may simply be left empty.
By convention, formulas usually begin with = sign.
A value can be entered from the computer keyboard by directly typing into the cell itself. Alternatively, a value can be based on a formula (see below), which might perform a calculation, display the current date or time, or retrieve external data such as a stock quote or a database value.
The Spreadsheet "Value Rule"
Computer scientist Alan Kay used the term "value rule" to summarize a spreadsheet's operation: a cell's value relies solely on the formula the user has typed into the cell. The formula may rely on the value of other cells, but those cells are likewise restricted to user-entered data or formulas. There are no 'side effects' to calculating a formula: the only output is to display the calculated result inside its occupying cell. There is no natural mechanism for permanently modifying the contents of a cell unless the user manually modifies the cell's contents. In the context of programming languages, this yields a limited form of first-order functional programming.
A standard of spreadsheets since the 1980s, this optional feature eliminates the need to manually request the spreadsheet program to recalculate values (nowadays typically the default option unless specifically 'switched off' for large spreadsheets, usually to improve performance). Some earlier spreadsheets required a manual request to recalculate, since recalculation of large or complex spreadsheets often reduced data entry speed. Many modern spreadsheets still retain this option.
Recalculation generally requires that there are no circular dependencies in a spreadsheet. A dependency graph is a graph that has a vertex for each object to be updated, and an edge connecting two objects whenever one of them needs to be updated earlier than the other. Dependency graphs without circular dependencies form directed acyclic graphs, representations of partial orderings (in this case, across a spreadsheet) that can be relied upon to give a definite result.
This feature refers to updating a cell's contents periodically with a value from an external source—such as a cell in a "remote" spreadsheet. For shared, Web-based spreadsheets, it applies to "immediately" updating cells another user has updated. All dependent cells must be updated also.
Once entered, selected cells (or the entire spreadsheet) can optionally be "locked" to prevent accidental overwriting. Typically this would apply to cells containing formulas but might be applicable to cells containing "constants" such as a kilogram/pounds conversion factor (2.20462262 to eight decimal places). Even though individual cells are marked as locked, the spreadsheet data are not protected until the feature is activated in the file preferences.
A cell or range can optionally be defined to specify how the value is displayed. The default display format is usually set by its initial content if not specifically previously set, so that for example "31/12/2007" or "31 Dec 2007" would default to the cell format of "date".
Similarly adding a % sign after a numeric value would tag the cell as a percentage cell format. The cell contents are not changed by this format, only the displayed value.
Some cell formats such as "numeric" or "currency" can also specify the number of decimal places.
This can allow invalid operations (such as doing multiplication on a cell containing a date), resulting in illogical results without an appropriate warning.
Depending on the capability of the spreadsheet application, each cell (like its counterpart the "style" in a word processor) can be separately formatted using the attributes of either the content (point size, color, bold or italic) or the cell (border thickness, background shading, color). To aid the readability of a spreadsheet, cell formatting may be conditionally applied to data; for example, a negative number may be displayed in red.
A cell's formatting does not typically affect its content and depending on how cells are referenced or copied to other worksheets or applications, the formatting may not be carried with the content.
In most implementations, a cell, or group of cells in a column or row, can be "named" enabling the user to refer to those cells by a name rather than by a grid reference. Names must be unique within the spreadsheet, but when using multiple sheets in a spreadsheet file, an identically named cell range on each sheet can be used if it is distinguished by adding the sheet name. One reason for this usage is for creating or running macros that repeat a command across many sheets. Another reason is that formulas with named variables are readily checked against the algebra they are intended to implement (they resemble Fortran expressions). Use of named variables and named functions also makes the spreadsheet structure more transparent.
In place of a named cell, an alternative approach is to use a cell (or grid) reference. Most cell references indicate another cell in the same spreadsheet, but a cell reference can also refer to a cell in a different sheet within the same spreadsheet, or (depending on the implementation) to a cell in another spreadsheet entirely, or to a value from a remote application.
A typical cell reference in "A1" style consists of one or two case-insensitive letters to identify the column (if there are up to 256 columns: A–Z and AA–IV) followed by a row number (e.g., in the range 1–65536). Either part can be relative (it changes when the formula it is in is moved or copied), or absolute (indicated with $ in front of the part concerned of the cell reference). The alternative "R1C1" reference style consists of the letter R, the row number, the letter C, and the column number; relative row or column numbers are indicated by enclosing the number in square brackets. Most current spreadsheets use the A1 style, some providing the R1C1 style as a compatibility option.
When the computer calculates a formula in one cell to update the displayed value of that cell, cell reference(s) in that cell, naming some other cell(s), cause the computer to fetch the value of the named cell(s).
A cell on the same "sheet" is usually addressed as:
A cell on a different sheet of the same spreadsheet is usually addressed as:
Some spreadsheet implementations in Excel allow a cell references to another spreadsheet (not the current open and active file) on the same computer or a local network. It may also refer to a cell in another open and active spreadsheet on the same computer or network that is defined as shareable. These references contain the complete filename, such as:
In a spreadsheet, references to cells automatically update when new rows or columns are inserted or deleted. Care must be taken, however, when adding a row immediately before a set of column totals to ensure that the totals reflect the additional rows values—which they often do not.
A circular reference occurs when the formula in one cell refers—directly, or indirectly through a chain of cell references—to another cell that refers back to the first cell. Many common errors cause circular references. However, some valid techniques use circular references. These techniques, after many spreadsheet recalculations, (usually) converge on the correct values for those cells.
Likewise, instead of using a named range of cells, a range reference can be used. Reference to a range of cells is typically of the form (A1:A6), which specifies all the cells in the range A1 through to A6. A formula such as "=SUM(A1:A6)" would add all the cells specified and put the result in the cell containing the formula itself.
In the earliest spreadsheets, cells were a simple two-dimensional grid. Over time, the model has expanded to include a third dimension, and in some cases a series of named grids, called sheets. The most advanced examples allow inversion and rotation operations which can slice and project the data set in various ways.
A formula identifies the calculation needed to place the result in the cell it is contained within. A cell containing a formula therefore has two display components; the formula itself and the resulting value. The formula is normally only shown when the cell is selected by "clicking" the mouse over a particular cell; otherwise it contains the result of the calculation.
A formula assigns values to a cell or range of cells, and typically has the format:
where the expression consists of:
When a cell contains a formula, it often contains references to other cells. Such a cell reference is a type of variable. Its value is the value of the referenced cell or some derivation of it. If that cell in turn references other cells, the value depends on the values of those. References can be relative (e.g., codice_13, or codice_14), absolute (e.g., codice_25, or codice_26) or mixed row– or column-wise absolute/relative (e.g., codice_27 is column-wise absolute and codice_28 is row-wise absolute).
The available options for valid formulas depends on the particular spreadsheet implementation but, in general, most arithmetic operations and quite complex nested conditional operations can be performed by most of today's commercial spreadsheets. Modern implementations also offer functions to access custom-build functions, remote data, and applications.
A formula may contain a condition (or nested conditions)—with or without an actual calculation—and is sometimes used purely to identify and highlight errors. In the example below, it is assumed the sum of a column of percentages (A1 through A6) is tested for validity and an explicit message put into the adjacent right-hand cell.
Further examples:
The best way to build up conditional statements is step by step composing followed by trial and error testing and refining code.
A spreadsheet does not, in fact, have to contain any formulas at all, in which case it could be considered merely a collection of data arranged in rows and columns (a database) like a calendar, timetable or simple list. Because of its ease of use, formatting and hyperlinking capabilities, many spreadsheets are used solely for this purpose.
Spreadsheets usually contain a number of supplied functions, such as arithmetic operations (for example, summations, averages and so forth), trigonometric functions, statistical functions, and so forth. In addition there is often a provision for "user-defined functions". In Microsoft Excel these functions are defined using Visual Basic for Applications in the supplied Visual Basic editor, and such functions are automatically accessible on the worksheet. In addition, programs can be written that pull information from the worksheet, perform some calculations, and report the results back to the worksheet. In the figure, the name "sq" is user-assigned, and function "sq" is introduced using the "Visual Basic" editor supplied with Excel. "Name Manager" displays the spreadsheet definitions of named variables "x" & "y".
Functions themselves cannot write into the worksheet, but simply return their evaluation. However, in Microsoft Excel, subroutines can write values or text found within the subroutine directly to the spreadsheet. The figure shows the Visual Basic code for a subroutine that reads each member of the named column variable "x", calculates its square, and writes this value into the corresponding element of named column variable "y". The "y" column contains no formula because its values are calculated in the subroutine, not on the spreadsheet, and simply are written in.
Whenever a reference is made to a cell or group of cells that are not located within the current physical spreadsheet file, it is considered as accessing a "remote" spreadsheet. The contents of the referenced cell may be accessed either on first reference with a manual update or more recently in the case of web based spreadsheets, as a near real time value with a specified automatic refresh interval.
Many spreadsheet applications permit charts, graphs or histograms to be generated from specified groups of cells that are dynamically re-built as cell contents change. The generated graphic component can either be embedded within the current sheet or added as a separate object. To create an Excel histogram, a formula based on the REPT function can be used.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, first Javelin Software and Lotus Improv appeared. Unlike models in a conventional spreadsheet, they utilized models built on objects called variables, not on data in cells of a report. These multi-dimensional spreadsheets enabled viewing data and algorithms in various self-documenting ways, including simultaneous multiple synchronized views. For example, users of Javelin could move through the connections between variables on a diagram while seeing the logical roots and branches of each variable. This is an example of what is perhaps its primary contribution of the earlier Javelin—the concept of traceability of a user's logic or model structure through its twelve views. A complex model can be dissected and understood by others who had no role in its creation.
In these programs, a time series, or any variable, was an object in itself, not a collection of cells that happen to appear in a row or column. Variables could have many attributes, including complete awareness of their connections to all other variables, data references, and text and image notes. Calculations were performed on these objects, as opposed to a range of cells, so adding two time series automatically aligns them in calendar time, or in a user-defined time frame. Data were independent of worksheets—variables, and therefore data, could not be destroyed by deleting a row, column or entire worksheet. For instance, January's costs are subtracted from January's revenues, regardless of where or whether either appears in a worksheet. This permits actions later used in pivot tables, except that flexible manipulation of report tables was but one of many capabilities supported by variables. Moreover, if costs were entered by week and revenues by month, the program could allocate or interpolate as appropriate. This object design enabled variables and whole models to reference each other with user-defined variable names, and to perform multidimensional analysis and massive, but easily editable consolidations.
Trapeze, a spreadsheet on the Mac, went further and explicitly supported
not just table columns, but also matrix operators.
Spreadsheets that have a formula language based upon logical expressions, rather than arithmetic expressions are known as logical spreadsheets. Such spreadsheets can be used to reason deductively about their cell values.
Just as the early programming languages were designed to generate spreadsheet printouts, programming techniques themselves have evolved to process tables (also known as spreadsheets or matrices) of data more efficiently in the computer itself.
Spreadsheets are a popular end-user development tool. EUD denotes activities or techniques in which people who are not professional developers create automated behavior and complex data objects without significant knowledge of a programming language. Many people find it easier to perform calculations in spreadsheets than by writing the equivalent sequential program. This is due to several traits of spreadsheets.
A "spreadsheet program" is designed to perform general computation tasks using spatial relationships rather than time as the primary organizing principle.
It is often convenient to think of a spreadsheet as a mathematical graph, where the nodes are spreadsheet cells, and the edges are references to other cells specified in formulas. This is often called the dependency graph of the spreadsheet. References between cells can take advantage of spatial concepts such as relative position and absolute position, as well as named locations, to make the spreadsheet formulas easier to understand and manage.
Spreadsheets usually attempt to automatically update cells when the cells they depend on change. The earliest spreadsheets used simple tactics like evaluating cells in a particular order, but modern spreadsheets calculate following a minimal recomputation order from the dependency graph. Later spreadsheets also include a limited ability to propagate values in reverse, altering source values so that a particular answer is reached in a certain cell. Since spreadsheet cells formulas are not generally invertible, though, this technique is of somewhat limited value.
Many of the concepts common to sequential programming models have analogues in the spreadsheet world. For example, the sequential model of the indexed loop is usually represented as a table of cells, with similar formulas (normally differing only in which cells they reference).
Spreadsheets have evolved to use scripting programming languages like VBA as a tool for extensibility beyond what the spreadsheet language makes easy.
While spreadsheets represented a major step forward in quantitative modeling, they have deficiencies. Their shortcomings include the perceived unfriendliness of alpha-numeric cell addresses.
Other problems associated with spreadsheets include:
While there are built-in and third-party tools for desktop spreadsheet applications that address some of these shortcomings, awareness and use of these is generally low. A good example of this is that 55% of Capital market professionals "don't know" how their spreadsheets are audited; only 6% invest in a third-party solution
Spreadsheet risk is the risk associated with deriving a materially incorrect value from a spreadsheet application that will be utilised in making a related (usually numerically-based) decision. Examples include the valuation of an asset, the determination of financial accounts, the calculation of medicinal doses or the size of load-bearing beam for structural engineering. The risk may arise from inputting erroneous or fraudulent data values, from mistakes (or incorrect changes) within the logic of the spreadsheet or the omission of relevant updates (e.g., out of date exchange rates). Some single-instance errors have exceeded US$1 billion. Because spreadsheet risk is principally linked to the actions (or inaction) of individuals it is defined as a sub-category of operational risk.
In the report into the 2012 JPMorgan Chase trading loss, a lack of control over spreadsheets used for critical financial functions was cited as a factor in the trading losses of more than six billion dollars which were reported as a result of derivatives trading gone bad.
Despite this, research carried out by ClusterSeven revealed that around half (48%) of c-level executives and senior managers at firms reporting annual revenues over £50m said there were either no usage controls at all or poorly applied manual processes over the use of spreadsheets at the firms.
In 2013 Thomas Herndon, a graduate student of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst found major coding flaws in the spreadsheet used by the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff in "Growth in a Time of Debt", a very influential 2010 journal article. The Reinhart and Rogoff article was widely used as justification to drive 2010–2013 European austerity programs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27686 |
St. Louis
St. Louis () is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri, on the western bank of the Mississippi River, which forms the state line between Illinois and Missouri. The Missouri River merges with the Mississippi River 15 river miles north of Downtown St. Louis, forming the fourth-longest river system in the world. In 2019, the estimated population was 300,576, and of the bi-state metropolitan area, 2,804,724. Greater St. Louis is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri, second-largest in Illinois, seventh-largest in the Great Lakes Megalopolis, and the 20th-largest in the United States.
Before European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. The city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, and named after Louis IX of France. In 1764, following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, the area was ceded to Spain. In 1800, it was retroceded to France, which sold it three years later to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In the 19th century, St. Louis became a major port on the Mississippi River; in 1870, it was the fourth-largest city in the country. It separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics.
A "Gamma" global city with a metropolitan GDP of more than $160 billion in 2017, metropolitan St. Louis has a diverse economy with strengths in the service, manufacturing, trade, transportation, and tourism industries. It is home to nine of the ten Fortune 500 companies based in Missouri. Major companies headquartered or with significant operations in the city include Ameren Corporation, Peabody Energy, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Wells Fargo Advisors, Stifel Financial, Spire, Inc., MilliporeSigma, FleishmanHillard, Square, Inc., U.S. Bank, Anthem BlueCross and Blue Shield, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and AT&T.
Major research universities include St. Louis University and a small portion of the Washington University in St. Louis; most of the latter's main campus is in unincorporated St. Louis County and Clayton. The Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End neighborhood hosts an agglomeration of medical and pharmaceutical institutions, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
St. Louis has two professional sports teams: the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball and the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League. In 2019, the city was awarded a Major League Soccer franchise, which will begin play upon the completion of a 22,500-seat stadium in the city's Downtown West neighborhood in 2022. Among the city's notable sights is the Gateway Arch in the downtown area. St. Louis is also home to the St. Louis Zoo, and the Missouri Botanical Garden, with the second-largest herbarium in North America.
The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture, which built numerous temple and residential earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River. Their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 to 1500. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the "Mound City". These mounds were mostly demolished during the city's development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, and the Illiniwek.
European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of "La Louisiane."
The earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country (also known as Upper Louisiana) on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres. Migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River (e.g. Kaskaskia) founded Ste. Genevieve in the 1730s.
In 1764, after France lost the Seven Years' War, Pierre Laclède and his stepson Auguste Chouteau founded what was to become the city of St. Louis. (French lands east of the Mississippi had been ceded to Great Britain and the lands west of the Mississippi to Spain; France and Spain were 18th-century allies. Louis XV of France and Charles III of Spain were cousins, both from the House of Bourbon.) The French families built the city's economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe. French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city.
France, alarmed that Britain would demand French possessions west of the Mississippi and the Missouri River basin after losing New France to them in 1759–60, transferred these to Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. These areas remained in Spanish possession until 1803. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces, mostly Native American allies, in the Battle of St. Louis.
The founding of St. Louis was preceded by a trading business between Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent and Pierre Laclède (Liguest) in the fall of 1763. Maxent invested in a Mississippi River expedition led by Laclède, who searched for a location to base the company's fur trading operations. Though Ste. Genevieve was already established as a trading center, he sought a place less prone to flooding. He found an elevated area overlooking the flood plain of the Mississippi River, not far south from its confluence with the Missouri and Illinois rivers. In addition to having an advantageous natural drainage system, there were nearby forested areas to supply timber and grasslands which could easily converted for agricultural purposes. This place, declared Laclède, “might become, hereafter, one of the finest cities in America.” He dispatched his 14-year-old stepson, Auguste Chouteau, to the site, with the support of 30 settlers in February 1764.
Laclède arrived at the future town site two months later and produced a plan for St. Louis based on the New Orleans street plan. The default block size was 240 by 300 feet, with just three long avenues running parallel to the west bank of the Mississippi. He established a public corridor of 300 feet fronting the river, but later this area was released for private development.
For the first few years of St. Louis's existence, the city was not recognized by any of the governments. Although the settlement was thought to be under the control of the Spanish government, no one asserted any authority over it, and thus St. Louis had no local government. This vacuum led Laclède to assume civil control, and all problems were disposed in public settings, such as communal meetings. In addition, Laclède granted new settlers lots in town and the surrounding countryside. In hindsight, many of these original settlers thought of these first few years as "the golden age of St. Louis".
By 1765, the city began receiving visits from representatives of the English, French, and Spanish governments. The Indians in the area expressed dissatisfaction at being under the control of British forces. One of the great Ottawa chieftains, Pontiac, was angered by the change of power and the potential for the British to come into their lands. He desired to fight against them but many of the St. Louis inhabitants refused.
St. Louis was transferred to the French First Republic in 1800 (although all of the colonial lands continued to be administered by Spanish officials), then sold by the French to the U.S. in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. St. Louis became the capital of, and gateway to, the new territory. Shortly after the official transfer of authority was made, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson. The expedition departed from St. Louis in May 1804 along the Missouri River to explore the vast territory. There were hopes of finding a water route to the Pacific Ocean, but the party had to go overland in the Upper West. They reached the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River in summer 1805. They returned, reaching St. Louis on September 23, 1806. Both Lewis and Clark lived in St. Louis after the expedition. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a similar route to the West.
The city elected its first municipal legislators (called trustees) in 1808. Steamboats first arrived in St. Louis in 1817, improving connections with New Orleans and eastern markets. Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821. St. Louis was incorporated as a city in 1822, and continued to develop largely due to its busy port and trade connections.
Immigrants from Ireland and Germany arrived in St. Louis in significant numbers starting in the 1840s, and the population of St. Louis grew from less than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to more than 160,000 by 1860. By the mid-1800s, St. Louis had a greater population than New Orleans.
Settled by many Southerners in a slave state, the city was split in political sympathies and became polarized during the American Civil War. In 1861, 28 civilians were killed in a clash with Union troops. The war hurt St. Louis economically, due to the Union blockade of river traffic to the south on the Mississippi River. The St. Louis Arsenal constructed ironclads for the Union Navy.
Slaves worked in many jobs on the waterfront as well as on the riverboats. Given the city's location close to the free state of Illinois and others, some slaves escaped to freedom. Others, especially women with children, sued in court in freedom suits, and several prominent local attorneys aided slaves in these suits. About half the slaves achieved freedom in hundreds of suits before the American Civil War.
The printing press of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was destroyed for the third time by townsfolk. He was murdered the next year in nearby Alton, Illinois.
After the war, St. Louis profited via trade with the West, aided by the 1874 completion of the Eads Bridge, named for its design engineer. Industrial developments on both banks of the river were linked by the bridge, the second in the Midwest over the Mississippi River after the Hennepin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. The bridge connects St. Louis, Missouri to East St. Louis, Illinois. The Eads Bridge became a symbolic image of the city of St. Louis, from the time of its erection until 1965 when the Gateway Arch Bridge was constructed. The bridge crosses the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, to the north, and the grounds of the Gateway Arch, to the south. Today the road deck has been restored, allowing vehicular and pedestrian traffic to cross the river. The St. Louis MetroLink light rail system has used the rail deck since 1993. An estimated 8,500 vehicles pass through it daily.
On August 22, 1876, the city of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city. Industrial production continued to increase during the late 19th century. Major corporations such as the Anheuser-Busch brewery and Ralston-Purina company were established. St. Louis also was home to Desloge Consolidated Lead Company and several brass era automobile companies, including the Success Automobile Manufacturing Company; St. Louis is the site of the Wainwright Building, a skyscraper designed in 1892 by architect Louis Sullivan.
The city hosted the 1904 World's Fair and the 1904 Summer Olympics, becoming the first non-European city to host the Olympics. Permanent facilities and structures remaining from the fair are Forest Park and associated structures within its boundaries: the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri History Museum, as well as Tower Grove Park and the Botanical Gardens.
After the Civil War, social and racial discrimination in housing and employment were common in St. Louis. In 1916, during the Jim Crow Era, St. Louis passed a residential segregation ordinance saying that if 75% of the residents of a neighborhood were of a certain race, no one from a different race was allowed to move in. That ordinance was struck down in a court challenge by the NAACP, so racists invented racial covenants, which prevented the sale of houses in certain neighborhoods to "persons not of Caucasian race". Again, St. Louisans offered a lawsuit in challenge, and covenants were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 in the Shelley v. Kraemer case.
In the first half of the 20th century, St. Louis was a destination in the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South seeking better opportunities. During World War II, the NAACP campaigned to integrate war factories. In 1964, civil rights activists protested at the construction of the Gateway Arch to publicize their effort to gain entry for African Americans into the skilled trade unions, where they were underrepresented. The Department of Justice filed the first suit against the unions under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In the first part of the century, St. Louis had some of the worst air pollution in the United States. In April 1940, the city banned the use of soft coal mined in nearby states. The city hired inspectors to ensure that only anthracite was burned. By 1946, the city had reduced air pollution by about three-quarters.
"De jure" educational segregation continued into the 1950s, and "de facto" segregation continued into the 1970s, leading to a court challenge and interdistrict desegregation agreement. Students have been bused mostly from the city to county school districts to have opportunities for integrated classes, although the city has created magnet schools to attract students.
St. Louis, like many Midwestern cities, expanded in the early 20th century due to industrialization, which provided jobs to new generations of immigrants and migrants from the South. It reached its peak population of 856,796 at the 1950 census. Suburbanization from the 1950s through the 1990s dramatically reduced the city's population, as did restructuring of industry and loss of jobs. The effects of suburbanization were exacerbated by the small geographical size of St. Louis due to its earlier decision to become an independent city, and it lost much of its tax base. During the 19th and 20th century, most major cities aggressively annexed surrounding areas as residential development occurred away from the central city; however, St. Louis was unable to do so.
Several urban renewal projects were built in the 1950s, as the city worked to replace old and substandard housing. Some of these were poorly designed and resulted in problems. One prominent example, Pruitt-Igoe, became a symbol of failure in public housing, and was torn down less than two decades after it was built.
Since the 1980s, several revitalization efforts have focused on downtown St. Louis.
Urban revitalization continued in the new century. Gentrification has taken place in the Washington Avenue Historic District, Central West End and Forest Park Southeast neighborhoods. This helped St. Louis win the World Leadership Award for urban renewal in 2006. In 2017 the US Census Bureau estimated that St. Louis had a population of 308,826 which is down from a population of 319,371 in 2010.
In the 21st century, the city of St. Louis contains 11% of the total metropolitan population. (The top 20 U.S. metro areas have an average of 24% of their populations in their central cities. St. Louis grew slightly during the early 2000s, but lost population from 2000 to 2010. Immigration has continued, with the city attracting Vietnamese, Latin Americans predominantly from Mexico, and Bosnians, who make up the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia.
The architecture of St. Louis exhibits a variety of commercial, residential, and monumental architecture. St. Louis is known for the Gateway Arch, the tallest monument constructed in the United States at . The Arch pays homage to Thomas Jefferson and St. Louis's position as the gateway to the West. Architectural influences reflected in the area include French Colonial, German, early American, and modern architectural styles.
Some notable post-modern commercial skyscrapers were built downtown in the 1970s and 1980s, including the One US Bank Plaza (1976), the AT&T Center (1986), and One Metropolitan Square (1989), which is the tallest building in St. Louis. One US Bank Plaza, the local headquarters for US Bancorp, was constructed for the Mercantile Bancorporation in the Structural expressionist style, emphasizing the steel structure of the building.
During the 1990s, St. Louis saw the construction of the largest United States courthouse by area, the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse (completed in 2000). The Eagleton Courthouse is home to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The most recent high-rise buildings in St. Louis include two residential towers: the Park East Tower in the Central West End and the Roberts Tower located downtown.
Several examples of religious structures are extant from the pre-Civil War period, and most reflect the common residential styles of the time. Among the earliest is the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France ( referred to as the "Old Cathedral"). The Basilica was built between 1831 and 1834 in the Federal style. Other religious buildings from the period include SS. Cyril and Methodius Church (1857) in the Romanesque Revival style and Christ Church Cathedral (completed in 1867, designed in 1859) in the Gothic Revival style.
A few civic buildings were constructed during the early 19th century. The original St. Louis courthouse was built in 1826 and featured a Federal style stone facade with a rounded portico. However, this courthouse was replaced during renovation and expansion of the building in the 1850s. The Old St. Louis County Courthouse (known as the "Old Courthouse") was completed in 1864 and was notable for having a cast iron dome and for being the tallest structure in Missouri until 1894. Finally, a customs house was constructed in the Greek Revival style in 1852, but was demolished and replaced in 1873 by the U.S. Customhouse and Post Office.
Because much of the city's commercial and industrial development was centered along the riverfront, many pre-Civil War buildings were demolished during construction of the Gateway Arch. The city's remaining architectural heritage of the era includes a multi-block district of cobblestone streets and brick and cast-iron warehouses called Laclede's Landing. Now popular for its restaurants and nightclubs, the district is located north of Gateway Arch along the riverfront. Other industrial buildings from the era include some portions of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, which date to the 1860s.
St. Louis saw a vast expansion in variety and number of religious buildings during the late 19th century and early 20th century. The largest and most ornate of these is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, designed by Thomas P. Barnett and constructed between 1907 and 1914 in the Neo-Byzantine style. The St. Louis Cathedral, as it is known, has one of the largest mosaic collections in the world. Another landmark in religious architecture of St. Louis is the St. Stanislaus Kostka, which is an example of the Polish Cathedral style. Among the other major designs of the period were St. Alphonsus Liguori (known as "The Rock Church") (1867) in the Gothic Revival and Second Presbyterian Church of St. Louis (1900) in Richardsonian Romanesque.
By the 1900 census, St. Louis was the fourth largest city in the country. In 1904, the city hosted a world's fair at Forest Park called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Its architectural legacy is somewhat scattered. Among the fair-related cultural institutions in the park are the St. Louis Art Museum designed by Cass Gilbert, part of the remaining lagoon at the foot of Art Hill, and the Flight Cage at the St. Louis Zoo. The Missouri History Museum was built afterward, with the profit from the fair. But 1904 left other assets to the city, like Theodore Link's 1894 St. Louis Union Station, and an improved Forest Park.
The city is divided into 79 government-designated neighborhoods. The neighborhood divisions have no legal standing, although some neighborhood associations administer grants or hold veto power over historic-district development.
Several neighborhoods are lumped together in categories such as "North City", "South City", and "The Central West End".
According to the United States Census Bureau, St. Louis has a total area of , of which is land and (6.2%) is water. The city is built on bluffs and terraces that rise 100–200 feet above the western banks of the Mississippi River, in the Midwestern United States just south of the Missouri-Mississippi confluence. Much of the area is a fertile and gently rolling prairie that features low hills and broad, shallow valleys. Both the Mississippi River and the Missouri River have cut large valleys with wide flood plains.
Limestone and dolomite of the Mississippian epoch underlie the area, and parts of the city are karst in nature. This is particularly true of the area south of downtown, which has numerous sinkholes and caves. Most of the caves in the city have been sealed, but many springs are visible along the riverfront. Coal, brick clay, and millerite ore were once mined in the city. The predominant surface rock, known as "St. Louis limestone", is used as dimension stone and rubble for construction.
Near the southern boundary of the city of St. Louis (separating it from St. Louis County) is the River des Peres, practically the only river or stream within the city limits that is not entirely underground. Most of River des Peres was confined to a channel or put underground in the 1920s and early 1930s. The lower section of the river was the site of some of the worst flooding of the Great Flood of 1993.
The city's eastern boundary is the Mississippi River, which separates Missouri from Illinois. The Missouri River forms the northern line of St. Louis County, except for a few areas where the river has changed its course. The Meramec River forms most of its southern line.
The urban area of St. Louis has a damp subtropical climate (Köppen: "Cfa"); however, its metropolitan region even to the south may present a hot-summer humid continental climate ("Dfa"), which shows the effect of the urban heat island in the city. The city experiences hot, humid summers and chilly to cold winters. It is subject to both cold Arctic air and hot, humid tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico. The average annual temperature recorded at nearby Lambert–St. Louis International Airport, is . Both temperatures can be seen on an average 2 or 3 days per year. Average annual precipitation is about , but annual precipitation has ranged from in 1953 to in 2015. The highest recorded temperature in St. Louis was on July 14, 1954 and the lowest was on January 5, 1884.
St. Louis experiences thunderstorms 48 days a year on average. Especially in the spring, these storms can often be severe, with high winds, large hail and tornadoes. Lying within the hotbed of Tornado Alley, St. Louis is one of the most frequently tornado-struck metropolitan areas in the U.S. and has an extensive history of damaging tornadoes. Severe flooding, such as the Great Flood of 1993, may occur in spring and summer; the (often rapid) melting of thick snow cover upstream on the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers can contribute to springtime flooding.
Before the founding of the city, the area was mostly prairie and open forest. Native Americans maintained this environment, good for hunting, by burning underbrush. Trees are mainly oak, maple, and hickory, similar to the forests of the nearby Ozarks; common understory trees include eastern redbud, serviceberry, and flowering dogwood. Riparian areas are forested with mainly American sycamore.
Most of the residential areas of the city are planted with large native shade trees. The largest native forest area is found in Forest Park. In autumn, the changing color of the trees is notable. Most species here are typical of the eastern woodland, although numerous decorative non-native species are found. The most notable invasive species is Japanese honeysuckle, which officials are trying to manage because of its damage to native trees. It is removed from some parks.
Large mammals found in the city include urbanized coyotes and white-tailed deer. Eastern gray squirrel, cottontail rabbit, and other rodents are abundant, as well as the nocturnal Virginia opossum. Large bird species are abundant in parks and include Canada goose, mallard duck, as well as shorebirds, including the great egret and great blue heron. Gulls are common along the Mississippi River; these species follow barge traffic.
Winter populations of bald eagles are found along the Mississippi River around the Chain of Rocks Bridge. The city is on the Mississippi Flyway, used by migrating birds, and has a large variety of small bird species, common to the eastern US. The Eurasian tree sparrow, an introduced species, is limited in North America to the counties surrounding St. Louis. The city has special sites for birdwatching of migratory species, including Tower Grove Park.
Frogs are found in the springtime, especially after extensive wet periods. Common species include the American toad and species of chorus frogs called spring peepers, which are found in nearly every pond. Some years have outbreaks of cicadas or ladybugs. Mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and houseflies are common insect nuisances, especially in July and August; because of this, windows are almost always fitted with screens. Invasive populations of honeybees have declined in recent years. Numerous native species of pollinator insects have recovered to fill their ecological niche, and armadillos are seen throughout the St. Louis area.
St. Louis grew slowly until the American Civil War, when industrialization and immigration sparked a boom. Mid-19th century immigrants included many Irish and Germans; later there were immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. In the early 20th century, African American and white migrants came from the South; the former as part of the Great Migration out of rural areas of the Deep South. Many came from Mississippi and Arkansas.
After years of immigration, migration, and expansion, the city reached its peak population in 1950. That year, the Census Bureau reported St. Louis's population as 82% White and 17.9% African American. After World War II, St. Louis began losing population to the suburbs, first because of increased demand for new housing, unhappiness with city services, ease of commuting by highways, and later, white flight. St. Louis's population decline has resulted in a significant increase of abandoned residential housing units and vacant lots throughout the city proper; this blight has attracted much wildlife (such as deer and coyotes) to the many abandoned overgrown lots.
St. Louis has lost 64.0% of its population since the 1950 United States Census, the highest percent of any city that had a population of 100,000 or more at the time of the 1950 Census. Detroit, Michigan, and Youngstown, Ohio, are the only other cities that have had population declines of at least 60% in the same time frame. The population of the city of St. Louis has been in decline since the 1950 census; during this period the population of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area, which includes more than one county, has grown every year and continues to do so. A big factor in the decline has been the rapid increase in suburbanization.
According to the 2010 United States Census, St. Louis had 319,294 people living in 142,057 households, of which 67,488 households were families. The population density was 5,158.2 people per square mile (1,990.6/km²). About 24% of the population was 19 or younger, 9% were 20 to 24, 31% were 25 to 44, 25% were 45 to 64, and 11% were 65 or older. The median age was about 34 years.
The population was about 49.2% African American, 43.9% White (42.2% Non-Hispanic White), 2.9% Asian, 0.3% Native American/Alaska Native, and 2.4% reporting two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.5% of the population.
The African-American population is concentrated in the north side of the city (the area north of Delmar Boulevard is 94.0% black, compared with 35.0% in the central corridor and 26.0% in the south side of St. Louis). Among the Asian-American population in the city, the largest ethnic group is Vietnamese (0.9%), followed by Chinese (0.6%) and Indians (0.5%). The Vietnamese community has concentrated in the Dutchtown neighborhood of south St. Louis; Chinese are concentrated in the Central West End. People of Mexican descent are the largest Latino group, and make up 2.2% of St. Louis's population. They have the highest concentration in the Dutchtown, Benton Park West (Cherokee Street), and Gravois Park neighborhoods. People of Italian descent are concentrated in The Hill.
In 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $29,156, and the median income for a family was $32,585. Males had a median income of $31,106; females, $26,987. Per capita income was $18,108.
Some 19% of the city's housing units were vacant, and slightly less than half of these were vacant structures not for sale or rent.
In 2010, St. Louis's per-capita rates of online charitable donations and volunteerism were among the highest among major U.S. cities.
, 91.05% (270,934) of St. Louis city residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 2.86% (8,516) spoke Spanish, 0.91% (2,713) Serbo-Croat, 0.74% (2,200) Vietnamese, 0.50% (1,495) African languages, 0.50% (1,481) Chinese, and French was spoken as a main language by 0.45% (1,341) of the population over the age of five. In total, 8.95% (26,628) of St. Louis's population age 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.
According to a Pew Research study conducted in 2014, 75% of Missourians identify with Christianity and its various denominations, and 4% are adherents of non-Christian religions. 21% have no religion, with 3% specifically identifying as atheists and 3% identifying as agnostics (the other 16% do not identify as "Nothing in particular").
The religious demographics of St. Louis are as follows:
About fifteen families from Bosnia settled in St. Louis between 1960 and 1970. After the Bosnian War started in 1992, more Bosnian refugees began arriving and by 2000, tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees settled in St. Louis with the help of Catholic aid societies. Many of them were professionals and skilled workers who had to take any job opportunity to be able to support their families. Most Bosnian refugees are Muslim, ethnically Bosniaks (87%); they have settled primarily in south St. Louis and South County. Bosnian-Americans are well integrated into the city, developing many businesses and ethnic/cultural organizations.
An estimated 70,000 Bosnians live in the metro area, the largest population of Bosnians in the United States and the largest Bosnian population outside their homeland. The highest concentration of Bosnians is in the neighborhood of Bevo Mill and in Affton, Mehlville, and Oakville of south St. Louis County.
The gross domestic product of the St. Louis metro area was $160 billion in 2016, up from $155 billion the previous year. The gross metropolitan product of Greater St. Louis was $146 billion in 2014, the 21st-highest in the country, up from $144 billion in 2013, $138.4 billion in 2012, and $133.1 billion in 2011. The St. Louis metropolitan area had a per-capita GDP of $48,738 in 2014, up 1.6% from the previous year. In 2007, manufacturing in the city conducted nearly $11 billion in business, followed by the health care and social service industry with $3.5 billion; professional or technical services with $3.1 billion; and the retail trade with $2.5 billion. The health care sector was the area's biggest employer with 34,000 workers, followed by administrative and support jobs, 24,000; manufacturing, 21,000, and food service, 20,000.
, the St. Louis Metropolitan Area is home to ten Fortune 500 companies, the 7th-most among U.S. cities. They include Express Scripts, Emerson Electric, Monsanto, Reinsurance Group of America, Centene, Graybar Electric, and Edward Jones Investments.
Other notable corporations headquartered in the region include Arch Coal, Wells Fargo Advisors (formerly A.G. Edwards), Energizer Holdings, Patriot Coal, Post Foods, United Van Lines, and Mayflower Transit, Post Holdings, Olin, and Enterprise Holdings (a parent company of several car rental companies). Notable corporations with operations in St. Louis include Cassidy Turley, Kerry Group, Mastercard, TD Ameritrade, and BMO Harris Bank.
Health care and biotechnology institutions with operations in St. Louis include Pfizer, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Solae Company, Sigma-Aldrich, and Multidata Systems International. General Motors manufactures automobiles in Wentzville, while an earlier plant, known as the St. Louis Truck Assembly, built GMC automobiles from 1920 until 1987. Chrysler closed its St. Louis Assembly production facility in nearby Fenton, Missouri and Ford closed the St. Louis Assembly Plant in Hazelwood.
Several once-independent pillars of the local economy have been purchased by other corporations. Among them are Anheuser-Busch, purchased by Belgium-based InBev; Missouri Pacific Railroad, which was headquartered in St. Louis, merged with the Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific Railroad in 1982; McDonnell Douglas, whose operations are now part of Boeing Defense, Space & Security; Trans World Airlines, which was headquartered in the city for its last decade of existence, prior to being acquired by American Airlines; Mallinckrodt, purchased by Tyco International; and Ralston Purina, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Nestlé. The May Department Stores Company (which owned Famous-Barr and Marshall Field's stores) was purchased by Federated Department Stores, which has its regional headquarters in the area. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in downtown is one of two federal reserve banks in Missouri. Most of the assets of Furniture Brands International were sold to Heritage Home Group in 2013, which moved to North Carolina.
St. Louis is a center of medicine and biotechnology. The Washington University School of Medicine is affiliated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the fifth largest hospital in the world. Both institutions operate the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center. The School of Medicine also is affiliated with St. Louis Children's Hospital, one of the country's top pediatric hospitals. Both hospitals are owned by BJC HealthCare. The McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University played a major role in the Human Genome Project. St. Louis University Medical School is affiliated with SSM Health's Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and St. Louis University Hospital. It also has a cancer center, vaccine research center, geriatric center, and a bioethics institute. Several different organizations operate hospitals in the area, including BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health Care, and Tenet.
Cortex Innovation Community in Midtown neighborhood is the largest innovation hub in the midwest. Cortex is home to offices of Square, Microsoft, Aon, Boeing, and Centene. Cortex has generated 3,800 tech jobs in 14 years. Once built out, projections are for it to make $2 billion in development and create 13,000 jobs for the region.
Boeing employs nearly 15,000 people in its north St. Louis campus, headquarters to its defense unit. In 2013, the company said it would move about 600 jobs from Seattle, where labor costs have risen, to a new IT center in St. Louis. Other companies, such as LaunchCode and LockerDome, think the city could become the next major tech hub. Programs such as Arch Grants are attracting new startups to the region.
According to the "St. Louis Business Journal", the top employers in the St. Louis metropolitan area , are:
According to St. Louis's 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (June 30), the top employers in the city only, are:
The city is home to three national research universities, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Washington University in St. Louis and St. Louis University, as classified under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been ranked among the top 10 medical schools in the country by US News & World Report for as long as the list has been published, and as high as second, in 2003 and 2004. US News & World Report also ranks the undergraduate school and other graduate schools, such as the Washington University School of Law, in the top 20 in the nation.
St. Louis is also home to Harris–Stowe State University, a historically black public university.
In addition to Catholic theological institutions such as Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis is home to three Protestant seminaries: Eden Theological Seminary of the United Church of Christ, Covenant Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America, and Concordia Seminary of the St. Louis-based Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
The St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) operate more than 75 schools, attended by more than 25,000 students, including several magnet schools. SLPS operates under provisional accreditation from the state of Missouri and is under the governance of a state-appointed school board called the Special Administrative Board, although a local board continues to exist without legal authority over the district. Since 2000, charter schools have operated in the city of St. Louis using authorization from Missouri state law. These schools are sponsored by local institutions or corporations and take in students from kindergarten through high school. In addition, several private schools exist in the city, and the Archdiocese of St. Louis operates dozens of parochial schools in the city, including parochial high schools. The city also has several private high schools, including secular, Catholic and Lutheran schools. St. Louis University High School – a Jesuit preparatory high school founded in 1818 – is the oldest secondary educational institution in the U.S. west of the Mississippi River.
With its French past and waves of Catholic immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries, from Ireland, Germany and Italy, St. Louis is a major center of Roman Catholicism in the United States. St. Louis also boasts the largest Ethical Culture Society in the United States and is one of the most generous cities in the United States, ranking ninth in 2013. Several places of worship in the city are noteworthy, such as the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, home of the world's largest mosaic installation.
Other notable churches include the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River and the oldest church in St. Louis; the St. Louis Abbey, whose distinctive architectural style garnered multiple awards at the time of its completion in 1962; and St. Francis de Sales Oratory, a neo-Gothic church completed in 1908 in South St. Louis and the second largest church in the city.
The city is identified with music and the performing arts, especially its association with blues, jazz, and ragtime. St. Louis is home to the St. Louis Symphony, the second oldest symphony orchestra in the United States. Until 2010, it was also home to KFUO-FM, one of the oldest classical music FM radio stations west of the Mississippi River. Opera Theatre of St. Louis has been called "one of America's best summer festivals" by the "Washington Post". Former general director Timothy O'Leary was known for drawing the community into discussions of challenging operas. John Adams's "The Death of Klinghoffer", which touched off protests and controversy when performed by the Metropolitan Opera in 2014, had no such problems in St. Louis three years before, because the company fostered a citywide discussion, with interfaith dialogues addressing the tough issues of terrorism, religion and the nature of evil that the opera brings up. St. Louis's Jewish Community Relations Council gave O'Leary an award. Under O'Leary, the company — always known for innovative work — gave second chances to other major American operas, such as John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles", presented in 2009 in a smaller-scale version.
The Gateway Arch anchors downtown St. Louis and a historic center that includes: the Federal courthouse where the Dred Scott case was first argued, an expanded public library, major churches and businesses, and retail. An increasing downtown residential population has taken to adapted office buildings and other historic structures. In nearby University City is the Delmar Loop, ranked by the American Planning Association as a "great American street" for its variety of shops and restaurants, and the Tivoli Theater, all within walking distance.
Unique city and regional cuisine reflecting various immigrant groups include toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, provel cheese, the slinger, the Gerber sandwich, and the St. Paul sandwich. Some St. Louis chefs have begun emphasizing use of local produce, meats and fish, and neighborhood farmers' markets have become more popular. Artisan bakeries, salumeria, and chocolatiers also operate in the city.
St. Louis-style pizza has thin crust, provel cheese, and is cut in small squares. Frozen-custard purveyor Ted Drewes offers its "Concrete": frozen custard blended with any combination of dozens of ingredients into a mixture so thick that a spoon inserted into the custard does not fall if the cup is inverted.
St. Louis is home to the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball, the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League, notable and collegiate-level soccer teams. It is one of nine North American cities to have won titles in all four major leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA), having joined the prestigious group with the 2019 Stanley Cup championship for the Blues, and is one of three American cities to have hosted an Olympic Games.
The following table lists the professional sports teams in the St Louis area:
St. Louis is home to two major league sports teams.
The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most successful franchises in Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won 19 National League (NL) titles (the most pennants for the league franchise in one city) and 11 World Series titles (second to the New York Yankees and the most by any NL franchise), recently in 2011. They play at Busch Stadium. Previously, the St. Louis Browns played in the American League (AL) from 1902 to 1953, before moving to Baltimore, Maryland to become the current incarnation of the Orioles. The 1944 World Series was an all-St. Louis World Series, matching up the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park, won by the Cardinals in six games. St. Louis also was home to the St. Louis Stars (baseball), also known as the St. Louis Giants from 1906 to 1921, who played in the Negro league baseball from 1920 to 1931 and won championships in 1928, 1930, and 1931, and the St. Louis Maroons who played in both the Union Association in 1884 and the National League from 1885 to 1889. In 1884, The St. Louis Maroons won the Union Association pennant and started the season with 20 straight wins, a feat that wasn't surpassed by any major professional sports team in America until the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors season when they started their NBA season with 24 straight wins.
The St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League (NHL) play at the Enterprise Center. They were one of the six teams added to the NHL in the 1967 expansion. The Blues won their first Stanley Cup in 2019 after beating the Boston Bruins in the final. This championship made St. Louis the eighth city to win a championship in each of the four major U.S. sports. Prior to the Blues, the city was home to the St. Louis Eagles. The team played in the 1934–35 season.
A Major League Soccer expansion franchise is planned to begin play in 2022 at a proposed soccer-specific stadium.
The St. Louis BattleHawks of the XFL began play in 2020, using The Dome at America's Center as their home field.
St. Louis has been home to four National Football League (NFL) teams. The St. Louis All-Stars played in the city in 1923, the St. Louis Gunners in 1934, the St. Louis Cardinals from 1960 to 1987, and the St. Louis Rams from 1995 to 2015. The football Cardinals advanced to the NFL playoffs three times (1974, 1975 and 1982), never hosting or winning in any appearance. The Cardinals moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1988. The Rams played at the Edward Jones Dome from 1995 to 2015 and won Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. They also went to Super Bowl XXXVI but lost to the New England Patriots. The Rams then returned to Los Angeles in 2016.
The St. Louis Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) played at Kiel Auditorium from 1955 to 1968. They won the NBA championship in 1958 and played in three other NBA Finals: 1957, 1960, and 1961. In 1968 the Hawks moved to Atlanta. St. Louis was also the home to the St. Louis Bombers of the Basketball Association of America from 1946 to 1949 and the National Basketball Association from 1949 to 1950 and the Spirits of St. Louis of the American Basketball Association from 1967 to 1974 when the ABA and NBA merged.
St. Louis hosts several minor league sports teams. The Gateway Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League play in the area. The St. Louis Trotters of the Independent Basketball Association play at Matthews Dickey. Saint Louis FC soccer team in the USL Championship play at World Wide Technology Soccer Park and the St. Louis Ambush indoor soccer team plays at the Family Arena. The region hosts INDYCAR, NHRA drag racing, and NASCAR events at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in Madison, Illinois. St. Louis Slam play at the Harlen C. Hunter Stadium
St. Louis has hosted the Final Four of both the women's and men's college basketball NCAA Division I championship tournaments, and the Frozen Four collegiate ice hockey tournament. St. Louis University has won 10 NCAA Men's Soccer Championships, and the city has hosted the College Cup several times. In addition to collegiate soccer, many St. Louisans have played for the United States men's national soccer team, and 20 St. Louisans have been elected into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. St. Louis also is the origin of the sport of corkball, a type of baseball in which there is no base running.
Although the area does not have a National Basketball Association team, it hosts the St. Louis Phoenix, an American Basketball Association team.
Club Atletico Saint Louis, a semi-professional soccer team, competes within the National Premier Soccer League and plays out of St. Louis University High School Soccer Stadium.
St. Louis is home to the St. Louis Chess Club where the U.S. Chess Championship is held. St. Louisan Rex Sinquefield founded the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis ( which was renamed as St. Louis Chess Club later) and moved the World Chess Hall of Fame to St. Louis in 2011. The Sinquefield Cup Tournament started at St. Louis in 2013. In 2014 the Sinquefield Cup was the highest-rated chess tournament of all time. Former U.S. Chess Champions Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura have lived in St. Louis. Women's chess champion Susan Polgar also resides in St. Louis.
The city operates more than 100 parks, with amenities that include sports facilities, playgrounds, concert areas, picnic areas, and lakes. Forest Park, located on the western edge of city, is the largest, occupying 1,400 acres of land, making it almost twice as large as Central Park in New York City. The park is home to five major institutions, including the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Science Center, the Missouri History Museum, and the Muny amphitheatre. Another significant park in the city is Gateway Arch National Park, which was known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial until 2018 and is located on the riverfront in downtown St. Louis. The centerpiece of the park is the tall Gateway Arch, a National Memorial designed by noted architect Eero Saarinen and completed on October 28, 1965. Also part of the historic park is the Old Courthouse, where the first two trials of "Dred Scott v. Sandford" were held in 1847 and 1850.
Other notable parks in the city include the Missouri Botanical Garden, Tower Grove Park, Carondelet Park and Citygarden. The Missouri Botanical Garden, a private garden and botanical research facility, is a National Historic Landmark and one of the oldest botanical gardens in the United States. The Garden features 79 acres of horticultural displays from around the world. This includes a Japanese strolling garden, Henry Shaw's original 1850 estate home and a geodesic dome called the Climatron. Immediately south of the Missouri Botanical Garden is Tower Grove Park, a gift to the city by Henry Shaw. Citygarden is an urban sculpture park located in downtown St. Louis, with art from Fernand Léger, Aristide Maillol, Julian Opie, Tom Otterness, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Mark di Suvero. The park is divided into three sections, each of which represent a different theme: river bluffs; flood plains; and urban gardens. Another downtown sculpture park is the Serra Sculpture Park, with the 1982 Richard Serra sculpture "Twain".
The city of St. Louis has a strong mayor–council government with legislative authority and oversight vested in the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis and with executive authority in the Mayor of St. Louis and six other elected officials. The Board of Aldermen is made up of 28 members (one elected from each of the city's wards) plus a board president who is elected citywide.
The 2014 fiscal year budget topped $1 billion for the first time, a 1.9% increase over the $985.2 million budget in 2013. 238,253 registered voters lived in the city in 2012, down from 239,247 in 2010, and 257,442 in 2008.
The mayor is the chief executive officer of the city and is responsible for appointing city department heads including; the director of public safety, the director of streets & traffic, the director of health, the director of human services, the director of the airport, the director of parks & recreation, the director of workforce development, the director of the Community Development Agency, the director of economic development, the director of public utilities, the director of the Civil Rights Enforcement Agency, the register, and the assessor, among other department-level or senior administrative positions. The President of the Board of Aldermen is the second highest-ranking official in the City. The President is the presiding officer of the Board of Aldermen which is the legislative branch of government of the City.
Municipal elections in St. Louis are held in odd-numbered years, with the primary elections in March and the general election in April. The mayor is elected in odd-numbered years following the United States presidential election, as are the aldermen representing odd-numbered wards. The president of the board of aldermen and the aldermen from even-numbered wards are elected in the off-years. The Democratic Party has dominated St. Louis city politics for decades. The city has not had a Republican mayor since 1949, and the last time a Republican was elected to another citywide office was in the 1970s. , all 28 of the city's aldermen are Democrats.
Forty-six individuals have held the office of mayor of St. Louis, four of whom—William Carr Lane, John Fletcher Darby, John Wimer, and John How—served non-consecutive terms. The most terms served by a mayor was by Lane, who served 8 full terms plus the unexpired term of Darby. The current mayor is Lyda Krewson, who took office April 18, 2017, and is the first woman to hold the post. She succeeded Francis Slay, who retired in 2017 after serving 16 years and six days from April 11, 2001, to April 17, 2017—longer than anyone in the city's history. The second longest-serving mayor was Henry Kiel, who took office April 15, 1913, and left office April 21, 1925, a total of 12 years and 9 days over three terms in office. Two others – Raymond Tucker, and Vincent C. Schoemehl – also served three terms as mayor, but served seven fewer days. The shortest-serving mayor was Arthur Barret, who died 11 days after taking office.
Although St. Louis separated from St. Louis County in 1876, some mechanisms have been put in place for joint funding management and funding of regional assets. The St. Louis Zoo-Museum district collects property taxes from residents of both St. Louis City and County, and the funds are used to support cultural institutions including the St. Louis Zoo, St. Louis Art Museum and the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Similarly, the Metropolitan Sewer District provides sanitary and storm sewer service to the city and much of St. Louis County. The Bi-State Development Agency (now known as Metro) runs the region's MetroLink light rail system and bus system.
St. Louis is split between 11 districts in the Missouri House of Representatives: all of the 76th, 77th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 81st, 82nd, and 84th, and parts of the 66th, 83rd, and 93rd, which are shared with St. Louis County. The 5th Missouri Senate district is entirely within the city, while the 4th is shared with St. Louis County.
At the federal level, St. Louis is the heart of , which also includes part of northern St. Louis County. A Republican has not represented a significant portion of St. Louis in the U.S. House since 1953. Correspondingly, despite voting Republican prior to 1928 in presidential elections, from then on the city has become a Democratic stronghold at the presidential level. George H.W. Bush in 1988 was the most recent Republican to win even a quarter of the city's votes in a presidential election.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri are based in the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. St. Louis is also home to a Federal Reserve System branch, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) also maintains major facilities in the St. Louis area.
The Military Personnel Records Center (NPRC-MPR) located at 9700 Page Avenue in St. Louis, is a branch of the National Personnel Records Center and is the repository of over 56 million military personnel records and medical records pertaining to retired, discharged, and deceased veterans of the U.S. armed forces.
The city of St. Louis has, , the highest murder rate, per capita, in the United States, with 188 homicides in 2015 (59.3 homicides per 100,000) and ranks No. 13 of the most dangerous cities in the world by homicide rate. Detroit, Flint, Memphis, Birmingham, and Baltimore have higher overall violent crime rates than St. Louis, when comparing other crimes such as rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Despite these high crime rates relative to other American cities, St. Louis index crime rates have declined almost every year since the peak in 1993 (16,648), to the 2014 level of 7,931 (which is the sum of violent crimes and property crimes) per 100,000. In 2015, the index crime rate reversed the 2005–2014 decline to a level of 8,204. Between 2005 and 2014, violent crime has declined by 20%, although rates of violent crime remains 6 times higher than the United States national average and property crime in the city remains 2 times the national average. St. Louis has a higher homicide rate than the rest of the U.S. for both whites and blacks and a higher proportion committed by males. , 7 of the homicide suspects were white, 95 black, 0 Hispanic, 0 Asian and 1 female out of the 102 suspects. In 2016, St. Louis was the most dangerous city in the United States with populations of 100,000 or more, ranking 1st in violent crime and 2nd in property crime. It was also ranked 6th of the most dangerous of all establishments in the United States, and East St. Louis, a suburb of the city itself, was ranked 1st. The St. Louis Police Department at the end of 2016 reported a total of 188 murders for the year, the same number of homicides that had occurred in the city in 2015. According to the STLP At the end of 2017, St. Louis had 205 murders but the city recorded only 159 inside St. Louis city limits. The new Chief of Police, John Hayden said two-thirds (67%) of all the murders and one-half of all the assaults are concentrated in a triangular area in the North part of the city.
Greater St. Louis commands the 19th-largest media market in the United States, a position roughly unchanged for over a decade. All of the major U.S. television networks have affiliates in St. Louis, including KTVI 2 (Fox), KMOV 4 (CBS), KSDK 5 (NBC), KETC 9 (PBS), KPLR-TV 11 (CW), KDNL 30 (ABC), WRBU 46 (Ion), and WPXS 51 Daystar Television Network. Among the area's most popular radio stations are KMOX (AM sports and talk, notable as the longtime flagship station for St. Louis Cardinals broadcasts), KLOU (FM oldies), WIL-FM (FM country), WARH (FM adult hits), and KSLZ (FM Top 40 mainstream). St. Louis also supports public radio's KWMU, an NPR affiliate, and community radio's KDHX. KZQZ is a popular Oldies station. All-sports stations, such as KFNS 590 AM "The Fan", WXOS "101.1 ESPN", and KSLG are also popular.
The "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" is the region's major newspaper. Others in the region include the "Suburban Journals", which serve parts of St. Louis County, while the primary alternative newspaper is the "Riverfront Times". Three weeklies serve the African-American community: the "St. Louis Argus", the "St. Louis American", and the "St. Louis Sentinel". "St. Louis Magazine", a monthly magazine, covers topics such as local history, cuisine, and lifestyles, while the weekly "St. Louis Business Journal" provides coverage of regional business news. St. Louis was served by an online newspaper, the "St. Louis Beacon", but that publication merged with KWMU in 2013.
Many books and movies have been written about St. Louis. A few of the most influential and prominent films are "Meet Me in St. Louis" and "American Flyers", and novels include "The Killing Dance", "Meet Me in St. Louis", "The Runaway Soul" (novel), "The Rose of Old St. Louis", and "Circus of the Damned".
As St. Louis was a prime location for immigrants to move to, much of the early social work depicting immigrant life was based on St. Louis, such as in the book "The Immigrant of St. Louis".
Road, rail, ship, and air transportation modes connect the city with surrounding communities in Greater St. Louis, national transportation networks, and international locations. St. Louis also supports a public transportation network that includes bus and light rail service.
Four interstate highways connect the city to a larger regional highway system. Interstate 70, an east–west highway, runs from the northwest corner of the city to downtown St. Louis. The north–south Interstate 55 enters the city at the south near the Carondelet neighborhood and runs toward the center of the city, and both Interstate 64 and Interstate 44 enter the city on the west, running parallel to the east. Two of the four interstates (Interstates 55 and 64) merge south of Gateway Arch National Park and leave the city on the Poplar Street Bridge into Illinois, while Interstate 44 terminates at Interstate 70 at its new interchange near N Broadway and Cass Ave. A small portion of the Interstate 270 outer belt freeway runs through the northern end of the city.
The 563-mile Avenue of the Saints links St. Louis with St. Paul, Minnesota.
Major roadways include the north–south Memorial Drive, located on the western edge of Gateway Arch National Park and parallel to Interstate 70, the north–south streets of Grand Boulevard and Jefferson Avenue, both of which run the length of the city, and Gravois Road, which runs from the southeastern portion of the city to downtown and used to be signed as U.S. Route 66. An east-west roadway that connects the city with surrounding communities is Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, which carries traffic from the western edge of the city to downtown.
The St. Louis metro area is served by MetroLink (known as Metro) and is the 11th-largest light rail system in the country with of double track light rail. The Red Line and The Blue Line both serve all the stations in the inner city, and branch to different destinations beyond in the suburban areas. Both lines enter the city north of Forest Park on the western edge of the city or on the Eads Bridge in downtown St. Louis to Illinois. All of the system track is in independent right of way, with both surface level and underground subway track in the city. All stations are independent entry, while all platforms are flush-level with trains. Rail service is provided by the Bi-State Development Agency (also known as Metro), which is funded by a sales taxes levied in the city and other counties in the region. The Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center acts as the hub station in the city of St. Louis, linking the city's light rail system, local bus system, passenger rail service, and national bus service. It is located just east of the historic grand St. Louis Union Station.
St. Louis is served by two passenger airports. St. Louis Lambert International Airport, owned and operated by the City of St. Louis, is 11 miles northwest of downtown along highway I-70 between I-170 and I-270 in St. Louis County. It is the largest and busiest airport in the state. In 2016, when the airport had more than 255 daily departures to about 90 domestic and international locations, it served more than 15 million passengers. The airport serves as a focus hub city for Southwest Airlines; it was once a hub for Trans World Airlines and a focus-city for American Airlines and AmericanConnection. The airport has two terminals with a total of five concourses. International flights and passengers use Terminal 2, whose lower level holds the Immigration and Customs gates. Passengers can move between the terminals on complimentary buses that run continuously, or via MetroLink for a fee. It was possible to walk between the terminals until Concourse D was closed in 2008.
MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is the secondary passenger airport serving the metropolitan area. Located 17 miles east of the city downtown core, the airport serves domestic passengers. Air cargo transportation is available at Lambert International and at other nearby regional airports, including MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, Spirit of St. Louis Airport, and St. Louis Downtown Airport.
River transportation is available through the Port of St. Louis, which is 19.3 miles of riverbank on the Mississippi River that handles more than 32 million tons of freight annually. The Port is the second largest inland port by trip-ton miles, and the third largest by tonnage in the United States, with more than 100 docks for barges and 16 public terminals on the river. The Port Authority added two new small fire and rescue craft in 2012 and 2013.
Inter-city rail passenger train service in the city is provided by Amtrak at the Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center downtown. Amtrak trains terminating in the city include the "Lincoln Service" to Chicago and the "Missouri River Runner" to Kansas City, Missouri. St. Louis is an intermediate stop on the "Texas Eagle" route which provides long-distance passenger service between Chicago, San Antonio, and three days a week, to Los Angeles.
St. Louis is the nation's third largest freight rail hub, moving Missouri exports such as fertilizer, gravel, crushed stone, prepared foodstuffs, fats, oils, nonmetallic mineral products, grain, alcohol, tobacco products, automobiles, and automobile parts. Freight rail service in St. Louis is provided on tracks owned by Union Pacific Railroad, Norfolk Southern Railway, Foster Townsend Rail Logistics – formerly Manufacturers Railway (St. Louis), Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, Affton Trucking, and the BNSF Railway.
The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (reporting mark: TRRA) is a switching and terminal railroad jointly owned by all the major rail carriers in St. Louis. The company operates 30 diesel-electric locomotives to move railcars around the classification yards, deliver railcars to local industries, and ready trains for departure. The TRRA processes and dispatches a significant portion of railroad traffic moving through the city and owns and operates a network of rail bridges and tunnels including the MacArthur Bridge (St. Louis) and the Merchants Bridge. This infrastructure is also used by inter-city rail and long-distance passenger trains serving St. Louis.
Local bus service in the city of St. Louis is provided by the Bi-State Development Agency via MetroBus, with more than 75 routes connecting to MetroLink light rail transit and stops in the city and region. The city is also served by Madison County Transit, which connects downtown St. Louis to Madison County, Illinois. National bus service in the city is offered by Greyhound Lines, Burlington Trailways and Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach, with a station at the Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center, and Megabus, with a stop at St. Louis Union Station.
Taxicab service in the city is provided by private companies regulated by the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission. Rates vary by vehicle type, size, passengers and distance, and by regulation all taxicab fares must be calculated using a taximeter and be payable in cash or credit card. Solicitation by a driver is prohibited, although a taxicab may be hailed on the street or at a stand.
St. Louis has 16 sister cities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27687 |
Social security
Social Security is "any government system that provides monetary assistance to people with an inadequate or no income". In the United States, this is usually called welfare or a social safety net, especially when talking about Canada and European countries.
Social security is asserted in Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
In simple terms, the signatories agree that the society in which a person lives should help them to develop and to make the most of all the advantages (culture, work, social welfare) which are offered to them in the country.
Social security may also refer to the action programs of an organization intended to promote the welfare of the population through assistance measures guaranteeing access to sufficient resources for food and shelter and to promote health and well-being for the population at large and potentially vulnerable segments such as children, the elderly, the sick and the unemployed. Services providing social security are often called social services.
Terminology in this area is somewhat different in the United States from in the rest of the English-speaking world. The general term for an action program in support of the well being of poor people in the United States is "welfare program", and the general term for all such programs is simply "welfare". In American society, the term "welfare" arguably has negative connotations. In the United States, the term "Social Security" refers to the US social insurance program for all retired and disabled people. Elsewhere the term is used in a much broader sense, referring to the economic security society offers when people are faced with certain risks. In its 1952 Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (nr. 102), the International Labour Organization (ILO) defined the traditional contingencies covered by social security as including:
People who cannot reach a guaranteed social minimum for other reasons may be eligible for "social assistance" (or welfare, in American English).
Modern authors often consider the ILO approach too narrow. In their view, social security is not limited to the provision of cash transfers, but also aims at security of work, health, and social participation; and new social risks (single parenthood, the reconciliation of work and family life) should be included in the list as well.
Social security may refer to:
A report published by the ILO in 2014 estimated that only 27% of the world's population has access to comprehensive social security.
While several of the provisions to which the concept refers have a long history (especially in Poor relief), the notion of "social security" itself is a fairly recent one. The earliest examples of use date from the 19th century. In a speech to mark the independence of Venezuela, Simón Bolívar (1819) pronounced: "El sistema de gobierno más perfecto es aquel que produce mayor suma de felicidad posible, mayor suma de "seguridad social" y mayor suma de estabilidad política" (which translates to "The most perfect system of government is that which produces the greatest amount of happiness, the greatest amount of social security and the greatest amount of political stability").
In the Roman Empire, the Emperor Trajan (reigned A.D. 98–117) distributed gifts of money and free grain to the poor in the city of Rome, and returned the gifts of gold sent to him upon his accession by cities in Italy and the provinces of the Empire. Trajan's program brought acclaim from many, including Pliny the Younger.
In Jewish tradition, charity (represented by tzedakah) is a matter of religious obligation rather than benevolence. Contemporary charity is regarded as a continuation of the Biblical Maaser Ani, or poor-tithe, as well as Biblical practices, such as permitting the poor to glean the corners of a field and harvest during the Shmita (Sabbatical year). Voluntary charity, along with prayer and repentance, is befriended to ameliorate the consequences of bad acts.
The Song dynasty (c.1000 AD) government supported multiple forms of social assistance programs, including the establishment of retirement homes, public clinics, and pauper's graveyards.
According to economist Robert Henry Nelson, "The medieval Roman Catholic Church operated a far-reaching and comprehensive welfare system for the poor..."
The concepts of welfare and pension were put into practice in the early Islamic law of the Caliphate as forms of "Zakat" (charity), one of the Five Pillars of Islam, since the time of the Rashidun caliph Umar in the 7th century. The taxes (including "Zakat" and "Jizya") collected in the treasury of an Islamic government were used to provide income for the needy, including the poor, elderly, orphans, widowed persons, and the disabled. According to the Islamic jurist Al-Ghazali (Algazel, 1058–1111), the government was also expected to store up food supplies in every region in case a disaster or famine occurred. (See Bayt al-mal for further information.)
There is relatively little statistical data on transfer payments before the High Middle Ages. In the medieval period and until the Industrial Revolution, the function of welfare payments in Europe was principally achieved through private giving or charity. In those early times, there was a much broader group considered to be in poverty as compared to the 21st century.
Early welfare programs in Europe included the English Poor Law of 1601, which gave parishes the responsibility for providing poverty relief assistance to the poor. This system was substantially modified by the 19th-century Poor Law Amendment Act, which introduced the system of workhouses.
It was predominantly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that an organized system of state welfare provision was introduced in many countries. Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, introduced one of the first welfare systems for the working classes in 1883. In Great Britain the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and David Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance system in 1911, a system later expanded by Clement Attlee. The United States did not have an organized welfare system until the Great Depression, when emergency relief measures were introduced under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even then, Roosevelt's New Deal focused predominantly on a program of providing work and stimulating the economy through public spending on projects, rather than on cash payment.
This policy is usually applied through various programs designed to provide a population with income at times when they are unable to care for themselves. Income maintenance is based in a combination of five main types of program:
Social protection refers to a set of benefits available (or not available) from the state, market, civil society and households, or through a combination of these agencies, to the individual/households to reduce multi-dimensional deprivation. This multi-dimensional deprivation could be affecting less active poor persons (such as the elderly or the disabled) and active poor persons (such as the unemployed).
This broad framework makes this concept more acceptable in developing countries than the concept of social security. Social security is more applicable in the conditions, where large numbers of citizens depend on the formal economy for their livelihood. Through a defined contribution, this social security may be managed.
But, in the context of widespread informal economy, formal social security arrangements are almost absent for the vast majority of the working population. Besides, in developing countries, the state's capacity to reach the vast majority of the poor people may be limited because of its limited infrastructure and resources. In such a context, multiple agencies that could provide for social protection, including health care, is critical for policy consideration. The framework of social protection is thus holds the state responsible for providing for the poorest populations by regulating non-state agencies.
Collaborative research from the Institute of Development Studies debating Social Protection from a global perspective, suggests that advocates for social protection fall into two broad categories: "instrumentalists" and "activists". Instrumentalists argue that extreme poverty, inequality, and vulnerability is dysfunctional in the achievement of development targets (such as the MDGs). In this view, social protection is about putting in place risk management mechanisms that will compensate for incomplete or missing insurance (and other) markets, until a time that private insurance can play a more prominent role in that society. Activist arguments view the persistence of extreme poverty, inequality, and vulnerability as symptoms of social injustice and structural inequality and see social protection as a right of citizenship. Targeted welfare is a necessary step between humanitarianism and the ideal of a "guaranteed minimum income" where entitlement extends beyond cash or food transfers and is based on citizenship, not philanthropy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27691 |
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