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Transient ischemic attack
A transient ischemic attack (TIA), commonly known as a mini-stroke, is a brief episode of neurological dysfunction caused by loss of blood flow (ischemia) in the brain, spinal cord, or retina, without tissue death (infarction). TIAs have the same underlying mechanism as ischemic strokes. Both are caused by a disruption in blood flow to the brain, or cerebral blood flow (CBF). The definition of TIA was classically based on duration of neurological symptoms. The current widely accepted definition is called "tissue-based" because it is based on imaging, not time. The American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA) now define TIA as a brief episode of neurological dysfunction with a vascular cause, with clinical symptoms typically lasting less than one hour, and without evidence of infarction on imaging.
TIA causes the same symptoms associated with stroke, such as weakness or numbness on one side of the body. Numbness or weakness generally occur on the opposite side of the body from the affected hemisphere of the brain. A TIA may cause sudden dimming or loss of vision, difficulty speaking or understanding language, slurred speech, and confusion.
TIA and ischemic stroke share a common cause. Both result from a disruption in blood flow to the central nervous system. In ischemic stroke, symptoms generally persist beyond 7 days. In TIA, symptoms typically resolve within 1 hour. The occurrence of a TIA is a risk factor for eventually having a stroke. Both are associated with increased risk of death or disability. Recognition that a TIA has occurred is an opportunity to start treatment, including medications and lifestyle changes, to prevent a stroke.
While a TIA must by definition be associated with symptoms, a stroke may be symptomatic or silent. In silent stroke, also known as silent cerebral infarct (SCI), there is permanent infarction present on imaging, but there are no immediately observable symptoms. An SCI often occurs before or after a TIA or major stroke.
Signs and symptoms of TIA are widely variable and can mimic other neurologic conditions, making the clinical context and physical exam crucial in ruling in or out the diagnosis. The most common presenting symptoms of TIA are focal neurologic deficits, which can include, but are not limited to:
A detailed neurologic exam, including a thorough cranial nerve exam, is important to identify these findings and to differentiate them from mimickers of TIA. Symptoms such as unilateral weakness, amaurosis fugax, and double vision have higher odds of representing TIA compared to memory loss, headache, and blurred vision. Below is a table of symptoms at presentation, and what percentage of the time they are seen in TIAs versus conditions that mimic TIA. In general, focal deficits make TIA more likely, but the absence of focal findings do not exclude the diagnosis and further evaluation may be warranted if clinical suspicion for TIA is high (see “Diagnosis” section below).
Non-focal symptoms such as amnesia, confusion, incoordination of limbs, unusual cortical visual symptoms (such as isolated bilateral blindness or bilateral positive visual phenomena), headaches and transient loss of consciousness are usually not associated with TIA.
Symptoms of TIAs can last on the order of minutes to 1–2 hours, but occasionally may last for a longer period of time. TIAs used to be defined as ischemic events in the brain that last less than 24 hours, but given the variation in duration of symptoms, this definition holds less significance. A pooled study of 808 patients with TIAs from 10 hospitals showed that 60% lasted less than 1 hour, 71% lasted less than 2 hours, and 14% lasted greater than 6 hours. Importantly, patients with symptoms that last more than one hour are more likely to have permanent neurologic damage, making prompt diagnosis and treatment important to maximize recovery.
The most common underlying pathology leading to TIA and stroke is a cardiac condition called atrial fibrillation, where poor coordination of contraction leads to a formation of a clot in the atrial chamber that can become dislodged and travel to a cerebral artery. Unlike in stroke, the blood flow can become restored prior to infarction which leads to the resolution of neurologic symptoms. Another common culprit of TIA is an atherosclerotic plaque located in the common carotid artery, typically by the bifurcation between the internal and external carotids, that becomes an embolism to the brain vasculature similar to the clot in the prior example. A portion of the plaque can become dislodged and lead to embolic pathology in the cerebral vessels.
In-situ thrombosis, an obstruction that forms directly in the cerebral vasculature unlike the remote embolism previously mentioned, is another vascular occurrence with possible presentation as TIA. Also, carotid stenosis secondary to atherosclerosis narrowing the diameter of the lumen and thus limiting blood flow is another common cause of TIA. Individuals with carotid stenosis may present with TIA symptoms, thus labeled symptomatic, while others may not experience symptoms and be asymptomatic.
Risk factors associated with TIA are categorized as modifiable or non-modifiable. Non-modifiable risk factors include age greater than 55, sex, family history, genetics, and race/ethnicity. Modifiable risk factors include cigarette smoking, hypertension (elevated blood pressure), diabetes, hyperlipidemia, level of carotid artery stenosis (asymptomatic or symptomatic) and activity level. The modifiable risk factors are commonly targeted in treatment options to attempt to minimize risk of TIA and stroke.
There are three major mechanisms of ischemia in the brain: embolism traveling to the brain, in situ thrombotic occlusion in the intracranial vessels supplying the parenchyma of the brain, and stenosis of vessels leading to poor perfusion secondary to flow-limiting diameter. Globally, the vessel most commonly affected is the middle cerebral artery. Embolisms can originate from multiple parts of the body.
Common mechanisms of stroke and TIA:
The initial clinical evaluation of a suspected TIA involves obtaining a history and physical exam (including a neurological exam). History taking includes defining the symptoms and looking for mimicking symptoms as described above. Bystanders can be very helpful in describing the symptoms and giving details about when they started and how long they lasted. The time course (onset, duration, and resolution), precipitating events, and risk factors are particularly important.
Laboratory tests should focus on ruling out metabolic conditions that may mimic TIA (e.g. hypoglycemia causing altered mental status), in addition to further evaluating a patient's risk factors for ischemic events. All patients should receive a complete blood count with platelet count, blood glucose, basic metabolic panel, prothrombin time/international normalized ratio, and activated partial thromboplastin time as part of their initial workup. These tests help with screening for bleeding or hypercoagulable conditions. Other lab tests, such as a full hypercoagulable state workup or serum drug screening, should be considered based on the clinical situation and factors, such as age of the patient and family history. A fasting lipid panel is also appropriate to thoroughly evaluate the patient's risk for atherosclerotic disease and ischemic events in the future. Other lab tests may be indicated based on the history and presentation; such as obtaining inflammatory markers (erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein) to evaluate for giant cell arteritis (which can mimic a TIA) in those presenting with headaches and monocular blindness.
An electrocardiogram is necessary to rule out abnormal heart rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation, that can predispose patients to clot formation and embolic events. Hospitalized patients should be placed on heart rhythm telemetry, which is a continuous form of monitoring that can detect abnormal heart rhythms. Prolonged heart rhythm monitoring (such as with a Holter monitor or implantable heart monitoring) can be considered to rule out arrhythmias like paroxysmal atrial fibrillation that may lead to clot formation and TIAs, however this should be considered if other causes of TIA have not been found.
According to guidelines from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association Stroke Council, patients with TIA should have head imaging “within 24 hours of symptom onset, preferably with magnetic resonance imaging, including diffusion sequences”. MRI is a better imaging modality for TIA than computed tomography (CT), as it is better able to pick up both new and old ischemic lesions than CT. CT, however, is more widely available and can be used particularly to rule out intracranial hemorrhage. Diffusion sequences can help further localize the area of ischemia and can serve as prognostic indicators. Presence of ischemic lesions on diffusion weighted imaging has been correlated with a higher risk of stroke after a TIA.
Vessels in the head and neck may also be evaluated to look for atherosclerotic lesions that may benefit from interventions, such as carotid endarterectomy. The vasculature can be evaluated through the following imaging modalities: magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), CT angiography (CTA), and carotid ultrasonography/transcranial doppler ultrasonography. Carotid ultrasonography is often used to screen for carotid artery stenosis, as it is more readily available, is noninvasive, and does not expose the person being evaluated to radiation. However, all of the above imaging methods have variable sensitivities and specificities, making it important to supplement one of the imaging methods with another to help confirm the diagnosis (for example: screen for the disease with ultrasonography, and confirm with CTA). Confirming a diagnosis of carotid artery stenosis is important because the treatment for this condition, carotid endarterectomy, can pose significant risk to the patient, including heart attacks and strokes after the procedure. For this reason, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) "recommends against screening for asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis in the general adult population". This recommendation is for asymptomatic patients, so it does not necessarily apply to patients with TIAs as these may in fact be a symptom of underlying carotid artery disease (see "Causes and Pathogenesis" above). Therefore, patients who have had a TIA may opt to have a discussion with their clinician about the risks and benefits of screening for carotid artery stenosis, including the risks of surgical treatment of this condition.
Cardiac imaging can be performed if head and neck imaging do not reveal a vascular cause for the patient's TIA (such as atherosclerosis of the carotid artery or other major vessels of the head and neck). Echocardiography can be performed to identify patent foramen ovale (PFO), valvular stenosis, and atherosclerosis of the aortic arch that could be sources of clots causing TIAs, with transesophageal echocardiography being more sensitive than transthoracic echocardiography in identifying these lesions.
Although there is a lack of robust studies demonstrating the efficacy of lifestyle changes in preventing TIA, many medical professionals recommend them. These include:
In addition, it is important to control any underlying medical conditions that may increase the risk of stroke or TIA, including:
By definition, TIAs are transient, self-resolving, and do not cause permanent impairment. However, they are associated with an increased risk of subsequent ischemic strokes, which can be permanently disabling. Therefore, management centers around the prevention of future ischemic strokes and addressing any modifiable risk factors. The optimal regimen depends on the underlying cause of the TIA.
Lifestyle changes have not been shown to reduce the risk of stroke after TIA. While no studies have looked at the optimal diet for secondary prevention of stroke, some observational studies have shown that a Mediterranean diet can reduce stroke risk in patients without cerebrovascular disease. A Mediterranean diet is rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and limited in red meats and sweets. Vitamin supplementation has not been found to be useful in secondary stroke prevention.
The antiplatelet medications, aspirin and clopidogrel, are both recommended for secondary prevention of stroke after high risk TIAs. The clopidogrel can generally be stopped after 10 to 21 days. An exception is TIAs due to blood clots originating from the heart, in which case anticoagulants are generally recommended. After TIA or minor stroke, aspirin therapy has been shown to reduce the short-term risk of recurrent stroke by 60-70%, and the long-term risk of stroke by 13%.
The typical therapy may include aspirin alone, a combination of aspirin plus extended-release dipyridamole, or clopidogrel alone. Clopidogrel and aspirin have similar efficacies and side effect profiles. Clopidogrel is more expensive and has a slightly decreased risk of GI bleed. Another antiplatelet, ticlopidine, is rarely used due to increased side effects.
Anticoagulants may be started if the TIA is thought to be attributable to atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm that may cause the formation of blood clots that can travel to the brain, resulting in TIAs or ischemic strokes. Atrial fibrillation increases stroke risk by five times, and is thought to cause 10-12% of all ischemic strokes in the US. Anticoagulant therapy can decrease the relative risk of ischemic stroke in those with atrial fibrillation by 67% Warfarin is a common anticoagulant used, but direct acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs), such as apixaban, have been shown to be equally effective while also conferring a lower risk of bleeding. Generally, anticoagulants and antiplatelets are not used in combination, as they result in increased bleeding risk without a decrease in stroke risk. However, combined antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy may be warranted if the patient has symptomatic coronary artery disease in addition to atrial fibrillation.
Sometimes, myocardial infarction (“heart attack”) may lead to the formation of a blood clot in one of the chambers of the heart. If this is thought to be the cause of the TIA, people may be temporarily treated with warfarin or other anticoagulant to decrease the risk of future stroke.
Blood pressure control may be indicated after TIA to reduce the risk of ischemic stroke. About 70% of patients with recent ischemic stroke are found to have hypertension, defined as systolic blood pressure (SBP) > 140 mmHg, or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) > 90 mmHg. Until the first half of the 2010s, blood pressure goals have generally been SBP < 140 mmHg and DBP < 90 mmHg. However, newer studies suggest that a goal of SBP <130 mmHg may confer even greater benefit. Blood pressure control is often achieved using diuretics or a combination of diuretics and angiotensin converter enzyme inhibitors, although the optimal treatment regimen depends on the individual.
There is inconsistent evidence regarding the effect of LDL-cholesterol levels on stroke risk after TIA. Elevated cholesterol may increase ischemic stroke risk while decreasing the risk of hemorrhagic stroke. While its role in stroke prevention is currently unclear, statin therapy has been shown to reduce all-cause mortality and may be recommended after TIA.
Diabetes mellitus increases the risk of ischemic stroke by 1.5-3.7 times, and may account for at least 8% of first ischemic strokes. While intensive glucose control can prevent certain complications of diabetes such as kidney damage and retinal damage, there has previously been little evidence that it decreases the risk of stroke or death. However, data from 2017 suggests that metformin, pioglitazone and semaglutide may reduce stroke risk.
If the TIA affects an area that is supplied by the carotid arteries, a carotid ultrasound scan may demonstrate stenosis, or narrowing, of the carotid artery. For people with extra-cranial carotid stenosis, if 70-99% of the carotid artery is clogged, carotid endarterectomy can decrease the 5-year risk of ischemic stroke by approximately half. For those with extra-cranial stenosis between 50-69%, carotid endarterectomy decreases the 5-year risk of ischemic stroke by about 16%. For those with extra-cranial stenosis less than 50%, carotid endarterectomy does not reduce stroke risk and may, in some cases, increase it. The efficacy of carotid endarterectomy or carotid artery stenting in reducing stroke risk in patients with intra-cranial carotid artery stenosis is currently unknown.
In carotid endarterectomy, a surgeon makes an incision in the neck, opens up the carotid artery, and removes the plaque occluding the blood vessel. The artery may then be repaired by adding a graft from another vessel in the body, or a woven patch. In patients who undergo carotid endarterectomy after a TIA or minor stroke, the 30 day risk of death or stroke is 7%.
Carotid artery stenting is a less invasive alternative to carotid endarterectomy for patients with extra-cranial carotid artery stenosis. In this procedure, the surgeon makes a small cut in the groin and threads a small flexible tube, called a catheter, into the patient's carotid artery. A balloon is inflated at the site of stenosis, opening up the clogged artery to allow for increased blood flow to the brain. To keep the vessel open, a small wire mesh coil, called a stent, may be inflated along with the balloon. The stent remains in place, and the balloon is removed.
In patients over age 70, carotid endarterectomy is associated with fewer postoperative deaths or strokes than carotid artery stenting. In younger patients, there is no significant difference in outcomes between carotid endarterectomy and carotid artery stenting. People who undergo carotid endarterectomy or carotid artery stenting for stroke prevention are medically managed with antiplatelets, statins, and other interventions as well.
Without treatment, the risk of an ischemic stroke in the 3 months after a TIA is about 20% with the greatest risk occurring within 2 days of the TIA. Other sources cite that 10% of TIAs will develop into a stroke within 90 days, half of which will occur in the first two days following the TIA. Treatment and preventative measures after a TIA (for example treating elevated blood pressure) can reduce the subsequent risk of an ischemic stroke by about 80%. The risk of a stroke occurring after a TIA can be predicted using the ABCD² score. One limitation of the ABCD² score is that it does not reliably predict the level of carotid artery stenosis, which is a major cause of stroke in TIA patients. The patient's age is the most reliable risk factor in predicting any level of carotid stenosis in transient ischemic attack. The ABCD2 score is no longer recommended for triage (to decide between outpatient management versus hospital admission) of those with a suspected TIA due to these limitations.
With the difficulty in diagnosing a TIA due to its nonspecific symptoms of neurologic dysfunction at presentation and a differential including many mimics, the exact incidence of the disease is unclear. It is currently estimated to have an incidence of approximately 200,000 to 500,000 cases per year in the US according to the American Heart Association. TIA incidence trends similarly to stroke, such that incidence varies with age, gender, and different race/ethnicity populations. Associated risk factors include age greater than or equal to 60, blood pressure greater than or equal to 140 systolic or 90 diastolic, and comorbid diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and atrial fibrillation. It is thought that approximately 15 to 30 percent of strokes have a preceding TIA episode associated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31621 |
Transverse myelitis
Transverse myelitis (TM) is a rare neurological condition in which the spinal cord is inflamed. "Transverse" implies that the inflammation extends horizontally across the spinal cord. Partial transverse myelitis and partial myelitis are terms sometimes used to specify inflammation that only affects part of the width of the spinal cord. TM is characterized by weakness and numbness of the limbs, deficits in sensation and motor skills, dysfunctional urethral and anal sphincter activities, and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system that can lead to episodes of high blood pressure. Signs and symptoms vary according to the affected level of the spinal cord. The underlying cause of TM is unknown. The spinal cord inflammation seen in TM has been associated with various infections, immune system disorders, or damage to nerve fibers, by loss of myelin. Decreased electrical conductivity in the nervous system can result.
Symptoms include weakness and numbness of the limbs, deficits in sensation and motor skills, dysfunctional urethral and anal sphincter activities, and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system that can lead to episodes of high blood pressure. Symptoms typically develop over the course of hours to a few weeks. Sensory symptoms of TM may include a sensation of pins and needles traveling up from the feet. The degree and type of sensory loss will depend upon the extent of the involvement of the various sensory tracts, but there is often a "sensory level" at the spinal ganglion of the segmental spinal nerve, below which sensation to pain or light touch is impaired. Motor weakness occurs due to involvement of the pyramidal tracts and mainly affects the muscles that flex the legs and extend the arms.
Disturbances in sensory nerves and motor nerves and dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system at the level of the lesion or below, are noted. Therefore, the signs and symptoms depend on the area of spine involved. Back pain can occur at the level of any inflamed segment of the spinal cord.
If the upper cervical segment of the spinal cord is involved, all four limbs may be affected and there is risk of respiratory failure – the phrenic nerve which is formed by the cervical spinal nerves C3, C4, and C5 innervates the main muscle of respiration, the diaphragm.
Lesions of the lower cervical region (C5–T1) will cause a combination of upper and lower motor neuron signs in the upper limbs, and exclusively upper motor neuron signs in the lower limbs. Cervical lesions account for about 20% of cases.
A lesion of the thoracic segment (T1–12) will produce upper motor neuron signs in the lower limbs, presenting as a spastic paraparesis. This is the most common location of the lesion, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31622 |
Tokelau
Tokelau (; previously known as the Union Islands, and officially as Tokelau Islands until 1976; lit. "north-northeast") is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls (Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo), with a combined land area of . The capital rotates yearly among the three atolls. In addition, Swains Island, which forms part of the same archipelago, is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute and is currently administered by the United States as part of American Samoa. Tokelau lies north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands, and northwest of the Cook Islands.
Tokelau has a population of approximately 1,500 people, the fourth-smallest population of any sovereign state or dependency. As of the 2016 census, around 45% of residents were born overseas, mostly in Samoa and New Zealand. The nation has a life expectancy of 69, comparable with other Oceanian island nations. Approximately 94% of the population speak Tokelauan as a first language. Tokelau has the smallest economy in the world, although it is a leader in renewable energy, being the first 100% solar powered nation in the world.
Tokelau is officially referred to as a "nation" by both the New Zealand government and the Tokelauan government. It is a free and democratic nation with elections every three years. However, in 2007 the United Nations General Assembly included Tokelau on its list of non-self-governing territories. Its inclusion on the list is controversial, as Tokelauans have twice voted against further self-determination, and the islands' small population reduces the viability of self-government. The basis of Tokelau's legislative, administrative and judicial systems is the Tokelau Islands Act 1948, which has been amended on a number of occasions. Since 1993, the territory has annually elected its own head of government, the "Ulu-o-Tokelau". Previously the administrator of Tokelau was the highest official in the government and the territory was administered directly by a New Zealand government department.
The name "Tokelau" is a Polynesian word meaning "north wind". The islands were named the "Union Islands" and "Union Group" by European explorers at an unknown time. "Tokelau Islands" was adopted as the name in 1946, and was contracted to "Tokelau" on 9 December 1976.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the atolls of Tokelau – Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo – were settled about 1,000 years ago and may have been a "nexus" into Eastern Polynesia. Inhabitants followed Polynesian mythology with the local god Tui Tokelau; and developed forms of music (see Music of Tokelau) and art. The three atolls functioned largely independently while maintaining social and linguistic cohesion. Tokelauan society was governed by chiefly clans, and there were occasional inter-atoll skirmishes and wars as well as inter-marriage. Fakaofo, the "chiefly island", held some dominance over Atafu and Nukunonu after the dispersal of Atafu. Life on the atolls was subsistence-based, with reliance on fish and coconut.
Commodore John Byron was the first European to sight Atafu, on 24 June 1765 and called the island "Duke of York's Island". Parties onshore reported that there were no signs of current or previous inhabitants. Captain Edward Edwards, knowing of Byron's discovery, visited Atafu on 6 June 1791 in search of the "Bounty" mutineers. There were no permanent inhabitants, but houses contained canoes and fishing gear, suggesting the island was used as a temporary residence by fishing parties. On 12 June 1791, Edwards sailed southward and discovered Nukunonu, naming it "Duke of Clarence's Island". A landing party could not make contact with the people but saw ""morai"s", burying places, and canoes with "stages in their middle" sailing across the lagoons.
On 29 October 1825 August R. Strong of the ship wrote of his crew's arrival at the atoll Nukunonu: Upon examination, we found they had removed all the women and children from the settlement, which was quite small, and put them in canoes lying off a rock in the lagoon. They would frequently come near the shore, but when we approached they would pull off with great noise and precipitation.
On 14 February 1835 Captain Smith of the United States whaler "General Jackson" records discovering Fakaofo, calling it "D'Wolf's Island". On 25 January 1841, the United States Exploring Expedition visited Atafu and discovered a small population living on the island. The residents appeared to be temporary, evidenced by the lack of a chief and the possession of double canoes (used for inter-island travel). They desired to barter, and possessed blue beads and a plane-iron, indicating previous interaction with foreigners. The expedition reached Nukunonu on 28 January 1841 but did not record any information about inhabitants. On 29 January 1841, the expedition discovered Fakaofo and named it "Bowditch". The islanders were found to be similar in appearance and nature to those in Atafu.
Missionaries preached Christianity in Tokelau from 1845 to the 1870s. French Catholic missionaries on Wallis Island (also known as 'Uvea) and missionaries of the Protestant London Missionary Society in Samoa used native teachers to convert the Tokelauans. Atafu was converted to Protestantism by the London Missionary Society, Nukunonu was converted to Catholicism and Fakaofo was converted to both denominations. The Rev. Samuel James Whitmee, of the London Missionary Society, visited Tokelau in 1870.
Helped by Swains Island-based Eli Jennings senior, Peruvian "blackbird" slave traders arrived in 1863 and kidnapped nearly all (253) of the able-bodied men to work as labourers, depopulating the atolls. The Tokelauan men died of dysentery and smallpox, and very few returned. With this loss, the system of governance became based on the "Taupulega", or "Councils of Elders", where individual families on each atoll were represented. During this time, Polynesian immigrants followed by American, Scottish, French, Portuguese and German beachcombers settled, marrying local women and repopulating the atolls.
Between 1856 and 1979, the United States claimed that it held sovereignty over the island and the other Tokelauan atolls. In 1979, the U.S. conceded that Tokelau was under New Zealand sovereignty, and a maritime boundary between Tokelau and American Samoa was established by the Treaty of Tokehega.
Cyclone Percy struck and severely damaged Tokelau in late February and early March 2005. Forecasters underestimated the cyclone's strength and the length of time it would be in vicinity to Tokelau. It coincided with a spring tide which put most of the area of the two villages on Fakaofo and Nukunonu under a metre of seawater. The cyclone also caused major erosion on several islets of all three atolls, damaging roads and bridges and disrupting electric power and telecommunications systems. The cyclone did significant and widespread damage to food crops including bananas, coconuts and pandanus. It did not seriously injure anyone but villagers lost significant amounts of property. The geographic future of Tokelau depends on the height of sea level.
No significant land is more than above high water of ordinary tides. This means Tokelau is particularly vulnerable to any possible sea level rises.
Until December 2011, Tokelau was 11 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). At midnight 29 December 2011 Tokelau shifted to in response to Samoa's decision to switch sides of the International Dateline. This brought Tokelau closer to New Zealand time (and in the process omitted 30 December).
Many sources claim that Tokelau is 14 hours ahead of UTC (UTC −10 before the 2011 date switch), but the correct time zone offset is UTC+13:00.
In 1877, the islands were included under the protection of the United Kingdom by an Order in Council that claimed jurisdiction over all unclaimed Pacific Islands. Commander C. F. Oldham on HMS "Egeria" landed at each of the three atolls in June 1889 and officially raised the Union Flag, declaring the group a British protectorate. In conformity with desire expressed by "the Native government" they were annexed by the United Kingdom and included in the Gilbert Islands by the Tokelau Islands (Union Islands) Order in Council, 1916. The annexation took place on 29 February 1916. From the point in time that the islands were annexed, their people had the status of British subjects. Tokelau was removed from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony and placed under the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of New Zealand in 1925, two Orders in Council being made for the purpose on the same day. This step meant that New Zealand took over administration of Tokelau from the British on 11 February 1926. At this point, Tokelau was still a territory under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom but administered by New Zealand.
The Union Islands (Revocation) Order in Council, 1948 after reciting the agreement by the governments of the United Kingdom and New Zealand that the islands should become part of New Zealand, revoked the Union Islands (No. 2) Order in Council, 1925, with effect from a date fixed by the Governor-General of New Zealand after he was satisfied that the New Zealand Parliament had provided for the incorporation of the islands with New Zealand, as it did by the "Tokelau Islands Act 1948". Tokelau formally became part of New Zealand on 1 January 1949.
The Dominion of New Zealand, of which Tokelau formerly was a part, has since been superseded by the Realm of New Zealand, of which Tokelau remains a part. Defence is the responsibility of New Zealand. When the "British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948" came into effect on 1 January 1949, Tokelauans who were British subjects gained New Zealand citizenship; a status they still hold.
Villages are entitled to enact their own laws regulating their daily lives and New Zealand law only applies where it has been extended by specific enactment. Serious crime is rare and there are no prisons, and offenders are publicly rebuked, fined or made to work.
The head of state is Elizabeth II, the Queen in right of New Zealand, who also reigns over the other Commonwealth realms. The Queen is represented in the territory by the Administrator – currently Ross Ardern. The current head of government is Afega Gaualofa, who presides over the Council for the Ongoing Government of Tokelau, which functions as a cabinet. The Council consists of the "faipule" (leader) and "pulenuku" (village mayor) of each of the three atolls. The administrator is appointed by the minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand, and the role of head of government rotates between the three "faipule" for a one-year term.
The Tokelau Amendment Act of 1996 confers legislative power on the General Fono, a unicameral body. The number of seats each atoll receives in the Fono is determined by population – at present, Fakaofo and Atafu each have seven and Nukunonu has six. "Faipule" and "pulenuku" also sit in the Fono.
On 11 November 2004, Tokelau and New Zealand took steps to formulate a treaty that would turn Tokelau from a non-self-governing territory to a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand. Besides the treaty, a United Nations-sponsored referendum on self-determination took place, with the three islands voting on successive days starting 13 February 2006. (Tokelauans in Apia, Samoa, voted on 11 February.) Out of 581 votes cast, 349 were for Free Association, being short of the two-thirds majority required for the measure to pass. The referendum was profiled (somewhat light-heartedly) in the 1 May 2006 issue of "The New Yorker" magazine. A repeat referendum took place on 20–24 October 2007, again narrowly failing to approve self-government. This time the vote was short by just 16 votes or 3%.
In May 2008, the United Nations' Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged colonial powers "to complete the decolonization process in every one of the remaining 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories", including Tokelau. This led "The New Zealand Herald" to comment that the United Nations was "apparently frustrated by two failed attempts to get Tokelau to vote for independence". In April 2008, speaking as leader of the National Party, future New Zealand Prime Minister John Key stated that New Zealand had "imposed two referenda on the people of the Tokelau Islands", and questioned "the accepted wisdom that small states should undergo a de-colonisation process".
Tokelau includes three atolls in the South Pacific Ocean between longitudes 171° and 173° W and between latitudes 8° and 10° S, about midway between Hawaii and New Zealand. From Atafu in the north to Fakaofo in the south, Tokelau extends for less than 200 km. The atolls lie about north of Samoa. The atolls are Atafu, Nukunonu, both in a group of islands once called the Duke of Clarence Group, and Fakaofo, once Bowditch Island. Their combined land area is . The atolls each have a number of coral islands, where the villages are situated. The highest point of Tokelau is just above sea level. There are no ports or harbours for large vessels, however, all three atolls have a jetty to and from which supplies and passengers are shipped. Tokelau lies in the Pacific tropical cyclone belt. A fourth island that is culturally, historically, and geographically, but not politically, part of the Tokelau chain is Swains Island (Olohega), under United States control since about 1900 and administered as part of American Samoa since 1925.
Swains Island was claimed by the United States pursuant to the Guano Islands Act, as were the other three islands of Tokelau; the latter three claims were ceded to Tokelau by treaty in 1979. In the draft constitution of Tokelau subject to the Tokelauan self-determination referendum in 2006, Olohega (Swains Island) was also claimed as a part of Tokelau, though the claim was surrendered in the same 1979 treaty. This established a clearly defined boundary between American Samoa and Tokelau.
Tokelau's claim to Swains is generally comparable to the Marshall Islands' claim to US-administered Wake Island, but the re-emergence of this somewhat dormant issue has been an unintended result of the United Nations' recent efforts to promote decolonisation in Tokelau. Tokelauans have proved somewhat reluctant to push their national identity in the political realm: recent decolonisation moves have mainly been driven from outside for ideological reasons. But at the same time, Tokelauans are reluctant to disown their common cultural identity with Swains Islanders who speak their language.
Tokelau is located in the Western Polynesian tropical moist forests ecoregion. Most of the original vegetation has been replaced by coconut plantations some of which have been abandoned and became scrubby forests. The atolls of Tokelau provide habitat for 38 indigenous plant species, over 150 insect species and 10 land crab species. One of the greatest threats to biodiversity is posed by introduced mammalian predators such as the Polynesian Rat.
In 2011 Tokelau declared its entire exclusive economic zone of a shark sanctuary.
According to the US Central Intelligence Agency's list of countries by GDP (PPP) Tokelau has the smallest economy in the world. Tokelau has an annual purchasing power of about US$1,000 (€674) per capita. The government is almost entirely dependent on subsidies from New Zealand. It has annual revenues of less than US$500,000 (€336,995) against expenditures of some US$2.8 million (€1.9 million). The deficit is made up by aid from New Zealand.
Tokelau annually exports around US$100,000 (€67,000) of stamps, copra and woven and carved handicrafts and imports over US$300,000 (€202,000) of foodstuffs, building materials, and fuel to, and from, New Zealand. New Zealand also pays directly for the cost of medical and education services. Local industries include small-scale enterprises for copra production, wood work, plaited craft goods, stamps, coins, and fishing. Agriculture and livestock produces coconuts, copra, breadfruit, papayas, bananas, figs, pigs, poultry and a few goats. Many Tokelauans live in New Zealand and support their families in Tokelau through remittances.
Tokelau is currently the world's only nation to rely solely on renewable sources of energy in the production and consumption of electricity. The goal of 100% renewable energy was met on 7 November 2012, according to the Foreign Affairs Minister of New Zealand, Murray McCully. Previously electricity was generated using diesel generators and was only available about 16 hours/day.
Three solar power stations provide 100% of current electrical demand from photovoltaics, with battery backup. The first power station was completed in August 2012. In total, 4,032 solar panels are used and 1,344 batteries weighing each. The systems are designed to withstand winds of . Tokelau's electricity is 93% generated by photovoltaics, with the remainder generated from coconut oil.
Tokelau has increased its GDP by more than 10% through registrations of domain names under its top-level domain, .tk. Registrations can be either free, in which case the user owns only usage rights and not the domain itself, or paid, which grants full rights. Free domains are pointed to Tokelau name servers, which redirects the domain via HTML frames to a specified address or to a specified A or NS record, and the redirection of up to 250 email addresses to an external address (not at a .tk domain).
In September 2003 Fakaofo became the first part of Tokelau with a high-speed Internet connection. Foundation Tokelau financed the project. Tokelau gives most domain names under its authority away to anyone for free to gain publicity for the territory. This has allowed the nation to gain enhanced telecommunications technologies, such as more computers and Internet access for Tokelauan residents. By 2012, there were about 120 computers, mostly laptops, and 1/6th of the economy consists of income from .tk domain names.
According to a 2016 analysis of domain name registration performed by the .uk registrar Nominet using data from ZookNIC. tk domains are the "world's largest country-code domain ... almost as large as second and third place holders China (.cn) and Germany (.de) combined".
According to the 2016 Tokelau Census, Tokelau has a "de jure" usually resident population of 1,499 people. The census shows a 6.2% increase in the de jure usually resident population between 2011 and 2016.
The nationals of Tokelau are called Tokelauans, and the major ethnic group is Polynesian; it has no recorded minority groups. The major religion is the Congregational Christian Church and the main language is Tokelauan, but English is also spoken.
Tokelau has fewer than 1,500 Polynesian inhabitants in three villages. Their isolation and lack of resources greatly limits economic development and confines agriculture to the subsistence level. The very limited natural resources and overcrowding are contributing to emigration to New Zealand and Samoa. Depletion of tuna has made fishing for food more difficult.
A significant proportion (44.9% in 2016) of the population were born overseas, mostly in Samoa (15.3% of total population) and New Zealand (11.5%).
On the island of Atafu almost all inhabitants are members of the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa. On Nukunonu almost all are Roman Catholic. On Fakaofo both denominations are present with the Congregational Christian Church predominant. The total proportions are: Congregational Christian Church 62%, Roman Catholic 34%, other 5%.
While slightly more females than males live on Atafu and Fakaofo, males make up 57% of Nukunonu residents. Only 9% of Tokelauans aged 40 or more have never been married. One-quarter of the population were born overseas; almost all the rest live on the same atoll they were born on. Most households own five or more pigs.
Despite its low income, Tokelau has a life expectancy of 69 years, comparable with other Oceania islands.
The following demographic statistics are from the "CIA World Factbook".
Population
Ethnicity
Religions
Languages
Each atoll has a school and hospital. The health services have a Director of Health in Apia and a Chief Clinical Advisor who moves from atoll to atoll as required to assist the doctors attached to each hospital. In 2007 there was not always a doctor on each island and locums were appointed to fill the gaps.
Many Tokelauan youth travel to New Zealand to further their education and Tokelau is most populated around the Christmas season, with students returning home and then heading off for another year of study.
Due to its small size, Tokelau is unaffiliated to most international sports organisations, and rarely takes part in international events. The only significant international competition Tokelau takes part in is the Pacific Games. Tokelau won its first ever gold medals at the 2007 Pacific Games in Apia, winning a total of five medals (three gold, a silver and a bronze), all in lawn bowls, and finishing 12th (out of 22) on the overall medal table. This included two gold medals for Violina Linda Pedro (in the women's pairs and the women's singles), making her Tokelau's most successful individual athlete to date.
In October 2010, table tennis became "the first sport in Tokelau to be granted membership at a Continental or World level", when the Tokelau Table Tennis Association was formally established and became the 23rd member of the Oceania Table Tennis Federation.
Tokelau was due to take part, for the first time, in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, in Delhi, but, for unknown reasons, ultimately did not do so.
Tokelau does have a National Sports Federation, and a significant sporting event is the Tokelau Games, which are held yearly. When they are held, "all of Tokelau virtually stands still", as "[i]n excess of 50% of the population take part and all work and school stops at the time". The 2010 Games included competitions in rugby sevens, netball and kilikiti, alongside "a cultural evening [...] where each atoll showcases their traditional songs and dances".
Netball is thought to have been introduced to Tokelau by the British, but became more popular when New Zealand's government took over the territory. The sport is often played during inter-island sport competitions, alongside other sports like rugby league and volleyball.
In Tokelau, there are two levels to the soccer league. From Fale, Fakaofo, two of the best clubs are Hakava Club and Matalele Club.
Tokelau has a radio telephone service between the islands and to Samoa. In 1997, a government-regulated telephone service (TeleTok) with three satellite earth stations was established. Each atoll has a radio-broadcast station that broadcasts shipping and weather reports and every household has a radio or access to one. News is disseminated through the government newsletter "Te Vakai".
Tokelau has the international calling code of 690, and has had five-digit telephone numbers from November 2015 (the existing four-digit numbers were prefixed by the digit "2")
Tokelau is served by the MV "Mataliki", delivered new in 2016 as a replacement of the smaller "MV Tokelau" and jointly managed by the Tokelau Transport Department and the company Transport and Marine. The vessel, which has a capacity of 60 passengers on international cruises and 120 for transport between the atolls of Tokelau, operates fortnightly between Tokelau and Apia, with the trip taking a little over a day. A dedicated cargo vessel, the "MV Kalopaga", will enter service in 2018 and replace chartered freight vessels.
Ships load and unload cargo by motoring up to the down-wind (leeward) side of the islet where the people live and maintaining station, by intermittent use of engines, close to the reef edge so that a landing barge can be motored out to transfer cargo to or from the shore. On returning to shore, the barge negotiates a narrow channel through the reef to the beach. Usually this landing is subject to ocean swell and beaching requires considerable skill and, often, coral abrasions to bodies. When bad weather prevents the barge making the trip, the ship stands off to wait for suitable weather or goes off to one of the other atolls to attempt to load or unload its passengers or cargo, or both.
There is no airport in Tokelau, so boats are the main means of travel and transport. Some seaplanes and amphibious aircraft are able to land in the island's lagoons. An airstrip was considered by the New Zealand Government in 2010. In 2016, plans to link the atolls with Samoa by helicopter had to be abandoned because of high costs, leading in the following years to renewed calls to the New Zealand government for help with establishing air services. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30148 |
Tonga
Tonga (; Tongan: "Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga"), officially named the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 169 islands, of which 36 are inhabited. The total surface area is about scattered over of the southern Pacific Ocean. As of 2016, the state had a population of 100,651 people, of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu.
Tonga stretches across approximately in a north–south line. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east (which is the nearest foreign territory), Kermadec (part of New Zealand) to the southwest, and New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the farther west. It is about from New Zealand's North Island.
From 1900 to 1970, Tonga had British protected state status, with the United Kingdom looking after its foreign affairs under a Treaty of Friendship. The country never relinquished its sovereignty to any foreign power. In 2010, Tonga took a decisive path towards becoming a constitutional monarchy rather than a traditional absolute kingdom, after legislative reforms passed a course for the first partial representative elections.
In many Polynesian languages, including Tongan, the word "tonga" comes from "fakatonga", which means "southwards", as the archipelago is the southernmost group of the islands of central Polynesia. The word "tonga" is cognate to the Hawaiian region of "Kona", meaning "leeward" in the Hawaiian language.
Tonga became known in the West as the "Friendly Islands" because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the "ʻinasi" festival, the yearly donation of the First Fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga (the islands' paramount chief) and so received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, the chiefs wanted to kill Cook during the gathering but could not agree on a plan.
An Austronesian-speaking group linked to the archaeological construct known as the Lapita cultural complex reached and inhabited Tonga around 1500–1000 BC. Scholars have much debated the exact dates of the initial settlement of Tonga, but thorium dating confirms that the first settlers came to the oldest town, Nukuleka, by 888 BC, ± 8 years. Not much is known before European contact because of the lack of a writing system, but oral history has survived and been recorded after the arrival of the Europeans.
By the 12th century, Tongans and the Tongan paramount chief, the Tuʻi Tonga, had a reputation across the central Pacific—from Niue, Samoa, Rotuma, Wallis & Futuna, New Caledonia to Tikopia—leading some historians to speak of a Tuʻi Tonga Empire. In the 15th century and again in the 17th, civil war erupted.
The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616 when the Dutch vessel "Eendracht", captained by Willem Schouten, made a short visit to trade. Later came other Dutch explorers, including Jacob Le Maire (who called on the northern island of Niuatoputapu); and in 1643 Abel Tasman (who visited Tongatapu and Haʻapai). Later noteworthy European visitors included James Cook (Royal Navy) in 1773, 1774, and 1777; Spanish Navy explorers Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa in 1781 and Alessandro Malaspina in 1793; the first London missionaries in 1797; and the Wesleyan Methodist Reverend Walter Lawry in 1822.
Whaling vessels were among the earliest regular western visitors. The first on record is the "Ann & Hope" which was reported among the islands of Tonga in June 1799. The last known whaling visitor was the "Albatross" in 1899. They came for water, food and wood. The islands most regularly visited were Ata, 'Eua, Ha'apai, Tongatapu and Vava'u. Sometimes men from the islands were recruited to serve as crewmen on these vessels.
The United States Exploring Expedition visited in 1840.
In 1845, the ambitious young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau united Tonga into a kingdom. He held the chiefly title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised by Methodist missionaries with the name "Siaosi" ("George") in 1831. In 1875, with the help of missionary Shirley Waldemar Baker, he declared Tonga a constitutional monarchy; formally adopted the western royal style; emancipated the "serfs"; enshrined a code of law, land tenure, and freedom of the press; and limited the power of the chiefs.
Tonga became a protected state under a Treaty of Friendship with Britain on 18 May 1900, when European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king. The treaty posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul (1901–1970). Under the protection of Britain, Tonga maintained its sovereignty, and remained the only Pacific nation to retain its monarchical government (unlike Tahiti and Hawaiʻi). The Tongan monarchy follows an uninterrupted succession of hereditary rulers from one family.
The 1918 flu pandemic, brought to Tonga by a ship from New Zealand, killed 1,800 Tongans, reflecting a mortality rate of about eight percent.
The Treaty of Friendship and Tonga's protection status ended in 1970 under arrangements established by Queen Salote Tupou III prior to her death in 1965. Owing to its British ties Tonga joined the Commonwealth in 1970 (atypically as a country with its own monarch rather than that of the United Kingdom, similar to Malaysia, Lesotho, and Swaziland), and became a member of the United Nations in September 1999. While exposed to colonial pressures, Tonga has always governed itself, which makes it unique in the Pacific.
As part of cost-cutting measures across the British Foreign Service, the British Government closed the British High Commission in Nukuʻalofa in March 2006, transferring representation of British interests to the High Commissioner in Fiji. The last resident British High Commissioner was Paul Nessling.
Tonga is a constitutional monarchy. Reverence for the monarch replaces that held in earlier centuries for the sacred paramount chief, the Tuʻi Tonga. Criticism of the monarch is held to be contrary to Tongan culture and etiquette. King Tupou VI (a descendant of the first monarch), his family, powerful nobles and a growing non-royal elite caste live in much wealth, with the rest of the country living in relative poverty.
Tonga provides for its citizens a free and mandatory education for all, secondary education with only nominal fees, and foreign-funded scholarships for post-secondary education.
The pro-democracy movement in Tonga promotes reforms, including better representation in the Parliament for the majority of commoners, and better accountability in matters of state. An overthrow of the monarchy is not part of the movement and the institution of monarchy continues to hold popular support, even while reforms are advocated. Until recently, the governance issue was generally ignored by the leaders of other countries, but major aid donors and neighbours New Zealand and Australia are now expressing concerns about some Tongan government actions.
Following the precedents of Queen Sālote and the counsel of numerous international advisors, the government of Tonga under King Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV (reigned 1965–2006) monetised the economy, internationalised the medical and education system, and enabled access by commoners to increasing forms of material wealth (houses, cars, and other commodities), education, and overseas travel.
Male homosexuality is illegal in Tonga, with a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment. Tongans have universal access to a national health care system. The Constitution of Tonga protects land ownership: land cannot be sold to foreigners (although it may be leased).
The previous king, Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV, and his government made some problematic economic decisions and were accused by democracy activists, including former prime minister ʻAkilisi Pōhiva, of wasting millions of dollars on unwise investments. The problems have mostly been driven by attempts to increase national revenue through a variety of schemes: considering making Tonga a nuclear waste disposal site (an idea floated in the mid 1990s by the current crown prince); and selling Tongan Protected Persons Passports (which eventually forced Tonga to naturalise the purchasers, sparking ethnicity-based concerns within Tonga).
Schemes also included the registering of foreign ships (which proved to be engaged in illegal activities, including shipments for al-Qaeda); claiming geo-orbital satellite slots (the revenue from which seems to belong to the Princess Royal, not the state); holding a long-term charter on an unusable Boeing 757 that was sidelined in Auckland Airport, leading to the collapse of Royal Tongan Airlines; and approving a factory for exporting cigarettes to China (against the advice of Tongan medical officials, and decades of health promotion messaging).
The king proved vulnerable to speculators with big promises and lost reportedly US$26 million to Jesse Bogdonoff, a financial adviser who called himself the king's Court Jester. The police imprisoned pro-democracy leaders, and the government repeatedly confiscated the newspaper "The Tongan Times" (printed in New Zealand and sold in Tonga) because the editor had been vocally critical of the king's mistakes. Notably, the "Keleʻa", produced specifically to critique the government and printed in Tonga by pro-democracy leader ʻAkilisi Pōhiva, was not banned during that time. Pōhiva, however, had been subjected to harassment in the form of barratry (frequent lawsuits).
In mid-2003, the government passed a radical constitutional amendment to "Tonganize" the press, by licensing and limiting freedom of the press, so as to protect the image of the monarchy. The amendment was defended by the government and by royalists on the basis of traditional cultural values. Licensure criteria include 80% ownership by Tongans living in the country. , those papers denied licenses under the new act included the "Taimi ʻo Tonga" ("Tongan Times"), the "Keleʻa," and the "Matangi Tonga"—while those permitted licenses were uniformly church-based or pro-government.
The bill was opposed in the form of a several-thousand-strong protest march in the capital, a call by the Tuʻi Pelehake (a prince, nephew of the king and elected member of parliament) for Australia and other nations to pressure the Tongan government to democratise the electoral system, and a legal writ calling for a judicial investigation of the bill. The latter was supported by some 160 signatures, including seven of the nine elected, "People's Representatives".
The then Crown Prince Tupoutoʻa and Pilolevu, the Princess Royal, remained generally silent on the issue. In total, the changes threatened to destabilise the polity, fragment support for the status quo, and place further pressure on the monarchy.
In 2005, the government spent several weeks negotiating with striking civil-service workers before reaching a settlement. The civil unrest that ensued was not limited to Tonga; protests outside the King's New Zealand residence made headlines.
Prime Minister Prince ʻAhoʻeitu ʻUnuakiʻotonga Tukuʻaho (Lavaka Ata ʻUlukālala) (now King Tupou VI) resigned suddenly on 11 February 2006, and also gave up his other cabinet portfolios. The elected Minister of Labour, Dr Feleti Sevele, replaced him in the interim.
On 5 July 2006, a driver in Menlo Park, California, caused the deaths of Prince Tuʻipelehake ʻUluvalu, his wife, and their driver. Tuʻipelehake, 55, was the co-chairman of the constitutional reform commission, and a nephew of the King.
The public expected some changes when George Tupou V succeeded his father in September 2006. On 16 November 2006, rioting broke out in the capital city of Nukuʻalofa when it seemed that the parliament would adjourn for the year without having made any advances in increasing democracy in government. Pro-democracy activists burned and looted shops, offices, and government buildings. As a result, more than 60% of the downtown area was destroyed, and as many as 6 people died. The disturbances were ended by action from Tongan Security Forces and troops from New Zealand-led Joint Task Force.
On 29 July 2008, the Palace announced that King George Tupou V would relinquish much of his power and would surrender his role in day-to-day governmental affairs to the Prime Minister. The royal chamberlain said that this was being done to prepare the monarchy for 2010, when most of the first parliament would be elected, and added: "The Sovereign of the only Polynesian kingdom... is voluntarily surrendering his powers to meet the democratic aspirations of many of his people." The previous week, the government said the king had sold state assets that had contributed so much of the royal family's wealth.
On 15 March 2012, King George Tupou V contracted pneumonia and was brought to Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong. He was later diagnosed with leukaemia. His health deteriorated significantly shortly thereafter, and he died at 3:15 pm on 18 March 2012. He was succeeded by his brother Tupou VI, who was crowned on 4 July 2015.
Tonga's foreign policy has been described by Matangi Tonga as "Look East"—specifically, as establishing closer diplomatic and economic relations with Asia (which actually lies to the north-west of the Pacific kingdom). Tonga retains cordial relations with the United States. Although it remains on good terms with the United Kingdom, the two countries do not maintain particularly close relations, and the United Kingdom closed its High Commission in Tonga in 2006. Tonga's relations with Oceania's regional powers, Australia and New Zealand, are good.
Tonga maintains strong regional ties in the Pacific. It is a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum, the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission, the South Pacific Tourism Organisation, the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.
In March 2017, at the 34th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, Vanuatu made a joint statement on behalf of Tonga and some other Pacific nations raising human rights violations in the Western New Guinea, which has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, and requested that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights produce a report. Indonesia rejected allegations. More than 100,000 Papuans have died during a 50-year Papua conflict.
The Tongan government supported the American "coalition of the willing" action in Iraq and deployed 40+ soldiers (as part of an American force) in late 2004. The contingent returned home on 17 December 2004. In 2007 a second contingent went to Iraq, and two more were sent during 2008 as part of continued support for the coalition. Tongan involvement concluded at the end of 2008 with no reported loss of life.
In 2010, Brigadier General Tauʻaika ʻUtaʻatu, Commander of the Tonga Defence Services, signed an agreement in London committing a minimum of 200 troops to co-operate with Britain's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The task completed in April 2014 and the UK presented Operational Service Medals to each of the soldiers involved during a parade held in Tonga.
Tonga has contributed troops and police to the Bougainville conflict in Papua-New Guinea and to the Australian-led RAMSI force in the Solomon Islands.
Tonga is sub-divided into five administrative divisions: ʻEua, Haʻapai, Niuas, Tongatapu, and Vavaʻu.
Located in Oceania, Tonga is an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, directly south of Samoa and about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. Its 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited, are divided into three main groups – Vava'u, Ha'apai, and Tongatapu – and cover an -long north–south line.
The largest island, Tongatapu, on which the capital city of Nukuʻalofa is located, covers . Geologically the Tongan islands are of two types: most have a limestone base formed from uplifted coral formations; others consist of limestone overlaying a volcanic base.
The climate is tropical with a distinct warm period (December–April), during which the temperatures rise above , and a cooler period (May–November), with temperatures rarely rising above . The temperature and rainfall range from and on Tongatapu in the south to and on the more northerly islands closer to the Equator. The average wettest period is around March with on average . The average daily humidity is 80%. The highest temperature recorded in Tonga was on 11 February 1979 in Vava'u. The coldest temperature recorded in Tonga was on 8 September 1994 in Fua'amotu. Temperatures of or lower are usually measured in the dry season and are more frequent in southern Tonga than in the north of the island. The tropical cyclone season currently runs from 1 November to 30 April, though tropical cyclones can form and affect Tonga outside of the season.
In Tonga, dating back to Tongan legend, flying bats are considered sacred and are the property of the monarchy. Thus they are protected and cannot be harmed or hunted. As a result, flying fox bats have thrived in many of the islands of Tonga.
The bird life of Tonga include a total of 73 species, of which two are endemic; the Tongan Whistler and the Tongan megapode. Five species have been introduced by humans, and eight are rare or accidental. Seven species are globally threatened.
Tonga's economy is characterised by a large non-monetary sector and a heavy dependence on remittances from the half of the country's population who live abroad (chiefly in Australia, New Zealand and the United States). The royal family and the nobles dominate and largely own the monetary sector of the economy – particularly the telecommunications and satellite services. Tonga was named the sixth most corrupt country in the world by Forbes magazine in 2008.
Tonga was ranked the 165th safest investment destination in the world in the March 2011 Euromoney Country Risk rankings.
The manufacturing sector consists of handicrafts and a few other very small scale industries, which contribute only about 3% of GDP. Commercial business activities also are inconspicuous and, to a large extent, are dominated by the same large trading companies found throughout the South Pacific. In September 1974, the country's first commercial trading bank, the Bank of Tonga, opened.
Tonga's development plans emphasise a growing private sector, upgrading agricultural productivity, revitalising the squash and vanilla bean industries, developing tourism, and improving communications and transport. Substantial progress has been made, but much work remains to be done. A small but growing construction sector is developing in response to the inflow of aid monies and remittances from Tongans abroad. In recognition of such a crucial contribution the present government has created a new department within the Prime Minister's Office with the sole purpose of catering for the needs of Tongans living abroad. Furthermore, in 2007 the Tongan Parliament amended citizenship laws to allow Tongans to hold dual citizenship.
The tourist industry is relatively undeveloped; however, the government recognises that tourism can play a major role in economic development, and efforts are being made to increase this source of revenue. Cruise ships often stop in Vavaʻu, which has a reputation for its whale watching, game fishing, surfing, beaches and is increasingly becoming a major player in the South Pacific tourism market.
Tonga's postage stamps, which feature colourful and often unusual designs (including heart-shaped and banana-shaped stamps), are popular with philatelists around the world.
In 2005, the country became eligible to become a member of the World Trade Organization. After an initial voluntary delay, Tonga became a full member of the WTO on 27 July 2007.
The Tonga Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI), incorporated in 1996, endeavours to represent the interests of its members, private sector businesses, and to promote economic growth in the Kingdom.
Tonga is home to some 106,000 people, but more than double that number live overseas, mainly in the US, New Zealand and Australia. Remittances from the overseas population has been declining since the onset of the 2008 global economic crisis. The tourism industry is improving, but remains modest at under 90,000 tourists per year.
In Tonga, agriculture and forestry (together with fisheries) provide the majority of employment, foreign exchange earnings and food. Rural Tongans rely on both plantation and subsistence agriculture. Plants grown for both market cash crops and home use include bananas, coconuts, coffee beans, vanilla beans, and root crops such as cassava, sweet potato and taro. , two-thirds of agricultural land was in root crops.
The processing of coconuts into copra and desiccated (dried) coconut was once the only significant industry, and only commercial export, but deteriorating prices on the world market and lack of replanting brought this once vibrant industry, as in most island nations of the South Pacific, to a complete standstill.
Pigs and poultry are the major types of livestock. Horses are kept for draft purposes, primarily by farmers working their ʻapi ʻuta (a plot of bushland). More cattle are being raised, and beef imports are declining.
The traditional feudal land ownership system meant that farmers had no incentive to invest in planting long-term tree crops on land they did not own, but in the late twentieth century kava and vanilla from larger plantations became the main agricultural exports, together with squash. The export of squash to Japan, beginning in 1987, once brought relief to Tonga's struggling economy, but local farmers became increasingly wary of the Japanese market due to price fluctuations, not to mention the huge financial risks involved.
Energy in Tonga mostly comes from imported diesel. Energy consumption in Tonga is projected to reach around 66 gigawatt hours by 2020. The country aims to reach 50% of renewable energy by 2020.
In view of the decreasing reliability of fossil-fuel electricity generation, its increasing costs and negative environmental side-effects, renewable energy solutions have attracted the government's attention. Together with IRENA, Tonga has charted out a renewable energy based strategy to power the main and outer islands alike. The strategy focuses on solar home systems that turn individual households into small power plants. In addition, it calls for the involvement of local operators, finance institutions and technicians to provide sustainable business models as well as strategies to ensure the effective operation, management and maintenance once the systems are installed.
With the assistance of IRENA, Tonga has developed the 2010–2020 Tonga Energy Road Map (TERM), which aims for a 50% reduction of diesel importation. This will be accomplished through a range of appropriate renewable technologies, including wind and solar, as well as innovative efficiencies.
In 2019, Tonga announced the construction of 6-megawatt solar farm on Tongatapu. The plant will be the second largest solar plant in the Pacific upon completion.
Over 70% of the inhabitants live on its main island, Tongatapu. Although an increasing number of Tongans have moved into the only urban and commercial centre, Nukuʻalofa, where European and indigenous cultural and living patterns have blended, village life and kinship ties remain influential throughout the country. Despite emigration, Tonga grew in population from about 32,000 in the 1930s to more than 90,000 by 1976.
According to the government portal, Tongans, Polynesian by ethnicity with a mixture of Melanesian, represent more than 98% of the inhabitants. 1.5% are mixed Tongans and the rest are European (the majority are British), mixed European, and other Pacific Islanders. In 2001 there were approximately 3,000 or 4,000 Chinese in Tonga, comprising 3 or 4% of the total Tongan population. In 2006, Nukuʻalofa riots mainly targeted Chinese-owned businesses, leading to the emigration of several hundred Chinese so that only about 300 remain.
The Tongan language is the official language, along with English. Tongan, a Polynesian language, is closely related to Wallisian (Uvean), Niuean, Hawaiian, and Samoan.
Tonga does not have an official state religion. The Constitution of Tonga (Revised 1998) provides for freedom of religion.
In 1928, Queen Salote Tupou III, who was a member of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga, established the Free Wesleyan Church as the state religion of Tonga. The chief pastor of the Free Wesleyan Church serves as the representative of the people of Tonga and of the Church at the coronation of a King or Queen of Tonga where he anoints and crowns the Monarch. In opposition to the establishment of the Free Wesleyan Church as a state religion, the Church of Tonga separated from the Free Wesleyan Church in 1928.
Everyday life is heavily influenced by Polynesian traditions and by the Christian faith; for example, all commerce and entertainment activities cease on Sunday, from the beginning of the day at midnight, to the end of the day at midnight. The constitution declares the Sabbath sacred forever. The official figures from the latest government census show that 90% of the population are affiliated with a Christian church or sect, with the four major church affiliations in the kingdom as follows:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent missionaries in 1891 to visit King Siaosi (George) Tupo where they obtained permission to preach.
By some published surveys, Tonga has one of the highest obesity rates in the world. World Health Organization data published in 2014 indicates that Tonga stands 4th overall in terms of countries listed by mean body mass index data. In 2011, 90% of the adult population were considered overweight using NIH interpretation of body mass index (BMI) data, with more than 60% of those obese. 70% of Tongan females aged 15–85 are obese. Tonga and nearby Nauru have the world's highest overweight and obese populations.
Primary education between ages 6 and 14 is compulsory and free in state schools. Mission schools provide about 8% of the primary and 90% of the secondary level of education. State schools make up for the rest. Higher education includes teacher training, nursing and medical training, a small private university, a woman's business college, and a number of private agricultural schools. Most higher education is pursued overseas.
Tongans enjoy a relatively high level of education, with a 98.9% literacy rate, and higher education up to and including medical and graduate degrees (pursued mostly overseas). They hold the body of academic knowledge created by their scholars in high esteem and the Kukū Kaunaka Collection which comprises every PhD and Masters dissertation written by any Tongan in any country is archived by Seu'ula Johansson-Fua at the Institute for Education in Tonga.
Humans have lived in Tonga for nearly 3,000 years, since settlement in late Lapita times. Before the arrival of European explorers in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Tongans had frequent contacts with their nearest oceanic neighbours, Fiji and Niue. In the 19th century, with the arrival of Western traders and missionaries, Tongan culture changed, especially in religion. , almost 98 percent of residents profess Christianity. The people discarded some old beliefs and habits and adopted others.
Contemporary Tongans often have strong ties to overseas lands. Many Tongans have emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, or the United States to seek employment and a higher standard of living. The United States is the preferred destination for Tongan emigrants, and as of 2000 there were 36,840 Tongans living in the US. More than 8,000 Tongans live in Australia. The Tongan diaspora retains close ties to relatives at home, and a significant portion of Tonga's income derives from remittances to family members (often aged) who prefer to remain in Tonga.
Rugby union is the national sport, and the national team (ʻIkale Tahi, or Sea Eagles) has performed quite well on the international stage. Tonga has competed in six Rugby World Cups since 1987. The 2007 and 2011 Rugby World Cups were Tonga's most successful to date, both winning two out of four matches and in a running chance for the quarter finals. In the 2007 Rugby World Cup, Tonga won its first two matches, against the USA 25–15, and Samoa 19–15. They came very close to upsetting the eventual winners of the 2007 tournament, the South African Springboks, losing 30–25. A defeat by England, 36–20 in their last pool game ended their hopes of making the knockout stages. Nevertheless, by picking up third place in their pool games behind South Africa and England, Tonga earned automatic qualification for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. In Pool A of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Tonga beat both Japan 31–18 and 5th ranked eventual finalist France 19–14 in the latter pool stages. However, a previous heavy defeat by the All Blacks at the tournament's opener (41–10) and a subsequent tight defeat by Canada (25–20) meant that Tonga lost out to France (who also lost to NZ) for the quarter finals due to 2 bonus points and a points difference of 46.
Tonga's best result before 2007 came in 1995, when they beat Côte d'Ivoire 29–11, and 1999 when they beat Italy 28–25 (although with only 14 men they lost heavily to England, 101–10). Tonga perform the Ikale Tahi war dance or Sipi Tau (a form of Kailao) before all their matches. Tonga used to compete in the Pacific Tri-Nations against Samoa and Fiji, which has now been replaced by the IRB Pacific Nations Cup, which now involves Japan, Canada, and the United States. At club level, there are the Datec Cup Provincial Championship and the Pacific Rugby Cup. Rugby union is governed by the Tonga Rugby Football Union, which was a member of the Pacific Islands Rugby Alliance and contributed to the Pacific Islanders rugby union team, before they were disbanded in 2009.
Many players of Tongan descent – e.g., Jonah Lomu, Israel Folau, Viliami "William" ʻOfahengaue, Malakai Fekitoa, Ben Afeaki, Charles Piutau, Frank Halai, Sekope Kepu, George Smith, Wycliff Palu, Sitaleki Timani, Salesi Ma'afu, Anthony and Saia Faingaa, Mark Gerrard, Cooper Vuna, Doug Howlett, Toutai Kefu and Tatafu Polota-Nau – have played for either the All Blacks or the Wallabies. British and Irish Lion and Welsh international player Taulupe "Toby" Faletau is Tongan born and the son of Tongan international Kuli Faletau. Taulupe's cousins and England international players Billy and Mako Vunipola (who is also a British and Irish Lion), are sons of former Tonga rugby captain Fe'ao Vunipola. Rugby is popular among the nation's schools, and students from schools such as Tonga College and Tupou College are regularly offered scholarships in New Zealand, Australia and Japan.
Rugby league has gained some success. Tonga made their first appearance at a Rugby League World Cup in the 1995 edition where they went out in the first stage but narrowly lost to New Zealand. They have since appeared in each subsequent Rugby League World Cup tournament. In the 2008 Rugby League World Cup Tonga recorded wins against Ireland and Scotland. Just before the 2017 World Cup, various high-profile players, led by Jason Taumalolo and Andrew Fifita, defected from their tier one nations to represent their nation of heritage. This led to them defeating New Zealand in Hamilton at Waikato Stadium on 11 November at that tournament. The national team has since also recorded victories again Great Britain and the world number one Australia. In addition to the success of the national team, many players of Tongan descent make it big in the Australian National Rugby League competition. These include Willie Mason, Manu Vatuvei, Brent Kite, Willie Tonga, Anthony Tupou, Antonio Kaufusi, Israel Folau, Taniela Tuiaki, Michael Jennings, Tony Williams, Feleti Mateo, Fetuli Talanoa, to name a few. Subsequently, some Tongan rugby league players have established successful careers in the Super League such as Antonio Kaufusi.
Aside from rugby, Tonga has also produced athletes who have competed at both the Summer and Winter Olympics. Tonga's only Olympic medal came from the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where Paea Wolfgramm won silver in super heavyweight boxing. One athlete attended the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Several Tongans have been football players in the National Football League (NFL), including Tuineau Alipate, Spencer Folau, Lakei Heimuli, Steve Kaufusi, Ma'ake Kemoeatu, Deuce Lutui, Siupeli Malamala, Tim Manoa, Stan Mataele, Vili Maumau, Alfred Pupunu, Vai Sikahema, Star Lotulelei, and Peter Tuipulotu. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30158 |
History of Tonga
The history of Tonga is recorded since the century after 900 BC, when seafarers associated with the Lapita diaspora first settled the islands which now make up the Kingdom of Tonga. Along with Fiji and Samoa, the area served as a gateway into the rest of the Pacific region known as Polynesia. Ancient Tongan mythologies recorded by early European explorers report the islands of 'Ata and Tongatapu as the first islands having been hauled to the surface from the deep ocean by Maui.
The dates of the initial settlement of Tonga are still subject to debate; nonetheless, one of the oldest occupied sites is found in the village of Pea on Tongatapu. Radiocarbon dating of a shell found at the site reportedly dates the occupation at 3180 ± 100 BP (Before Present). Some of the oldest sites pertaining to the first occupants of the Tongan Islands are found on Tongatapu which is also where the first Lapita ceramics were found by WC McKern in 1921. Nonetheless, reaching the Tongan islands (without Western navigational tools and techniques) was a remarkable feat accomplished by the Lapita peoples. Not much is known about Tonga before European contact because of the lack of a writing system during prehistoric times other than the oral history told to the early European explorers. The first time the Tongan people encountered Europeans was in April 1616 when Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten made a short visit to the islands to trade with them.
Centuries before Westerners arrived, Tongans created megalithic stoneworks. Most notably, these are the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui and the Langi terraced tombs. The Haʻamonga is 5 meters high and made of three coral-lime stones that weigh more than 40 tons each. The Langi are low, very flat, two or three tier pyramids that mark the graves of former kings.
What is known about Tonga before European contact comes from myths, stories, songs, poems, (as there was no writing system) as well as from archaeological excavations. Many ancient sites, kitchens and refuse heaps, have been found in Tongatapu and Haʻapai, and a few in Vavaʻu and the Niuas that provide insights into old Tongan settlement patterns, diet, economy, and culture.
The Haʻapai of three thousand years ago was a bit different from the Haʻapai of today. Large flightless birds called megapodes bounded through the tropical rain forest while giant iguanas and various other lizards rested on tree limbs. The skies hosted three different species of fruit bats, three different species of pigeon, and more than two dozen other types of birds. There were no pigs, horses, dogs, cows, or rats. There were no Tongans.
The South Pacific, meanwhile, was almost completely uninhabited. Any present humans existed on the western fringes of the Solomon Islands. Then, around that time, these islanders were suddenly replaced by a new branch of humanity that originated from the Bismarck Archipelago off Papua New Guinea. They intrepidly stormed through the region, rapidly colonizing and pushing east. They brought with them new plant and animal species, as well as a distinct pottery design. Today these people are named the Lapita, after the location in New Caledonia where they were first noticed archaeologically.
Around 3000 B.P., the Lapita people reached Tonga, and carbon dating places their landfall first in Tongatapu and then in Haʻapai soon after. The newcomers were already well adapted to the resource-scarce island life and settled in small communities of a few households on beaches just above high tide line that faced open lagoons or reefs. Through continued interaction with Lapita relatives of the west, the Haʻapaians obtained domesticated animals and cultivatable plants, but it seems that both of these possible food sources contributed minimally towards their diet for at least the first two hundred years. Instead, they feasted mainly on life in the sea: parrotfish, wrasses, turtles, surgeonfish, jacks, eels, emperors, bottom-dwellers, shellfish, and the occasional deep water tuna. Just as their Polynesian descendants do today.
Sea food was inexhaustible, so reefs then were not much different from reefs today, except for the marked decline in sea turtle populations. Fauna didn't fare as well, however, and soon the giant iguanas, the megapodes, twenty four bird species, almost all pigeons, and all but one species of fruit bat were all extinct.
They hunted and cooked these animals with the most basic of technologies. When shell pieces were too brittle for tools, they utilized volcanic soils for “andesite/basalt used for adze manufacture and other artifacts such as oils as hammerstones, weaving weights, cooking stones, and decorative pebbles for grave decoration.” If they were lucky, they obtained harder obsidian shards from the far northern fringe volcano of Tafahi in the Niuas.
Another useful technology was their eponymous pottery with “dentate” impressions and simple designs that were characteristic of all Lapita settlements in the South Pacific. Tongan Lapita designs were simpler than western Lapita designs, evolving from ornate curvilinear and rectilinear patterns into simple rectilinear forms. The pottery was “slab-built earthenware of andesitic-tephra clay mixed with calcareous or mineral sand tempers and fired at a low temperature.”
Decades of archaeological excavations of ancient Lapita kitchens and middens (refuse piles) both in Tongatapu and Haʻapai have taught us much about early Tongan settlement. We know what they ate, what tools they used, where they settled (one colony each on ‘Uiha, Kauvai, and Foa, and two on Lifuka), and how large the settlements were. Despite a wealth of archaeological evidence, however, the Lapita people still stifle us with two main mysteries: How did they spread through the South Pacific so quickly, and why did the Lapita settlers in Tonga quickly abandon their ornate pottery tradition?
The Lapitan diaspora began from Papua New Guinea in 1500 B.C. By 2850 BP(900BCE) they were already in Tonga, meaning they virtually sprinted east for three hundred years. They travelled in small wooden boats over open ocean to invisible destinations faster than the Europeans colonizers walked across their continent. Archaeologists wonder what would compel people to embark on statistically suicidal missions. It doesn't appear that population pressure was a problem, because most Lapitan islands were sparsely inhabited and could have supported much higher populations, especially if they had turned more towards available root crops.
A hypothesis from Kirch is that Lapitan culture encouraged emigration by younger sons. Not just in Tonga, but throughout the South Pacific is a tradition of passing down land to eldest sons. To obtain their own land, younger sons needed to explore. Tangaloa, the chief Tongan god before the arrival of Christianity, was a younger sibling who created Tonga while searching for land from a canoe. His fish hook accidentally caught on a rock on the ocean floor and he was able to pull Tonga to the surface. If the hypothesis is correct, then there must have been some strong sibling rivalry to entice someone to fall upon places as far away as New Zealand, Hawaiʻi, and Easter Island.
The other great mystery is why the ornate pottery tradition disappeared, and with such speed. Only two hundred years after arriving, the Lapitan settlers ceased to decorate their earthenware pots at all, and the only thing the leading contemporary Tongan archaeologist can say about the disappearance is that, “Unfortunately most explanations are based on inferential speculation, and they are difficult to validate with any degree of certainty. What we can say with confidence is that, for whatever reason pottery decoration ceased in Tonga, it did so rather suddenly.”
Life began to change drastically for Haʻapaians at the same time that ornate pottery was replaced by a strictly utilitarian plain ware kit, and it is at this time that the people may be called Polynesian. Of all the linguistically and traditionally similar people who came to inhabit the triangle created by New Zealand, Hawai’i, and Easter Island, they can all trace ancestry to a few original settlers in Tonga.
These original Polynesians in Tonga shifted somewhat away from maritime subsistence towards an increased reliance on agriculture and animal husbandry. Taro, yam, breadfruit, and banana became principal carbohydrate sources, and domesticated animals came to represent much more of the diet. At original Lapita sites, 24% of bird bones came from chickens, which increased after the Polynesian transformation into 81%, marking probably the demise of other bird species as well as an increased reliance on domesticated species.
More energy supportive food sources allowed a population explosion. A 25x40 m Lapitan “hamlet” grew into a village over one kilometer in length. Settlement grew around most of the lagoon in Tongatapu and villages finally reached the interior of the main island. Similar expansions have been identified in the Niuas and in Vava’u.
To archaeologists, these early Polynesians provide a mystery just as perplexing as the Lapitans. By 1550 BP (400 BC), they ceased to produce any pottery at all. They seem to have turned towards more natural materials instead, and therefore the archaeological record enters into a “dark age” of relatively little information until the emergence of chiefly states hundreds of years later. Speculations as to disappearance of the pottery tradition ranges from the use of coconut cups and bowls that are easier to use, a shift away from steaming shellfish in large bowls to baking in underground ovens, and the unsuitability of Tongan clays for pottery. Nothing can be said with certainty except that the same disappearance also occurred in Fiji and Samoa.
Little is known about the period because of the absence of much archaeological evidence. What is clear is that population continued to increase, reaching between 17,000 and 25,000 on Tongatapu, and that chiefdoms arose to protect against the increased competition for resources. Tongatapu may have been politically consolidated by a single individual of the future Tuʻi Tonga familial line, as oral tradition traces the king's lineage back through 39 individuals that could have started as early as 1000 bp (950 AD). The maritime empire made famous by oral tradition, however did not begin until after 750 BP (1200 AD).
By the 12th century, Tongans, and the Tongan kings named the Tu'i Tonga, were known across the Pacific, from Niue, Samoa to Tikopia. They ruled these nations for more than 400 years, sparking some historians to refer to a "Tongan Empire", although it was more of a network of interacting navigators, chiefs, and adventurers. It is unclear whether chiefs of the other islands actually came to Tonga regularly to acknowledge their sovereign. Distinctive pottery and Tapa cloth designs also show that the Tongans have travelled from the far reaches of Micronesia, to Fiji and Hawaii.
In 950 AD Tu'i Tonga 'Aho'eitu started to expand his rule outside of Tonga. According to leading Tongan scholars, including Okusitino Mahina, the Tongan and Samoan oral traditions indicate that the first Tu'i Tonga was the son of their god Tangaloa. As the ancestral homeland of the Tu'i Tonga dynasty and the abode of deities such as Tagaloa 'Eitumatupu'a, Tonga Fusifonua, and Tavatavaimanuka. By the time it comes to the 10th Tu’i Tonga Momo, and his successor, ‘Tu’itatui, the empire had already stretched from Tikopia in the west to Niue in the east. Their realm contained Wallis and Futuna, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Rotuma, Nauru, parts of Fiji, Marquesas, parts of the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Cook Islands, and parts of Samoa. To better govern the large territory, the Tu’i Tongas had their throne moved by the lagoon at Lapaha, Tongatapu. The influence of the Tu’i Tonga was renowned throughout the Pacific, and many of the neighboring islands participated in the widespread trade of resources and new ideas.
Under the 10th Tui Tonga, Momo and his son Tuitātui (11th Tui Tonga) the empire was at its height of expansion, tributes for the Tu'i Tonga were said to be exacted from all tributary chiefdoms of the empire. This tribute was known as the " 'Inasi " and was conducted annually at Mu'a following the harvest season when all countries that were subject to the Tu'i Tonga must bring a gift for the gods, who was recognized as the Tu'i Tonga. Captain Cook witness an Inasi ceremony in 1777, in which he noticed a lot of foreigners in Tonga, especially the darker people that resembles African descend from Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu . The finest mats of Samoa ('ie toga) are incorrectly translated as "Tongan mats;" the correct meaning is "treasured cloth" ("ie" = cloth, "toga" = female goods, in opposition to "oloa" = male goods). Many fine mats came into the possession of the Tongan royal families through chiefly marriages with Samoan noblewomen, such as Tohu'ia the mother of Tu'i Kanokupolu Ngata who came from Safata, 'Upolu, Samoa. These mats, including the Maneafaingaa and Tasiaeafe, are considered the crown jewels of the current Tupou line (which is derived matrilineally from Samoa). The success of the Empire was largely based upon the Imperial Navy. The most common vessels were long-distance double-canoes fitted with triangular sails. The largest canoes of the Tongan kalia type could carry up to 100 men. The most notable of these were the "Tongafuesia", "Ākiheuho", the "Lomipeau", and the "Takaipōmana". It should be mentioned that the Takaipōmana was actually a Samoan kalia; according to Queen Salote and the Palace Records this was the Samoan double-canoe that brought Tohu'ia Limapō from Samoa to wed the Tu'i Ha'atakalaua. The large navy allowed for Tonga to become wealthy with large amounts of trade and tribute flowing into the Royal Treasury.
The Tui Tonga decline began due to numerous wars and internal pressure. In the 13th or 14th century Samoa defeated Tu'i Tonga Talakaifaiki under the lead of the Malietoa family. In response the falefā was created as political advisors to the Empire. The falefā officials were initially successful in maintaining some hegemony over other subjected islands but increased dissatisfaction led to the assassination of several rulers in succession. The most notable were, Havea I (19th TT), Havea II (22nd TT), and Takalaua (23rd TT), who were all known for their tyrannical rule. In AD 1535, Takalaua was assassinated by two foreigners while swimming in the lagoon of Mu'a. His successor, Kauulufonua I pursued the killers all the way to Uvea, where he killed them.
Because of so many assassination attempts on the Tu'i Tonga, Kauulufonua established a new dynasty called Tu'i Ha'atakalaua in honor of his father and he gave his brother Mo’ungamotu’a, the title of Tu’i Ha’a Takalaua. This new dynasty was to deal with the everyday decisions of the empire, while the position of Tu’i Tonga was to be the nation's spiritual leader, though he still controlled the final say in the life or death of his people. The Tu'i Tonga "empire" at this period becomes Samoan in orientation as the Tu'i Tonga kings themselves became ethnic Samoans who married Samoan women and resided in Samoa. Kau'ulufonua's mother was a Samoan from Manu'a, Tu'i Tonga Kau'ulufonua II and Tu'i Tonga Puipuifatu had Samoan mothers and as they married Samoan women the succeeding Tu'i Tongas - Vakafuhu, Tapu'osi, and 'Uluakimata - were allegedly more "Samoan" than "Tongan."
In 1610, the 6th Tu’i Ha’a Takalaua, Mo'ungatonga, created the position of Tu’i Kanokupolu for his half-Samoan son, Ngata, which divided regional rule between them, though as time went on the Tu’i Kanokupolu's power became more and more dominant over Tonga. The Tu'i Kanokupolu dynasty oversaw the importation and institution of many Samoan policies and titles and according to Tongan scholars this Samoanized form of government and custom continues today in the modern Kingdom of Tonga Things continued this way for a long time afterward. The first Europeans arrived in 1616, when the Dutch explorers Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire spotted Tongans in a canoe off the coast of Niuatoputapu, and the famous Abel Tasman followed soon after. These visits were brief, however, and did not change the island much at all.
The dividing line between the two moieties was the old coastal road named "Hala Fonua moa" (dry land road). Still today the chiefs who derive their authority from the Tui Tonga are named the Kau hala uta (inland road people) while those from the Tui Kanokupolu are known as the Kau hala lalo (low road people). Concerning the Tui Haatakalaua supporters: when this division arose, in the 15th century, they were of course the Kauhalalalo. But when the Tui Kanokupolu had overtaken them they shifted their allegiance to the Kauhalauta.
Modern archeology, anthropology and linguistic studies confirm widespread Tongan cultural influence ranging widely through East 'Uvea, Rotuma, Futuna, Samoa and Niue, parts of Micronesia (Kiribati, Pohnpei), Vanuatu, and New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, and while some academics prefer the term "maritime chiefdom", others argue that, while very different from examples elsewhere, "..."empire" is probably the most convenient term."
In the 15th century and again in the 17th, civil war erupted. It was in this context that the first Europeans arrived, beginning with Dutch explorers Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire. Between April 21 to 23, 1616 they moored at the Northern Tongan islands "Cocos Island" (Tafahi) and "Traitors Island" (Niuatoputapu), respectively. The kings of both of these islands boarded the ships and Le Maire drew up a list of Niuatoputapu words, a language now extinct. On April 24, 1616, they tried to moor at the "Island of Good Hope" (Niuafo'ou), but a less welcoming reception there made them decide to sail on.
On January 21, 1643, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to visit the main island (Tongatapu) and Haapai after rounding Australia and New Zealand while looking for a faster route to Chile. He mapped several islands. Tasman named the island of Tongatapu "t’ Eijlandt Amsterdam" (Amsterdam Island), because of its abundance of supplies. This name is no longer used except by historians.
The most significant impact had the visits of Captain Cook in 1773, 1774, and 1777, followed by the first London missionaries in 1797, and the Wesleyan Methodist Walter Lawry in 1822. Around that time, most Tongans converted en masse to the Wesleyan (Methodist) or Catholic faiths. Other denominations followed, including Pentecostals, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, and most recently the Bahá'í faith.
The islands were also visited by the Spanish under Francisco Antonio Mourelle in 1781 and Alessandro Malaspina (who unsuccessfully claimed Vavau for Spain) in 1793 and by the French under Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne in 1772, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse in 1787, Fletcher Christian in 1789 and Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 1793.
In 1799, the 14th Tui Kanokupolu, Tukuaho was murdered, which sent Tonga into a civil war for fifty years. Finally, the islands were united into a Polynesian kingdom in 1845 by the ambitious young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau. He held the chiefly title of Tu'i Kanokupolu, but was baptised with the name King George Tupou I.
In 1875, with the help of missionary Shirley Baker, he declared Tonga a constitutional monarchy, at which time he emancipated the serfs, enshrined a code of law, land tenure, and freedom of the press, and limited the power of the chiefs. The islands were not fully surveyed until 1898, when the British warships and completed the task.
Tonga became a British protected state under a Treaty of Friendship on May 18, 1900, when European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king. The Treaty of Friendship and protected state status ended in 1970 under arrangements established prior to her death by the third monarch, Queen Sālote.
On 18 May 1900, to discourage German advances, the Kingdom of Tonga became a Protected State with the United Kingdom under a Treaty of Friendship signed by George Tupou II after European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs attempted to overthrow him.
Foreign affairs of the Kingdom of Tonga were conducted through the British Consul. The United Kingdom had veto power over foreign policies and finances of the Kingdom of Tonga.
Tonga was affected by the 1918 flu pandemic, with 1,800 Tongans killed, around eight percent of the residents.
For most of the 20th century Tonga was quiet, inward-looking, and somewhat isolated from developments elsewhere in the world. Tonga's complex social structure is essentially broken into three tiers: the king, the nobles, and the commoners. Between the nobles and commoners are Matapule, sometimes called "talking chiefs," who are associated with the king or a noble and who may or may not hold estates. Obligations and responsibilities are reciprocal, and although the nobility are able to extract favors from people living on their estates, they likewise must extend favors to their people. Status and rank play a powerful role in personal relationships, even within families.
On 4 June 1970, protected state status ended under arrangements established prior to her death in 1965 by the third monarch, Queen Sālote.
Tonga joined the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970, and the United Nations in 1999. While exposed to colonial forces, Tonga has never lost indigenous governance, a fact that makes Tonga unique in the Pacific and boosts confidence in the monarchical system. The British High Commission in Tonga closed in March 2006.
Tonga's current king, Tupou VI, traces his line directly back through six generations of monarchs. The previous king, George Tupou V, born in 1946, continued to have ultimate control of the government until July 2008. At that point, concerns over financial irregularities and calls for democracy led to his relinquishing most of his day-to-day powers over the government.
Tongans are beginning to confront the problem of how to preserve their cultural identity and traditions in the wake of the increasing impact of Western technology and culture. Migration and the gradual monetization of the economy have led to the breakdown of the traditional extended family. Some of the poor, once supported by the extended family, are now being left without visible means of support.
Educational opportunities for young commoners have advanced, and their increasing political awareness has stimulated some dissent against the nobility system. In addition, the rapidly increasing population is already too great to provide the constitutionally mandated 8.25 acre (33,000 m²) api for each male at age 16. In mid-1982, population density was 134 persons per square kilometer. Because of these factors, there is considerable pressure to move to the Kingdom's only urban center.
In the March 2002 election, supporters of the Human Rights and Democracy Movement (HRDM) won seven of the nine popularly-elected seats for people's representatives, with the remaining two representing "traditionalist" values. Voter turnout was 48.9%. The nine nobles and all the cabinet ministers that sit in the Legislative Assembly generally support the government.
Following the election, HRDM leader 'Akilisi Pohiva was arrested and charged with sedition over an article published in his newspaper "Kele’a" alleging the king had a secret fortune, but was later acquitted by a jury.
In 2003, the "Taimi 'o Tonga" (Tongan Times), a newspaper published in New Zealand in the Tongan language that had been critical of the government was prohibited from distribution in Tonga due to government objections to its political content. After the newspaper obtained two court orders, it was again distributed freely. A Media Operators Bill and constitutional amendment, intended to restrict media freedom in Tonga, was hotly debated in 2003. The legislation allowed the government to exert control over coverage of "cultural" and "moral" issues, ban publications it deemed offensive, and ban foreign ownership of the media. In October 2003, thousands of Tongans marched peacefully through the streets of the capital city Nukualofa in an unprecedented demonstration against the government's plans to limit media freedom. Despite the protests, the Media Operators Bill and constitutional amendment passed the Legislature and as of December 2003 needed only the King's signature to become law.
By February 2004, the amendment was passed and licensure of news media was required. Those papers denied licenses under the new act included the Taimi 'o Tonga (Tongan Times), the Kele'a and the Matangi Tonga, while those permitted licenses were uniformly church based or pro-government. Further opposition to government action included calls by the Tu'i Pelehake (a prince, nephew of the King and elected member of parliament) for Australia and other nations to pressure the Tongan government to democratize the electoral system, and a legal writ calling for a judicial investigation of the bill. The latter was supported by some 160 people, including 7 of the 9 elected "People's Representatives".
At the 2005 Tongan general election, the Human Rights and Democracy Movement won seven of the nine popularly-elected seats (the rest of the 30 MPs are appointed by the King or are members of the Tongan aristocracy). 'Aho'eitu 'Unuaki'otonga Tuku'aho, son of the King, initially retained his position as Prime Minister, but he resigned in 2006, after the Tongan Speaker of the House was found guilty of bribery. The position passed to Feleti Sevele, Minister of Labour and one of the two independent candidates elected, as well as the first non-noble Prime Minister of the country.
In 2005 the government spent several weeks negotiating with striking civil service workers before reaching a settlement. A constitutional commission met in 2005-2006 to study proposals to update the constitution. A copy of the commission's report was presented to King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, shortly before his death in September 2006.
Tonga did not rate as an "electoral democracy" under the criteria of Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2006 report. This is likely because while elections exist, they could only elect nine of 30 Legislative Assembly seats, the remainder being selected either by the nobility or the government; as such the people have a voice in but no control over the government.
The public expected democratic changes from the new monarch. On November 16, 2006, rioting broke out in the capital city of Nukualofa when it seemed that the parliament would adjourn for the year without having made any advances in increasing democracy in government. Government buildings, offices, and shops were looted and burned. Eight people died in the riots. The government agreed that elections would be held in 2008 in which a majority of the parliament would be elected by popular vote. A state of emergency was declared on November 17, with emergency laws giving security forces the right to stop and search people without a warrant.
On 18 January 2007 Pōhiva was arrested and charged with sedition over his role in the 2006 Nuku'alofa riots.
The April 2008 elections saw a 48% turnout to elect the nobles' representatives and the 9 people's representatives. Most of the pro-democracy MPs were reconfirmed, despite several facing charges of sedition over the 2006 Nuku'alofa riots All nine elected MPs were pro-democracy activists.
About two weeks before the election, it was announced that the Tonga Broadcasting Commission would henceforth censor candidates' political broadcasts, and that TBC reporters would be banned from reporting on political matters.
Tonga Review criticised the decision as an undue restriction on freedom of speech.
On 29 May 2008, in the speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament, Princess Regent, Salote Mafile'o Pilolevu Tuita announced that the government would introduce a political reform bill by June 2008, and that the current term of Parliament would be the last one under the current constitution
In July 2008, three days before his coronation, King George Tupou V announced that he would relinquish most of his power and be guided by his Prime Minister's recommendations on most matters, following upcoming elections.
In November 2009, a constitutional review panel recommended a ceremonial monarchy stripped of real political power and to invest political power in a completely elected Legislative Assembly of Tonga (the "Fale Alea") which, up to this point was largely hereditary due to the fact that most of the seats where designated for the nobles. and were preceded by a programme of constitutional reform.
In April 2010 the Legislative Assembly enacted a package of political reforms towards a fully representative democracy, increasing the number of directly-elected people's representatives from 9 to 17, with ten seats for Tongatapu, three for Vavaʻu, two for Haʻapai and one each for Niuas and ʻEua. All of the seats are single-seat constituencies, as opposed to the multi-member constituencies used before. These changes mean that 17 out of 26 representatives (65.4%) would be directly elected, up from 9 out of 30 (30.0%). The aristocracy would still select its nine representatives, while all remaining seats, which were previously appointed by the monarch, would be abolished.
Early general elections under the new electoral law were held on 25 November 2010.
The Taimi Media Network described the 2010 Tongan Legislative Assembly as "Tonga’s first democratically elected Parliament".
The Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands (DPFI), founded in September 2010 specifically to fight the election and led by veteran pro-democracy campaigner 'Akilisi Pohiva, secured the largest number of seats, with 12 out of the seventeen "people's representative" seats.
ʻAkilisi Pohiva, the MP for Tongatapu 1, had sought to become Prime Minister, but the nobles and independent MP entrusted Lord Tuʻivakanō with the task of forming a government, relegating the DPFI to the status of a "de facto" parliamentary opposition.
The DPFI put forward bills for further democratisation, including the proposal of direct election of the Prime Minister from among the 26 elected MPs, as well as of universal suffrage for all 26 MPs. These proposals were not taken forward by the conservative majority.
At the death of King George Tupou V on 18 March 2012, his son ʻAhoʻeitu ʻUnuakiʻotonga Tukuʻaho became King of Tonga, with the regnal name ʻAhoʻeitu Tupou VI.
New elections in 2014 saw the DPFI lose three seats to independent candidates. Its leader Pohiva was nevertheless appointed as new Prime Minister of Tonga.
On August 25, 2017 Pohiva was dismissed by the King along with the rest of parliament with fresh elections to be held on November 16. The Elections resulted in the DPFI winning 14 seats - enough for Pohivia to form government without relying on nobles' or independent MPs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30159 |
Geography of Tonga
Located in Oceania, Tonga is a small archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, directly south of Samoa and about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. It has 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited, are divided into three main groups – Vava'u, Ha'apai, and Tongatapu – and cover an -long north–south line. The total size is just . Due to the spread out islands it has the 40th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of .
The largest island, Tongatapu, on which the capital city of Nukualofa is located, covers . Geologically the Tongan islands are of two types: most have a limestone base formed from uplifted coral formations; others consist of limestone overlaying a volcanic base.
The climate is tropical with a distinct warm period (December–April), during which the temperatures rise above , and a cooler period (May–November), with temperatures rarely rising above . The temperature increases from , and the annual rainfall is from as one moves from Tongatapu in the south to the more northerly islands closer to the Equator. The average wettest period is around March with on average . The average daily humidity is 80%. Cyclones can occur from October to April.
Though administratively divided into the three main island groups of Tongatapu, Ha'apai, and Vava'u (excluding the outlying islands), the Tonga archipelago is actually made of two geologically different parallel chains of islands.
The western islands, such as ʻAta (also known as Pylstaart island), Fonuafo'ou, Tofua, Kao, Lata'iki, Late, Fonualei, Toku, Niuatoputapu, and Tafahi, make up the Tongan Volcanic Arc and are all of volcanic origin. They were created from the subduction of the western-moving Pacific plate under the Australia-India plate at the Tonga Trench. The Tongan Islands sit on the Australia-India plate just west of the Tonga Trench. These volcanoes are formed when materials in the descending Pacific plate heat and rise to the surface. There is only limited coral reef development on these islands, except for Niuatoputapu.
The eastern islands are not volcanic and sit above the mostly submerged Tonga ridge that runs parallel to the Tongan Volcanic Arch and the Tongan Trench. Of these islands, only 'Eua has risen high enough to expose its underlying Eocene volcanic bedrock, the rest are either low coral limestone islands (Tongatapu, Vava'u, Lifuka) or sand cay islands ('Uoleva, 'Uiha). These islands are surrounded by "a protective and resource-rich labyrinth of fringing, apron and off-shore barrier reefs" that have supported most of the human settlement in Tonga ever since the first Lapita People arrived circa 900 BCE.
The Tongan Volcanic Arc has been important in supplying the islands on the Tonga ridge with an andesite tephra soil that has resulted in "an extremely rich soil capable of supporting a high-yield, short-fallow agricultural system." Also, the andesite/basalt from the volcanoes were initially used as "hammerstones, weaving weights, cooking stones, and decorative pebbles for grave decoration." Tafahi island in the far north provided volcanic glass to initial human settlers.
In December 2014 and January 2015, a volcanic island 1 km wide by 2 km long was created adjacent to the island of Hunga Ha'apai 65 kilometers northwest of Nuku'alofa. The volcanic eruption has built the new island to a height of 100 m composed of ash and large rock fragments. In regards to volcanism, Tonga has moderate volcanic activity. Fonualei (elev. 180 m) has shown frequent activity in recent years, while Niuafo'ou (elev. 260 m), which last erupted in 1985, has forced evacuations; other historically active volcanoes include Late and Tofua. Natural hazards include earthquakes and volcanic activity at Fonuafo'ou (Falcon Shoal/Island) and Late'iki (Metis Shoal/Island).
Geographic coordinates:
Area:
"total:"
"land:"
"water:"
Coastline:
Maritime claims:
"continental shelf:"
"exclusive economic zone:"
"territorial sea:"
Elevation extremes:
"lowest point:"
Pacific Ocean
"highest point:"
unnamed location on Kao
Land use:
"arable land:"
21.33%
"permanent crops:"
14.67%
"other:"
64.00% (2011)
Environment - international agreements:
"party to:"
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change Kyoto-Protocol, Desertification, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, and Ship Pollution.
Natural resources are fish and fertile soil. Current environmental issues are deforestation as more and more land is being cleared for agriculture and settlement; some damage to coral reefs from starfish and indiscriminate coral and shell collectors; and overhunting threatens native sea turtle populations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30160 |
Demographics of Tonga
Tongans, a Polynesian group, represent more than 98% of the inhabitants of Tonga. The rest are European (the majority are British), mixed European, and other Pacific Islanders. There also are several hundred Chinese. Almost two-thirds of the population live on its main island, Tongatapu. Although an increasing number of Tongans have moved into the only urban and commercial center, Nukualofa, where European and indigenous cultural and living patterns have blended, village life and kinship ties continue to be important throughout the country. Everyday life is heavily influenced by Polynesian traditions and especially by the Christian faith; for example, all commerce and entertainment activities cease from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday, and the constitution declares the Sabbath to be sacred, forever. Other important Christian denominations include Methodists (Free Wesleyan) and Roman Catholics.
Primary education between ages 6 and 14 is compulsory and free in state schools. Mission schools provide about 83% of the primary and 90% of the secondary level education. Higher education includes teacher training, nursing and medical training, a small private university, a women's business college, and a number of private agricultural schools. Most higher education is pursued overseas.
Based on 2006 estimates, the religious breakdown of the population was Protestant 64.9% (includes Free Wesleyan Church 37.3%, Free Church of Tonga 11.4%, Church of Tonga 7.2%, Tokaikolo Christian Church 2.6%, Assembly of God 2.3%, Seventh Day Adventist 2.2%, Constitutional Church of Tonga 0.9%, Anglican 0.8% and Full Gospel Church 0.2%), Latter-day Saints 16.8%, Roman Catholic 15.6%, other 1.1%, none 0.03%, unspecified 1.7%.
As the 1960s ended the population growth rate fell rapidly in the country.
In the 1930s Tonga had a population of about 32,000. Starting in the 1970s large scale migration began to Australia and New Zealand. By the 1970s the emigration rate from Tonga to Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, France and the United States was over 2% annually. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30161 |
Telecommunications in Tonga
This article is about communications systems in Tonga.
Main lines in use:
14,697 (2018)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
107,938 (2018)
Telephone system:
Fixed PSTN, GSM 900
"domestic:"
NA
"international:"
satellite earth station - 2 Intelsat (Pacific Ocean))
Broadcast stations:
AM 1 (2005), FM 5 (2005), shortwave 1 (1998)
Radios:
61,000 (1997)
Broadcast stations:
4 (2005)
Televisions:
2,000 (1997)
In April 2002 the Tongasat company started its own satellite telecommunication service when it obtained the Esiafi 1 (former private American Comstar D4) satellite (launched in 1981) that was moved to Tonga's own geostationary point.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
2 (2005)
Country code (Top level domain): .to
Broadband internet communication is provided by the Tonga Cable System that went online in April 2018.
Until 2002, the Auckland-based Pasifika Times was also circulated in Niue. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30164 |
Transport in Tonga
Transport in Tonga includes road, air and water-based infrastructure. There are 680 km of highways in Tonga, of which 184 km are paved, and there are a number of air and seaports.
There are three harbours in Tonga: Neiafu, Nukualofa and Pangai, and in terms of merchant marine, the country possesses seven ships that exceed 1,000GT, whose masses combined total 17,760GT. By type, there is one bulk ship, two cargo ships, 2 liquefied gas ships, one petroleum tanker and roll-on/roll-off ship.
By 1999 estimates, there are 6 airports in Tonga. Of these, one has paved runways, the Fuaamotu International Airport on Tongatapu. Of the remaining airports, one has runways exceeding length 1,524 m, two have runways longer than 914 m, with the remaining two having runways shorter than 914 m. The current airline of Tonga is Real Tonga.
There was formerly a railway in Nuku'alofa, but it no longer exists.
Currently, Bajaj RE and Bajaj Qute used in Nuku'alofa as taxi. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30165 |
His Majesty's Armed Forces (Tonga)
His Majesty's Armed Forces (HMAF) is the military of Tonga. It is composed of three operational components and two support elements (logistics and training groups).
The mission of HMAF is to: "Defend the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Tonga.
The HMAF is partially supported by defence co-operation agreements with Australia, United States, China, India and New Zealand. The co-operation aims at capacity development through training of HMAF personnel in leadership, academic and trades while support for infrastructure development is another part of the security co-operation.
In recent years, members of HMAF have supported Coalition of the Willing in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands.
Tonga participated in World War I, as part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
The Tonga Defence Service (TDS) came into existence at the beginning of World War II in 1939. In 1943, New Zealand helped train two Tongan contingents of two thousand personnel who fought in the Solomon Islands Campaign. In addition, New Zealand and US troops were stationed on Tongatapu, which became a staging point for shipping.
At the end of World War II, the TDS was disbanded, but was re-formed in 1946.
Former Prime Minister Prince Lavaka Ata 'Ulukalala (now King Tupou VI) joined the naval arm of the Tonga Defence Service in 1982 and became Lieutenant-Commander of the defence force in 1987. From 1990 to 1995 he commanded the PPB VOEA "Pangai" and his time in charge included peacekeeping operations in Bougainville.
In 2002, TDS soldiers were deployed as part of a multi-national regional peacekeeping force in the Solomon Islands. In July 2004, a forty-five personnel contingent of the TDS served in the Solomon Islands. A third contingent was sent in July 2005. This contingent consisted of thirty-three TDS troops, and was expected to remain four months.
In March 2003, military-to-military talks began between Tonga and the United States about Tonga providing personnel for the Multinational force in Iraq. Support arrangements were finalised in May 2004. Forty-five Royal Tongan Marines, led by the Chief of Defence of the Tonga Defence Services, Colonel Tau'aika 'Uta'atu, departed Tonga on 13 June 2004. From July 2004, the Royal Tonga Marines were augmenting the 1st Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEF) in the Al Anbar Province of Iraq. The Royal Marines supported the 1st Marine Division's security and stabilisation mission at Camp Blue Diamond. Tonga first served with the 1st MEF on the Solomon Island during World War II. The Royal Tongan Marines returned from Iraq in December 2004. In December 2008, the Tonga Defence Services ended their mission in the Iraq War and returned home.
In 2006, TDS soldiers, in co-operation with local police, were deployed to deal with the Nuku'alofa riots.
In 2010, Tongan troops began training with the RAF Regiment, in preparation for operations in Afghanistan; the first troops deployed to Afghanistan during February 2011. Tonga's military size was approximately 450 troops, half of which were sent to fight in the War in Afghanistan, serving in Camp Bastion and Camp Leatherneck. During the September 2012 Camp Bastion raid Tonga troops were in perimeter guard towers without any night-vision devices. On September 2013, Tonga Defence Services were officially renamed into His Majesty's Armed Forces (HMAF). In April 2014, the Royal Tongan Marines ended their mission supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
The main elements of HMAF are:
The Maritime Force is equipped with three Pacific-class patrol boats, a tanker, a Landing Craft Mechanised and a motor boat that is the royal yacht. Tongan Maritime Force performs patrol missions, occasionally dealing with border violations. Notably at the Minerva Reef and Tonga’s restricted fishing zones.
The Royal Tongan Marine Infantry is organised as a single battalion with a HQ and three Light Infantry Companies.
The Tongan Royal Guards are a company size unit that are responsible for the security of His Majesty. The Royal Guard maintains a musical unit known as the Tonga Royal Corps of Musicians that serves as a military band for different occasions.
The Air Wing was established in 1996 and operates one Beechcraft G.18S aircraft in the maritime patrol and search and rescue roles, and an American Champion Citabria light trainer. The current position of the HMAF air wing is unclear but both aircraft have not been active.
The HMAF is a member of the following international defence organisations:
Tonga has an agreement to share "disaster response knowledge" with the United States Nevada National Guard. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30166 |
History of Trinidad and Tobago
The history of Trinidad and Tobago begins with the settlements of the islands by Amerindians, specifically the Island Carib and Arawak peoples. Both islands were visited by Christopher Columbus on his third voyage in 1498 and claimed in the name of Spain. Trinidad remained in Spanish hands until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists. Tobago changed hands between the British, French, Dutch, and Courlanders, but eventually ended up in British hands following the second Treaty of Paris (1814). In 1889 the two islands were incorporated into a single crown colony. Trinidad and Tobago obtained its independence from the British Empire in 1962 and became a republic in 1976.
Human settlement in Trinidad dates back at least 7,000 years. The earliest settlers, termed Archaic or Ortoiroid, are believed to have settled Trinidad and Tobago from northeastern South America around 4000 BCE. Twenty-nine Archaic sites have been identified, mostly in south Trinidad and Tobago; this includes the 7,000-year-old Banwari Trace site which is the oldest discovered human settlement in the eastern Caribbean. Archaic populations were pre-ceramic, and dominated the area until about 200 BCE.
Around 250 BCE the first ceramic-using people in the Caribbean, the Saladoid people, entered Trinidad and Tobago. The earliest evidence of these people come from around 2100 BCE along the banks of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. From Trinidad and Tobago, they are believed to have moved north into the remaining islands of the Caribbean. Thirty-seven Saladoid sites have been identified in Trinidad and Tobago, and are located all over the island.
After 250 CE a third group, called the Barrancoid people settled in southern Trinidad and Tobago after migrating up the Orinoco River toward the sea. The oldest Barrancoid settlement appears to have been at Erin, on the south coast.
Following the collapse of Barrancoid communities along the Orinoco around 650 CE, a new group, called the Arauquinoid expanded up the river to the coast. The cultural artefacts of this group were only partly adopted in Trinidad and Tobago and adjacent areas of northeast Venezuela, and as a result, this culture is called Guayabitoid in these areas.
Around 1300 CE a new group appears to have settled in Trinidad and Tobago and introduced new cultural attributes which largely replaced the Guayabitoid culture. Termed the Mayoid cultural tradition, this represents the native tribes which were present in Trinidad and Tobago at the time of European arrival. Their distinct pottery and artefacts survive until 1800, but after this time they were largely assimilated into mainstream Trinidad and Tobago society. These included the Nepoya and Suppoya (who were probably Arawak-speaking) and the Yao (who were probably Carib-speaking). They have generally been called Arawaks and Caribs. These were largely wiped out by the Spanish colonisers under the encomienda system. Under this system which was basically a form of slavery, Spanish encomederos forced the Amerindians to work for them in exchange for Spanish "protection" and conversion to Christianity. The survivors were first organised into Missions by the Capuchin friars, and then gradually assimilated.
The first ever contact with Europeans occurred when Christopher Columbus, who was on his third voyage of exploration, arrived at noon on 31 July 1498. He landed at a harbor he called Point Galera, while naming the island Trinidad, before proceeding into the Gulf of Paria via the Serpent's Mouth and the Caribbean Sea via Dragon's Mouth.
Trinidad is reported to have been densely populated at the beginning of the colonial period. Although in 1510 Trinidad was said to have the only "peaceful Indians" along the whole South American coast, demand for slaves to supply the pearl-fisheries in nearby Isla Margarita led to them being declared "Caribs" (and thus, fair game for slavers) in 1511. As a consequence of this, Trinidad and Tobago became the focus of Spanish slaving raids, primarily to supply Margarita's pearl fisheries.
In 1530 Antonio Sedeño was appointed governor. Granted a contract to settle Trinidad, with an eye toward discovering long-rumored "El Dorado" and controlling the trade in slaves, in 1532 he attempted to establish a settlement, but was driven off the island following the "Battle of Cumucurapo," (or "The Place of the Silk Cotton Tree"). He withdrew to Margarita, but he returned a year later and built a settlement at Cumucurapo (modern Mucurapo in what is now Port of Spain). After failing to attract more settlers to Trinidad, Sedeño was forced to withdraw in 1534.
In 1553 Juan Sedeño was authorised to settle Trinidad, but the contract was never fulfilled. In 1569 Juan Troche Ponce de León built the "town of the Circumcision", probably around modern Laventille. In 1570 this settlement was abandoned. In 1592 Antonio de Berrio established the first lasting settlement, the town of San José de Oruña (the modern St. Joseph). Sir Walter Raleigh, who was searching for "El Dorado", arrived in Trinidad on 22 March 1595 and soon attacked San José and captured and interrogated de Berrío, obtaining much information from him and from the cacique Topiawari.
Lack of Spanish ships arriving on a regular basis forced the settlers to trade with the English, French and Dutch, in violation of the Spanish Exclusive. The Spanish also lacked the means to defend the colony, which consisted of only 24 Spanish settlers in 1625. Thus the Dutch attacked St. Joseph with impunity in 1637. By 1671, the island included 80 settlers and 80 "domesticated" Amerindians.
By 1772, the Spanish capital of St. Joseph had a population of 326 Spaniards and 417 Amerindians. Yet the houses consisted of mud huts with thatch roofs. In general, lacking gold, the island was poor and undeveloped, inducing many to leave.
The Captaincy General of Venezuela () was created on 8 September 1777, through the Royal Decree of Graces of Charles III of Bourbon, to provide more autonomy for the provinces of Venezuela (include Trinidad), previously under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Audiencia of Santo Domingo. The crown established a unified government in political (governorship), military (captaincy general), fiscal (intendancy) and judicial ("audiencia") affairs. Its creation was part of the Bourbon Reforms and laid the groundwork for the future nation of Venezuela, in particular by orienting the province of Maracaibo towards the province of Caracas.
In Tobago, the first Dutch colony of "Nieuw-Walcheren" ("New Walcheren") was short-lived. 68 colonists established Fort Vlissingen ("Fort Flushing") near modern Plymouth in 1628. They were reinforced by a few hundred more settlers from Zeeland in 1629 and 1632. Attempted colonies by Courland in 1637, 1639, and 1642 and England in 1649, 1642, and 1647 all failed.
In May and September 1654, Courish and Dutch colonies were reestablished successfully. The Courish colony of "Neu-Kurland" ("New Courland") was centered at Fort Jacob on Great Courland Bay. The Dutch colony on the other side of the island had three forts: Lampsinsberg, Beveren, and Bellavista. In 1658, 500 Frenchmen joined the Dutch colony but formed their own settlement called Three Rivers ("Le Quartier des trois Rivières"). On 11 December 1659, the Courlanders peaceably surrendered their colony to the Dutch. At the time, the island held about 1,500 Europeans and around 7,000 African slaves working on 120 plantations, supporting six or seven sugar mills and two rum distilleries.
British Jamaican pirates captured the island in January 1666; the official English garrison surrendered to a French attack in August the same year. The Dutch admiral Abraham Crijnssen reclaimed a deserted colony in April 1667 and reestablished a fort. An attempt to restore the Courish Fort Jacob was suppressed in December 1668. In December, 1672, the British attacked and destroyed the Dutch colony as part of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Dutch control was regained under the "status quo ante" provisions of the Second Treaty of Westminster in 1674; in September 1676, Fort Sterreschans was constructed near the ruins of Fort Vlissingen. This star fort was reinforced in February 1677, but French attacks in February, March, and December of that year finally succeeded in killing the Dutch governor and capturing the island.
In 1749, Britain and France agreed to keep the island neutral, but Britain took control after 1763, prompting France to capture the island in 1781, then Britain to recapture the island in 1793. The population in 1771 was 5,084, of which only 243 were white and 4,716 were slaves. In 1791 the population was 15,020, of which 541 were white and 14,170 were slaves. There were then 37 sugar factories, 99 cotton factories, and 4 coffee factories. After nutmeg was discovered in 1768, 40 nutmeg plantations were started. The island became a British acquisition for good in 1802, with a ratified treaty in 1814.
Spanish missions were established as part of the Spanish colonization here as in its other new New World conquests. In 1687 the Catalan Capuchin friars were given responsibility for the conversion of the indigenous population of Trinidad and the Guianas. In 1713 the missions were handed over to the "secular clergy". Due to shortages of missionaries, although the missions were established they often went without Christian instruction for long periods of time.
Between 1687 and 1700 several missions were founded in Trinidad, but only four survived as Amerindian villages throughout the 18th century – "La Anuncíata de Nazaret de Savana Grande" (modern Princes Town), "Purísima Concepción de María Santísima de Guayri" (modern San Fernando), "Santa Ana de Savaneta" (modern Savonetta), "Nuestra Señora de Montserrate" (probably modern Mayo). The mission of "Santa Rosa de Arima" was established in 1789 when Amerindians from the former "encomiendas" of Tacarigua and "Arauca" (Arouca) were relocated further east (They settled in Santa Rosa close to the town of Arima).
In 1687 the Catalan Capuchin friars were given responsibility for the conversion of the indigenous population of Trinidad and the Guianas. In 1713 the missions were handed over to the "secular clergy". Tensions between priests and Amerindians led to the "Arena Massacre" of 1699, wherein the Amerindians murdered the priests. After being hunted by the Spanish, the survivors are reported to have committed suicide by jumping off cliffs into the sea.
Although Spanish settlement began in the 16th century, the census of 1777 recorded only 2,763 people as living on the island, including some 2,000 Arawaks.
In 1777, Roume de St Laurent proposed French planters from the islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenada, and their African slaves, immigrate to Trinidad. He estimated 1,532 whites, with 33,322 of their slaves, would be interested in such a proposal.
The Spanish gave many incentives to lure settlers to the island, including exemption from taxes for ten years and land grants in accordance to the terms set out in the Cedula. In 1783, the proclamation of a Cedula of Population by the Spanish Crown granted 32 acres (129,000 m²) of land to each Roman Catholic who settled in Trinidad and half as much for each slave that they brought. Uniquely, 16 acres (65,000 m²) was offered to each "Free Coloured" or "Free Person of Colour" ("gens de couleur libre", as they were later known), and half as much for each slave they brought. French planters with their slaves, free coloureds and mulattos from neighboring islands of Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Dominica migrated to the Trinidad during the French Revolution. These new immigrants establishing local communities of Blanchisseuse, Champs Fleurs, Paramin, Cascade, Carenage and Laventille. This resulted in Trinidad having the unique feature of a large French-speaking "Free Coloured" slave-owning class.
By the time the island was surrendered to the British in 1797 the population had increased to 17,643: 2,086 whites, 4,466 free people of colour, 1,082 Amerindians, and 10,009 African slaves. In addition, there were 159 sugar estates, 130 coffee estates, 60 cocoa estates, and 103 cotton estates. Yet, the island remained unfortified.
In 1797, a British force led by General Sir Ralph Abercromby launched the invasion of Trinidad. His squadron sailed through the Bocas and anchored off the coast of Chaguaramas. The Spanish Governor Chacón decided to capitulate without fighting. Trinidad thus became a British crown colony, with a French-speaking population and Spanish laws. British rule was formalized under the Treaty of Amiens (1802).
British rule led to an influx of settlers from the United Kingdom and the British colonies of the Eastern Caribbean. English, Scots, Irish, German and Italian families arrived. Under British rule, new estates were created and the import of slaves did increase, but this was the period of abolitionism in England and the slave trade was under attack. Slavery was abolished in 1833, after which former slaves served an "apprenticeship" period which ended on 1 August 1838 with full emancipation. An overview of the populations statistics in 1838, however, clearly reveals the contrast between Trinidad and its neighbouring islands: upon emancipation of the slaves in 1838, Trinidad had only 17,439 slaves, with 80% of slave owners having fewer than 10 slaves each. In contrast, at twice the size of Trinidad, Jamaica had roughly 360,000 slaves.
On 20 Oct. 1898, the British Government made Tobago a ward of Trinidad.
In August, 1816, seven hundred former slaves from the US South, who had escaped to the British lines during the War of 1812 and had been recruited as a Corps of Colonial Marines, were settled in Trinidad after serving for fourteen months at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda. After rejecting British government orders for transfer to the West India Regiments, and on the Admiralty refusing to continue responsibility for them, they finally accepted, but only with reluctance, a government offer of settlement in Trinidad. These ex-Colonial Marines were organised by the authorities in villages according to their military companies.
In Trinidad and Tobago, as in other Caribbean slave colonies, an attempt was made to circumvent the abolition of slavery in 1833. The first announcement from Whitehall in England that slaves would be totally freed by 1840 was made in 1833. In the meantime, slaves on plantations were expected to remain where they were and work as "apprentices" for the next six years.
Trinidad and Tobago demonstrated a successful use of non-violent protest and passive resistance. On 1 August 1834, an unarmed group of mainly elderly ex-slaves being addressed by the Governor at Government House about the new laws, began chanting: "Pas de six ans. Point de six ans" ("Not six years. No six years"), drowning out the voice of the Governor.
Peaceful protests continued until a resolution to abolish apprenticeship was passed and de facto freedom was achieved. This may have been partially due to the influence of Dr. Jean Baptiste Phillipe's book "A Free Mulatto" (1824). At the request of Governor Sir George Fitzgerald Hill, on 25 July, "Dr. Jean Baptiste Phillipe the first coloured member of the Council, proposed a resolution to end apprenticeship and this was passed. [...] Full emancipation for all was finally legally granted ahead of schedule on 1 August 1838."
The sugarcane plantations which dominated the economy of Trinidad and Tobago in the 19th century gradually gave ground to the cultivation of cacao. Trinidad and Tobago chocolate became a high-priced, much sought-after commodity. The Colonial government opened land to settlers interested in establishing cacao estates. French Creoles (white Trinidadian elites descended from the original French settlers) were being marginalised economically by large English business concerns who were buying up sugar plantations, and this gave them a fresh avenue of economic development.
Venezuelan farmers with experience in cacao cultivation were also encouraged to settle in Trinidad and Tobago, where they provided much of the early labour in these estates. Many of the former cocoa-producing areas of Trinidad retain a distinctly Spanish flavour and many of the descendants of the Cocoa panyols (from 'espagnol') remain in these areas including Trinidad and Tobago's most famous cricketer, Brian Lara.
In 1844, the British Government allowed the immigration of 2,500 Indian workers as indentured servants, from Calcutta and Madras. According to Williams, this was an effort to provide "an adequate and dependable supply of labour." One third of the cost of passage, including return, was to borne as a public expense. Additional funds were provided for the Office of Protector of Immigrants, medical and police services. Wages were set at $2.40 per month for males, and $1.45 per month for females. In 1899, the working day was fixed at 9 hours. They could buy a plot of land in exchange for return passage. Between 1838 and 1917, 145,000 Indians immigrated to Trinidad. There were also workers brought from China at about the same time:
In Trinidad there were, about twenty years ago [i.e. ca.-1886], 4,000 or 5,000 Chinese, but they have decreased to probably about 2,000 or 3,000, [2,200 in 1900]. They used to work in sugar plantations, but are now principally shopkeepers, as well as general merchants, miners and railway builders, etc.
Many Indian immigrants who had completed their indentureship also established cocoa estates, most notable of them being Haji Gokool Meah, a Kashmiri-born immigrant who went on to the become one of the wealthiest men in Trinidad and Tobago. The Indian community has steadily prospered and grown until now it makes up about 35% of the population of the nation (the largest ethnic group by about 1%).
The arrival of "witches' broom" and "black pod" diseases in the 1930s, coupled with the Great Depression, destroyed the cacao industry in Trinidad and Tobago. Although prices for Trinidad and Tobago cocoa beans remains high on the world markets, cocoa is no more than a marginal crop.
Relations between the Indian immigrants, and both the British, and the black population were generally strained, and occasionally erupted into violence such as the 1884 Hosay massacre.
The American Merrimac Oil Company drilled an early oil well at La Brea at Trinidad and Tobago in 1857, where oil was struck at . Also mentioned is the pioneering work of Capt. Darwent with his Paria Petroleum Company Limited, and Conrad F. Stollmeyer (who was great grandfather of Republic Bank's then Chairman, former West Indies cricket captain, Jeffrey Stollmeyer), an entrepreneur of that period who felt that a combustible fuel could not be distilled out of the asphalt from the pitch lake. The other point of view from Capt. Darwent was that a combustible fuel, refined from oil drilled from the earth would be the ideal fuel for the future."
In either 1865, 1866, or 1867, according to different accounts, the American civil engineer, Walter Darwent, discovered and produced oil at Aripero. Efforts in 1867 to begin production by the Trinidad and Tobago Petroleum Company at La Brea and the Pariah Petroleum Company at Aripero were poorly financed and abandoned after Walter Darwent died of yellow fever.
In 1893 Mr Randolph Rust, along with his neighbour, Mr Lee Lum, drilled a successful well near Darwent's original one. By early 1907 major drilling operations began, roads and other infrastructure were built. Annual production of oil in Trinidad and Tobago reached by 1910 and kept rapidly increasing year by year.
Estimated oil production in Trinidad and Tobago in 2005 was about .
Trinidad was ruled as a Crown colony with no elected representation until 1925. Although Tobago had an elected Assembly, this was dissolved prior to the union of the two islands. In 1925 the first elections to the Legislative Council were held. Seven of the thirteen members were elected, the others were nominated by the Governor. The franchise was determined by income, property and residence qualifications, and was limited to men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30. The 1946 elections were the first with universal adult suffrage.
Labour riots in 1937 led by T.U.B. Butler (an immigrant from the neighbouring island of Grenada) shook the country and led to the formation of the modern Trade Union movement. Butler was jailed from 1937 to 1939, but was re-arrested when the United Kingdom entered World War II and jailed for the duration of the war. After his release in 1945 Butler reorganised his political party, the British Empire Citizens' and Workers' Home Rule Party. This party won a plurality in the 1950 general elections, the establishment feared Butler as a radical and instead Albert Gomes became the first Chief Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
The 1956 general elections saw the emergence of the People's National Movement under the leadership of Eric Williams. The PNM, opposed by Dr. Rudranath Capildeo of the Democratic Labor Party and Ashford Sinanan, who later founded the West Indian National Party (WINP), continued to dominate politics in Trinidad and Tobago until 1986. The party won every General Election between 1956 and 1981. Williams became Prime Minister at independence, and remained in that position until his death in 1981.
In 1958, the United Kingdom tried to establish an independent West Indies Federation comprising most of the former British West Indies. However, disagreement over the structure of the federation led to Jamaica's withdrawal. Eric Williams responded to this with his now famous calculation "One from ten leaves nought." Trinidad and Tobago chose not to bear the financial burden without Jamaica's assistance, and the Federation collapsed. Trinidad and Tobago achieved full independence via the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Act 1962 on 31 August 1962 within the Commonwealth with Queen Elizabeth II as its titular head of state. On 1 August 1976, the country became a republic, and the last Governor-General, Sir Ellis Clarke, became the first President.
In 1968 the National Joint Action Committee was formed by members of the "Guild of Undergraduates" at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, under the leadership of Geddes Granger. In 1969 it was formally launched to protest the arrest of West Indian students at Sir George Williams University in Montreal. Together with Trade Unions and other groups, this led to the birth of the Black Power movement. In 1970 a series of marches and strikes led to the declaration of a State of Emergency and the arrest of 15 Black Power leaders. In sympathy with the arrested leaders, a portion of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, led by Raffique Shah and Rex Lassalle mutinied and took hostages at the Teteron Barracks (located on the Chaguaramas Peninsula). However, the Coast Guard remained loyal and was able to isolate the mutineers at Teteron (as the only way out was along a narrow coastal road). After 5 days the mutineers surrendered.
Political difficulties in the post-Black Power era culminated in the "No Vote" campaign of 1971 (which resulted in the PNM winning all the seats in Parliament). In 1973, in the face of a collapsing economy Eric Williams was prepared to resign as Prime Minister. However, the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War led to the recovery of oil prices and Williams remained in office. The high oil prices of the 1970s and early 1980s led to an "oil boom" which resulted in a large increase in salaries, standards of living, and corruption.
In 1979, construction on the Eric Williams Plaza began. It would eventually finish in 1986. It remained the tallest building in Trinidad and Tobago until the construction of the Nicholas Tower in 2003.
Williams died in office in 1981. The PNM remained in power following the death of Dr. Williams, but its 30-year rule ended in 1986 when the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), a multi-ethnic coalition aimed at uniting Trinidadians of Afro-Trinidadian and Indo-Trinidadian descent, won a landslide victory by capturing 33 of 36 seats. Tobago's A. N. R. Robinson, the political leader of the NAR, was named Prime Minister. The NAR also won 11 of the 12 seats in the Tobago House of Assembly. The NAR began to break down when the Indian component withdrew in 1988. Basdeo Panday, leader of the old United Labour Front (ULF), formed the new opposition with the United National Congress (UNC). The NAR's margin was immediately reduced to 27 seats, with six for the UNC and three for the PNM.
The Sexual Offenses Act was passed by the Parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in 1986, serving as "An Act to repeal and replace the laws of Trinidad and Tobago relating to sexual crimes, to the procuration, abduction and prostitution of persons and to kindred offences" (Ministry 5). The Sexual Offences Act consisted of 35 provisions, six of which have since been repealed (Ministry 4). The act functioned to criminalize a number of sexual acts, including acts of incest, buggery, rape, bestiality, abduction, and forceful intercourse within a marriage (Alexander 8). The crime of buggery (anal intercourse performed between two males or a male and a female), is punishable by 10 years of imprisonment if found guilty.
The Sexual Offences Act received criticism in its criminalization of nonprocreative sex, homosexual intercourse, and sex work performed by prostitutes. In M. Jacqui Alexander's article "Not Just (Any)body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality, and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago", Alexander details the ways the Sexual Offenses Act of 1986 regulated and enforced conjugal heterosexuality by punishing deviant sexual activities, and conflated violent acts of heterosexuality with nonprocreative sexual activity. The crime of marital rape, while punishable by 15 years imprisonment, was not referred to as such, but instead referred to as "forceful intercourse" between a husband and his wife, without her consent (Alexander 8).
In July 1990, the Jamaat al Muslimeen, an extremist Black Muslim group with an unresolved grievance against the government over land claims, tried to overthrow the NAR government. The group held the prime minister and members of parliament hostage for five days while rioting shook Port of Spain. After a long negotiation with the police and military, the Jamaat al Muslimeen leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, and his followers gave up their arms to Trinidadian authorities, on August 1st 1990, as part of a peace treaty which included an amnesty for the militants. The latter were however put in prison and denied their freedom until 1992. Having had the matter referred back to the local courts by the Privy Council with a clear indication of a view that the amnesty was valid, on 1st July 1992, the High Court upheld the validity of a government amnesty given to the Jamaat members during the hostage crisis. Abu Bakr and 113 other Jamaat members were jailed for two years while the courts debated the amnesty's validity. All 114 members were eventually released. Subsequent to this, the UK Privy Council deemed the amnesty invalid but expressed the view that it would be improper to re-arrest the 114 accused.
In December 1991, the NAR captured only the two districts in Tobago. The PNM, led by Patrick Manning, carried a majority of 21 seats, and the UNC came in second. Manning became the new Prime Minister and Basdeo Panday continued to lead the opposition. In November 1995, Manning called early elections, in which the PNM and UNC both won 17 seats and the NAR won two seats. The UNC allied with the NAR and formed the new government, with Panday becoming prime minister – the first prime minister of Indo-Trinidadian descent.
Elections held in December 2000 returned the UNC to power when they won 19 seats, while the opposition PNM won 16, and the NAR 1. The UNC government fell in October 2001 with the defection of three of its parliamentarians amidst allegations of corruption in the then UNC government, and the December 2001 elections resulted in an even 18 to 18 split between the UNC and the PNM. President Robinson appointed Patrick Manning Prime Minister despite the fact that the UNC won the popular vote and that Panday was the sitting Prime Minister. Despite the fact that Manning was unable to attract a majority (and Parliament was thus unable to sit), he delayed calling elections until October 2002. The PNM formed the next government after winning 20 seats, while the UNC won 16. Both parties are committed to free market economic policies and increased foreign investment. Trinidad and Tobago has remained cooperative with the United States in the regional fight against narcotics trafficking and on other issues.
The serious crime situation in the country has led to a severe deterioration in security conditions in the country. In addition, a resurgent Jamaat al Muslimeen continues to be a threat to stability.
On 26 May 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, leader of the People's Partnership, was sworn in as the country's first female Prime Minister. On 21 August 2011, she asked President George Maxwell Richards to declare a limited state of emergency. Dr. Keth Rowley is now Prime Minister
On 19 March 2018 Trinidad's first female President, Ms. Paula-Mae Weekes was sworn in. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30169 |
Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Trinidad and Tobago, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The total population of Trinidad and Tobago was 1,328,018 according to the 2011 census, an increase of 5.2% since the 2000 census.
According to the total population was estimated at in , compared to only 646,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 20.7%, 71% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 8.3% was 65 years or older.
Structure of the population (09.01.2011) (Census) :
Due to decreasing fertility, the proportion of children below the age of 15 is decreasing, while the proportion of elderly is increasing. The median age has increased from 21.6 in 1980, 24.1 in 1990, 28.1 in 2000 to 32.6 in 2011.
The estimated mid-year population of 2014 is 1,344,000 (medium fertility scenario of The 2012 Revision of the World Population Prospects). As of January 2019, the estimated population is 1,383,368.
Emigration from Trinidad and Tobago, as with other Caribbean nations, has historically been high; most emigrants go to the United States, Canada, and Britain. Emigration has continued, albeit at a lower rate, even as the birth-rate sharply dropped to levels typical of industrialised countries. Largely because of this phenomenon, as of 2011, Trinidad and Tobago has been experiencing a low population growth rate (0.48%). More recently, there has been some return migration, chiefly from the United States after the recession of 2008, which caused a population jump in the last census in 2011.
Source: "UN World Population Prospects"
Indo-Trinidadians make up the country's largest ethnic group (approximately 37.6%). They are primarily descendants from indentured workers from South Asia, or the then British India, brought to replace emancipated Africans who refused to continue working under the violent, exploitative conditions on the sugar plantations. The Indian community is divided roughly half-and-half between those who maintained their original religions, and those who have converted to Christianity or have no religious affiliation. Through cultural preservation groups, Trinidadians of Indian descent maintain many of their customs, traditions, and language.
Afro-Trinidadian and Tobagonian make up the country's second largest ethnic group (approximately 36.3%). Although enslaved Africans were first imported in 1517, they constituted only 11 percent of the population (310) in 1783.
The majority of the enslaved Africans were brought in the last few years of Trinidad's Spanish Colonial era, and the beginning of the British colonial period. The Cedula of Population transformed a small colony of 1,000 in 1773 to 18,627 by 1797. In the census of 1777 there were only 2,763 people recorded as living on the island, including some 2,000 Arawaks. In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807 that abolished the trading of enslaved persons, and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished the practice of slavery itself.
The European Trinidadian (or White Trinidadian) population is primarily descended from early settlers and immigrants. The recent census counted 7,832 people of European descent. These numbers do not include people who have at least some European ancestry or self-identify as African or Indian.
The French arrived mostly during the Spanish period to take advantage of free agricultural lands. Some Portuguese arrived in mid nineteenth century and more came at the turn of the century. The Europeans who remained in Trinidad live in areas in and around Port of Spain. Furthermore, British rule led to an influx of settlers from the United Kingdom and the British colonies of the Eastern Caribbean and descendants of English indentured workers brought in as overseers following the end of the Second World War.
The Portuguese came to Tobago and Trinidad as early as the 17th century, including groups of Portuguese Jews, Catholics and Protestants. For over 140 years, from 1834 up to 1975, the ancestors of the modern Portuguese community in Trinidad and Tobago hailed mostly from the archipelago of Madeira, starting from 1846, with the earliest registers being from the Azores in 1834.
The Portuguese came directly from Madeira, and also via Guyana, St Vincent, Antigua and St Kitts.
Important communities settled in Port of Spain, Arima, Arouca, Chaguanas, San Fernando and Scarborough.
In 2011, the Madeiran Portuguese Community of Trinidad and Tobago celebrated their 165th Anniversary of arrival of the first Madeirans in Trinidad back in 1846.
Recalling the presence of the Portuguese in the nation today are over 100 Portuguese surname, some of which have become street nomenclature. As an independent nation, the country has recognised several members of the Portuguese community, through official awards.
In Tobago, many white residents are retirees who have recently arrived there.
Given the large number of ethnic identities in Trinidad and Tobago, many citizens have a mixed ethnic heritage due to influences from French, West African, Creole, Chinese, Indians, Scots, Irish, Welsh, German, Swiss, Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Arab, Jewish, and Russian ancestors. Additionally, there are also nationals of Hispanic Spaniard, Mestizo, Mulatto, and Pardo ancestry, mainly from Venezuela and Colombia, along with a small number from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Common ethnic mixtures include people of European and African descent, mulatto-creoles, and Indian and African descent (often colloquially known as dougla). This mixed population is estimated at around 22.8%; however, it is much higher when considering the various degrees of African, Indian, European, and indigenous Amerindian ancestry of the total population. A person might self identify as African based on physical appearance, for instance, but he or she might be genetically more similar to a person of Indian descent (dougla).
There are groups of Chinese who, like the Indians, are descended from indentured labourers. They account for about 4,003 people and live mostly in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando.
In Trinidad there were, about twenty years ago [i.e. about 1886], 4,000 or 5,000 Chinese, but they have decreased to probably about 2,000 or 3,000, [2,200 in 1900]. They used to work in sugar plantations, but are now principally shopkeepers,as well as general merchants, miners and railway builders,etc.
There are also about 1,062 Arabs, originating from Syria and Lebanon who live mostly in Port-of-Spain. The Syrian and Lebanese communities of Trinidad are predominantly Christian, migrating from the Middle East in the 19th century from the Ottoman Empire later landing in the Caribbean and Latin America. Other Lebanese and Syrians came in the early to middle 20th century to escape the war and turmoil in the region.
Finally there are the mixed raced Caribs who are descended from the native, precolonial people of the islands. They are organized around the Santa Rosa Carib Community and live mostly in and around Arima.
In 2011, according to census, Roman Catholicism was again the largest religious denomination with 285,671 followers (21.6% of the total population), having declined from a membership of 289,711 in 2000 (26% of the population). Other religious denominations that experienced decreases in their membership in 2011 were Hinduism (from 22.5% in 2000 to 18.2% in 2011), Anglican (from 7.8% to 5.7%), Presbyterian/Congregational (from 3.3% to 2.5%) and Methodist (from 0.9% to 0.7%). The number of persons claiming affiliation to Pentecostal/Evangelical/Full Gospel more than doubled from 76,327 in 2000 (6.8%) to 159,033 in 2011 (12.0%). The number of Muslims slightly increased but as proportion of the total population there was a decrease from 5.8% in 2000 to 5.0% in 2011. The category ‘None’ witnessed a small increase from 1.9% to 2.2%, while those who did not state a religion increased significantly, from 1.4% to 11.1%. 1.2% of the population are adherents of Baha'i. The African religions and specifically Orisha have become institutions in Trinidad and Tobago's society.They serve not only the obvious religious needs but also as a source of inspiration for personal identity. Many people, motivated by the need to re-claim their African heritage can now openly support these religions because they see in them a source of understanding and a coming to terms with their enslavement and the colonial past.
English is the country's official language (the local variety of standard English is Trinidadian and Tobagonian English or more properly, Trinidad and Tobago Standard English, abbreviated as "TTSE"), but the main spoken language is either of two English-based creole languages (Trinidadian Creole or Tobagonian Creole), which reflects the Amerindian, European, African, and Asian heritage of the nation. Both creoles contain elements from a variety of African languages; Trinidadian English Creole, however, is also influenced by French and French Creole (Patois). Spanish is estimated to be spoken by around 5% of the population and has been promoted by recent governments as a "first foreign language" since March 2005 due to its proximity to Venezuela.
A majority of the early Indian immigrants spoke the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialect of Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), which later formed into Trinidadian Hindustani, which became the "lingua franca" of Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonians. In 1935, Indian movies began showing to audiences in Trinidad. Most of the Indian movies were in the Standard Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) dialect and this modified Trinidadian Hindustani slightly by adding Standard Hindi and Urdu phrases and vocabulary to Trinidadian Hindustani. Indian movies also revitalized Hindustani among Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonians. Around the mid to late 1970s the "lingua franca" of Indo-Trinidaian and Tobagonians switched from Trinidadian Hindustani to a sort of "Hindinized" version of English. Today Hindustani survives on through Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian musical forms such as, Bhajan, Indian classical music, Indian folk music, Filmi, Pichakaree, Chutney, Chutney soca, and Chutney parang. Presently there are about 15,633 Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonians who speak Trinidadian Hindustani and there are 10,000 who speak Standard Hindi. Many Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians today speak a type of Hinglish that consist of Trinidadian and Tobagonian English that is heavily laced with Trinidadian Hindustani vocabulary and phrases and many Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians can recite phrases or prayers in Hindustani today. There are many places in Trinidad and Tobago that have names of Hindustani origin. Some phrases and vocabulary have even made its way into the mainstream English and English Creole dialect of the country. World Hindi Day is celebrated each year with events organized by the National Council of Indian Culture, Hindi Nidhi Foundation, Indian High Commission, Mahatma Gandhi Institute, and the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha.
The Tamil language is spoken by some of the older Tamil (Madrasi) Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian population. It is mostly spoken by the few remaining children of indentured Indian laborers from the present-day state of Tamil Nadu in India. Other speakers of the language are recent immigrants from Tamil Nadu.
The Chinese language first came to Trinidad and Tobago in 1806, when the British had brought Chinese laborers in order to determine if they were fit to use as laborers after the abolition of slavery. About 2,645 Chinese immigrants arrived in Trinidad as indentured labour between 1853 to 1866. A majority of the people who immigrated in the 19th century were from southern China and spoke the Hakka and Yue dialects of Chinese. In the 20th century after the years of indetureship up to the present-day more Chinese people have immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago for business and they speak the dialects of the indenturees along with other Chinese dialects, such as Mandarin and Min.
The indigenous languages were Yao on Trinidad and Karina on Tobago, both Cariban, and Shebaya on Trinidad, which was Arawakan. These languages have been extinct for over a century, but there are attempts to revive the Carib language by the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30171 |
Politics of Trinidad and Tobago
The politics of Trinidad and Tobago function within the framework of a unitary state regulated by a parliamentary democracy modelled on that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, from which the country gained its independence in 1962. Under the 1976 republican Constitution, the British monarch was replaced as head of state by a President chosen by an electoral college composed of the members of the bicameral Parliament, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The country has remained a member of the Commonwealth, and has retained the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London as its highest court of appeal.
The general direction and control of the government rests with the Cabinet, led by a Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are answerable to the House of Representatives. The 41 members of the House are elected to terms of at least five years. Elections may be called earlier by the president at the request of the prime minister or after a vote of no confidence in the House of Representatives. In 1976, the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18. The Senate's 31 members are appointed by the President: 16 on the advice of the prime minister, six on the advice of the leader of the opposition, and nine independents selected by the President from among outstanding members of the community. Local government is through nine Regional Corporations and five municipalities. Tobago was given a measure of self-government in 1980 and is governed by the Tobago House of Assembly. In 1996, Parliament passed legislation which gave Tobago greater self-government. In 2005 Parliament approved a proposal by the independent Elections and Boundaries Commission to increase the number of seats in the House of Representatives from 36 to 41.
Party politics has generally run along ethnic lines, with most Afro-Trinidadians supporting the People's National Movement (PNM) and most Indo-Trinidadians supporting various Indian-majority parties, such as the current United National Congress (UNC) or its predecessors. Most political parties, however, have sought to broaden their purview. In the run-up to the 2007 general election, a new political presence emerged called Congress of The People (COP). Led by former Winston Dookeran, the majority of this membership was formed from former UNC members. Despite gaining a significant but minority share of the vote in various constituencies, the COP failed to capture a single seat.
An early general election was called on 16 April 2010, and was held on 24 May 2010. Two major entities contested the election: the incumbent PNM, and a coalition called the People's Partnership, led by UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, comprising the UNC, COP, TOP (Tobago Organisation of the People), and two labour and non-governmental organisations:the National Joint Action Committee and the Movement for Social Justice. The People's Partnership won 29 seats and the majority, with Kamla Persad-Bissessar being sworn in as the country's first female Prime Minister on 26 May 2010. The PNM won the remaining 12 seats and comprised the opposition in parliament.
After the period a new party also emerged from an ex-member of the United National Congress, known as the Independent Liberal Party which was founded by FIFA ex-vice president Jack Warner.
In the 2015 general election resulted in a victory for the People's National Movement, which won 23 of the 41 seats led by Keith Rowley.
Paula-Mae Weekes
The President is elected by an electoral college, which consists of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, for a five-year term. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President from among the members of Parliament; following legislative elections, the person with the most support among the elected members of the House of Representatives is appointed Prime Minister, usually the leader of the winning party. The cabinet is appointed from among the Members of Parliament, which constitutes elected Members of the House of Representatives and appointed Members of the Senate
Cabinet ministers of Trinidad and Tobago
Following the 2015 general elections, a number of ministries were removed, while others were consolidated or reintroduced.
The Parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has two chambers. The House of Representatives has 41 members, elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies. The Senate has 31 members: 16 Government Senators appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister, six Opposition Senators appointed on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and nine Independent Senators appointed by the President to represent other sectors of civil society.
The 15 member Tobago House of Assembly has limited autonomy with respect to Tobago.
"note:" Tobago has a unicameral House of Assembly, with 15 members (12 elected) serving four-year terms; in the 2005 elections the PNM won.
The country's highest court is the Court of Appeal, whose chief justice is appointed by the president after consultation with the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. The current Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago is Ivor Archie. Final appeal on some matters is decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. Trinidad and Tobago was chosen by its Caribbean neighbours (Caricom) to be the headquarters site of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which was supposed to replace the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the fall of 2003. However, the government has been unable to pass legislation to effect this change.
Trinidad is divided in five Municipalities Arima, Chaguanas, Port of Spain, Point Fortin, San Fernando and nine Regional Corporations Couva–Tabaquite–Talparo, Diego Martin, Penal–Debe, Princes Town, Mayaro–Rio Claro, San Juan–Laventille, Sangre Grande, Siparia, and Tunapuna–Piarco.
Local government in Tobago is handled by the Tobago House of Assembly.
ACP, C, Caricom, CDB, ECLAC, FAO, G-24, G-77, IADB, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, ISO, ITU, ITUC, LAES, NAM, OAS, OPANAL, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNU, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTrO | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30172 |
Economy of Trinidad and Tobago
The economy of Trinidad and Tobago is the wealthiest in the Caribbean and the third-richest by GDP (PPP) per capita in the Americas. Trinidad and Tobago is recognised as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, the country's economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum and petrochemicals. The country's wealth is attributed to its large reserves and exploitation of oil and natural gas.
Trinidad and Tobago has earned a reputation as an excellent investment site for international businesses and has one of the highest growth rates and per capita incomes in Latin America. Recent growth has been fueled by investments in liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petrochemicals. Additional petrochemical, aluminium, and plastics projects are in various stages of planning.
Trinidad and Tobago is the leading Caribbean producer of oil and gas, and its economy is heavily dependent upon these resources but it also supplies manufactured goods, notably food and beverages, as well as cement to the Caribbean region. Oil and gas account for about 40% of GDP and 80% of exports, but only 5% of employment.
The country is also a regional financial center, and tourism is a growing sector, although it is not proportionately as important as in many other Caribbean islands. The economy benefits from a growing trade surplus. Economic growth reached 12.6% in 2006 and 5.5% in 2007 as prices for oil, petrochemicals, and LNG remained high, and as foreign direct investment continued to grow to support expanded capacity in the energy sector.
Trinidad and Tobago's infrastructure is adequate by regional standards. A major expansion of the Piarco International Airport in Trinidad, the country's main airport, was completed in 2001. There is an extensive network of paved roads, and utilities which are fairly reliable in the cities. Some areas, however, especially rural districts, still suffer from water shortages. The government is addressing this problem with the construction of additional desalinization plants. Infrastructure improvement, especially rural roads and telephone service, drainage, and sewerage, are among the government's budget priorities.
Trinidad and Tobago has a relatively modern, robust and reliable Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure. Mobile phone service is widespread and has been the major area of growth for several years. Digicel and Laqtel were granted cellular licenses in 2005, breaking the monopoly of the sole provider of mobile telephony services TSTT. However, as of 2015 TSTT and Digicel remain the only mobile providers.
Internet connectivity has seen the participation of much more players than mobile telephone with the presence of five (5) broadband service providers/ISPs.
Trinidad and Tobago has been involved in the petroleum sector for over one hundred years. There has been considerable oil and gas production on land and in shallow water, with cumulative production totaling over three billion barrels of oil. Trinidad and Tobago is the largest oil and natural gas producer in the Caribbean. In the 1990s, the hydrocarbon sector moved from producing mainly oil to producing mostly natural gas. According to the EIA, in 2013, proven crude oil reserves were estimated at 728 million barrels, while 3P natural gas reserves were 25.24 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) (Ryder Scott Audit 2012).
Trinidad and Tobago houses one of the largest natural gas processing facilities in the Western Hemisphere. The Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited (PPGPL) natural gas liquids (NGL) complex is located in the Port of Savonetta. It has a processing capacity of almost 2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day and an output capacity of 70,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of NGL. After processing the gas is then transferred to the various power generators (POWERGEN, TGU, or Trinity Power) for generation of electricity and to the petrochemical plants for use as a feedstock.
The electricity sector is fueled entirely by natural gas. Trinidad Generation Unlimited power plant, the second combined cycle plant in the country, with a generating capacity of 720MW, was opened on 31 October 2013.
With 11 ammonia plants and seven methanol plants, Trinidad and Tobago was the world's largest exporter of ammonia and the second largest exporter of methanol in 2013, according to IHS Global Insight. Overall production and export for ammonia, methanol, urea, and UAN decreased to 428,240 metric monnes (MT) in 2013 from 564,892 MT in 2012.
The Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs (MEEA) has encouraged investment in projects for "downstream" processing of petrochemicals, such as the manufacture of calcium chloride and dimethyl ether (DME). Such projects are expected to generate more local employment and more growth in local manufacturing than traditional petrochemical processing.
The energy sector accounts for around 45.0% of the country's GDP. The Central Bank predicted real GDP growth in Trinidad and Tobago of 2.6% in 2014, up from 1.6% in 2013, as the country's energy sector recovered from maintenance delays that reduced activity in the third quarter of 2013.
MEEA predicted that production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) would rise by 2.0% to 40.0bcm in 2014, following an estimated 1.5% drop in production in 2013. Production of petrochemicals was also expected to rebound, following an 8.0% drop in output in the third quarter of 2013, as several companies aligned their production schedules with the natural gas shortfall.
In addition the thriving energy sector, the nation controls 0.25% of the world's natural gas with a GDP of twenty billion US dollars (US$20.5b). These factors are quintessential in driving the demand for quality labor, especially in specialized area as it pertains to the energy sector. Such area of specialization are for the first time in history being sought after in this little nation, but requires the expertise of expats to fill. According to former Prime Minister Patrick Manning, the nation is the financial capital of the Caribbean, and being so heavily reliant on the oil and energy sectors, fosters and facilitates an environment of constant demand for specialized jobs. In addition, the Natural Gas sector is for the first time facing competition from countries such as Qatar and the United States. All these factors are stimulating the need to produce local specialists as the demand increases. There are also clear indications that the nation is at the end of an economic downturn and poised for a period of economic boom.
A wealth of jobs would be created in the short run to feed a diversity of economic demands across all sectors of the economy. Finance minister Winston Dookeran unveiled the largest budget (TT$54b) in the history of the nation in October 2011, reiterating the government's resolve to transform the economy, which will boost investor confidence in the nation. This process of transformation will create a hosts of jobs and numerous foreign investor opportunities. The proverbial wheels of the economy are being oiled the economy and other areas of the economy such as the Financial and Manufacturing Sectors will benefit tremendously from the spin offs.
Government ministers have already made plans to facilitate viable tools in assisting with the roll out. Within the past couple years government agencies have begun to utilize recruitment tools such as agencies and job boards. The government has recognized the usefulness in sourcing and outsourcing labor from different areas. Recruitment on the whole in Trinidad and Tobago have experienced huge strides, from the traditional snail mail to company's emails and job boards. Local experts have mentioned that moving forward in such a small area is a big tool to in executing and rolling out macro plans smoothly.
Tourism is another area which it is believed will soon develop rapidly, and an increased demand for jobs. The European Union Council on Tourism and Trade (EUCTT) has also awarded the nation as being "The Best Tourist Destination for 2012". Local hotels have already begun to make plans to facilitate an influx of European tourists upon the nation receiving this designation. However, the EUCTT is not affiliated with any part of the European Union's Institutions. Despite concerns over the global economy, international tourism demand continues to show resilience. The
number of international tourists worldwide grew by 5% (22 million) between January and June 2012, with Asia and
the Pacific (+8%) leading the growth among the regions. Given this growth rate a total of one billion international
tourists are expected by the end of 2012. In 2011, the total contribution of World Travel & Tourism to global GDP
was USD6,346.1bn (9.1% of GDP).
In 2011, the Caribbean region received 20.9 million tourists, a growth of 4.4% over the same period in 2010. The
Caribbean is the most dependent region on tourism with Travel and Tourism contributing 13.9% (US$47.1bn) to its
economic output. Trinidad and Tobago received an estimated 402,058 visitors in 2011, representing 2% of all
Caribbean visitor arrivals.
Due to the multifaceted nature of tourism, its economic impact is not confined to any single industry. To
adequately measure the economic impact of the tourism sector, the United Nations World Travel and Tourism
Council (UNWTO) devised the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), an extension of the System of National Accounts
(SNA). The TSA is a detailed production account of the tourism sector showing its linkages to major industries,
total employment, capital formation and additional macro-economic variables.
Most visitors arriving to Trinidad and Tobago on short-term basis in 2014 were from the following countries of nationality:
Recently, the country's economy has been negatively affected by fluctuating oil and gas prices and in an effort to undergo economic transformation through diversification, the government has identified the creative industries, particularly the music, film and fashion sectors, as pivotal to long-term economic sustainability. As such, the Trinidad and Tobago Creative Industries Company Limited (CreativeTT) was established in 2013 to oversee the strategic and business development of the three (3) niche areas of film, fashion and music.
Economic aid – recipient:
$200,000 (2007 est.)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:
$8.095 billion (February 2018 est.)
Currency:
1 Trinidad and Tobago dollar (TT$) = 100 cents
Exchange rates:
Trinidad and Tobago dollars (TT$) per US$1 :
6.7283 (2017)
6.6152 (2016)
6.3298 (2015)
6.3613 (2014)
6.3885 (2013)
6.3716 (2012)
6.4200 (2011 est)
6.3337 (2010)
6.3099 (2009)
6.2896 (2008)
6.3275 (2007)
6.3107 (2006)
6.2842 (2005),
6.2990 (2004),
6.2951 (2003),
6.2487 (2002),
6.2332 (2001),
6.2697 (2000),
6.2963 (1999),
6.2983 (1998),
6.2517 (1997),
6.0051 (1996),
5.9478 (1995)
Stock of direct foreign investment – at home:
$12.44 billion (2007)
Stock of direct foreign investment – abroad:
$1.419 billion (2007)
Market value of publicly traded shares:
$15.57 billion (2006)
Fiscal year:
1 October – 30 September | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30173 |
Telecommunications in Trinidad and Tobago
Telecommunications in Trinidad and Tobago include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.
BBC World Service radio is available on 98.7 FM.
Country Code: +1
Area Code: 868
International Call Prefix: 011 (outside NANP)
Calls from Trinidad and Tobago to the US, Canada, and other NANP Caribbean nations, are dialed as 1 + NANP area code + 7-digit number. Calls from Trinidad and Tobago to non-NANP countries are dialed as 011 + country code + phone number with local area code.
Number Format: nxx-xxxx
Facebook is the most popular social media platform.
There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or credible reports that the government monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms without judicial oversight.
The constitution and the law provide for freedom of speech and press, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. An independent press, an effective judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system combine to ensure freedom of speech and press. The law prohibits acts that would offend or insult another person or group on the basis of race, origin, or religion or that would incite racial or religious hatred. The constitution and the law prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government generally respects these prohibitions in practice. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30174 |
Transport in Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago, a country that relies heavily on industrialisation and tourism, has various transport systems.
Trinidad is the larger island, with a business-oriented economy and the seat of the country's government and Piarco International Airport, the country's most major airport. A smaller number of international flights from fly directly to Tobago's Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson International Airport (formerly Crown Point Airport). There is also a small airfield name Camden Airstrip in Couva, which is mainly used for cropdusting planes.
Public transport is provided by a bus service operated by government-owned Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC), privately owned mini-buses (locally known as maxi-taxis) and privately owned cars. Maxi-taxis and some cars carry passengers along fixed routes for a fixed fare, although cars are slightly more expensive for similar routes carried by maxi-taxis because of their much smaller passenger capacities. Car taxis are not allowed to utilise the Priority Bus Route, and as such maxi-taxis and buses are preferable for speedily entering and exiting the cities (especially Port of Spain) during rush hour (7am–9am and 4pm–6pm).
In downtown Port of Spain on a street referred to as South Quay is the historic site of the Trinidad Government Rail (TGR) building at(#60 South Quay, Port of Spain). This former railway facility is now the current administrative and bus loading headquarters of the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC). The compound also houses the Maxi Taxi loading facility which is located in its north- eastern quadrant. The Maxi Taxi loading facility is utilized by both route two (2) or red banded Maxi Taxis and route three (3) which are green banded. The red banded Maxi Taxis ply for hire from Port of Spain eastward to as far as the town of Sangre Grande. Green banded Maxi Taxis ply for hire from Port of Spain in a southern direction to either Chaguanas which is considered central Trinidad or to the region of San Fernando located along the South- western coast of Trinidad. The entire PTSC compound located on South Quay Port of Spain is officially referred to as The Port of Spain Transit Centre. The name "City Gate" to which the facility is popularly referred cannot be legally of officially used by the PTSC of on any official documentation used to refer to this facility.
Other Maxi Taxis such as the Route one (1) or yellow banded Maxis ply for hire from Port of Spain to West/ North- West Trinidad. This loading facility is located on #19- 21 South Quay in downtown Port of Spain approximately two hundred meters West of the PTSC. This Route one (1) facility caters to persons travelling to locations such as; Diego Martin, Petit Valley, St. James, Caranage, Chagaramas and Maraval.
In all other locations and for Port of Spain Intra-city transportation, taxi-stands are scattered at various streets of the town or region, and after sunset some of these taxi-stands may change location, although this changed location is also fixed. Recently there has also been a growth in popularity of American-style taxi-cabs that do not work along a fixed route and they can be booked for specific times for specific journeys.
Ferries operate between Port of Spain and Scarborough. Cars can be brought onto the ferries and kept in the cargo areas. Ferries run daily, Sundays to Sunday (less sailings on the weekend). The ferries are inexpensive, in spite of the minimum 2½–3 hour travel time between Port of Spain and Scarborough.
The Water Taxi Service (Trinidad and Tobago) operates between the cities of Port of Spain and San Fernando at a peak rate of five sailings from San Fernando to Port of Spain per morning. Each sailing carries approximately 400 passengers. Travel time is 50 mins and the cost of the service is heavily subsidized.
There is a minimal agricultural railway system near San Fernando, but the Trinidad Government Railway that was built while Trinidad and Tobago was a colony of the United Kingdom was gradually scaled back until it was discontinued in 1968. (The narrow-gauge agricultural railroad was shut down in the late 1990s).
On April 11, 2008 the Trinitrain consortium announced it would plan and build 105 km two line Trinidad Rapid Railway. It was claimed that the new railways were needed to overcome growing road congestion. However the project was cancelled in September 2010.
"total:"
8,320 km
"paved:"
8,320 km
"unpaved:"
0 km (1996 est.)
Trinidad Island also has a large and complex highway network that consists of three 6-lane freeways:
Other Major Highways (4-Lane Freeways)
Tobago Highways (1-Lane Freeway)
Minor Highways
Pipelines:
crude oil 1,032 km; petroleum products 19 km; natural gas 904 km
Ports and harbours:
Pointe-à-Pierre, Point Fortin, Point Lisas, Port of Spain, Scarborough, Tembladora
Merchant marine:
"total:"
2 ships ( or over) totaling /
"ships by type:" (1999 est.)
Airports:
6 (1999 est.)
Airports - with paved runways:
"total:"
3
"over 3,047 m:"
1
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
1
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
1 (1999 est.)
Airports - with unpaved runways:
"total:"
3
"914 to 1,523 m:"
1
"under 914 m:"
2 (1999 est.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30175 |
Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force
The Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF) is the military organization responsible for the defence of the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It consists of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard, the Trinidad and Tobago Air Guard and the Defence Force Reserves.
Established in 1962 after Trinidad and Tobago's independence from Britain, the TTDF is one of the largest Military forces in the English speaking Caribbean. Its mission statement is to "defend the sovereign good of The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, contribute to the development of the national community and support the State in the fulfillment of its national and international objectives". The Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force is made up of four distinct arms; The Regiment/"Army", the Coast Guard, the Air Guard and the Defence Force Reserves, which all fall under the authority of the Ministry of National Security. The TTDF has the world's only Military steelband.
The Commander in Chief of the Defence Force is the country's President, Paula-Mae Weekes. The current Chief of Defence Staff is Air Commodore Darryl Daniel, who replaced Rear Admiral Hayden Pritchard upon his retirement on March 25th, 2019.
The Trinidad and Tobago Regiment is the main ground force element of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force. It has approximately 3000 men and women organized into four (4) battalions and a Regiment Headquarters. The regiment has two primary roles; Maintaining the internal security of Trinidad and Tobago and support to civil law enforcement.
Also, as one of the larger military forces in the region, the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment is also one of the main units used in peacekeeping and humanitarian situations from the Caribbean region.
Although it is called the Trinidad & Tobago Regiment, the TTR is in fact structured more like a light infantry brigade, with a pair of infantry battalions, plus engineering and logistic support units:
1st Battalion (Infantry), Trinidad and Tobago Regiment:
This is a light infantry battalion. It is located at Camp Ogden, Long Circular Road, St James.
2nd Battalion (Infantry), Trinidad and Tobago Regiment: This is also a light infantry battalion.
Formerly located at Camp Mausica, since then it has been relocated to the Chaguaramas Heliport and La Romain.
3rd Battalion (1st Engineer Battalion): This provides engineering support, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
It is located at Camp Cumuto, Wallerfield.
4th Battalion (Support and Service Battalion): This provides logistic and administrative support for the regiment.
It is located at the Teteron Barracks, Teteron Bay, Chaguaramas.
The Regiment also maintains a Camp Omega, also at Chaguaramas, which is used primarily for infantry training.
Trinidad and Tobago has a unique and highly trained group of special forces that is tasked to fulfill counter narcotics and counter terrorism operations. Soldiers are sent to the United States or the United Kingdom for their training. Their motto is "To Find a Way."
The Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard is responsible for the maritime capabilities of the TTDF. The Coast Guard consists of a number of vessels designated "CG". The current Commanding Officer is Captain Douglas Archer.
Its mission statements is to "To Defend the Sovereign Good of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and to provide on a continuous basis, quality service for security and safety within the Maritime Boundaries, and in any other area of responsibility agreed to by the State to fulfill its International Obligations".
The Coast Guard is primarily involved with the Drug Trade interdiction as well as Search and Rescue within the waters of Trinidad and Tobago and neighbouring Islands. However the Coast Guard has been involved in major incidents. During the 1970 Army Mutiny in Trinidad and Tobago, the Coast Guard prevented the mutineers from convoying to Port of Spain by firing on an access road from the Regiment base at Teteron Barracks in Chaguaramas. The Coast Guard also played a role during the 1990 Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt, providing logistical and naval support to the ground forces of the Regiment, posted outside of the besieged city limits.
National Roles of the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard include:
Operational Tasks
The Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard fleet contained the "TTS Nelson", an Island-class patrol vessel purchased from the Royal Navy, from 2000 to 2016. The Coast Guard planned to acquire three Offshore Patrol Vessels; The , which have been built by BAE Systems Surface Ships in the United Kingdom. However, in September 2010, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago announced it was cancelling the order. The Government of Brazil has since acquired all the ships built for Trinidad and Tobago and renamed them as ships of the Amazonas class.
On 29 April 2015 the Ministry of National Security contracted with Dutch company Damen Shipbuilders for four 51-metre 28-knot coastal patrol vessels, two 54-metre fast utility boats and six 11-metre 53-knot interceptors.
In August 2018, the government of Trinidad and Tobago signed contract with Austal to build two Cape-class patrol boats and scheduled to receive boats in mid-2020.
As of February 2020, the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard fleet consists of thirteen ships:
The Air Wing of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence force was formed in February 1966, and was initially part of the Coast Guard and was called the Air Wing of the Coast Guard or the Air Wing. In 1977, it was separated as its own entity. In 2005 it was renamed the Trinidad & Tobago Air Guard (TTAG). Its bases are at Piarco International Airport, Crown Point International Airport, and the Heliport at Chaguaramas. Its purposes are to protect and patrol Trinidad and Tobago's airspace, and is also used for transport, search and rescue, and liaison. The current commander of the Air Guard is Group Captain Kester Weekes. He has taken command of the unit in 2019, succeeding Air Commodore Daryl Daniel upon his promotion to Chief of Defence Staff in March 2019.
Its former fleet of aircraft included:
One Cessna 337 (O-2A) Skymaster (1966–1972), One Cessna 402 Utililiner (1972–1998), four Aérospatiale Gazelle (1973–1995), One Cessna 172 Skyhawk (1991–1998), Two Piper Navajo 2000-2009, One Cessna 310 1985-2011
Aircraft ordered: Four Agusta Westland AW139 Helicopters. Two of the helicopters were delivered in May 2011, and the other two in July 2012. The helicopters will be used by the Trinidad & Tobago Air Guard for surveillance and reconnaissance missions related to search and rescue, border patrol and drug interdiction.
The Minister of National Security announced that the establishment of a military airfield, construction of an operations/administrative building at the Piarco Air Station and new helicopters would be purchased to equip the Air Guard. The minister also promised training from various international bodies. Cabinet agreed to the change of rank designations from naval to the corresponding aviation designations and the creation of 66 ranks on the establishment of the Air Guard. However even though it is separate TT Air guard still reports to Coast Guard officials.
The Defence Force Reserves, previously called the "Volunteer Defence Force", is the non active duty arm of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force. Its mission statement is "To be a highly professional, well trained combat ready force that will respond effectively in support of our regular forces and the national community". The Defence Force Reserves is capable of providing reinforcement and be a force multiplier in the event that the Defence Force is called upon to carry out its roles of aid to the civil power. Established in September 1963, its primary purpose at that time was to provide essential reinforcements to the regular force. Today, those roles have grown to include assisting in the promotion of hemispheric and international security and development, with a well equipped force, trained in a broad range of disciplines and actively involved in community development. In recent years, the Reserves have been called out to assist with law enforcement and most recently to assist with the security in Trinidad's hosting the 5th Summit of the Americas in 2009. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30176 |
Tromelin Island
Tromelin Island (; , ) is a low, flat island in the Indian Ocean about north of Réunion and about east of Madagascar. Tromelin is administered as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a French Overseas Territory but Mauritius claims sovereignty over the island despite its absence in the listing of the 8th article of the 1814 Paris Treaty. Indeed, the treaty doesn't specifically mention all the dependencies of Mauritius which leads to uncertainty on the sovereignty of Tromelin, and the offical text was the most clearly text in french. During the British period of Mauritius, France administrated the island as a dependency of the region of Réunion and built infrastructure without British protest. France and Mauritius have been negotiating for years in regard to the possible establishment of a condominium over the island. In 2010, Mauritius and France reached an agreement on the Co-management of Tromelin without prejudice to the sovereignty of Mauritius over Tromelin.
Tromelin has facilities for scientific expeditions and a weather station. It is a nesting site for birds and green sea turtles.
The island is named in honour of Jacques Marie Boudin de Tromelin de La Nuguy, captain of the French corvette "Dauphine". He arrived at the island on 29 November 1776, and rescued eight stranded enslaved Malagasy people who had been on the island for 15 years.
Tromelin is situated in the Mascarene Basin and is part of the Iles Eparses. It is currently only high. It formed as a volcano, now eroded, and developed an atoll ring of coral.
Tromelin is about long and wide, with an area of 80 ha (200 acres), covered in scrub dominated by octopus bush and surrounded by coral reefs. Access by sea is quite difficult as there are no harbours and the only anchorage, to the northwest of the island, is poorly situated. The best, but by no means ideal, landing area is on the east side of the northern peninsula. A 1,200-metre airstrip provides a link with the outside world.
Flora is poorly developed due to weather conditions and lack of fresh water. With the exception of two or three months in summer, this flat island is swept day and night by heavy winds that are sustained in winter. In summer, it can suffer the onslaught of cyclones and tropical storms.
There is only grass and brush (low shrubs) present on the island. Veloutaries (Heliotropium foertherianum) and purslane (Portulaca oleracea), with growth shaped by a dominant east winds are present everywhere on the island.
The fauna consists mainly of hermit crabs (Paguroidea), seabirds and sea turtles for which the island is an important nesting place. The green turtle (Chelonia mydas), also known as the freshwater turtle, is mainly encountered and, to a lesser extent, the tortoiseshell turtle, better known as the caret.
The waters are rich with fish. The French Coral Reef Initiative (IFRECOR) has identified 26 species of corals. Allochthonous species were introduced on the island during the various shipwrecks: rats, mice and rabbits. The latter were decimated in 1986 by cyclone Erinesta.
The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because of its significance as a seabird breeding site. Both masked (with up to 250 pairs) and red-footed boobies (up to 180 pairs) nesting there. Sulidae populations have seriously declined in the western Indian Ocean with those on Tromelin among the healthiest remaining.
The island's masked boobies are of the western Indian Ocean subspecies ("Sula dactylatra melanops"), of which Tromelin is a stronghold. The red-footed boobies constitute the only polymorphic population in the region, indicating its biogeographical isolation. Both great and lesser frigatebirds used to nest on the island. The breeding populations of both birds have since been extirpated, although they continue to use the island for roosting.
There are no resident landbirds.
The island was discovered by France in 1720s. It was recorded by the French navigator Jean Marie Briand de la Feuillée and named "Île des Sables" ('Isle of Sand').
On 31 July 1761 the French ship "Utile" ("Useful"), a frigate of the French East India Company, chartered by Jean-Joseph de Laborde and commanded by Captain Jean de La Fargue, transporting slaves from Madagascar to Mauritius in contravention of Mauritian law, ran onto the reefs of the island. The ship had departed Bayonne in France with 142 men. After a stopover on the Isle de France (present-day Mauritius), the ship embarked 160 Malagasy men, women and children at Foulpointe, on the east coast of Madagascar, to bring them into slavery on Mauritius, despite the prohibition of trafficking decreed by the governor. A navigation error, due to the use of two conflicting charts, caused the vessel to wreck on the reefs of Tromelin Island (then known as the Isle of Sand). The ship was a frigate, not a slave ship, and thus was not equipped with the shackles and chains usually found on slave ships.
After the wreck, the crew and about 60 Malagasy people managed to reach the island, but the rest of the slaves, locked in the hold, drowned. The crew retrieved various equipment, food and wood from the wreckage. They dug a well, providing drinking water, and fed on salvaged food, turtles and seabirds.
Captain Jean de Lafargue, having lost his mind as a result of the wreck, was replaced by his first lieutenant, second-in-command, Barthelemy Castellan du Vernet who lost his brother Leon in the shipwreck. Castellan built two camps, one for the crew and one for the slaves, a forge and an oven, and, with the materials recovered from the wreckage, began construction of a boat. On 27 September 1761, a contingent of 122 French sailors (crew and officers) left Tromelin aboard the "Providence". They left the surviving slaves—60 Malagasy men and women—on the desert island, promising to return and rescue them. The sailors reached Madagascar in just over four days and, after a stopover in Foulpointe, where men died of tropical diseases, were transferred to Bourbon Island (now Réunion Island), and then to the Isle de France (now Mauritius). When the crew of the ship reached Mauritius, they requested that colonial authorities send a ship to rescue the Malagasy slaves on the island. However, they met with a categorical refusal from the governor, with the justification that France was fighting the Seven Years' War and thus no ship could be spared, the island of Mauritius being itself under threat of attack from British India.
Castellan left the Isle de France to return to France in 1762 and never gave up hope to one day return to the Isle of Sand to save the Malagasy people. The news of the castaway slaves got published and stirred the Parisian intellectual milieu; later, the episode was all but forgotten with the end of the Seven Years' War and the bankruptcy of the East India Company.
In 1773, a ship passing close to Tromelin Island located the slaves and reported them to the authorities of Isle de France. A boat was sent, but this first rescue failed, as the ship couldn't approach the island. A year later, a second ship, "Sauterelle", also failed to reach the island. During this second failed rescue, a sailor managed to swim to the island, but he had to be abandoned by the ship due to bad weather. This sailor remained on Tromelin Island and, some time later, probably around 1775, built a raft on which he embarked with three men and three women, but which disappeared at sea.
It was not until 29 November 1776, 15 years after the sinking, that Ensign Tromelin-Lanuguy, captain of the corvette "Dauphine", reached Tromelin Island and rescued the survivors—seven women and an eight-month-old child. Upon arriving there, Tromelin-Lanuguy discovered that the survivors were dressed in plaited feather clothes and that they had managed, during all these years, to keep a fire lit (the island does not have a single tree). The Malagasy people, who had been left on the bleak little island, built a shed with coral stones, for most of the wood had been used in the construction of the raft for the crew. They also built a lookout on the highest point of the island in order not to miss the ship that would, they hoped, come to their rescue. They were all from the Central Highlands of Madagascar, and had no knowledge of how to produce food in the coastal environment. Most had died within the first few months on the island. The survivors remained with Jacques Maillart, governor of the Isle de France, who declared them free and offered to bring them back to Madagascar, which they refused. Maillart decided to baptize the child Jacques Moyse (Moses), on the day of his arrival in Port-Louis on 15 December 1776, and to rename his mother Eve (her Malagasy name was Semiavou) and to do the same with the child's grandmother, whom he called Dauphine after the name of the corvette that rescued them. The trio was welcomed in the house of the intendant of the Isle of France. Tromelin was the first to precisely describe the island that now bears his name.
The Marquis de Condorcet, advocating the abolition of slavery in his book "Reflections on the Slavery of Negroes" published in 1781, recounted the tragedy of the castaways of Tromelin to illustrate the inhumanity of the slave trade.
An archeological expedition entitled "Forgotten Slaves", led by Max Guérout, a former French naval officer and director of operations of the Naval Archeology Research Group, and Thomas Romon, archaeologist at INRAP (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research), took place from October to November 2006, under the patronage of UNESCO and the French Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (CPMHE). The results of the research were made public on January 17, 2007. The ten members of the expedition probed the wreck of "Utile", and searched the island for traces of shipwreck, in order to better understand the living conditions of the Malagasy people during these fifteen years.
According to Max Guérout, head of the mission, "In three days, a well 5 meters deep was dug. This represented a considerable effort. We found many bones of birds, turtles, and fish." One does not have the impression that these people were crushed by their condition. They tried to survive with order and method."
An anonymous logbook, attributed to a writer of the crew, was found. Basements made of beach sandstone and coral were also found (the survivors thus transgressed a Malagasy custom according to which stone constructions were reserved for tombs). There were also six copper bowls and a pebble used to sharpen knives. The fire was maintained for fifteen years, thanks to the wood from the wreck, the island being devoid of trees.
A second expedition, organized in November 2008, did not reveal the burials observed in 1851 by an English naval officer. However, the remains of two bodies displaced during the digging of the foundations of a building of the weather station have been uncovered. Three buildings built with coral blocks have been discovered, including the kitchen, which was still equipped with kitchen utensils, and in particular copper containers that had been repaired several times, testifying to the slaves' determination to survive.
A third archaeological mission took place in November 2010. It allowed the discovery of three new buildings and many objects, including two lighters and flints, which elucidated the technique used by the castaways to rekindle the fire.
The fourth expedition, took place in September / October 2013. It lasted for 45 days, and enabled to identify many tools, shelters and to understand the layout of the site.
In 2016, an exhibition presenting the results of the various excavation campaigns, entitled "Tromelin, the island of forgotten slaves", was presented jointly in metropolitan France and in the DROM: at the Stella Matutina museum in Saint-Leu (La Réunion), the castle of the Dukes of Brittany in Nantes, the House of Agglomeration of Lorient, the Aquitaine Museum in Bordeaux, the departmental museum of archeology and prehistory of Martinique in Fort-de-France, and finally to the Basque Museum of the History of Bayonne from June to November 2017.
The French claim to sovereignty dates from 29 November 1776, the date that the ship "Dauphine" arrived.
The Mauritian claim to sovereignty is based on the fact that the island must have been ceded to United Kingdom by the treaty of Paris in 1814 and should not continue to be administered by France as a dependency of Réunion.
The United Nations never recognized the Mauritian sovereignty over Tromelin. In 1954, France constructed a meteorological station and a landing strip on the island.
It is a matter of dispute whether the building agreement transferred sovereignty of Tromelin from one to the other, and Mauritius claims the island as part of its territory, on the grounds that France has not retained its sovereignty over island in 1814 which was "de facto" part of the colony of Mauritius at the time of independence. Indeed, as early as 1959, even before independence, Mauritius informed the World Meteorological Organization that it considered Tromelin to be part of its territory. A co-management treaty was reached by France and Mauritius in 2010, but has not been ratified.
Tromelin has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of , contiguous with that of Réunion. The island's weather station, which warns of cyclones, is still operated by France and is staffed by meteorologists from Réunion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30178 |
Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa, covering . Its northernmost point, Cape Angela, is also the northernmost point on the African continent. Tunisia is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia's population was 11.7 million in 2019. Tunisia's name is derived from its capital city, Tunis (Berber native name: Tunest), which is located on its northeast coast.
Geographically, Tunisia contains the eastern end of the Atlas Mountains, and the northern reaches of the Sahara desert. Much of the rest of the country's land is fertile soil. Its of coastline include the African conjunction of the western and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Basin.
Tunisia is a unitary semi-presidential representative democratic republic. It is considered to be the only fully democratic sovereign state in the Arab world. It has a high human development index. It has an association agreement with the European Union; is a member of La Francophonie, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, the OIC, the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, the Community of Sahel–Saharan States, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77; and has obtained the status of major non-NATO ally of the United States. In addition, Tunisia is also a member state of the United Nations and a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Close relations with Europe, in particular with France and with Italy, have been forged through economic cooperation, privatisation and industrial modernization.
In ancient times, Tunisia was primarily inhabited by Berbers. Phoenician immigration began in the 12th century BC; these immigrants founded Carthage. A major mercantile power and a military rival of the Roman Republic, Carthage was defeated by the Romans in 146 BC. The Romans occupied Tunisia for most of the next 800 years, introduced Christianity and left architectural legacies like the amphitheatre of El Jem. After several attempts starting in 647, Muslims conquered the whole of Tunisia by 697 and introduced Islam. After a series of campaigns beginning in 1534 to conquer and colonize the region, the Ottoman Empire established control in 1574 and held sway for over 300 years afterwards. French colonization of Tunisia occurred in 1881. Tunisia gained independence with Habib Bourguiba and declared the Tunisian Republic in 1957. In 2011, the Tunisian Revolution resulted in the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, followed by parliamentary elections. The country voted for parliament again on 26 October 2014, and for President on 23 November 2014. As a result, Tunisia is the only country in North Africa classified as "Free" by the Freedom House organization and is also considered by "The Economist"s Democracy Index as the only democracy in the Arab World.
The word "Tunisia" is derived from Tunis; a central urban hub and the capital of modern-day Tunisia. The present form of the name, with its Latinate suffix "", evolved from French , in turn generally associated with the Berber root ⵜⵏⵙ, transcribed , which means "to lay down" or "encampment". It is sometimes also associated with the Punic goddess "Tanith (aka Tunit)", ancient city of "Tynes".
The French derivative was adopted in some European languages with slight modifications, introducing a distinctive name to designate the country. Other languages remained untouched, such as the Russian () and Spanish . In this case, the same name is used for both country and city, as with the Arabic , and only by context can one tell the difference.
Before Tunisia, the territory's name was Ifriqiya or Africa, which gave the present-day name of the continent Africa.
Farming methods reached the Nile Valley from the Fertile Crescent region about 5000 BC, and spread to the Maghreb by about 4000 BC. Agricultural communities in the humid coastal plains of central Tunisia then were ancestors of today's Berber tribes.
It was believed in ancient times that Africa was originally populated by Gaetulians and Libyans, both nomadic peoples. According to the Roman historian Sallust, the demigod Hercules died in Spain and his polyglot eastern army was left to settle the land, with some migrating to Africa. Persians went to the West and intermarried with the Gaetulians and became the Numidians. The Medes settled and were known as Mauri, later Moors.
The Numidians and Moors belonged to the race from which the Berbers are descended. The translated meaning of Numidian is Nomad and indeed the people were semi-nomadic until the reign of Masinissa of the Massyli tribe.
At the beginning of recorded history, Tunisia was inhabited by Berber tribes. Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 12th century BC (Bizerte, Utica). The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC by Phoenicians. Legend says that Dido from Tyre, now in modern-day Lebanon, founded the city in 814 BC, as retold by the Greek writer Timaeus of Tauromenium. The settlers of Carthage brought their culture and religion from Phoenicia, now present-day Lebanon and adjacent areas.
After the series of wars with Greek city-states of Sicily in the 5th century BC, Carthage rose to power and eventually became the dominant civilization in the Western Mediterranean. The people of Carthage worshipped a pantheon of Middle Eastern gods including Baal and Tanit. Tanit's symbol, a simple female figure with extended arms and long dress, is a popular icon found in ancient sites. The founders of Carthage also established a Tophet, which was altered in Roman times.
A Carthaginian invasion of Italy led by Hannibal during the Second Punic War, one of a series of wars with Rome, nearly crippled the rise of Roman power. From the conclusion of the Second Punic War in 202 BC, Carthage functioned as a client state of the Roman Republic for another 50 years.
Following the Battle of Carthage which began in 149 BC during the Third Punic War, Carthage was conquered by Rome in 146 BC. Following its conquest, the Romans renamed Carthage to Africa, incorporating it as a province.
During the Roman period, the area of what is now Tunisia enjoyed a huge development. The economy, mainly during the Empire, boomed: the prosperity of the area depended on agriculture. Called the "Granary of the Empire", the area of actual Tunisia and coastal Tripolitania, according to one estimate, produced one million tons of cereals each year, one-quarter of which was exported to the Empire. Additional crops included beans, figs, grapes, and other fruits.
By the 2nd century, olive oil rivaled cereals as an export item. In addition to the cultivations and the capture and transporting of exotic wild animals from the western mountains, the principal production and exports included the textiles, marble, wine, timber, livestock, pottery such as African Red Slip, and wool.
There was even a huge production of mosaics and ceramics, exported mainly to Italy, in the central area of El Djem (where there was the second biggest amphitheater in the Roman Empire).
Berber bishop Donatus Magnus was the founder of a Christian group known as the Donatists. During the 5th and 6th centuries (from 430 to 533 AD), the Germanic Vandals invaded and ruled over a kingdom in Northwest Africa that included present-day Tripoli. The region was easily reconquered in 533–534 AD, during the rule of Emperor Justinian I, by the Eastern Romans led by General Belisarius.
Sometime between the second half of the 7th century and the early part of the 8th century, Arab Muslim conquest occurred in the region. They founded the first Islamic city in Northwest Africa, Kairouan. It was there in 670 AD that the Mosque of Uqba, or the Great Mosque of Kairouan, was constructed. This mosque is the oldest and most prestigious sanctuary in the Muslim West with the oldest standing minaret in the world; it is also considered a masterpiece of Islamic art and architecture.
Tunis was taken in 695, re-taken by the Byzantine Eastern Romans in 697, but lost finally in 698. The transition from a Latin-speaking Christian Berber society to a Muslim and mostly Arabic-speaking society took over 400 years (the equivalent process in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent took 600 years) and resulted in the final disappearance of Christianity and Latin in the 12th or 13th centuries. The majority of the population were not Muslim until quite late in the 9th century; a vast majority were during the 10th. Also, some Tunisian Christians emigrated; some richer members of society did so after the conquest in 698 and others were welcomed by Norman rulers to Sicily or Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries – the logical destination because of the 1200 year close connection between the two regions.
The Arab governors of Tunis founded the Aghlabid dynasty, which ruled Tunisia, Tripolitania and eastern Algeria from 800 to 909. Tunisia flourished under Arab rule when extensive systems were constructed to supply towns with water for household use and irrigation that promoted agriculture (especially olive production). This prosperity permitted luxurious court life and was marked by the construction of new palace cities such as al-Abassiya (809) and Raqadda (877).
After conquering Cairo, the Fatimids abandoned Tunisia and parts of Eastern Algeria to the local Zirids (972–1148). Zirid Tunisia flourished in many areas: agriculture, industry, trade, and religious and secular learning. Management by the later Zirid emirs was neglectful though, and political instability was connected to the decline of Tunisian trade and agriculture.
The depredation of the Tunisian campaigns by the Banu Hilal, a warlike Arab Bedouin tribe encouraged by the Fatimids of Egypt to seize Northwest Africa, sent the region's rural and urban economic life into further decline. Consequently, the region underwent rapid urbanisation as famines depopulated the countryside and industry shifted from agriculture to manufactures. The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun wrote that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.
The main Tunisian cities were conquered by the Normans of Sicily under the Kingdom of Africa in the 12th century, but following the conquest of Tunisia in 1159–1160 by the Almohads the Normans were evacuated to Sicily. Communities of Tunisian Christians would still exist in Nefzaoua up to the 14th century. The Almohads initially ruled over Tunisia through a governor, usually a near relative of the Caliph. Despite the prestige of the new masters, the country was still unruly, with continuous rioting and fighting between the townsfolk and wandering Arabs and Turks, the latter being subjects of the Muslim Armenian adventurer Karakush. Also, Tunisia was occupied by Ayyubids between 1182 and 1183 and again between 1184 and 1187.
The greatest threat to Almohad rule in Tunisia was the Banu Ghaniya, relatives of the Almoravids, who from their base in Mallorca tried to restore Almoravid rule over the Maghreb. Around 1200 they succeeded in extending their rule over the whole of Tunisia until they were crushed by Almohad troops in 1207. After this success, the Almohads installed Walid Abu Hafs as the governor of Tunisia. Tunisia remained part of the Almohad state, until 1230 when the son of Abu Hafs declared himself independent. During the reign of the Hafsid dynasty, fruitful commercial relationships were established with several Christian Mediterranean states. In the late 16th century the coast became a pirate stronghold.
In the last years of the Hafsid dynasty, Spain seized many of the coastal cities, but these were recovered by the Ottoman Empire.
The first Ottoman conquest of Tunis took place in 1534 under the command of Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha, the younger brother of Oruç Reis, who was the Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Fleet during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. However, it was not until the final Ottoman reconquest of Tunis from Spain in 1574 under Kapudan Pasha Uluç Ali Reis that the Ottomans permanently acquired the former Hafsid Tunisia, retaining it until the French conquest of Tunisia in 1881.
Initially under Turkish rule from Algiers, soon the Ottoman Porte appointed directly for Tunis a governor called the Pasha supported by janissary forces. Before long, however, Tunisia became in effect an autonomous province, under the local Bey. Under its Turkish governors, the Beys, Tunisia attained virtual independence. The Hussein dynasty of Beys, established in 1705, lasted until 1957. This evolution of status was from time to time challenged without success by Algiers. During this era the governing councils controlling Tunisia remained largely composed of a foreign elite who continued to conduct state business in the Turkish language.
Attacks on European shipping were made by corsairs, primarily from Algiers, but also from Tunis and Tripoli, yet after a long period of declining raids the growing power of the European states finally forced its termination. Under the Ottoman Empire, the boundaries of Tunisia contracted; it lost territory to the west (Constantine) and to the east (Tripoli).
The plague epidemics ravaged Tunisia in 1784–1785, 1796–1797 and 1818–1820.
In the 19th century, the rulers of Tunisia became aware of the ongoing efforts at political and social reform in the Ottoman capital. The Bey of Tunis then, by his own lights but informed by the Turkish example, attempted to effect a modernizing reform of institutions and the economy. Tunisian international debt grew unmanageable. This was the reason or pretext for French forces to establish a protectorate in 1881.
In 1869, Tunisia declared itself bankrupt and an international financial commission took control over its economy. In 1881, using the pretext of a Tunisian incursion into Algeria, the French invaded with an army of about 36,000 and forced the Bey to agree to the terms of the 1881 Treaty of Bardo (Al Qasr as Sa'id). With this treaty, Tunisia was officially made a French protectorate, over the objections of Italy. Under French colonization, European settlements in the country were actively encouraged; the number of French colonists grew from 34,000 in 1906 to 144,000 in 1945. In 1910 there were 105,000 Italians in Tunisia.
During World War II, French Tunisia was ruled by the collaborationist Vichy government located in Metropolitan France. The antisemitic Statute on Jews enacted by the Vichy was also implemented in Vichy Northwest Africa and overseas French territories. Thus, the persecution, and murder of the Jews from 1940 to 1943 was part of the Shoah in France.
From November 1942 until May 1943, Vichy Tunisia was occupied by Nazi Germany. SS Commander Walter Rauff continued to implement the Final Solution there. From 1942–1943, Tunisia was the scene of the Tunisia Campaign, a series of battles between the Axis and Allied forces. The battle opened with initial success by the German and Italian forces, but the massive supply and numerical superiority of the Allies led to the Axis surrender on 13 May 1943.
Tunisia achieved independence from France on 20 March 1956 with Habib Bourguiba as Prime Minister. 20 March is celebrated annually as Tunisian Independence Day. A year later, Tunisia was declared a republic, with Bourguiba as the first President. From independence in 1956 until the 2011 revolution, the government and the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), formerly Neo Destour and the Socialist Destourian Party, were effectively one. Following a report by Amnesty International, "The Guardian" called Tunisia "one of the most modern but repressive countries in the Arab world".
In November 1987, doctors declared Bourguiba unfit to rule and, in a bloodless coup d'état, Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali assumed the presidency in accordance with Article 57 of the Tunisian constitution. The anniversary of Ben Ali's succession, 7 November, was celebrated as a national holiday. He was consistently re-elected with enormous majorities every five years (well over 80 percent of the vote), the last being 25 October 2009, until he fled the country amid popular unrest in January 2011.
Ben Ali and his family were accused of corruption and plundering the country's money. Economic liberalisation provided further opportunities for financial mismanagement, while corrupt members of the Trabelsi family, most notably in the cases of Imed Trabelsi and Belhassen Trabelsi, controlled much of the business sector in the country. The First Lady Leila Ben Ali was described as an "unabashed shopaholic" who used the state airplane to make frequent unofficial trips to Europe's fashion capitals. Tunisia refused a French request for the extradition of two of the President's nephews, from Leila's side, who were accused by the French State prosecutor of having stolen two mega-yachts from a French marina. Ben Ali's son-in-law Sakher El Materi was rumoured as being primed to eventually take over the country.
Independent human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Protection International, documented that basic human and political rights were not respected. The regime obstructed in any way possible the work of local human rights organizations. In 2008, in terms of Press freedom, Tunisia was ranked 143rd out of 173.
The Tunisian Revolution was an intensive campaign of civil resistance that was precipitated by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, a lack of freedom of speech and other political freedoms and poor living conditions. Labour unions were said to be an integral part of the protests. The protests inspired the Arab Spring, a wave of similar actions throughout the Arab world.
The catalyst for mass demonstrations was the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor, who set himself afire on 17 December 2010 in protest at the confiscation of his wares and the humiliation inflicted on him by a municipal official named Faida Hamdy. Anger and violence intensified following Bouazizi's death on 4 January 2011, ultimately leading longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to resign and flee the country on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power.
Protests continued for banning of the ruling party and the eviction of all its members from the transitional government formed by Mohammed Ghannouchi. Eventually the new government gave in to the demands. A Tunis court banned the ex-ruling party RCD and confiscated all its resources. A decree by the minister of the interior banned the "political police", special forces which were used to intimidate and persecute political activists.
On 3 March 2011, the interim president announced that elections to a Constituent Assembly would be held on 24 July 2011. On 9 June 2011, the prime minister announced the election would be postponed until 23 October 2011. International and internal observers declared the vote free and fair. The Ennahda Movement, formerly banned under the Ben Ali regime, came out of the election as the largest party, with 89 seats out of a total of 217. On 12 December 2011, former dissident and veteran human rights activist Moncef Marzouki was elected president.
In March 2012, Ennahda declared it will not support making sharia the main source of legislation in the new constitution, maintaining the secular nature of the state. Ennahda's stance on the issue was criticized by hardline Islamists, who wanted strict sharia, but was welcomed by secular parties. On 6 February 2013, Chokri Belaid, the leader of the leftist opposition and prominent critic of Ennahda, was assassinated.
In 2014, President Moncef Marzouki established Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission, as a key part of creating a national reconciliation.
Tunisia was hit by two terror attacks on foreign tourists in 2015, first killing 22 people at the Bardo National Museum, and later killing 38 people at the Sousse beachfront. Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi renewed the state of emergency in October for three more months.
The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in building a peaceful, pluralistic political order in Tunisia.
Tunisia is situated on the Mediterranean coast of Northwest Africa, midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Nile Delta. It is bordered by Algeria on the west and southwest and Libya on the south east. It lies between latitudes 30° and 38°N, and longitudes 7° and 12°E. An abrupt southward turn of the Mediterranean coast in northern Tunisia gives the country two distinctive Mediterranean coasts, west–east in the north, and north–south in the east.
Though it is relatively small in size, Tunisia has great environmental diversity due to its north–south extent. Its east–west extent is limited. Differences in Tunisia, like the rest of the Maghreb, are largely north–south environmental differences defined by sharply decreasing rainfall southward from any point. The Dorsal, the eastern extension of the Atlas Mountains, runs across Tunisia in a northeasterly direction from the Algerian border in the west to the Cape Bon peninsula in the east. North of the Dorsal is the Tell, a region characterized by low, rolling hills and plains, again an extension of mountains to the west in Algeria. In the Khroumerie, the northwestern corner of the Tunisian Tell, elevations reach and snow occurs in winter.
The Sahel, a broadening coastal plain along Tunisia's eastern Mediterranean coast, is among the world's premier areas of olive cultivation. Inland from the Sahel, between the Dorsal and a range of hills south of Gafsa, are the Steppes. Much of the southern region is semi-arid and desert.
Tunisia has a coastline long. In maritime terms, the country claims a contiguous zone of , and a territorial sea of .
Tunisia's climate is Mediterranean in the north, with mild rainy winters and hot, dry summers. The south of the country is desert. The terrain in the north is mountainous, which, moving south, gives way to a hot, dry central plain. The south is semiarid, and merges into the Sahara. A series of salt lakes, known as "chotts" or "shatts", lie in an east–west line at the northern edge of the Sahara, extending from the Gulf of Gabes into Algeria. The lowest point is Chott el Djerid at below sea level and the highest is Jebel ech Chambi at .
Tunisia is a representative democracy and a republic with a president serving as head of state, a prime minister as head of government, a unicameral parliament, and a civil law court system. The Constitution of Tunisia, adopted 26 January 2014, guarantees rights for women and states that the President's religion "shall be Islam". In October 2014 Tunisia held its first elections under the new constitution following the Arab Spring. Tunisia (#69 worldwide) is the only democracy in North Africa.
The number of legalized political parties in Tunisia has grown considerably since the revolution. There are now over 100 legal parties, including several that existed under the former regime. During the rule of Ben Ali, only three functioned as independent opposition parties: the PDP, FDTL, and Tajdid. While some older parties are well-established and can draw on previous party structures, many of the 100-plus parties extant as of February 2012 are small.
Rare for the Arab world, women held more than 20% of seats in the country's pre-revolution bicameral parliament. In the 2011 constituent assembly, women held between 24% and 31% of all seats.
Tunisia is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer. On 23 November 2014 Tunisia held its first Presidential Election following the Arab Spring in 2011.
The Tunisian legal system is heavily influenced by French civil law, while the Law of Personal Status is based on Islamic law. Sharia courts were abolished in 1956.
A Code of Personal Status was adopted shortly after independence in 1956, which, among other things, gave women full legal status (allowing them to run and own businesses, have bank accounts, and seek passports under their own authority). The code outlawed the practices of polygamy and repudiation and a husband's right to unilaterally divorce his wife. Further reforms in 1993 included a provision to allow Tunisian women to transmit citizenship even if they are married to a foreigner and living abroad. The Law of Personal Status is applied to all Tunisians regardless of their religion. The Code of Personal Status remains one of the most progressive civil codes in North Africa and the Muslim world.
After the revolution, a number of Salafist groups emerged and in some occasions have violently repressed artistic expression that is viewed to be hostile to Islam.
Since the revolution, some non-governmental organizations have reconstituted themselves and hundreds of new ones have emerged. For instance, the Tunisian Human Rights League, the first human rights organization in Africa and the Arab world, operated under restrictions and state intrusion for over half of its existence, but is now free to operate. Some independent organizations, such as the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, the Association of Tunisian Women for Research and Development, and the Bar Association also remain active.
Homosexuality is illegal in Tunisia and can be punished by up to three years in prison. On 7 December 2016, two Tunisian men were arrested on suspicion of homosexual activity in Sousse. According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 94% of Tunisians believe that homosexuality should not be accepted by society.
The Tunisian regime has been criticised for its policy on recreational drug use, for instance automatic 1-year prison sentences for consuming cannabis. Prisons are crowded and drug offenders represent nearly a third of the prison population.
In 2017, Tunisia became the first Arab country to outlaw domestic violence against women, which was previously not a crime. Also, the law allowing rapists to escape punishment by marrying the victim was abolished. According to Human Rights Watch, 47% of Tunisian women have been subject to domestic violence.
, Tunisia had an army of 27,000 personnel equipped with 84 main battle tanks and 48 light tanks. The navy had 4,800 personnel operating 25 patrol boats and 6 other craft. The Tunisian Air Force has 154 aircraft and 4 UAVs. Paramilitary forces consisted of a 12,000-member national guard. Tunisia's military spending was 1.6% of GDP . The army is responsible for national defence and also internal security. Tunisia has participated in peacekeeping efforts in the DROC and Ethiopia/Eritrea. United Nations peacekeeping deployments for the Tunisian armed forces have been in Cambodia (UNTAC), Namibia (UNTAG), Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Western Sahara (MINURSO) and the 1960s mission in the Congo, ONUC.
The military has historically played a professional, apolitical role in defending the country from external threats. Since January 2011 and at the direction of the executive branch, the military has taken on increasing responsibility for domestic security and humanitarian crisis response.
Tunisia is subdivided into 24 governorates ("Wilaya"), which are further divided into 264 "delegations" or "districts" ("mutamadiyat"), and further subdivided into municipalities ("baladiyats") and sectors ("imadats").
Tunisia is an export-oriented country in the process of liberalizing and privatizing an economy that, while averaging 5% GDP growth since the early 1990s, has suffered from corruption benefiting politically connected elites. Tunisia's Penal Code criminalises several forms of corruption, including active and passive bribery, abuse of office, extortion and conflicts of interest, but the anti-corruption framework is not effectively enforced. However, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index published annually by Transparency International, Tunisia was ranked the least corrupt North-African-country in 2016, with a score of 41. Tunisia has a diverse economy, ranging from agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and petroleum products, to tourism. In 2008 it had a GDP of US$41 billion (official exchange rates), or $82 billion (purchasing power parity).
The agricultural sector accounts for 11.6% of the GDP, industry 25.7%, and services 62.8%. The industrial sector is mainly made up of clothing and footwear manufacturing, production of car parts, and electric machinery. Although Tunisia managed an average 5% growth over the last decade it continues to suffer from a high unemployment especially among youth.
Tunisia was in 2009 ranked the most competitive economy in Africa and the 40th in the world by the World Economic Forum. Tunisia has managed to attract many international companies such as Airbus and Hewlett-Packard.
Tourism accounted for 7% of GDP and 370,000 jobs in 2009.
The European Union remains Tunisia's first trading partner, currently accounting for 72.5% of Tunisian imports and 75% of Tunisian exports. Tunisia is one of the European Union's most established trading partners in the Mediterranean region and ranks as the EU's 30th largest trading partner. Tunisia was the first Mediterranean country to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, in July 1995, although even before the date of entry came into force, Tunisia started dismantling tariffs on bilateral EU trade. Tunisia finalised the tariffs dismantling for industrial products in 2008 and therefore was the first non-EU Mediterranean country to enter in a free trade area with EU.
Tunis Sports City is an entire sports city currently being constructed in Tunis, Tunisia. The city that will consist of apartment buildings as well as several sports facilities will be built by the Bukhatir Group at a cost of $5 Billion. The Tunis Financial harbour will deliver North Africa's first offshore financial centre at Tunis Bay in a project with an end development value of US$3 billion. The Tunis Telecom City is a US$3 billion project to create an IT hub in Tunis.
Tunisia Economic City is a city being constructed near Tunis in Enfidha. The city will consist of residential, medical, financial, industrial, entertainment and touristic buildings as well as a port zone for a total cost of US$80 Billion. The project is financed by Tunisian and foreign enterprises.
On 29 and 30 November 2016, Tunisia held an investment conference Tunisia2020 to attract $30 billion in investment projects.
Days before Tunisia's 2019 parliamentary elections, the nation finds itself struggling with a sluggish economy. The Arab world's only democratic state fought hard against the dictatorial regime of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the Arab Spring. Nevertheless, Tunisia could not accomplish anything more than freedom and democracy. It still finds itself hanging between inflation and unemployment while looking up to the 6 October elections with hope of a reform.
Among Tunisia's tourist attractions are its cosmopolitan capital city of Tunis, the ancient ruins of Carthage, the Muslim and Jewish quarters of Jerba, and coastal resorts outside of Monastir. According to The New York Times, Tunisia is "known for its golden beaches, sunny weather and affordable luxuries".
The majority of the electricity used in Tunisia is produced locally, by state-owned company STEG (Société Tunisienne de l'Electricité et du Gaz). In 2008, a total of 13,747 GWh was produced in the country.
Oil production of Tunisia is about . The main field is El Bourma.
Oil production began in 1966 in Tunisia. Currently there are 12 oil fields.
Tunisia had plans for two nuclear power stations, to be operational by 2020. Both facilities are projected to produce 900–1000 MW. France is set to become an important partner in Tunisia's nuclear power plans, having signed an agreement, along with other partners, to deliver training and technology. , Tunisia has abandoned these plans. Instead, Tunisia is considering other options to diversify its energy mix, such as renewable energies, coal, shale gas, liquified natural gas and constructing a submarine power interconnection with Italy.
According to the Tunisian Solar Plan (which is Tunisia's Renewable Energy Strategy not limited to solar, contrary to what its title may suggest, proposed by the National Agency for Energy Conservation), Tunisia's objective is to reach a share of 30% of renewable energies in the electricity mix by 2030, most of which should be accounted for by wind power and photovoltaics. , Tunisia had a total renewable capacity of 312 MW (245 MW wind, 62 MW hydropower, 15 MW photovoltaics.)
The country maintains of roads, with three highways: the A1 from Tunis to Sfax (works ongoing for Sfax-Libya), A3 Tunis-Beja (works ongoing Beja – Boussalem, studies ongoing Boussalem – Algeria) and A4 Tunis – Bizerte. There are 29 airports in Tunisia, with Tunis Carthage International Airport and Djerba–Zarzis International Airport being the most important ones. A new airport, Enfidha – Hammamet International Airport opened in 2011. The airport is located north of Sousse at Enfidha and is to mainly serve the resorts of Hamammet and Port El Kantaoui, together with inland cities such as Kairouan. Five airlines are headquartered in Tunisia: Tunisair, Syphax airlines, Karthago Airlines, Nouvelair, and Tunisair Express. The railway network is operated by SNCFT and amounts to in total. The Tunis area is served by a Light rail network named "Metro Leger" which is managed by Transtu.
Tunisia has achieved the highest access rates to water supply and sanitation
services in the Middle East and North Africa. , access to
safe drinking water became close to universal approaching 100% in urban
areas and 90% in rural areas. Tunisia provides good quality drinking water throughout the year. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30188 |
Geography of Turkey
Turkey is situated in Western Asia (Anatolian and Armenian highlands) (97%) and the Balkans (3%), bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Georgia, and bordering the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Syria. The geographic coordinates of the country lie at:
The area of Turkey is ; "land:" , "water:" . It has an Exclusive Economic Zone of .
Turkey extends more than from west to east but generally less than from north to south. The total area (of about ) consists of about in Western Asia (Anatolian peninsula and Armenian Highland) and about in Southeastern Europe (Thrace).
Anatolia () is a large, roughly rectangular peninsula, situated in western half of Asiatic Turkey, while Armenian Highland () occupies its eastern part and includes mount Ararat, the highest peak of Turkey. The Asiatic part of Turkey accounts for 95% of the country's area.
Anatolia is also known as Asia Minor or the Anatolian Plateau. The term Anatolia is most frequently used in specific reference to the large, semiarid central plateau, which is rimmed by hills and mountains that in many places limit access to the fertile, densely settled coastal regions. In Turkey, the term "Anatolia" often refers to the entire Asian part of the country.
The European portion of Turkey, known as Thrace (), encompasses roughly 3% of the total area but is home to more than 10% of the total population. Istanbul, the largest city of Thrace and Turkey, has a population of 11,372,613. Thrace is separated from Anatolia (the Asian portion of Turkey) by the Bosphorus (), the Sea of Marmara (), and the Dardanelles (); which collectively form the strategic Turkish Straits that link the Aegean Sea with the Black Sea. Mount Ararat, Turkey's tallest mountain with an elevation of , is the legendary landing place of Noah's Ark and is located in the far eastern portion of the country.
Land boundaries: "border countries:" Greece , Bulgaria , Georgia , Armenia , Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) , Iran , Iraq , Syria .
Coastline:
"Maritime claims:" "Exclusive Economic Zone:" . In the Black Sea only: to the maritime boundary agreed upon with the former USSR "territorial sea:" in the Aegean Sea; in Black Sea and in Mediterranean Sea
Surrounded by water on three sides and protected by high mountains along its eastern border, the country generally has well-defined natural borders. Its demarcated land frontiers were settled by treaty early in the twentieth century and have since remained stable.
The boundary with Greece was confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which resolved persistent boundary and territorial claims involving areas in Thrace and provided for a population exchange (see: War of Independence). Under the agreement, most members of the sizable Greek-speaking community of western Turkey were forced to resettle in Greece, while the majority of the Turkish-speaking residents of Thrace who were not forced out during the Balkan wars were removed to Turkey.
The boundary with Bulgaria was confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923).
Since 1991 the more than boundary with the former Soviet Union, which was defined in the 1921 Treaty of Moscow (1921) and Treaty of Kars, has formed Turkey's borders with the independent countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
The boundary with Iran was confirmed by the Treaty of Kasr-ı Şirin in 1639.
The boundary with Iraq was confirmed by the "Treaty of Angora" (Ankara) in 1926. Turkey's two southern neighbors, Iraq and Syria, had been part of the Ottoman Empire up to 1918. According to the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Turkey ceded all its claims to these two countries, which had been organized as League of Nations mandates under the governing responsibility of Britain and France, respectively. Turkey and Britain agreed the boundary in the Treaty of Angora (Ankara).
Turkey's boundary with Syria has not been accepted by Syria. As a result of the Treaty of Lausanne, the former Ottoman Sanjak (province) of Alexandretta (present-day Hatay Province) was ceded to the French which administered it on behalf of the League of Nations. However, in June 1939 the people of Hatay had formed a new independent State and immediately after, the parliament voted to unite with Turkey. Since achieving independence in 1946, Syria has harbored a lingering resentment and this issue has continued to be an irritant in Syrian-Turkish relations.
The 1st Geography Congress, held in Ankara City between 6–21 June 1941, divided Turkey into seven regions after long discussions and work. These geographical regions were separated according to their climate, location, flora and fauna, human habitat, agricultural diversities, transportation, topography, etc. At the end, 4 coastal regions and 3 inner regions were named according to their proximity to the four seas surrounding Turkey, and their positions in Anatolia.
Distinct contrasts between the interior and the coastal areas of Turkey are manifested in landform regions, climate, soils, and vegetation. The coastal areas are divided into the Black Sea region, the Marmara region, the Aegean region, and the Mediterranean region. The interior areas are divided into three regions: Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia.
The Black Sea region has a steep, rocky coast with rivers that cascade through the gorges of the coastal ranges. A few larger rivers, those cutting back through the Pontic Mountains ("Doğu Karadeniz Dağları"), have tributaries that flow in broad, elevated basins. Access inland from the coast is limited to a few narrow valleys because mountain ridges, with elevations of 1,525 to 1,800 meters in the west and 3,000 to 4,000 meters in the east in Kaçkar Mountains, form an almost unbroken wall separating the coast from the interior. The higher slopes facing northwest tend to be densely forested. Because of these natural conditions, the Black Sea coast historically has been isolated from Anatolia.
Running from Zonguldak in the west to Rize in the east, the narrow coastal strip widens at several places into fertile, intensely cultivated deltas. The Samsun area, close to the midpoint, is a major tobacco-growing region; east of it are numerous citrus groves. East of Samsun, the area around Trabzon is world-renowned for the production of hazelnuts, and farther east the Rize region has numerous tea plantations. All cultivable areas, including mountain slopes wherever they are not too steep, are sown or used as pasture. The mild, damp climate of the Black Sea coast makes commercial farming profitable. The western part of the Black Sea region, especially the Zonguldak area, is a center of coal mining and heavy industry.
The North Anatolian Mountains in the north are an interrupted chain of folded highlands that generally parallel the Black Sea coast. In the west, the mountains tend to be low, with elevations rarely exceeding 1,500 meters, but they rise in an easterly direction to heights greater than 3,000 meters south of Rize. Lengthy, troughlike valleys and basins characterize the mountains. Rivers flow from the mountains toward the Black Sea. The southern slopes—facing the Anatolian Plateau—are mostly unwooded, but the northern slopes contain dense growths of both deciduous and evergreen trees.
The European portion of Turkey consists mainly of rolling plateau country well suited to agriculture. It receives about 520 millimeters of rainfall annually.
Densely populated, this area includes the cities of Istanbul and Edirne. The Bosphorus, which links the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, is about twenty-five kilometers long and averages 1.5 kilometers in width but narrows in places to less than 1,000 meters. There are two suspension bridges over the Bosphorus, both its Asian and European banks rise steeply from the water and form a succession of cliffs, coves, and nearly landlocked bays. Most of the shores are densely wooded and are marked by numerous small towns and villages. The Dardanelles (ancient Hellespont) strait, which links the Sea of Marmara (ancient Propontis) and the Aegean Sea, is approximately forty kilometers long and increases in width toward the south. Unlike the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles has fewer settlements along its shores. The Saros Bay is located near the Gallipoli peninsula and is disliked because of dirty beaches. It is a favourite spot among scuba divers for the richness of its underwater fauna and is becoming increasingly popular due to its vicinity to Istanbul.
The most important valleys are the Kocaeli Valley, the Bursa Ovası (Bursa Basin), and the Plains of Troy (historically known as the Troad). The valley lowlands around Bursa is densely populated.
Located on the western side of Anatolia, the Aegean region has a fertile soil and a typically Mediterranean climate; with mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. The broad, cultivated valley lowlands contain about half of the country's richest farmlands.
The largest city in the Aegean Region of Turkey is İzmir, which is also the country's third largest city and a major manufacturing center; as well as its second largest port after Istanbul.
Olive and olive oil production is particularly important for the economy of the region. The seaside town of Ayvalık and numerous towns in the provinces of Balıkesir, İzmir and Aydın are particularly famous for their olive oil and related products; such as soap and cosmetics.
The region also has many important centers of tourism which are known both for their historic monuments and for the beauty of their beaches; such as Assos, Ayvalık, Bergama, Foça, İzmir, Çeşme, Sardis, Ephesus, Kuşadası, Didim, Miletus, Bodrum, Marmaris, Datça and Fethiye.
Toward the east, the extensive Çukurova Plain (historically known as the Cilician Plain) around Adana, Turkey's fifth most populous city, consist largely of reclaimed flood lands. In general, rivers have not cut valleys to the sea in the western part of the region. Historically, movement inland from the western Mediterranean coast was difficult. East of Adana, much of the coastal plain has limestone features such as collapsed caverns and sinkholes. Between Adana and Antalya, the Taurus Mountains rise sharply from the coast to high elevations. Other than Adana, Antalya, and Mersin, the Mediterranean coast has few major cities, although it has numerous farming villages.
Paralleling the Mediterranean coast, the Taurus Mountains () are Turkey's second chain of folded mountains. The range rises just inland from the coast and trends generally in an easterly direction until it reaches the Arabian Platform, where it arcs around the northern side of the platform. The Taurus Mountains are more rugged and less dissected by rivers than the Pontic Mountains and historically have served as a barrier to human movement inland from the Mediterranean coast except where there are mountain passes such as the historic Cilician Gates (Gülek Pass), northwest of Adana.
Stretching inland from the Aegean coastal plain, the Central Anatolia Region occupies the area between the two zones of the folded mountains, extending east to the point where the two ranges converge. The plateau-like, semi-arid highlands of Anatolia are considered the heartland of the country. The region varies in elevation from 600 to 1,200 meters from west to east. The two largest basins on the plateau are the "Konya Ovası" and the basin occupied by the large salt lake, Tuz Gölü. Both basins are characterized by inland drainage. Wooded areas are confined to the northwest and northeast of the plateau. Rain-fed cultivation is widespread, with wheat being the principal crop. Irrigated agriculture is restricted to the areas surrounding rivers and wherever sufficient underground water is available. Important irrigated crops include barley, corn, cotton, various fruits, grapes, opium poppies, sugar beets, roses, and tobacco. There also is extensive grazing throughout the plateau.
Central Anatolia receives little annual rainfall. For instance, the semi-arid center of the plateau receives an average yearly precipitation of only 300 millimeters. However, actual rainfall from year to year is irregular and occasionally may be less than 200 millimeters, leading to severe reductions in crop yields for both rain-fed and irrigated agriculture. In years of low rainfall, stock losses also can be high. Overgrazing has contributed to soil erosion on the plateau. During the summers, frequent dust storms blow a fine yellow powder across the plateau. Locusts occasionally ravage the eastern area in April and May. In general, the plateau experiences extreme heat, with almost no rainfall in summer and cold weather with heavy snow in winter.
Frequently interspersed throughout the folded mountains, and also situated on the Anatolian Plateau, are well-defined basins, which the Turks call "ova". Some are no more than a widening of a stream valley; others, such as the "Konya Ovası", are large basins of inland drainage or are the result of limestone erosion. Most of the basins take their names from cities or towns located at their rims. Where a lake has formed within the basin, the water body is usually saline as a result of the internal drainage—the water has no outlet to the sea.
Eastern Anatolia, where the Pontic and Anti-Taurus mountain ranges converge, is rugged country with higher elevations, a more severe climate, and greater precipitation than are found on the Anatolian Plateau. The western part of the Eastern Anatolia Region is known as the Anti-Taurus, where the average elevation of mountain peaks exceed 3,000 meters; while the eastern part of the region was historically known as the Armenian Highland and includes Mount Ararat, the highest point in Turkey at 5,137 meters. Many of the East Anatolian peaks apparently are recently extinct volcanoes, to judge from extensive green lava flows. Turkey's largest lake, Lake Van, is situated in the mountains at an elevation of 1,546 meters. The headwaters of three major rivers arise in the Anti-Taurus: the east-flowing Aras, which pours into the Caspian Sea; the south-flowing Euphrates; and the south-flowing Tigris, which eventually joins the Euphrates in Iraq before emptying into the Persian Gulf. Several small streams that empty into the Black Sea or landlocked Lake Van also originate in these mountains.
In addition to its rugged mountains, the area is known for severe winters with heavy snowfalls. The few valleys and plains in these mountains tend to be fertile and to support diverse agriculture. The main basin is the Muş Valley, west of Lake Van. Narrow valleys also lie at the foot of the lofty peaks along river corridors.
Southeast Anatolia is south of the Anti-Taurus Mountains. It is a region of rolling hills and a broad plateau surface that extends into Syria. Elevations decrease gradually, from about 800 meters in the north to about 500 meters in the south. Traditionally, wheat and barley were the main crops of the region, but the inauguration of major new irrigation projects in the 1980s has led to greater agricultural diversity and development.
Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of a wide variety of tectonic processes that have shaped Anatolia over millions of years and continue today as evidenced by frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. Except for a relatively small portion of its territory along the Syrian border that is a continuation of the Arabian Platform, Turkey geologically is part of the great Alpide belt that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalaya Mountains. This belt was formed during the Paleogene Period, as the Arabian, African, and Indian continental plates began to collide with the Eurasian plate. This process is still at work today as the African Plate converges with the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate escapes towards the west and southwest along strike-slip faults. These are the North Anatolian Fault Zone, which forms the present day plate boundary of Eurasia near the Black Sea coast, and the East Anatolian Fault Zone, which forms part of the boundary of the North Arabian Plate in the southeast. As a result, Turkey lies on one of the world's seismically most active regions.
However, many of the rocks exposed in Turkey were formed long before this process began. Turkey contains outcrops of Precambrian rocks, (more than 520 million years old; Bozkurt et al., 2000). The earliest geological history of Turkey is poorly understood, partly because of the problem of reconstructing how the region has been tectonically assembled by plate motions. Turkey can be thought of as a collage of different pieces (possibly terranes) of ancient continental and oceanic lithosphere stuck together by younger igneous, volcanic and sedimentary rocks.
During the Mesozoic era (about 250 to 66 million years ago) a large ocean (Tethys Ocean), floored by oceanic lithosphere existed in-between the supercontinents of Gondwana and Laurasia (which lay to the south and north respectively; Robertson & Dixon, 2006). This large oceanic plate was consumed at subduction zones (see subduction zone). At the subduction trenches the sedimentary rock layers that were deposited within the prehistoric Tethys Ocean buckled, were folded, faulted and tectonically mixed with huge blocks of crystalline basement rocks of the oceanic lithosphere. These blocks form a very complex mixture or mélange of rocks that include mainly serpentinite, basalt, dolerite and chert (e.g. Bergougnan, 1975). The Eurasian margin, now preserved in the Pontides (the Pontic Mountains along the Black Sea coast), is thought to have been geologically similar to the Western Pacific region today (e.g. Rice et al., 2006). Volcanic arcs (see volcanic arc) and backarc basins (see back-arc basin) formed and were emplaced onto Eurasia as ophiolites (see ophiolite) as they collided with microcontinents (literally relatively small plates of continental lithosphere; e.g. Ustaomer and Robertson, 1997). These microcontinents had been pulled away from the Gondwanan continent further south. Turkey is therefore made up from several different prehistorical microcontinents.
During the Cenozoic folding, faulting and uplifting, accompanied by volcanic activity and intrusion of igneous rocks was related to major continental collision between the larger Arabian and Eurasian plates (e.g. Robertson & Dixon, 1984).
Present-day earthquakes range from barely perceptible tremors to major movements measuring five or higher on the open-ended Richter scale. Turkey's most severe earthquake in the twentieth century occurred in Erzincan on the night of December 28–29, 1939; it devastated most of the city and caused an estimated 160,000 deaths. Earthquakes of moderate intensity often continue with sporadic aftershocks over periods of several days or even weeks. The most earthquake-prone part of Turkey is an arc-shaped region stretching from the general vicinity of Kocaeli to the area north of Lake Van on the border with Armenia and Georgia.
Turkey's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs, covered by recent deposits and giving the appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowlands are confined to the "Ergene Ovası" (Ergene Plain) in Thrace, extending along rivers that discharge into the Aegean Sea or the Sea of Marmara, and to a few narrow coastal strips along the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea coasts.
Nearly 85% of the land is at an elevation of at least 450 meters; the average and median altitude of the country is 1,332 and 1,128 meters, respectively. In Asiatic Turkey, flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River, the coastal plains of Antalya and Adana, and the valley floors of the Gediz River and the Büyükmenderes River, and some interior high plains in Anatolia, mainly around Tuz Gölü (Salt Lake) and "Konya Ovası" (Konya Plain). Moderately sloping terrain is limited almost entirely outside Thrace to the hills of the Arabian Platform along the border with Syria.
More than 80% of the land surface is rough, broken, and mountainous, and therefore is of limited agricultural value (see Agriculture, ch. 3). The terrain's ruggedness is accentuated in the eastern part of the country, where the two mountain ranges converge into a lofty region with a median elevation of more than 1,500 meters, which reaches its highest point along the borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Turkey's highest peak, Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağı) — 5,137 meters high — is situated near the point where the boundaries of the four countries meet.
Turkey's diverse regions have different climates, with the weather system on the coasts contrasting with that prevailing in the interior. The Aegean and Mediterranean coasts have cool, rainy winters and hot, moderately dry summers. Annual precipitation in those areas varies from , depending on location. Generally, rainfall is less to the east. The Black Sea coast receives the greatest amount of precipitation and is the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation throughout the year. The eastern part of that coast averages annually which is the highest precipitation in the country.
Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the interior of Turkey a continental climate with distinct seasons. The Anatolian Plateau is much more subject to extremes than are the coastal areas. Winters on the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of can occur in the mountainous areas in the east, and snow may lie on the ground 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below . Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures above . Annual precipitation averages about , with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya Ovasi and the Malatya Ovasi, where annual rainfall frequently is less than . May is generally the wettest month and July and August the driest.
The climate of the Anti-Taurus Mountain region of eastern Turkey can be inhospitable. Summers tend to be hot and extremely dry. Winters are bitterly cold with frequent, heavy snowfall. Villages can be isolated for several days during winter storms. Spring and autumn are generally mild, but during both seasons sudden hot and cold spells frequently occur.
Land use:
"arable land:"
35.00
"permanent crops:"
4.00
"other:"
61.00(2011)
Irrigated land:
53,400 km² (2012)
Total renewable water resources:
211.6 km2 (2012)
Elevation extremes:
"lowest point:"
Mediterranean Sea 0 m
"highest point:"
Mount Ararat 5,166 m
Very severe earthquakes, especially on the North Anatolian Fault and East Anatolian Fault, occur along an arc extending from the Sea of Marmara in the west to Lake Van in the east. On August 17, 1999, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
Water pollution from dumping of chemicals and detergents; air pollution, particularly in urban areas; deforestation; concern for oil spills from increasing Bosphorus ship traffic.
Air Pollution, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands.
Environmental Modification | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30199 |
Demographics of Turkey
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Turkey, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
In 2019, the population of Turkey was 83.2 million with a growth rate of 1.39% per annum. Turkish people are the largest ethnic group, followed by Kurdish people.
The population is relatively young, with 23.6% falling in the 0–14 age bracket. According to OECD/World Bank population statistics, from 1990 to 2008 the population growth in Turkey was 16 million or 29%.
Source: UN
The figures from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs:
Birth statistics of Turkey from 2001 onward are from The Central Population Administrative System (MERNIS) data base which is available on-line. Birth statistics are updated continually because MERNIS has dynamic structure.
In 2010 Turkey had a crude birth rate of 17.2 per 1000, in 2011 16.7, down from 20.3 in 2001. The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2010 was 2.05 children per woman, in 2011 2.02. The crude birth rate in 2010 ranged from 11.5 in West Marmara (TFR 1.52) (11,5;1.55 in 2011), similar to Bulgaria, to 27.9 in Southeast Anatolia (TFR 3.53) (27.1;3,42 in 2011), similar to Syria. Similarly, in 2012, the TFR ranged from 1.43 in Kırklareli, to 4.39 in Şanlıurfa. Deaths statistics from MERNIS are available as of 2009. Mortality data prior to 2009 are incomplete.
Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and CBR (Crude Birth Rate):
Total fertility rate by region in Turkey by Turkish General Census (GNS) and Turkish population and health research (TNSA).
Figures from Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat):
Structure of the population (2015):
Structure of the population (2016):
Structure of the population (2017):
Structure of the population (2018):
Immigration to Turkey is the process by which people migrate to Turkey to reside in the country. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and following Turkish War of Independence, an exodus by the large portion of Turkish (Turkic) and Muslim peoples from the Balkans (Balkan Turks, Albanians, Bosniaks, Pomaks), Caucasus (Abkhazians, Ajarians, 'Circassians', Chechens), Crimea (Crimean Tatar diaspora), and Crete (Cretan Turks) took refuge in present-day Turkey and moulded the country's fundamental features. Trends of immigration towards Turkey continue to this day, although the motives are more varied and are usually in line with the patterns of global immigration movements — Turkey, for example, receives many economic migrants from nearby countries such as Armenia, the Moldova, Georgia, Iran, and Azerbaijan, but also from Central Asia. Turkey's migrant crisis is a period during 2010s characterized by high numbers of people arriving in Turkey.
No exact data are available concerning the different ethnic groups in Turkey. The last census data according to language date from 1965 and major changes may have occurred since then. However, it is clear that the Turkish are in the majority, while the largest minority groups are Kurds and Arabs. Smaller minorities are the Armenians, Greeks. All ethnic groups are discussed below.
The word Turk or Turkish also has a wider meaning in a historical context because, at times, especially in the past, it has been used to refer to all Muslim inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire irrespective of their ethnicity.
The question of ethnicity in modern Turkey is a highly debated and difficult issue. Figures published in several different sources prove this difficulty by varying greatly.
It is necessary to take into account all these difficulties and be cautious while evaluating the ethnic groups. A possible list of ethnic groups living in Turkey could be as follows:
According to the 2016 edition of the CIA World Factbook, 70-75% of Turkey's population consists of ethnic Turks, with Kurds accounting for 19% and other minorities between 7 and 12%.
According to Milliyet, a 2008 report prepared for the National Security Council of Turkey by academics of three Turkish universities in eastern Anatolia suggested that there are approximately 55 million ethnic Turks, 9.6 million Kurds, 3 million Zazas, 2.5 million Circassians, 2 million Bosniaks, 500,000-1.3 million Albanians, 1,000,000 Georgians, 870,000 Arabs, 600,000 Pomaks, 80,000 Laz, 60,000 Armenians, 25,000 Assyrians/Syriacs, 20,000 Jews, and 15,000 Greeks, 500 Yazidis living in Turkey.
Since the immigration to the big cities in the west of Turkey, interethnic marriage has become more common. A recent study estimates that there are 2,708,000 marriages between Turks and Kurds.
Ethnolinguistic estimates in 2014 by Ethnologue and Jacques Leclerc
Scale of Ethnologue:
aExpanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) of "Ethnologue":
0 (International): "The language is widely used between nations in trade, knowledge exchange, and international policy."
1 (National): "The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government at the national level."
2 (Provincial): "The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government within major administrative subdivisions of a nation."
3 (Wider Communication): "The language is used in work and mass media without official status to transcend language differences across a region."
4 (Educational): "The language is in vigorous use, with standardization and literature being sustained through a widespread system of institutionally supported education."
5 (Developing): "The language is in vigorous use, with literature in a standardized form being used by some though this is not yet widespread or sustainable."
6a (Vigorous): "The language is used for face-to-face communication by all generations and the situation is sustainable."
6b (Threatened): "The language is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users."
7 (Shifting): "The child-bearing generation can use the language among themselves, but it is not being transmitted to children."
8a (Moribund): "The only remaining active users of the language are members of the grandparent generation and older."
8b (Nearly Extinct): "The only remaining users of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language."
9 (Dormant): "The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community, but no one has more than symbolic proficiency."
10 (Extinct): "The language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language."
Although numerous modern genetic studies have indicated that the present-day Turkish population is primarily descended from historical Anatolian groups, the first Turkic-"speaking" people lived in a region extending from Central Asia to Siberia and were palpable after the 6th century BC. Seventh-century Chinese sources preserve the origins of the Turks stating that they were a branch of the Hsiung-nu (Huns) and living near the "West Sea", perhaps the Caspian Sea. Modern sources tends to indicate that the Turks' ancestors lived within the state of the Hsiung-nu in the Transbaikal area and that they later, during the fifth century, migrated to the southern Altay.
The word "Türk" was used only referring to Anatolian villagers back in the 19th century. The Ottoman elite identified themselves as Ottomans, not usually as Turks. In the late 19th century, as European ideas of nationalism were adopted by the Ottoman elite, and as it became clear that the Turkish-speakers of Anatolia were the most loyal supporters of Ottoman rule, the term "Türk" took on a much more positive connotation. During Ottoman times, the millet system defined communities on a religious basis, and a residue of this remains in that Turkish villagers will commonly consider as Turks only those who profess the Sunni faith, and will consider Turkish-speaking Jews, Christians, or even Alevis to be non-Turks. On the other hand, Kurdish-speaking or Arabic-speaking Sunnis of eastern Anatolia are sometimes considered to be Turks. The imprecision of the appellation "Türk" can also be seen with other ethnic names, such as "Kürt" (Kurd), which is often applied by western Anatolians to anyone east of Adana, even those who speak only Turkish. Thus, the category "Türk", like other ethnic categories popularly used in Turkey, does not have a uniform usage. In recent years, centrist Turkish politicians have attempted to redefine this category in a more multi-cultural way, emphasizing that a "Türk" is anyone who is a citizen of the Republic of Turkey. Currently, article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a ""Turk"" as anyone who is "bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship".
Ethnic Turks are the majority in Turkey, numbering 55.5 to 60 million.
The Kurdish identity remains the strongest of the many minorities in modern Turkey. This is perhaps due to the mountainous terrain of the southeast of the country, where they predominate and represent a majority. They inhabit all major towns and cities across Turkey. However, no accurate up-to-date figures are available for the Kurdish population, since the Turkish government has outlawed ethnic or racial censuses. An estimate by the CIA World Factbook places their proportion of the population at approximately 19%. Another estimate, according to Ibrahim Sirkeci, in his book "The Environment of Insecurity in Turkey and the Emigration of Turkish Kurds to Germany", based on the 1990 Turkish Census and 1993 Turkish Demographic Health Survey, is 17.8%. Other estimates include 15.7% of the population according to the newspaper "Milliyet", and 23% by Kurdologist David McDowall.
The Minority Rights Group report of 1985 (by Martin Short and Anthony McDermott) gave an estimate of 15% Kurds in the population of Turkey in 1980, i.e. 8,455,000 out of 44,500,000, with the preceding comment "Nothing, apart from the actual 'borders' of Kurdistan, generates as much heat in the Kurdish question as the estimate of the Kurdish population. Kurdish nationalists are tempted to exaggerate it, and governments of the region to understate it. In Turkey only those Kurds who do not speak Turkish are officially counted for census purposes as Kurds, yielding a very low figure." In " Turkey: A Country Study", a 1995 online publication of the U.S. Library of Congress, there is a whole chapter about Kurds in Turkey where it is stated that "Turkey's censuses do not list Kurds as a separate ethnic group. Consequently, there are no reliable data on their total numbers. In 1995 estimates of the number of Kurds in Turkey is about 8.5 million" out of 61.2 million, or 13% of the population at that time. Turkish government statistics show that Kurdish women in Turkey give birth to about four children, more than double the rate for the rest of the Turkish population. Prime Minister Erdogan stated that Kurds could become a majority by 2038. In some Kurdish dominated provinces women give birth to 7.1 children on average. Even though many Kurds have been migrating to cities in Western Turkey or Western Europe, cities in south-east Turkey are still growing at a faster rate than others. Women in Kurdish dominated provinces of eastern Turkey also have an illiteracy rate about three times higher than men, a factor which correlates with higher birth rates. In Şırnak 66 percent of 15-year-old girls could not read or write.
Kurdish national identity is far from being limited to the Kurmanji-language community, as many Kurds whose parents migrated towards Istanbul or other large non-Kurdish cities mostly speak Turkish, which is one of the languages used by the Kurdish nationalist publications.
The population of Arabs in Turkey varies according to different sources. Al Jazeera and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy estimates the Arab population before the Syrian Civil War in 2011 from 1,500,000 to more than 2,000,000, with recent Syrian refugees 2,748,367, so Arabs in Turkey constituency now numbers anywhere from 4.5 to 5.1% of the population. Put another way, with nearly 4-5 million Arab inhabitants.
Armenians in Turkey are indigenous to Anatolia & Armenian highlands well over 3000 years, an estimated population of 40,000 (1995) to 70,000. Most are concentrated around Istanbul. The Armenians support their own newspapers and schools. The majority belong to the Armenian Apostolic faith, with smaller numbers of Armenian Catholics and Armenian Evangelicals. Their original population during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire was estimated in excess of 3 million, from 1915 to the early 1920s it is estimated that over 1.5 million of them perished during the Armenian Genocide and forced relocations into the Syrian desert.
An estimated 40,000-50,000 Assyrians/Syriacs live in Turkey, with about 17,000 in Istanbul and the other 23-33,000 scattered in southeast Turkey primarily in Turabdin, Diyarbakir, Adiyaman, and Harput respectively. They belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, and Chaldean Catholic Church.
Some Mhallami, a Muslim ethnic group who usually are described as Arabs, have Assyrian/Syriac ancestry. They live in the area between Mardin and Midyat, called in Syriac "I Mhalmayto" (ܗܝ ܡܚܠܡܝܬܐ).
It is difficult to determine how many ethnic Azeris currently reside in Turkey, as ethnicity is a rather fluid concept in Turkey, especially amongst Turkic-speaking and Caucasian groups who have been more readily and easily assimilated into mainstream Turkish culture. Up to 300,000 of Azeris who reside in Turkey are citizens of Azerbaijan. In the Eastern Anatolia Region, Azeris are sometimes referred to as "acem" (see Ajam) or "tat". They currently are the largest ethnic group in the city of Iğdır and second largest ethnic group in Kars.
Since linguistically the two are so similar, the safest way to count or estimate the number of Azeris from the Turks in Turkey is to note the fact that Azeris are practically all Shia Muslims while their Turkish and Kurdish neighbors are Sunni Muslims
Towards the end of the Caucasian War (1817–1864), many Chechens fled their homelands in the North Caucasus and settled in the Ottoman Empire. Chechens number from tens or hundreds of thousands.
Towards the end of the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864), many Circassians fled their homelands in the North Caucasus and settled in the Ottoman Empire. Most ethnic Circassians have fully assimilated into Turkish culture, making it difficult to trace, count, or even estimate their ethnic presence.
There are approximately 1 million people of Georgian ancestry in Turkey, according to the newspaper "Milliyet".
The Greeks constitute a population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, including its district Princes' Islands, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos ( and "Bozcaada"), and historically also in western Asia Minor (centred on Izmir/Smyrni), the Pontic Alps (centred on Trebzon and Sumelia, see Pontic Greeks), and central Anatolia (Cappadocia) and northeastern Anatolia and the South Caucasus region (Erzinjan, Erzerum, Kars, and Ardahan, see Caucasus Greeks). The Istanbul Greeks are the remnants of the estimated 200,000 Greeks permitted under the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) to remain in Turkey following the 1923 population exchange, which involved the forcible resettlement of approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and East Thrace and of half a million Turks from all of Greece except for Western Thrace. After years of persecution (e.g. the Varlık Vergisi (1942–1944) and the Istanbul Pogrom of 1955), emigration of ethnic Greeks from the Istanbul region greatly accelerated, reducing the 120,000-strong Greek minority to about 7,000 by 1978. The 2008 figures released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry places the current number of Turkish citizens of Greek descent at the 2,000–3,000 mark. According to Milliyet there are 15,000 Greeks in Turkey, while according to Human Rights Watch the Greek population in Turkey was estimated at 2,500 in 2006.
Shireen Hunter noted in a 2010 publication that there were some 500,000 Iranians in Turkey.
Most Laz today live in Turkey, but the Laz minority group has no official status in Turkey. Their number today is estimated to be around 250,000 and 500,000. Only a minority are bilingual in Turkish and their native Laz language which belongs to the South Caucasian group. The number of the Laz speakers is decreasing and is now limited chiefly to the Rize and Artvin areas. The historical term Lazistan — formerly referring to a narrow tract of land along the Black Sea inhabited by the Laz as well as by several other ethnic groups — has been banned from official use and replaced with "Doğu Karadeniz" (which includes Trabzon). During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the Muslim population of Russia near the war zones was subjected to ethnic cleansing; many Lazes living in Batum fled to the Ottoman Empire, settling along the southern Black Sea coast to the east of Samsun.
The Roma in Turkey descend from the times of the Byzantine Empire. According to some reports, there are about 500,000-700,000 Roma in Turkey. The neighborhood of Sulukule, located in Western Istanbul, is the oldest Roma settlement in Europe.
Zazas are a people in eastern Anatolia who natively speak the Zaza language. Their heartland, the Dersim region, consists of Tunceli, Bingöl provinces and parts of Elazığ, Erzincan and Diyarbakır provinces. The exact number of Zazas is unknown, due to the absence of recent and extensive census data. The most recent official statistics concerning native language are available for the year 1965, where 147,707 (0.5%) chose Zaza as their native language in Turkey.
According to the latest sources by Ipsos, in 2016 Islam was the major religion in Turkey comprising 82% of the total population, followed by religiously unaffiliated people, comprising 13% of the population, and Christians, forming 0.2%.
There are no official statistics of people's religious beliefs nor is it asked in the census. According to the government, 99.8% of the Turkish population is Muslim, mostly Sunni, some 10 to 15 million are Alevis. The remaining 0.2% is other - mostly Christians and Jews. However, these are based on the existing religion information written on every citizen's national id card, that is automatically passed on from the parents to every newborn, and do not necessarily represent individual choice. Furthermore, anyone who was not officially registered as Christian or Jewish by the time of the foundation of the republic was automatically recorded as Muslim, and this label has been passed down to new generations. Therefore, the official number of Muslims also includes people with no religion; converted from Islam to a different religion than Islam; and anyone who is of a different religion than their parents but has not applied for a change of their individual records. It should also be noted that the state allows the individual records to be changed and can have their religion information removed from the identification card, but such change does not affect the official record.
The Eurobarometer Poll 2005 reported that in a poll 96% of Turkish citizens answered that "they believe there is a God", while 1% responded that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". In a Pew Research Center survey, 53% of Turkey's Muslims said that "religion is very important in their lives". Based on the Gallup Poll 2006–08, Turkey was defined as "More religious", in which over 63 percent of people believe religion is important. According to the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, 33% of women wear the headscarf or hijab in Turkey however most of them wear a cultural headscarf which is not a symbol of Islam and is used by women in small villages that work under the sun to protect themselves from the sun. 18% of male Muslim citizens regularly attend Friday prayers.
A poll conducted by Eurobarometer, KONDA and some other research institutes in 2013 showed that around 4.5 million of the 15+ population had no religion. Another poll conducted by the same institutions in 2015 showed that that number has reached 5.5 million, which makes roughly 9.4% of the population.
Religious groups according to estimates:
The vast majority of the present-day Turkish people are Muslim and the most popular sect is the Hanafite school of Sunni Islam, which was officially espoused by the Ottoman Empire; according to the KONDA Research and Consultancy survey carried out throughout Turkey on 2007:
Modern Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as secular ("Laiklik", Turkish adaptation of French "Laïcité"), i.e. without a state religion, or separate ethnic divisions/ identities. The concept of "minorities" has only been accepted by the Republic of Turkey as defined by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and thence strictly limited to Greeks, Jews and Armenians, only on religious matters, excluding from the scope of the concept the ethnic identities of these minorities as of others such as the Kurds who make up 15% of the country; others include Assyrians/Syriacs of various Christian denominations, Alevis and all the others.
There are many reports from sources such as (Human Rights Watch, European Parliament, European Commission, national parliaments in EU member states, Amnesty International etc.) on persistent yet declining discrimination.
Certain current trends are:
According to figures released by the Foreign Ministry in December 2008, there are 89,000 Turkish citizens designated as belonging to a minority, two thirds of Armenian descent.
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook:
Age structure
"0–14 years:" 24.26% (male 10,085,558/female 9,627,967)
"15–24 years:" 15.88% (male 6,589,039/female 6,311,113)
"25–54 years:" 43.26% (male 17,798,864/female 17,349,228)
55–64 years: 8.82% (male 3,557,329/female 3,606,120)
"65 years and over:" 7.79% (male 2,825,738/female 3,506,283) (2018 est.)
Median age
"total population:"
31.2 years
"male:"
30.9 years
"female:"
31.9 years (2018 est.)
Sex ratio
"at birth:"
1.05 male(s)/female
"under 15 years:"
1.05 male(s)/female
"15–24 years:"
1.04 male(s)/female
"25–54 years:"
1.03 male(s)/female
"55–64 years:"
0.99 male(s)/female
"65 years and over:"
0.8 male(s)/female
"total population:"
1.01 male(s)/female (2017 est.)
Life expectancy at birth
"total population:"
75.3 years
"male:"
72.9 years
"female:"
77.7 years (2018 est.)
Urbanization
urban population: 75.1% of total population (2018)
rate of urbanization: 2.04% annual rate of change (2015–20 est.)
Nationality
"noun:"
Turk(s)
"adjective:"
Turkish
Literacy
"definition:"
age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 96.2%
male: 98.8%
female: 93.6% (2016 est.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30200 |
Politics of Turkey
The politics of Turkey take place in the framework of a presidential republic as defined by the Constitution of Turkey. The President of Turkey is both the head of state and head of government.
Turkey's political system is based on a separation of powers. Executive power is exercised by the Council of Ministers, which is appointed and headed by the President. Legislative power is vested in the Grand National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Its current constitution was adopted on 7 November 1982 after a constitutional referendum.
Major constitutional reforms were passed by the National Assembly on 21 January 2017 and approved by referendum on 16 April 2017. The reforms, among other measures, abolished the position of Prime Minister and designated the President as both head of state and government, effectively transforming Turkey from a parliamentary regime into a presidential one.
The function of head of state and head of government is performed by the president "(Cumhurbaşkanı)". A president is elected every five years on the principle of universal suffrage according to the current constitution. The president does not have to be a member of parliament, but he/she must be over 40 years old and hold a bachelor's degree. The current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was directly elected in the 2018 presidential election.
Executive power rests with the president and the Ministers. The Ministers can not also be a Member of the Parliament. If MPs are chosen to be a Minister, they will have to resign their positions as Members of the Parliament. The President of Turkey is the leader of the cabinet. The current holder of the position is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Legislative power is invested in the 600-seat Grand National Assembly of Turkey ("Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi"), representing 81 provinces. The members are elected for a five-year term by mitigated proportional representation with an election threshold of 10%. To be represented in Parliament, a party must win at least 10% of the national vote in a national parliamentary election. Independent candidates may run, and to be elected, they must only win enough to get one seat.
The political system of Turkey is highly centralized. However, as a member state of the Council of Europe, Turkey is under an obligation to implement the European Charter of Local Self-Government. In its 2011 report, the "Monitoring Committee" of the Council of Europe found fundamental deficits in implementation, in particular administrative tutelage and prohibition of the use of languages other than Turkish in the provision of public services.
The freedom and independence of the judicial system is protected within the constitution. There is no organization, person, or institution which can interfere in the running of the courts, and the executive and legislative structures must obey the courts' decisions. The courts, which are independent in discharging their duties, must explain each ruling on the basis of the provisions of the Constitution, the laws, jurisprudence, and their personal convictions.
The Judicial system is highly structured. Turkish courts have no jury system; judges render decisions after establishing the facts in each case based on evidence presented by lawyers and prosecutors. For minor civil complaints and offenses, justices of the peace take the case. This court has a single judge. It has jurisdiction over misdemeanors and petty crimes, with penalties ranging from small fines to brief prison sentences. Three-judge courts of first instance have jurisdiction over major civil suits and serious crimes. Any conviction in a criminal case can be taken to a court of Appeals for judicial review.
Most courts are open to the public. When a case is closed to the public, the court has to declare the reason. Judge and prosecution structures are secured by the constitution. Except with their own consent, no judge or prosecutor can be dismissed, have his/her powers restricted, or be forced to retire. However, the retirement age restrictions do apply. The child courts have their own structure.
A judge can be audited for misconduct only with the Ministry of Justice's permission, in which case a special task force of justice experts and senior judges is formed.
The Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) is the principal body charged with responsibility for ensuring judicial integrity, and determines professional judges acceptance and court assignments. Minister of justice, Sadullah Ergin is the natural head of the Council according to the current constitution.
Turkey adopted a new national "Judicial Networking System" (UYAP). The court decisions and documents (case info, expert reports, etc.) will be accessible via the Internet.
Turkey accepts the European Court of Human Rights' decisions as a higher court decision, provided they do not concern the occupation of northern Cyprus. Turkey also accepts as legally binding any decisions on international agreements.
There are several supreme courts with different subjects:
Yargıtay acts as the supreme court of judiciary tribunals (criminal and civil justice). Danıştay is the highest of administrative courts. Anayasa Mahkemesi examines the constitutionality of laws, decrees having the force of law (decret-loi), changes of parliamentary by-laws and several other acts of the parliament. Sayıştay (Court of Accounts) is the court which examines the incomes and expenses of the administrative bodies and which acts in the name of parliament. The Military Court of Cassation (Askeri Yargıtay) and The Military High Court of Administration (or the Supreme Military Administrative Court) (Askeri Yüksek İdare Mahkemesi) are the highest bodies to which appeals of decisions of military courts are to be made.
The Turkish Constitution is cumulatively built on the following principles:
Most mainstream political parties are alternatively built either on the following principles:
Other political ideas have also influenced Turkish politics and modern history. Of particular importance are:
These principles are the continuum around which various – and often rapidly changing – political parties and groups have campaigned (and sometimes fought). On a superficial level, the importance which state officials attach to these principles and their posts can be seen in their response to breaches of protocol in official ceremonies.
Since 1950, parliamentary politics has been dominated by conservative parties. Even the ruling AKP, although its core cadres come from the Islamist current, tends to identify itself with the "tradition" of the Democratic Party (DP). The left-leaning parties, the most notable of which is the Republican People's Party (CHP), with a stable electorate, draw much of their support from big cities, coastal regions, professional middle-class, and minority groups such as Alevis.
Since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the modern secular Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Turkish military has perceived itself as the guardian of Atatürkçülük, the official state ideology. The TAF still maintains an important degree of influence over Turkish politics and the decision making process regarding issues related to Turkish national security, albeit decreased in the past decades, via the National Security Council.
The military has had a record of intervening in politics. Indeed, it assumed power for several periods in the latter half of the 20th century. It executed coups d'état in 1960, in 1971, and in 1980. Most recently, it maneuvered the removal of an Islamic-oriented prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997.
On 27 April 2007, in advance of 4 November 2007 presidential election, and in reaction to the politics of Abdullah Gül, who has a past record of involvement in Islamist political movements and banned Islamist parties such as the Welfare Party, the army issued a statement of its interests. It said that the army is a party to "arguments" regarding secularism; that Islamism ran counter to the secular nature of the Turkish Republic, and to the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The Army's statement ended with a clear warning that the Turkish Armed Forces stood ready to intervene if the secular nature of the Turkish Constitution is compromised, stating that "the Turkish Armed Forces maintain their sound determination to carry out their duties stemming from laws to protect the unchangeable characteristics of the Republic of Turkey. Their loyalty to this determination is absolute."
Contrary to outsider expectations, the Turkish populace is not uniformly averse to coups; many welcome the ejection of governments they perceive as unconstitutional. Members of the military must also comply with the traditions of secularism, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom report in 2008, members who performed prayers or had wives who wore the headscarf, have been charged with “lack of discipline”.
Paradoxically, the military has both been an important force in Turkey's continuous Westernization but at the same time also represents an obstacle for Turkey's desire to join the EU. At the same time, the military enjoys a high degree of popular legitimacy, with continuous opinion polls suggesting that the military is the state institution that the Turkish people trust the most. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30201 |
Economy of Turkey
The economy of Turkey is an emerging market economy as defined by the International Monetary Fund. Turkey is among the world's developed countries according to the CIA World Factbook. Turkey is also defined by economists and political scientists as one of the world's newly industrialized countries. Turkey has the world's 19th-largest nominal GDP, and 13th-largest GDP by PPP. The country is among the world's leading producers of agricultural products; textiles; motor vehicles, transportation equipment; construction materials; consumer electronics and home appliances (see the related chapters below).
In 2018, Turkey went through a currency and debt crisis, characterised by the Turkish lira (TRY) plunging in value, high inflation, rising borrowing costs, and correspondingly rising loan defaults. The crisis was caused by the Turkish economy's excessive current account deficit and foreign-currency debt, in combination with the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) increasing authoritarianism and President Erdoğan's unorthodox ideas about interest rate policy.
Turkey is a founding member of the OECD (1961) and the G-20 major economies (1999). Since 1995, Turkey is a party to the European Union–Turkey Customs Union.
The CIA classifies Turkey as a developed country. Turkey is often classified as a newly industrialized country by economists and political scientists; while Merrill Lynch, the World Bank, and "The Economist" describe Turkey as an emerging market economy. The World Bank classifies Turkey as an upper-middle income country in terms of the country's per capita GDP in 2007. Mean graduate pay was $10.02 per man-hour in 2010. According to Eurostat data, Turkish GDP per capita adjusted by purchasing power standards stood at 64 percent of the EU average in 2018. Turkey's labour force participation rate of 56.1% is by far the lowest of the OECD states which have a median rate of 74%. According to a 2014 survey by Forbes magazine, Istanbul, Turkey's financial capital, had a total of 37 billionaires in 2013, ranking 5th in the world. 2017 was the second consecutive year that saw more than 5.000 high net-worth individuals (HNWIs, defined as holding net assets of at least $1 million) leaving Turkey, reasons given as government crackdown on the media deterring investment, and loss of currency value against the U.S. dollar.
A longstanding characteristic of the economy of Turkey is a low savings rate. Since under the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has been running huge and growing current account deficits, reaching $7.1 billion by January 2018, while the rolling 12-month deficit rose to $51.6 billion, one of the largest current account deficits in the world. The economy has relied on capital inflows to fund private-sector excess, with Turkey's banks and big firms borrowing heavily, often in foreign currency. Under these conditions, Turkey must find about $200 billion a year to fund its wide current account deficit and maturing debt, always at risk of inflows drying up, having gross foreign currency reserves of just $85 billion.
Turkey has been meeting the “60 percent EU Maastricht criteria” for public debt stock since 2004. Similarly, from 2002 to 2011, the budget deficit decreased from more than 10 percent to less than 3 percent, which is one of the EU Maastricht criteria for the budget balance. In January 2010, International credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service upgraded Turkey's rating one notch. In 2012, credit ratings agency Fitch upgraded Turkey's credit rating to investment grade after an 18-year gap, followed by a ratings upgrade by credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service in May 2013, as the service lifted Turkey's government bond ratings to the lowest investment grade, Moody's first investment-grade rating for Turkey in two decades and the service stated in its official statement that the nation's "recent and expected future improvements in key economic and public finance metrics" was the basis for the ratings boost. In March 2018, Moody's downgraded Turkey's sovereign debt into junk status, warning of an erosion of checks and balances under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In May 2018, credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut Turkey's debt rating further into junk territory, citing widening concern about the outlook for inflation amid a sell-off in the Turkish lira currency.
Share prices in Turkey nearly doubled over the course of 2009. On May 10, 2017, the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) 100 Index, the benchmark index of Turkey's stock market, set a new record high at 95,735 points. As of January 5, 2018, the Index reached 116,638 points. However, in the course of the 2018 Turkish currency and debt crisis, the index dipped back below 100.000 in May. In early June, the BIST-100 dropped to the lowest level in dollar terms since the global financial crisis in 2008.
In 2017, the OECD expected Turkey to be one of the fastest growing economies among OECD members during 2015-2025, with an annual average growth rate of 4.9 percent. In May 2018, Moody's Investors Service lowered its estimate for growth of the Turkish economy in 2018 from 4 percent to 2.5 percent and in 2019 from 3.5 percent to 2 percent.
According to a 2013 "Financial Times" Special Report on Turkey, Turkish business executives and government officials believed the quickest route to achieving export growth lies outside of traditional western markets. While the European Union used to account for more than half of all Turkey's exports, by 2013 the figure was heading down toward not much more than a third. However, by 2018 the share of exports going to the EU was back above fifty percent. Turkish companies’ foreign direct investment outflow has increased by 10 times over the past 15 years, according to the 2017 Foreign Investment Index.
With policies of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fuelling the construction sector, where many of his business allies are active, Turkey as of May 2018 had around 2 million unsold houses, a backlog worth three times average annual new housing sales. The 2018 Turkish currency and debt crisis ended a period of growth under Erdoğan-led governments since 2003, built largely on a construction boom fueled by easy credit and government spending.
On August 10, 2018, Turkish currency lira nosedived following Trump's tweet about doubling tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum that day. The currency weakened 17% that day and has lost nearly 40% of its value against the dollar till that time. The crash of the lira has sent ripples through global markets, putting more pressure on the euro and increasing investors' risk aversion to emerging-market currencies across the board. On Aug. 13, South Africa's rand slumped nearly 10%, the biggest daily drop since June 2016. Lira crisis spotlighted deeper concerns about the Turkish economy that have long signaled turmoil long ago.
By the end of 2018, Turkey went into recession. The Turkish Statistical Institute claimed that the Turkish economy declined by 2.4% in the last quarter of 2018 as compared to the previous quarter. This followed a 1.6% drop the previous quarter. Lira shrank down to 30% against the US dollar in 2018.
In May 2019, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) released an economic outlook in which it is reported that Turkey's economy will probably see a gradual recovery of growth to around 2.5 percent in 2020.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2018. Inflation under 5% is in green.
As of 2016, Turkey is the world's largest producer of hazelnuts, cherries, figs, apricots, and pomegranates; the second-largest producer of quinces and watermelons; the third-largest producer of cucumbers, green peppers, lentils and pistachios; the fourth-largest producer of apples, tomatoes, eggplants, and olives; the fifth-largest producer of tea, chickpeas and sugar beet; the sixth-largest producer of almonds and onions; the seventh-largest producer of lemons, grapefruit, and cotton; and the eighth-largest producer of barley. Turkey has been self-sufficient in food production since the 1980s. In the year 1989, the total production of wheat was 16.2 million tonnes, and barley 3.44 million tonnes. The agricultural output has been growing at a respectable rate. However, since the 1980s, agriculture has been in a state of decline in terms of its share in the total economy.
Turkish agriculture emits greenhouse gases and suffers from climate change in Turkey.
The country's large agricultural sector accounted for 29.5% of the employment in 2009. Historically, Turkey's farmers have been fairly fragmented. According to the 1990 census, "85% of agricultural holdings were under 10 hectares and 57% of these were fragmented into four or more non-contiguous plots." Many old agricultural attitudes remain widespread. Turkey is dismantling the incentive system. Fertilizer and pesticide subsidies have been curtailed and remaining price supports have been gradually converted to floor prices. The government has also initiated many planned projects, such as the Southeastern Anatolia Project (G.A.P project). The program includes 22 dams, 19 hydraulic power plants, and the irrigation of 1.82 million hectares of land. The total cost of the project is estimated at $32 billion. The total installed capacity of power plants is 7476 MW and projected annual energy production reaches 27 billion kWh. The physical realization of G.A.P. was 72.6% as of 2010
The livestock industry, compared to the initial years of the Republic, showed little improvement in productivity, and the later years of the decade saw stagnation. However, livestock products, including meat, milk, wool, and eggs, contributed to more than of the value of agricultural output. Fishing is another important part of the economy; in 2005 Turkish fisheries harvested 545,673 tons of fish and aquaculture.
The EU imported fruit and vegetables from Turkey worth €738.4 million up to September 2016, an increase of 21% compared to the same period in 2015, according to Eurostat data processed by FEPEX (Federación Española de Asociaciones de Productores). Turkey is the EU's fourth largest non-EU vegetable supplier and the seventh largest fruit supplier. The European Commission had already started the formal process for extending the Customs Union Agreement to agricultural products, before European Union–Turkey relations deteriorated and efforts to extend and modernize the Customs Union Agreement came to a halt in 2018.
"Olio Officina Globe" reported 2016 olive statistics for Turkey: There are 180 million trees covering with a production of of table olives and of olive oil. Exports are of table olives and of olive oil a year. "Edremit" (Ayvalık) is the main variety in northern Turkey and "Memecik" in the south. Gemlik is a black table olive and other varieties are "Büyük Topak", "Ulak, Çakır", "Çekişte", "Çelebi", "Çilli", "Domat", "Edincik Su", "Eğriburun", "Erkence", "Halhalı", "İzmir Sofralık", "Kalembezi", "Kan Çelebi", "Karamürsel Su", "Kilis Yağlık", "Kiraz", "Manzanilla", "Memeli", "Nizip Yağlık", "Samanlı", "Sarı Haşebi", "Sarı Ulak", "Saurani", "Taşan Yüreği", "Uslu", and "Yağ Celebi".
Turkey's Vestel is the largest TV producer in Europe, accounting for a quarter of all TV sets manufactured and sold on the continent in 2006. By January 2005, Vestel and its rival Turkish electronics and white goods brand Beko accounted for more than half of all TV sets manufactured in Europe. Another Turkish electronics brand, Profilo Telra, was Europe's third-largest TV producer in 2005. EU market share of Turkish companies in consumer electronics has increased significantly following the Customs Union agreement signed between the EU and Turkey: in color TVs from 5% in 1995 to more than 50% in 2005, in digital devices from 3% to 15%, and in white goods from 3% to 18%.
Turkish companies made clothing exports worth $13.98 billion in 2006; more than $10.67 billion of which (76.33%) were made to the EU member states.
The automotive industry in Turkey plays an important role in the manufacturing sector of Turkish economy. In 2015 Turkey produced over 1.3 million motor vehicles, ranking as the 14th largest producer in the world.
The automotive industry is an important part of the economy since the late 1960s. The companies that operate in the sector are mainly located in the Marmara Region. With a cluster of car-makers and parts suppliers, the Turkish automotive sector has become an integral part of the global network of production bases, exporting over $22.94 billion worth of motor vehicles and components in 2008. Global car manufacturers with production plants include Fiat/Tofaş, Oyak-Renault, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and Ford/Otosan. Turkish automotive companies like TEMSA, Otokar and BMC are among the world's largest van, bus and truck manufacturers. TOGG is a new Turkish automotive company established in 2018 for producing EVs.
Turkey's annual auto exports, including trucks and buses, surpassed 1 million units for the first time in 2016 as foreign automakers' investment in new models and a recovery in its mainstay European market lifted shipments. According to industry group the Automotive Manufacturers Association, or OSD, Turkey exported 1.14 million units in 2016, up 15% from the year before. Auto exports hit a record high for the fourth straight year. Production grew 9% year on year in 2016 to 1.48 million units, setting a new record for the second consecutive year. Nearly 80% of vehicles produced in Turkey were exported.
TÜLOMSAŞ (1894), TÜVASAŞ (1951) and EUROTEM (2006) are among the major producers of multiple unit trains, locomotives and wagons in Turkey, including high-speed EMU and DMU models.
Turkey has many modern armament manufacturers. Annual exports reached $1.6 billion in 2014. MKEK, TAI, Aselsan, Roketsan, FNSS, Nurol Makina, Otokar, and Havelsan are major manufacturers. On July 11, 2002, Turkey became a Level 3 partner of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) development program. TAI builds various aircraft types and models, such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon for the Turkish Air Force. Turkey has recently launched domestically built new military/intelligence satellites including a 0.8m resolution reconnaissance satellite (Project Göktürk-1) for use by the Turkish Armed Forces and a 2m resolution reconnaissance satellite (Project Göktürk-2) for use by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization. Other important products include the Altay main battle tank, A400M, TAI TFX, TF-2000 class AAW frigate, Milgem class corvette, TAI Anka UAV, Aselsan İzci UGV, T-155 Fırtına self-propelled howitzer, J-600T missile, T-129 attack helicopter, Roketsan UMTAS anti-tank missile, Roketsan Cirit laser-guided rocket, Panter Howitzer, ACV-300, Otokar Cobra and Akrep, BMC - Kirpi, FNSS Pars 6x6 and 8x8 APC, Nurol Ejder 6x6 APC, TOROS artillery rocket system, Bayraktar Mini UAV, ASELPOD, and SOM cruise missile.
Turkey ranks 8th in the list of countries by steel production. In 2013, total steel production was 29 million tonnes.
Turkey's crude steel production reached a record high of 34.1 million tons in 2011.
Notable producers (above 2 million tonnes) and their ranks among top steel producing companies.
TÜBİTAK is the leading agency for developing science, technology and innovation policies in Turkey. TÜBA is an autonomous scholarly society acting to promote scientific activities in Turkey. TAEK is the official nuclear energy institution of Turkey. Its objectives include academic research in nuclear energy, and the development and implementation of peaceful nuclear tools.
Turkish government companies for research and development in military technologies include Turkish Aerospace Industries, Aselsan, Havelsan, Roketsan, MKE, among others. Turkish Satellite Assembly, Integration and Test Center is a spacecraft production and testing facility owned by the Ministry of National Defence and operated by the Turkish Aerospace Industries. The Turkish Space Launch System is a project to develop the satellite launch capability of Turkey. It consists of the construction of a spaceport, the development of satellite launch vehicles as well as the establishment of remote earth stations.
The Turkish construction and contracting industry is made up of a large number of businesses, the largest of which was ranked 40th in the world by size. In 2016 a total of 39 Turkish construction/contracting companies were listed in the Top 250 International Contractors List prepared by the Engineering News-Record.
Over half of Turkey's building stock contravenes housing regulations. An amnesty program to register illegal constructed buildings brought in $3.1billion, but the safety issues largely remain. In mid-February 2019, an 8-story building that was registered in the amnesty collapsed killing 21 people. As Turkey is prone to strong earthquakes, poor building quality is even more concerning.
In 2013 there were ninety-eight airports in Turkey, including 22 international airports. , Istanbul Atatürk Airport is the 11th busiest airport in the world, serving 31,833,324 passengers between January and July 2014, according to Airports Council International. The new (third) international airport of Istanbul is planned to be the largest airport in the world, with a capacity to serve 150 million passengers per annum. Turkish Airlines, flag carrier of Turkey since 1933, was selected by Skytrax as Europe's best airline for five consecutive years from 2011 and 2015. With 435 destinations (51 domestic and 384 international) in 126 countries worldwide, Turkish Airlines is the largest carrier in the world by number of countries served .
The total length of the rail network was 10,991 km in 2008, ranking 22nd in the world, including 2,133 km of electrified track. The Turkish State Railways started building high-speed rail lines in 2003. The first line, which has a length of 533 km from Istanbul (Turkey's largest metropolis) via Eskişehir to Ankara (the capital) is under construction and will reduce the travelling time from 6–7 hours to 3 hours and 10 minutes. The Ankara-Eskişehir section of the line, which has a length of 245 km and a projected travel time of 65 minutes, is completed. Trials began on April 23, 2007, and revenue earning service began on March 13, 2009. The Eskişehir-Istanbul section of the line is scheduled to be completed by 2012, and includes the Marmaray tunnel which will enter service in 2012 and establish the first direct railway connection between Europe and Anatolia.Second high-speed rail line, which has length of 212 km between Ankara and Konya become operational in 2011.
As of 2010, the country had a roadway network of 426,951 km, including 2,080 km of expressways and 16,784 km of divided highways.
As of 2010, the Turkish merchant marine included 1,199 ships (604 registered at home), ranking 7th in the world. Turkey's coastline has 1,200 km of navigable waterways.
In 2008, of natural gas pipelines and of petroleum pipelines spanned the country's territory.
As of 2008, there were 17,502,000 operational landline telephones in Turkey, which ranked 18th in the world; while there were 65,824,000 registered mobile phones in the country, which ranked 15th in the world during the same year. The largest landline telephone operator is Türk Telekom, which also owns TTNET, the largest internet service provider in Turkey. The largest mobile phone operators in the country are Turkcell, Vodafone Turkey, Avea and TTNET Mobil.
The telecommunications liberalisation process started in 2004 after the creation of the Telecommunication Authority, and is still ongoing. Private sector companies operate in mobile telephony, long distance telephony and Internet access. Additional digital exchanges are permitting a rapid increase in subscribers; the construction of a network of technologically advanced intercity trunk lines, using both fiber-optic cable and digital microwave radio relay, is facilitating communication between urban centers. The remote areas of the country are reached by a domestic satellite system, while the number of subscribers to mobile-cellular telephone service is growing rapidly.
The main line international telephone service is provided by the SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine communications cable and by submarine fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea that link Turkey with Italy, Greece, Israel, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia. In 2002, there were 12 Intelsat satellite earth stations; and 328 mobile satellite terminals in the Inmarsat and Eutelsat systems.
Türksat A.Ş. is the primary communications satellite operator of Turkey, controlling the Turksat series of satellites. TÜBİTAK and Turkish Aerospace Industries have developed scientific observation satellites and reconnaissance satellites like the RASAT, Göktürk-1 and Göktürk-2.
As of 2001, there were 16 AM, 107 FM, and 6 shortwave radio stations in the country.
As of 2015, there were 42,275,017 internet users in Turkey, which ranked 15th in the world; while as of 2012, there were 7,093,000 internet hosts in the country, which ranked 16th in the world.
Tourism is one of the most dynamic and fastest developing sectors in Turkey. According to travel agencies TUI AG and Thomas Cook, 11 of the 100 best hotels of the world are located in Turkey. In 2005, there were 24,124,501 visitors to the country, who contributed $18.2 billion to Turkey's revenues, with an average expenditure of $679 per tourist. In 2008, the number of visitors rose to 30,929,192, who contributed $21.9 billion to Turkey's revenues. For 2011, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) reported 34,654,000 arrivals and US$25 billion in receipts for Turkey. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, in 2012 travel and tourism made a total contribution of 10.9% to Turkish GDP and supported 8.3% of all jobs in the country. Over the years, Turkey has emerged as a popular tourist destination for many Europeans, competing with Greece, Italy and Spain. Resorts in provinces such as Antalya and Muğla (which are located on the Turkish Riviera) have become very popular among tourists.
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey ("Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası") was founded in 1930, as a privileged joint-stock company. It possesses the sole right to issue notes. It also has the obligation to provide for the monetary requirements of the state agricultural and commercial enterprises. All foreign exchange transfers are exclusively handled by the central bank.
Originally established as the Ottoman Stock Exchange ("Dersaadet Tahvilat Borsası") in 1866, and reorganized to its current structure at the beginning of 1986, the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) is the sole securities market of Turkey. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Bankalar Caddesi (Banks Street) in Istanbul was the financial center of the Ottoman Empire, where the headquarters of the Ottoman Central Bank (established as the "Bank-ı Osmanî" in 1856, and later reorganized as the "Bank-ı Osmanî-i Şahane" in 1863) and the Ottoman Stock Exchange (1866) were located. Bankalar Caddesi continued to be Istanbul's main financial district until the 1990s, when most Turkish banks began moving their headquarters to the modern central business districts of Levent and Maslak. In 1995, the Istanbul Stock Exchange moved to its current building in the Istinye quarter. The Istanbul Gold Exchange was also established in 1995. The stock market capitalisation of listed companies in Turkey was valued at $161,537,000,000 in 2005 by the World Bank.
Until 1991, establishing a private sector bank in Turkey was subject to strict government controls and regulations. On 10 October 1991 (ten days before the general elections of 20 October 1991) the ANAP government of Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz gave special permissions to five prominent businessmen (who had close links to the government) to establish their own small-scale private banks. These were "Kentbank" (owned by Süzer); "Park Yatırım Bankası" (owned by Karamehmet); "Toprakbank" (owned by Toprak); "Bank Ekspres" (owned by Betil); and "Alternatif Bank" (owned by Doğan.) They were followed by other small-scale private banks established between 1994 and 1995, during the DYP government of Prime Minister Tansu Çiller, who introduced drastic changes to the banking laws and regulations; which made it very easy to establish a bank in Turkey, but also opened many loopholes in the system. In 1998, there were 72 banks in Turkey; most of which were owned by construction companies that used them as financial assets for siphoning money into their other operations.
As a result, in 1999 and 2001, the DSP government of Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit had to face two major economic crises that were caused mostly by the weak and loosely regulated banking sector; the growing trade deficit; and the devastating İzmit earthquake of 17 August 1999. The Turkish lira, which was pegged to the U.S. dollar prior to the crisis of 2001, had to be floated, and lost an important amount of its value. This financial breakdown reduced the number of banks to 31. Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit had to call the renowned economist Kemal Derviş to tidy up the economy and especially the weak banking system so that a similar economic crisis would not happen again.
At present, the Turkish banking sector is among the strongest and most expansive in East Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. During the past decade since 2001, the Turkish lira has also gained a considerable amount of value and maintained its stability, becoming an internationally exchangeable currency once again (in line with the inflation that dropped to single-digit figures since 2003.) The economy grew at an average rate of 7.8% between 2002 and 2005. Fiscal deficit is benefiting (though in a small amount) from large industrial privatizations. Banking came under stress beginning in October 2008 as Turkish banking authorities warned state-run banks against the pullback of loans from the larger financial sectors. More than 34% of the assets in the Turkish banking sector are concentrated in the Agricultural Bank ("Ziraat Bankası"), Housing Bank ("Yapı Kredi Bankası"), Isbank ("Türkiye İş Bankası") and Akbank. The five big state-owned banks were restructured in 2001. Political involvement was minimized and loaning policies were changed. There are also numerous international banks, which have branches in Turkey. A number of Arabian trading banks, which practice an Islamic banking, are also present in the country.
Government regulations passed in 1929 required all insurance companies to reinsure 30% of each policy with the "Millî Reasürans T.A.Ş." (National Reinsurance Corporation) which was founded on February 26, 1929. In 1954, life insurance was exempted from this requirement. The insurance market is officially regulated through the Ministry of Commerce.
After years of low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), in 2007 Turkey succeeded in attracting $21.9 billion in FDI and is expected to attract a higher figure in following years. A series of large privatizations, the stability fostered by the start of Turkey's EU accession negotiations, strong and stable growth, and structural changes in the banking, retail, and telecommunications sectors have all contributed to the rise in foreign investment.
In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency, the "New Turkish lira", on January 1, 2005, to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1, 2009, the New Turkish lira was renamed once again as the "Turkish lira", with the introduction of new banknotes and coins.
Koç Holding, Sabancı Holding, Anadolu Group, Eczacıbaşı Holding and Zorlu Holding are among the country's largest industrial conglomerates, with business operations in a multitude of different sectors.
In 2014, 12 Turkish companies were listed in the Forbes Global 2000 list - an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world by Forbes magazine. Banking industry leads with 5 companies in the list followed by telecommunication industry which has 2 companies in the list. There are also 2 conglomerates followed by transportation and beverages industries with 1 companies each. As of 2014, listed companies were:
As of 2016, the main trading partners of Turkey are Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom, UAE, Iraq, Italy and China, many being top in both export as well as import. Turkey has taken advantage of a customs union with the European Union, signed in 1995, to increase industrial production for exports, while benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country. In addition to Customs Union, Turkey has free-trade agreements with 22 countries.
A very large aspect of Turkey trade revolves around the automotive industry, where its top exports are cars, accounting for $13.2 billion. Other top exports from the country are gold, delivery trucks, vehicle parts and jewelry, which are respectively, $6.96 billion, $5.04 billion, $4.64 billion, and $3.39 billion. These values are calculated using the 1992 revision of the Harmonized System classification. Comparatively, it imports many of the same industries, such as, gold valued at $17.1 billion, refined petroleum at $9.8 billion, cars at $8.78 billion, vehicle parts at $6.34 billion and scrap iron at $5.84 billion.
Turkey is also a source of foreign direct investment in central and eastern Europe and the CIS, with more than $1.5 billion invested. 32% has been invested in Russia, primarily in the natural resources and construction sector, and 46% in Turkey's Black Sea neighbours, Bulgaria and Romania. Turkish companies also have sizable FDI stocks in Poland, at about $100 million.
The construction and contracting companies, such as Enka and Tekfen, have been significant players in the country's economy.
The energy sector is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions by Turkey and contributes to climate change in Turkey, which is in turn affecting the economy by increasing droughts, which reduce agriculture and hydropower in Turkey. By 2020, according to Carbon Tracker, both new wind and solar power were cheaper than building new coal power plants; and they forecast that wind would become cheaper than existing coal plants in 2027, and solar in 2023: so they say that constructing Afşin-Elbistan C power station would be a waste of money (estimated 17 billion lira).
Turkey is an oil and natural gas producer, but the level of production by the state-owned TPAO is not enough to make the country self-sufficient, which makes Turkey a net importer of both oil and gas.
The pipeline network in Turkey included for crude oil, for petroleum products, and for natural gas in 1999. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, the second-longest oil pipeline in the world, was inaugurated on May 10, 2005. The pipeline delivers crude oil from the Caspian Sea basin to the port of Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, from where it is distributed with oil tankers to the world's markets. The planned Nabucco Pipeline will also pass from Turkey and provide the European Union member states with natural gas from the Caspian Sea basin. The Blue Stream, a major trans-Black Sea gas pipeline, is operational since November 17, 2005, and delivers natural gas from Russia to Turkey. The Tabriz–Ankara pipeline is a natural gas pipeline, which runs from Tabriz in northwestern Iran to Ankara in Turkey. The pipeline was commissioned on July 26, 2001. In Erzurum, the South Caucasus Pipeline, which was commissioned on May 21, 2006, is linked to the Iran-Turkey pipeline. In the future, these two pipelines will be among the main supply routes for the planned Nabucco Pipeline from Turkey to Europe.
To cover the increasing energy needs of its population and ensure the continued raising of its living standards, Turkey plans to build several nuclear power plants. Following the construction of experimental reactors, proposals to build large scale nuclear power plants were presented as early as in the 1950s by Turkish Atomic Energy Authority, but plans were repeatedly canceled even after bids were made by interested manufacturers because of high costs and safety concerns. Turkey has always chosen CANDU reactors because they burn natural uranium which is cheap and available locally and because they can be refueled online. Turkey's first nuclear power plants are expected to be built in Mersin's Akkuyu district on the Mediterranean coast; in Sinop's İnceburun district on the Black Sea coast; and in Kırklareli's İğneada district on the Black Sea coast.
Turkey has the fifth-highest direct utilization and capacity of geothermal power in the world.
Turkey is a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme, which has four key topics: enhancing energy security,
convergence of member state energy markets on the basis of EU internal energy market principles, supporting sustainable energy development, and attracting investment for energy projects of common and regional interest.
The proportion of renewable energy in Turkey is twice the EU average, at around 25–26%. Turkey plans to raise this to 30% by 2023.
The share of renewable energy, which serves as one of the most important pillars of the National Energy and Mine Policy and led by hydro, wind and solar energy, reached 32 percent in the third quarter of 2017, surpassing the target of 30 percent that was set for 2023.
Turkey led the way in Europe with an increase of 1.79 GW in solar capacity making the country one of the most promising markets in terms of solar business.
Turkey is the tenth-ranked producer of minerals in the world in terms of diversity. Around 60 different minerals are currently produced in Turkey. The richest mineral deposits in the country are boron salts, Turkey's reserves amount to 72% of the world's total. According to the CIA World Factbook, other natural resources include coal, iron ore, copper, chromium, uranium, antimony, mercury, gold, barite, borate, celestine (strontium), emery, feldspar, limestone, magnesite, marble, perlite, pumice, pyrites (sulfur), clay, arable land, hydropower, and geothermal power.
With the establishment of the Turkish Environment Ministry on August 9, 1991 (currently the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning), Turkey began to make significant progress addressing some of its most important environmental problems.
The most dramatic improvements were significant reductions of air pollution in Istanbul and Ankara. The most urgent needs are for water treatment plants, waste water treatment facilities, solid waste management and the conservation of biodiversity.
According to Eurostat data, Turkish GDP per capita adjusted by purchasing power standards stood at 64 percent of the EU average in 2018.
The country's wealth is mainly concentrated in the northwest and west, while the east and southeast suffer from poverty, lower economic production and higher levels of unemployment. However, in line with the rapid growth of Turkey's GDP during the first two decades of the 21st century (with brief periods of stagnation and recession), parts of Anatolia began reaching a higher economic standard. These cities are known as the Anatolian Tigers.
Source: Eurostat - ESA 95
Source: Eurostat - ESA 95 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30202 |
Transport in Turkey
This article deals with the system of transport in Turkey, both public and private.
In 2013 there were 98 airports in Turkey, including 22 international airports. , Istanbul Atatürk Airport is the 11th busiest airport in the world, serving 31,833,324 passengers between January and July 2014, according to Airports Council International. The new (third) international airport of Istanbul is planned to be the largest airport in the world, with a capacity to serve 150 million passengers per annum. Turkish Airlines, flag carrier of Turkey since 1933, was selected by Skytrax as Europe's best airline for five consecutive years in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. With 435 destinations (51 domestic and 384 international) in 126 countries worldwide, Turkish Airlines is the largest carrier in the world by number of countries served .
, the country has a roadway network of . The total length of the rail network was in 2008, including of electrified and of high-speed track. The Turkish State Railways started building high-speed rail lines in 2003. The Ankara-Konya line became operational in 2011, while the Ankara-Istanbul line entered service in 2014. Opened in 2013, the Marmaray tunnel under the Bosphorus connects the railway and metro lines of Istanbul's European and Asian sides; while the nearby Eurasia Tunnel (2016) provides an undersea road connection for motor vehicles. The Bosphorus Bridge (1973), Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (1988) and Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge (2016) are the three suspension bridges connecting the European and Asian shores of the Bosphorus strait. The Osman Gazi Bridge (2016) connects the northern and southern shores of the Gulf of İzmit. The Çanakkale Bridge, currently under construction, will connect the European and Asian shores of the Dardanelles strait.
The TCDD – Türkiye Devlet Demir Yolları (Turkish State Railways) possess 10,984 km of gauge, of which 2,336 km are electrified (2005).
There are daily regular passenger trains all through the network. TCDD has started an investment program of building 5.000 km high-speed lines until 2023. As of October 2019, three high speed train routes are running: Ankara-Eskişehir-İstanbul, Ankara-Konya and İstanbul-Eskişehir-Konya.
The freight transportation is mainly organized as block trains for domestic routes, since TCDD discourages under 200 to loads by surcharges.
After almost 30 years without any trams, Turkey is experiencing a revival in trams. Established in 1992, the tram system of Istanbul earned the best large-scale tram management award in 2005. Another award-winning tram network belongs to Eskişehir (EsTram) where a modern tram system opened in 2004. Several other cities are planning or constructing tram lines, with modern low-flow trams.
By 2014, there have been 12 cities in Turkey using railroads for transportation.
Road transport is responsible for much air pollution in Turkey and almost a fifth of Turkey's greenhouse gas emissions, mainly via diesel.
There are three types of intercity roads in Turkey:
– The first is the historical and free road network called State roads ("Devlet Yolları") that are completely under the responsibility of the General Directorate of Highways except for urban sections (like the sections falling within the inner part of ring roads of Ankara, Istanbul or İzmir. Even if they mostly possess dual carriageways and interchanges, they also have some traffic lights and intersections.
– The second type of roads are controlled-access highways that are officially named "Otoyol". But it isn't uncommon that people in Turkey call them "Otoban" (referring to Autobahn) as this types of roads entered popular culture by the means of Turks in Germany. They also depend on the General Directorate of Highways except those that are financed with a BOT model.
– The third type of roads are provincial roads ("Il Yolları)" are highways of secondary importance linking districts within a province to each other , the provincial center, the districts in the neighboring provinces, the state roads, railway stations, seaports, and airports
As of 2010, there are 155 tunnels (total length 99.5 km) and 6447 bridges (total length 296.3 km) on the network.
There are numerous private bus companies providing connections between cities in Turkey.
For local trips to villages there are dolmuşes, small vans that seat about twenty passengers.
As of 2010, number of road vehicles is around 15 million. The number of vehicles by type and use is as follows.
In 2019 a new regulation on cycle paths was issued.
According to the figures released by Turkey's statistics authority (TurkStat) the total number of motor vehicles in Turkey reached 15.023 million as of November 2010. The provinces with the highest rates of car ownership were:-
Total number of passenger cars was 6,472,156 at the end of 2007. Total number of motor vehicles (excluding tractors and construction vehicles) was 11,695,611 at the end of 2007.
The number of passenger cars had increased to 9,800,000 by 2010.
In 2013 Turkey had the tenth largest passenger air market in the world with 74,353,297 passengers.
Total number of Airports in Turkey: 117 (2007)
Airports – with paved runways
"total:"
88
"over 3,047 m:"
16
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
19
"914 to 1,523 m:"
16
"under 914 m:"
4 (2010)
Airports – with unpaved runways
"total:"
11
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
1
"914 to 1,523 m:"
6
"under 914 m:"
4 (2010)
Heliports
20 (2010)
About 1,200 km
Black Sea
Aegean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Sea of Marmara | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30204 |
Turkish Armed Forces
The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; , TSK) are the military forces of the Republic of Turkey. They consist of the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Forces.
The current Chief of the General staff is General Yaşar Güler. The Chief of the General Staff is the Commander of the Armed Forces. In wartime, he acts as the Commander in Chief on behalf of the president, who represents the Supreme Military Command of the TAF on behalf of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Commanding the Armed Forces is the responsibility of the General Staff, as well as coordinating the military relations of the TAF with other NATO member states and friendly states.
The modern history of the army began with its formation after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish military perceived itself as the guardian of Kemalism, the official state ideology, especially of its emphasis on secularism. It suppressed several Kurdish rebellions in Turkish Kurdistan in the 1920s and 1930s. After becoming a member of NATO in 1952, Turkey initiated a comprehensive modernization program for its armed forces and sent troops to fight in the Korean War. Since the early 1980s, it has fought in the ongoing Kurdish-Turkish conflict. Towards the end of the 1980s, a second restructuring process was initiated. The Turkish Armed Forces participate in an EU Battlegroup under the control of the European Council, the Italian-Romanian-Turkish Battlegroup. The TAF also contributes operational staff to the Eurocorps multinational army corps initiative of the EU and NATO.
The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing military force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with an estimated strength in 2015 of 639,551 military, civilian and paramilitary personnel.
Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base. 40 of these are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, but their use requires the approval of NATO.
After the end of World War I, many Ottoman military personnel escaped from Rumelia to Anatolia in order to join the new Turkish National Movement (TNM). During the War of Independence, on 3 May 1920, Birinci Ferik Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak) was appointed the Minister of National Defence, and Mirliva İsmet Pasha (İnönü) was appointed the Minister of the Chief of General Staff of the government of the Grand National Assembly (GNA). But on 3 August 1921, the GNA fired İsmet Pasha from the post of Minister of National Defence because of his failure at the Battle of Afyonkarahisar–Eskişehir and on 5 August, just before the Battle of Sakarya, appointed the chairman of the GNA Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as commander-in-chief of the Army of the GNA. The TNM won the War of Independence in 1922.
There were several Kurdish rebellions in Turkish Kurdistan in the 1920s and 1930s, the most important of which were the 1925 Sheikh Said rebellion and the 1937 Dersim rebellion. All were suppressed by the TAF, sometimes involving large-scale mobilisations of up to 50,000 troops. Associated atrocities against civilians include the Zilan massacre.
Turkey remained neutral until the final stages of World War II. In the initial stage of World War II, Turkey signed a treaty of mutual assistance with Great Britain and France. But after the fall of France, the Turkish government tried to maintain an equal distance with both the Allies and the Axis. Following Germany's occupation of the Balkan states, upon which the Axis became neighbours with Turkey in Thrace and the eastern islands of the Aegean Sea, Turkey signed a Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression with Germany on 18 June 1941.
After the German-Soviet War broke out, the Turkish government sent a military delegation of observers under Lieutenant General Ali Fuat Erden to the German Eastern Front and Germany. After the German retreat from the Caucasus, the Turkish government got closer with the Allies and Winston Churchill secretly met with İsmet İnönü at Yenice Train Station, south Turkey on 30 January 1943, with the intent of persuading Turkey to join the war on the side of the Allies. A few days before the start of Operation Zitadelle in July 1943, the Turkish government sent a military delegation under General Cemil Cahit Toydemir to Belgorod and observed the exercises of the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion and its equipment. But after the failure of Operation Zitadelle, the Turkish government participated in the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and İsmet İnönü reached an agreement on issues regarding Turkey's possible contribution to the Allies. On 23 February 1945, Turkey joined the Allies by declaring war against Germany and Japan, after it was announced at the Yalta Conference that only the states which were formally at war with Germany and Japan by 1 March 1945 would be admitted to the United Nations.
Turkey participated in the Korean War as a member state of the United Nations and sent the Turkish Brigade to South Korea, which suffered 731 losses in combat. On 18 February 1952, Turkey became a member of NATO. The Korean government donated a war memorial for the Turkish soldiers who fought and died in Korea. The Korean pagoda is in Ankara and it was donated in 1973 for the 50th anniversary of the Turkish Republic.
On 20 July 1974, the TAF launched an amphibious and airborne assault operation on Cyprus, in response to the 1974 Cypriot coup d'état which had been staged by EOKA-B and the Cypriot National Guard against president Makarios III with the intention of annexing the island to Greece; but the military intervention ended up with Turkey occupying a considerable area on the northern part of Cyprus and helping to establish a local government of Turkish Cypriots there, which has thus far been recognized only by Turkey. The intervention came after more than a decade of intercommunal violence (1963–1974) between the island's Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, resulting from the constitutional breakdown of 1963. Turkey invoked its role as a guarantor under the Treaty of Guarantee in justification for the military intervention. Turkish forces landed on the island in two waves, invading and occupying 37% of the island's territory in the northeast for the Turkish Cypriots, who had been isolated in small enclaves across the island prior to the military intervention.
In the aftermath, the Turkish Cypriots declared a separate political entity in the form of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in 1975; and in 1983 made a unilateral declaration of independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which was recognized only by Turkey. The United Nations continues to recognize the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus according to the terms of its independence in 1960. The conflict continues to overshadow Turkish relations with Greece and with the European Union. In 2004, during the referendum for the Annan Plan for Cyprus (a United Nations proposal to resolve the Cyprus dispute) 76% of the Greek Cypriots rejected the proposal, while 65% of the Turkish Cypriots accepted it.
The TAF have fought for decades in the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, mostly against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). While most of the conflict has taken place in Turkish Kurdistan, it has also involved forays into neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan as well as more recent attacks on the PKK-affiliated Syrian Democratic Forces in Rojava. The conflict reignited in 2015, after the failure of a three-year Kurdish-Turkish peace process.
Turkey contributed troops in several NATO-led peace forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. Currently there are 402 Turkish troops in Kosovo Force.
After the 2003 Istanbul Bombings were linked to Al-Qaeda, Turkey deployed troops to Afghanistan to fight Taliban forces and Al-Qaeda operatives, with the hopes of dismantling both groups. Turkey's responsibilities include providing security in Kabul (it currently leads Regional Command Capital), as well as in Wardak Province, where it leads PRT Maidan Shahr. Turkey was once the third largest contingent within the International Security Assistance Force. Turkey's troops are not engaged in combat operations and Ankara has long resisted pressure from Washington to offer more combat troops. According to the Washington Post, in December 2009, after US President Barack Obama announced he would deploy 30,000 more U.S. soldiers, and that Washington wants others to follow suit, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reacted with the message that Turkey would not contribute additional troops to Afghanistan. "Turkey has already done what it can do by boosting its contingent of soldiers there to 1,750 from around 700 without being asked", said Erdoğan, who stressed that Turkey would continue its training of Afghan security forces.
The TAF have performed "Disaster Relief Operations," as in the 1999 İzmit earthquake in the Marmara Region of Turkey. Apart from contributing to NATO, the Turkish Navy also contributes to the Black Sea Naval Co-operation Task Group, which was created in early 2001 by Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia and Ukraine for search and rescue and other humanitarian operations in the Black Sea.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in 2010 the Turkish Armed Forces had an active strength of around 402,000 active personnel, consisting of 77,000 professionals and 325,000 conscripts. In addition, it was estimated that there were 378,700 reserve personnel and 152,200 paramilitary personnel (Turkish Gendarmerie and Turkish Coast Guard), giving a combined active and reserve strength of around 932,900 personnel. In 2010, the defence budget amounted to 26 billion liras. The Law on the Court of Accounts was supposed to initiate external ex-post audits of armed forces' expenditure and pave the way for audits of extra budgetary resources earmarked for the defence sector, including the Defence Industry Support Fund. However, the Ministry of Defense has not provided the necessary information, so the armed forces expenditure is not being properly checked.
In 1998, Turkey announced a programme of modernisation worth US$160 billion over a twenty-year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles. Turkey is a Level 3 contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme. The final goal of Turkey is to produce new-generation indigenous military equipment and to become increasingly self-sufficient in terms of military technologies.
Havelsan of Turkey and Boeing of the United States are in the process of developing a next-generation, high-altitude ballistic missile defence shield. Turkey has chosen the Chinese defense firm CPMIEC to co-produce a $4 billion long-range air and missile system.
The General Staff of the Republic of Turkey presides over the Armed Forces of the Republic of Turkey, comprising the Army, Navy and Air Force. The General Command of the Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard, which operate as parts of the internal security forces in peacetime, are subordinate to the Army and Navy Commands, respectively, in wartime, and both have law enforcement and military functions.
Also, the General Staff is in command of the Special Forces, which is not aligned to any force command within the TAF. The Maroon Berets get their orders directly from the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey.
The Turkish Land Forces, or Turkish Army, can trace its origins in the remnants of Ottoman forces during the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues formed the Grand National Assembly (GNA) in Ankara on 23 April 1920, the XV Corps under the command of Kâzım Karabekir was the only corps which had any combat value. On 8 November 1920, the GNA decided to establish a standing army ("Düzenli ordu") instead of irregular troops (the "Kuva-yi Milliye", "Kuva-yi Seyyare", etc.) The army of the government of the GNA won the Turkish War of Independence in 1922.
As of 2006, the Turkish Army had 1,300 troops deployed in northern Iraq, according to documents released as part of the United States diplomatic cables leak. The Turkish Army also maintains around 17,500 troops in Northern Cyprus, as part of the Cyprus Turkish Peace Force ("Kıbrıs Türk Barış Kuvvetleri", or KTBK.)
The Turkish Naval Forces, or Turkish Navy, constitutes the naval warfare service branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. The Turkish Navy maintains several Marines and Special Operations units. The "Amphibious Marines Brigade" (Amfibi Deniz Piyade Tugayı) based in Foça near İzmir consists of 4,500 men, three amphibious battalions, an MBT battalion, an artillery battalion, a support battalion and other company-sized units. The "Su Altı Taarruz" (S.A.T. – Underwater Attack) is dedicated to missions including the acquisition of military intelligence, amphibious assault, counter-terrorism and VIP protection; while the "Su Altı Savunma" (S.A.S. – Underwater Defense) is dedicated to coastal defense operations (such as clearing mines or unexploded torpedoes) and disabling enemy vessels or weapons with underwater operations; as well as counter-terrorism and VIP protection missions.
The Turkish Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. It is primarily responsible for the protection and sovereignty of Turkish airspace but also provides air-power to the other service branches. Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, but their use requires the approval of NATO.
The Air Force took part in the Operation Deliberate Force of 1995 and Operation Allied Force of 1999, and later participated in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, employing two squadrons (one in the Ghedi fighter wing, and after 2000 one in the Aviano fighter wing.) They returned to Turkey in 2001. In 2006, 4 Turkish F-16 fighter jets were deployed for NATO's Baltic Air Policing operation.
Turkish War Academies constitute the educational branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. The Ottoman Military College, which later evolved into the Turkish Army War College, was established in 1848. The Naval War College was established in 1864, and the Air War College was established in 1937 (the Aircraft School ("Tayyare Mektebi") of the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons was established in 1912, and the Naval Aircraft School ("Bahriye Tayyare Mektebi") was established in 1914.)
In order to train Staff Officers in the same system as European armies, the 3rd and 4th years were created in the Army War Academy under the name of "Imperial War School of Military Sciences, General Staff Courses" in 1848. As part of the reorganization efforts of the Ottoman Army, new arrangements were implemented in 1866 for the Staff College and other Military Schools. Through these arrangements, the General Staff training was extended to three years, and with additional military courses a special emphasis was placed on exercises and hands-on training. Although being a staff officer was initially considered a different military branch in itself, effective from 1867 new programs were implemented to train staff officers for branches such as the infantry, cavalry and artillery. In 1899, a new system was developed on the basis of the view that the General Staff Courses should train more officers with higher military education in addition to Staff Officers’ training. Following this principle, a greater number of officers from the Army War Academy began to be admitted to the Staff College. This process continued until 1908. Following the declaration of the Second Constitutional Era in 1908, the structure of the Staff College was rearranged with a new Staff College Regulation on 4 August 1909. A couple of months later, in October, the College was moved from Harbiye to the Yıldız Palace, Crown Prices’ Quarter with the new designation "General Staff School". With this fundamental change, the practice of direct transition from Army War Academy to Staff College was abolished, and admission into Staff College now required two years of field service following the Army War Academy. Afterwards, the officers were subjected to examinations, and those who passed the exam were admitted into the College as Staff Officer candidates. Following the occupation of Istanbul by the Allies of World War I on 16 March 1920, Ottoman military schools were dissolved by the victors of the First World War; nevertheless, the Staff College managed to continue its activities until April 1921 at the Şerif Pasha Mansion in Teşvikiye, Istanbul, where it was relocated on 28 January 1919. In early 1921, it was decided that the Staff College should be moved to Beylerbeyi, Istanbul. However, since all instructors and students had gone to Anatolia to join the Turkish War of Independence, the Staff College was closed down temporarily.
On 13 October 1923, shortly before the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey on 29 October, the Staff College restarted its education and training activities under the name of "Higher Military College" in Beyazıt, Istanbul, in the building of the Ministry of War, today used as the rectorate building of Istanbul University. About six months later, on 24 March 1924, the College was renamed the "Directorate of the General Staff College" and moved to the Yıldız Palace. In 1927, it was once more renamed as the "Staff College Directorate". The College continued its education and training activities in this location until 1975. The War Colleges Command was formed in March 1949. The National Security College was founded in 1952 and the Armed Forces College was established in 1954. The National Security College moved to Ankara in 1995, and by moving back to Istanbul in 2012, it was merged with the Armed Forces College, and since then has been continuing its education and training activities as the Armed Forces Higher Command and Control College.
As of August 2013, Turkey has a total of 3,189 military personnel outside its territory. The only military base stationed permanently abroad, regardless of the organizations that are members of Turkey, which has been temporarily holding troops several times abroad due to its responsibilities arising from many international political members, particularly NATO membership, is the Cyprus Turkish Peace Force Command. The military bases of Turkish Armed Forces in Qatar, Syria, Somalia and Bashiqa are active. It is announced that in 2017 Turkey will start working to establish a research base in Antarctica.
After the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk prohibited the political activities of officers in active service with the Military Penal Code numbered 1632 and dated 22 May 1930 (""). However, after the coups d'état in 1960, the "" (National Unity Committee) established the Inner Service Act of the Turkish Armed Forces ("") on 4 January 1961 to legitimize their military interventions in politics. In subsequent coup d'états and coup d'état attempts, they showed reasons to justify their political activities especially with the article 35 and 85 of this act.
The Turkish military perceived itself as the guardian of Kemalist ideology, the official state ideology, especially of the secular aspects of Kemalism. The TAF still maintains an important degree of influence over the decision making process regarding issues related to Turkish national security, albeit decreased in the past decades, via the National Security Council.
The military had a record of intervening in politics, removing elected governments four times in the past. Indeed, it assumed power for several periods in the latter half of the 20th century. It executed three coups d'état: in 1960 (May 27 coup), in 1971 (March 12 coup), and in 1980 (September 12 coup). Following the 1960 coup d'état, the military executed the first democratically elected prime minister in Turkey, Adnan Menderes, in 1961. Most recently, it maneuvered the removal of an Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997 (known as the February 28 memorandum). Contrary to outsider expectations, the Turkish populace was not uniformly averse to coups; many welcomed the ejection of governments they perceived as unconstitutional.
On 27 April 2007, in advance of the 4 November 2007 presidential election, and in reaction to the politics of Abdullah Gül, who has a past record of involvement in Islamist political movements and banned Islamist parties such as the Welfare Party, the army issued a statement of its interests. It said that the army is a party to "arguments" regarding secularism; that Islamism ran counter to the secular nature of Turkey, and to the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The Army's statement ended with a clear warning that the TAF stood ready to intervene if the secular nature of the Turkish Constitution is compromised, stating that "the Turkish Armed Forces maintain their sound determination to carry out their duties stemming from laws to protect the unchangeable characteristics of the Republic of Turkey. Their loyalty to this determination is absolute."
Over a hundred people, including several generals, have been detained or questioned since July 2008 with respect to so-called organisation Ergenekon, an alleged clandestine, ultra-nationalist organization with ties to members of the country's military and security forces. The group is accused of terrorism in Turkey. These accusing claims are reported, even while the trials are going on, mostly in the counter-secular and Islamist media organs.
On 22 February 2010 more than 40 officers were arrested and then formally charged with attempting to overthrow the government with respect to so-called "Sledgehammer" plot. They include four admirals, a general and two colonels, some of them retired, including former commanders of the Turkish navy and air force (three days later, the former commanders of the navy and air force were released). Partially as a result, the Washington Post reported in April 2010 that the military's power had decreased.
On the eve of the Supreme Military Council of August 2011, the Chief of the General Staff, along with the Army, Navy, and Air Force commanders, requested their retirement, in protest of the mass arrests which they perceived as a deliberate and planned attack against the Kemalist and secular-minded officers of the Turkish Armed Forces by the Islamists in Turkey, who began to control key positions in the Turkish government, judiciary and police. The swift replacement of the force commanders in the Supreme Military Council meeting affirmed the government's control over the appointment of top-level commanders. However, promotions continue to be determined by the General Staff with limited civilian control. The European Commission, in its 2011 regular yearly report on Turkey's progress towards EU accession, stated that "further reforms on the composition and powers of the Supreme Military Council, particularly on the legal basis of promotions, still need to materialise." The service branch commanders continue to report to the Prime Minister instead of the Defence Minister.
In July 2016, a few rogue factions of the Turkish Armed Forces attempted to take over the government, but Erdogan supporters and other loyal military units stopped the coup attempt. Many lives were lost and hundreds were injured. The parliament house and some other buildings in Ankara and Istanbul were damaged. Thousands of military personnel have been arrested and structure of the armed forces has been overhauled. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30205 |
Foreign relations of Turkey
Foreign relations of the Republic of Turkey are the Turkish government's policies in its external relations with the international community.
Historically, the Foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey balanced regional and global powers off against one another, forming alliances that best protected the interests of the incumbent regime. The Soviet Union played a major role in supplying weapons to and financing Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's faction during the Turkish War of Independence but Turkey's followed a course of relative international isolation during the period of Atatürk's Reforms in 1920s and 1930s. International conferences gave Turkey full control of the strategic straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, though the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and the Montreux Convention of 1936.
In the late 1930s Nazi Germany made a major effort to promote anti-Soviet propaganda in Turkey and exerted economic pressure. Britain and France, eager to outmaneuver Germany, negotiated a tripartite treaty in 1939. They gave Turkey a line of credit to purchase war materials from the West and a loan to facilitate the purchase of commodities. Afraid of threats from Germany and Russia, Turkey maintained neutrality. It and sold chrome--an important war material--to both sides. It was clear by 1944 that Germany would be defeated and the chrome sales to Germany stopped.
After World War II Turkey sought closer relations with Western powers. It became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945, a recipient of Marshall Plan aid and a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1952. European Union–Turkey relations warmed during the Cold War period and the post-Cold War period has seen a diversification of relations, with Turkey, at various moments, seeking to strengthen its regional presence in the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus, as well as taking steps toward EU membership.
Under the AKP government (2003-), Turkey's economy has grown rapidly and the country's influence has grown in the Middle East based on a strategic depth doctrine, also called Neo-Ottomanism. Debate on Turkey's foreign relations is controversial both within Turkey itself and outside the country. In the West, there is a divide between those who are worried about Turkey's perceived movement away from the West toward a less democratic, more "Islamic" or more pro-Russian and pro-Chinese orientation and those who do not see Turkey's changing political structure, growing regional power and relations with Russia as a threat.
There has been a revival in Turkey's relation with Africa after 1998 and civil society is the leading factor in this process. Initially this revival came as a passive attempt, but after 2005 it became an offensive interest in developing relations with the continent. The recent Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summit in 2008 marks the latest stage in Turkey's keen interest in developing relations with Africa, and should be seen as a turning point. Turkey since its involvement in Somalia in 2011, is eager to be considered as a political actor in the continent.
Turkey has strong cultural and linguistic ties with the predominantly Turkic nations of Central Asia since Turks originated in Central Asia themselves. Economic and political relations are developing rapidly, and are likely to grow even more quickly with Turkey's recent elimination of visa requirements for citizens of the Central Asian Turkic republics. The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) has formed an alliance of trade between Turkey and the Central Asian states. Turkey is even working on developing solid relations with the other nations of the region, namely Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk created a radical shift in Turkish domestic and foreign policy by instituting a strong tradition of secular democracy, which had its roots in the West. Atatürk was an admirer of Enlightenment in many ways and made numerous reforms to modernize Turkey, based on the principles of positivist and rationalist Enlightenment, which he believed would foster educational and scientific progress. In this period, Turkey shifted increasingly towards the West, while culturally and ideologically distancing itself from the conservative mindset, practices and traditions of the Middle East, which were regarded by the Turkish revolutionaries as the source of the backwardness that had caused the Ottoman Empire to collapse. Although Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established a secular, modern country he never formed alliances with Western countries, rather he strengthen relationship with Middle Eastern and Asian countries by forming Treaty of Saadabad, The Baghdad Pact, also forming regional alliance, Balkan Pact.
In "The New Turkey" (Granta Books, 2005) BBC correspondent Chris Morris claims that "Turkey's secular democracy, its application for EU membership and its close relationship with the United States have long been regarded in Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus with intense suspicion. Islamists look at the secular state which buried the caliphate and think 'betrayal'; and Arab nationalists still haven't forgotten that Turks are their former colonial rulers." "But there's been a thaw, especially since the AKP came to power," and "the new Turkish model – trying to mix greater democracy and Islam together – is now the subject of curiosity and not a little envy."
The former Soviet republics in the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) are important for Turkey politically, economically, socially and culturally. The government develops policies in this region taking into account its strategic importance, due to its energy resources and pipeline corridors, and collaborates with its South Caucus neighbours in the BSEC, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe.
The 2015 refugee crisis had a great impact on relations. They became functional, based on interdependence as well as the EU's relative retreat from political membership conditionality. The March 2016 EU-Turkey 'refugee deal' made for deeper functional cooperation with material and normative concessions made by the EU.
The Turkish application to join the European Economic Community (now the European Union) as an associate member in 1959 soon resulted in associate membership in 1963, with full membership being acknowledged as the final goal. However, problems in foreign policy such as the Cyprus conflict and the internal political turbulence from the 1970s until the early 1980s forced Turkey to delay applying for full membership of the European Community until 1987. The application was rejected, although the E.C. did say that Turkish membership could occur at some point in the future.
An EU-Turkey Customs Union agreement came into effect on 1 January 1996, allowing goods to travel between Turkey and the EU member states without customs restrictions, although it crucially stopped short of lifting restrictions in areas such as agriculture. As of 2018, plans to extend the agreement are frozen by EU institutions due to the turn to authoritarianism and Neo-Ottomanism by the Erdoğan government of Turkey.
The European Union confirmed Turkey's status as candidate for membership at the European Council's Helsinki Summit in 1999. The accession talks did not follow immediately, however, as the EU said Turkey had to make significant reforms, particularly in the field of human rights, before the talks could begin. Turkey's current administration has identified EU membership as its top priority, and has taken many – and sometimes controversial – reform packages through the Parliament aimed at gradually harmonizing Turkey with EU standards. Since October 2005, Turkey has formally started accession negotiations with the EU and these will be based on the acquis communautaire. The EU accession bid had initially stimulated Turkey's political and legal reforms and intensified the democratization process, but after the turn to authoritarianism and Neo-Ottomanism by the Erdoğan government of Turkey, EU institutions have by 2018 frozen the process.
Turkey has close historical, cultural, economic and political ties with some of the Balkan states, which are important for Turkey as they are the country's gateway to continental Europe. Turkey attaches importance to the creation of an atmosphere of mutual understanding and peaceful co-habitation through closer ties with the Balkan countries, which would lead to the preservation of peace and stability in the region. Turkey has participated in NATO operations and peacekeeping missions, contributing to the KFOR and the UN police mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), as well as the EU-led police mission "Proxima" in the Republic of North Macedonia. Turkey is also contributing to the EUFOR-ALTHEA. For the reconstruction efforts Turkey is part of launching the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), and the Multinational Peace Force Southeast Europe (MPFSEE)/Southeastern Europe Brigade (SEEBRIG). Turkey also plays a role in regional economic initiatives as well as the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe initiated by the EU and the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI).
Turkey is a founding member of the UN (1945), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (1961), the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (1969), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) (1973), and the G20 industrial nations (1999). Turkey is a member state of the Council of Europe (1949) and NATO (1952) as well as being in full accession negotiations with the European Union since 2005, having been an associate member since 1963. Turkey was also an associate member of the Western European Union from 1992 to 2011, and signed the E.U. Customs Union agreement in 1995.
Turkey entered NATO in 1952 and serves as the organization's vital eastern anchor, controlling the Turkish Straits which lead from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and sharing a border with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. A NATO headquarters is located in İzmir, and the United States has maintained air forces at the Incirlik Air Base in the province of Adana.
Turkey is also a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since 1995. It has signed free trade agreements with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), Israel, and many other countries. In 1992, Turkey and 10 other regional nations formed the BSEC to expand regional trade and economic cooperation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30206 |
History of Turkmenistan
The history of Turkmenistan is largely shrouded in mystery, its past since the arrival of Indo-European Iranian tribes around 2000 BC is often the starting point of the area's discernible history. Early tribes were nomadic or semi-nomadic due to the arid conditions of the region as the steppe culture in Central Asia was an extension of a larger Eurasian series of horse cultures which spanned the entire spectrum of language families including the Indo-Europeans and Turko-Mongol groups. Some of the known early Iranian tribes included the Massagatae, Scythians/Sakas, and early Soghdians (most likely precursors of the Khwarezmians). Turkmenistan was a passing point for numerous migrations and invasions by tribes which gravitated towards the settled regions of the south including ancient Mesopotamia, Elam, and the Indus Valley Civilization.
The region's written history begins with the region's conquest by the Achaemenid Empire of ancient Iran, as the region was divided between the satrapys of Margiana, Chorasmia and Parthia. Later conquerors included Alexander the Great, the Parni, Ephthalites, Huns, Göktürks, Sarmatians, and Sassanid Iranians. During this early phase of history, the majority of Turkmenistan's inhabitants were either adherents of Zoroastrianism or Buddhism and the region was largely dominated by Iranian peoples. These incursions and epochs, though pivotal, did not shape the region's history as the invasions of two later invading groups: Arabs and the Oghuz Turks. The vast majority of inhabitants were converted to Hanifism, while the Oghuz brought the beginnings of the Turkic Turkmen language that came to dominate the area. The Turkic period was a time of cultural fusion as Islamic traditions brought by the Arabs merged with local Iranian cultures and then were further altered by Turkic invaders and rulers such as the Seljuks. Genghis Khan and Mongol invasions devastated the region during the late Middle Ages, but their hold upon the area was transitional as later Timur Leng and Uzbeks contested the land.
Modern Turkmenistan was radically transformed by the invasion of the Russian Empire, which conquered the region in the late 19th century. Later, the Russian Revolution of 1917 would ultimately transform Turkmenistan from an Islamic tribal society to a totalitarian Leninist one during the Soviet era. Independence came in 1991, as Saparmurat Niyazov, a former local communist party boss, declared himself absolute ruler for life as Turkmenbashi or "Leader of the Turkmen" and transitioned the newly independent Turkmenistan into an authoritarian state under his absolute control and has thus far resisted the democratization that has influenced many of the other former Soviet Republics. Niyazov ruled until his death on December 21, 2006.
Scant remains point to early human settlements east of the Caspian Sea, possibly including Neanderthals, although the archaeology of the region as a whole is underresearched.
Bronze Age and Iron Age finds support the probability of advanced civilizations in the area including finds associated with a society known to scholars as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) – near the modern cities of Mary (previously Merv), Djeitun and Gonur Tepe.
By 2000 BCE, Indo-European peoples had settled throughout the region. Most of the present-day Turkmenistan was occupied by BMAC-related societies and the Dahae (also known as the Daae, Dahā, Daoi and similar names) – a tribal confederation located immediately east of the Caspian. The Massagetae and Scythians were also present, immediately north of BMAC and the Dahae.
Alexander the Great conquered the territory in the 4th century BC on his way to South Asia. In 330 BC, Alexander marched northward into Central Asia and founded the city of Alexandria near the Murgab River. Located on an important trade route, Alexandria later became the city of Merv. The ruins of Alexander's ancient city are still to be found and have been extensively researched. After Alexander's death his empire quickly fell apart. It was ruled by Seleucids before the satrap of Parthia declared independence. The Parthians – fierce, nomadic warriors from the north of Iran – then established the kingdom of Parthia, which covered present-day Turkmenistan and Iran. The Parthian kings ruled their domain from the city of Nisa – an area now located near the modern-day capital of Ashgabat – founded by Arsaces I (reigned c. 250–211 BC), and was reputedly the royal necropolis of the Parthian kings, although it has neither been established that the fortress at Nisa was a royal residence nor a mausoleum.
Excavations at Nisa have revealed substantial buildings, mausoleums and shrines, many inscribed documents, and a looted treasury. Many Hellenistic art works have been uncovered, as well as a large number of ivory rhytons, the outer rims decorated with Iranian subjects or classical mythological scenes.
The Parthian Kingdom succumbed in 224 AD to the Sasanids – rulers of Iran. At the same time, several tribal groups—including in the Huns of Kushan controlled Balkan Province in 91 AD according to Tacitus and later the Alans according to Chinese records — were moving into Turkmenistan from the east and north. Although Ancient Persian traditions always mentioned the Turanian control of the area, these records provided the first independently corroborated evidence of nomadic Non-Iranian peoples into the area of Turkmenistan.
By the early 4th century AD, a Kushan noble from the Balkan province called Malkar of Khi, had become leader of the Huns settled there. In alliance with Dulo the Alan king on the Volga Delta, Malkar went on to forge ten tribes into the first proto-Turkic tribal confederation. The Dulo clan's first proto-Turkic Empire spread its influence as far east as the sub-continent under the Kitolo and as far west as Central Europe under Attila's Dulo. Wresting control of southern Turkmenistan from the Sasanian Empire in the 5th century AD, Malkar's "Dulo" Confederation of Ten Tribes caused a migration of Khurasanis into Dagestan as the Caucasian Avars. As a result of this backfire, the Sabirs settled there were forced to attack the Alan strongholds of the Dulo Ten Tribe Confederation in the Kuban steppe. To strengthen their position, Malkar's Confederation of Ten Tribes now under the leadership of Ernakh entered into an alliance with Byzantium at Phanagoria in the 460s AD. In the 550s AD, the Caucasian Avars pushed further conquering Phanagoria and forcing Sarosios of the Alans to petition Byzantium for land. Within a few years, Dulo's Ten Tribe Confederation in Balkan Province allied themselves to the Ashinas forming the Western part of the Gokturk Empire and were able to snatch Phanagoria back from the Avars renaming the Sabirs as Khazars under the rule of Kaghan Kazarig. By exposing the Avars' close ties to Persia, once again the Ten Tribes of the Dulo entered into alliance with Byzantium. The Dulo clans Ten Tribes soon seceded from the Gokturks to become the Western Turkic Kaghanate which thrived until 630s. They appointed Dulo Kaghan Kubrat to establish the short-lived state of Old Great Bolgary disintegrating upon his death with the majority migrated west where they carried out the first Hungarian conquest in 677 under Kotrag who also went up the volga to establish Bolgary, and Batbayan's Balkars who settled down with the Circassians north of the Caucasus. The Kara-khazars in the Balkan Province eventually revolted against the Aq-Khazars to establish the Yabghu Oghuz State of the Kara dynasty which produced the Seljuks who thrived until their dynasty was taken over by Temujin.
At this time much of the population was already in settlements around the fertile river valleys along the Amu Darya, and Merv and Nisa became centers of sericulture (the raising of silkworms). A busy caravan route, connecting Tang Dynasty China and the city of Baghdad (in modern Iraq), passed through Merv. Thus, the city of Merv constituted an important prize for any conqueror.
Central Asia came under Arab control after a series of invasions in the late 7th and early 8th centuries and was incorporated into Islamic Caliphate divided between provinces of "Mawara'un Nahr" and Khorasan. The Arab conquest brought the religion of Islam to all of the peoples of central Asia. The city of Merv was occupied by the lieutenants of the caliph Uthman ibn Affan, and was constituted as the capital of Khorasan. Using this city as their base, the Arabs, led by their commander Qutayba ibn Muslim, brought under subjection Balkh, Bokhara, Fergana and Kashgaria, and penetrated into China as far as the province of Kan-suh early in the 8th century.
Merv achieved some political spotlight in February 748 when Abu Muslim (d. 750) declared a new Abbasid dynasty at Merv, and set out from the city to conquer Iran and Iraq and establish a new capital at Baghdad. Abu Muslim was famously challenged by the Goldsmith of Merv to do the right thing and not make war on fellow Muslims. The Goldsmith was put to death.
In the latter part of the 8th century Merv became obnoxious to Islam as the centre of heretical propaganda preached by al-Muqanna "The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan". Present Turkmenistan was ruled by Tahirids between 821 and 873. In 873, Arab rule in Central Asia came to an end as a result of the Saffarid conquest. During their dominion Merv, like Samarkand and Bokhara, was one of the great schools of learning, and the celebrated historian Yaqut studied in its libraries. Merv produced a number of scholars in various branches of knowledge, such as Islamic law, Hadith, history, literature, and the like. Several scholars have the name: Marwazi (المروزي) designating them as hailing from Merv. But Saffarid rule was brief and they were defeated by Samanids in 901. The Samanid dynasty weaked after second half of 10th century and Ghaznavids took present Turkmenistan in 990s. But, they challenged with Seljuks, newcomers from north. Seljuks' decisive victory against them, present Turkmenistan was passed to them in 1041.
The origins of the Turkmen may be traced back to the Oghuz confederation of nomadic pastoral tribes of the early Middle Ages, which lived in present-day Mongolia and around Lake Baikal in present-day southern Siberia. Known as the Nine Oghuz, this confederation was composed of Turkic-speaking peoples who formed the basis of powerful steppe empires in Inner Asia. In the second half of the 8th century, components of the Nine Oghuz migrated through Jungaria into Central Asia, and Arabic sources located them under the term Guzz in the area of the middle and lower Syrdariya in the 8th century. By the 10th century, the Oghuz had expanded west and north of the Aral Sea and into the steppe of present-day Kazakhstan, absorbing not only Iranians but also Turks from the Kipchak and Karluk ethnolinguistic groups. In the 11th century, the renowned Muslim Turk scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari described the language of the Oghuz and Turkmen as distinct from that of other Turks and identified twenty-two Oghuz clans or sub-tribes, some of which appear in later Turkmen genealogies and legends as the core of the early Turkmen.
First mention of Oghuz goes back to the time prior to the Göktürk state- there are references to the Sekiz-Oghuz ("eight-Oghuz") and the Dokuz-Oghuz ("nine-Oghuz") union. The Oghuz Turks under Sekiz-Oghuz and the Dokuz-Oghuz state formations ruled different areas in the vicinity of the Altay Mountains. During the establishment of the Göktürk state, Oghuz tribes inhabited the Altay mountain region and also lived along the Tula River. They also formed as a community near the Barlik river in present-day northern Mongolia.
Oghuz expansion by means of military campaigns went at least as far as the Volga River and Ural Mountains, but the geographic limits of their dominance fluctuated in the steppe areas extending north and west from the Aral Sea. Accounts of Arab geographers and travelers portray the Oghuz ethnic group as lacking centralized authority and being governed by a number of "kings" and "chieftains." Because of their disparate nature as a polity and the vastness of their domains, Oghuz tribes rarely acted in concert. Hence, by the late 10th century, the bonds of their confederation began to loosen. At that time, a clan leader named Seljuk founded a dynasty and the empire that bore his name on the basis of those Oghuz elements that had migrated southward into present-day Turkmenistan and Iran. The Seljuk Empire was centered in Persia, from which Oghuz groups spread into Azerbaijan and Anatolia.
After the fall of Göktürk kingdom, Oghuz tribes migrated to the area of Transoxiana, in western Turkestan, in modern Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan. This land became known as the "Oghuz steppe" which is an area between the Caspian and Aral Seas. Ibn al-Athir, an Arab historian, stated that the Oghuz Turks had come to Transoxiana in the period of the caliph Al-Mahdi in the years between 775 and 785. In the period of the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun (813–833), the name Oghuz starts to appear in the Islamic historiography. By 780 AD, the eastern parts of the Syr Darya were ruled by the Karluk Turks and the western region (Oghuz steppe) was ruled by the Oghuz Turks.
The name Turkmen first appears in written sources of the 10th century to distinguish those Oghuz groups who migrated south into the Seljuk domains and accepted Islam from those that had remained in the steppe. Gradually, the term took on the properties of an ethnonym and was used exclusively to designate Muslim Oghuz, especially those who migrated away from the Syrdariya Basin. By the 13th century, the term Turkmen supplanted the designation Oghuz altogether. The origin of the word Turkmen remains unclear. According to popular etymologies as old as the 11th century, the word derives from Turk plus the Iranian element manand, and means "resembling a Turk." Modern scholars, on the other hand, have proposed that the element man /men acts as an intensifier and have translated the word as "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks."
In the 11th century, Seljuk domains stretched from the delta of the Amu Darya delta into Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus region, Syria, and Asia Minor. In 1040 the Seljuk Turks crossed the Oxus from the north, and having defeated Masud, sultan of Ghazni, raised Toghrul Beg, grandson of Seljuk, to the throne of Iran, founding the Seljukid dynasty, with its capital at Nishapur. A younger brother of Toghrul, Daud, took possession of Merv and Herat. Toghrul was succeeded by his nephew Alp Arslan (the Great Lion), who was buried at Merv. It was about this time that Merv reached the zenith of her glory. In 1055 Seljuk forces entered Baghdad, becoming masters of the Islamic heartlands and important patrons of Islamic institutions. Until these revolts, Turkmen tribesmen were an integral part of the Seljuk military forces. Turkmen migrated with their families and possessions on Seljuk campaigns into Azerbaijan and Anatolia, a process that began the Turkification of these areas. During this time, Turkmen also began to settle the area of present-day Turkmenistan. Prior to the Turkmen habitation, most of this desert had been uninhabited, while the more habitable areas along the Caspian Sea, Kopetdag Mountains, Amu Darya, and Murgap River (Murgap Deryasy) were populated predominantly by Iranians. The city-state of Merv was an especially large sedentary and agricultural area, important as both a regional economic-cultural center and a transit hub on the Silk Road. The last powerful Seljuk ruler, Sultan Sanjar (d. 1157), witnessed the fragmentation and destruction of the empire because of attacks by Turkmen and other tribes. During the reign of Sultan Sanjar or Sinjar of the same house, in the middle of the 11th century, Merv was overrun by the Turkish tribes of the Ghuzz from beyond the Oxus. It eventually passed under the sway of the rulers of Khwarizm (Khiva). After mixing with the settled peoples in Turkmenistan, the Oguz living north of the Kopet-Dag Mountains gradually became known as the Turkmen.
The Seljuk empire broke down in the second half of the 12th century, and the Turkmen became independent tribal federation.
In 1157, the rule of Seljuks dynasty came to an end in the province of Khorasan. The Turkic rulers of Khiva took control of the area of Turkmenistan, under the title of Khwarezmshahs in 1221, central Asia suffered a disastrous invasion by Mongol warriors who swept across the region from their base in eastern Asia.
Under their commander, Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, the Mongols conquered Khwarezm and burned the city of Merv to the ground. The Mongol leader ordered the massacre of Merv's inhabitants as well as the destruction of the province's farms and irrigation works which effectively ended the Iranian dominance in urban areas and agricultural communities of khwarezm. These areas were soon repopulated by the Turkmen who survived the invasion and had retreated northward to the plains of Kazakhstan or westward to the shores of the Caspian Sea. After the division of the Mongol Empire, present Turkmenistan was passed to Chagatai Khanate except southernmost part was belonged to Ilkhanate.
Small, semi-independent states arose under the rule of the region's tribal chiefs later in the 14th century. In the 1370s, Amir Timur (also known as Tamerlane), one of the greatest conquerors in human history, captured Turkmen states once more and established the short lived Timurid Empire, which collapsed after Timur's death in 1405, when Turkmens became independent once again.
As a whole, the 14th to 16th centuries was a period in which the Turkmen's dislocation due to the Mongol invasions gave way to new political groupings which became tribal groupings which have continued to modern day.
In addition to the new political arrangements, historical sources suggest that a large tribal union called the Salor confederation remained from the original Oghuz tribes and into modern times. In the late 17th century, the confederation fell apart and three senior tribes moved eastward and then southward. Of these tribes, the Yomud split into eastern and western groups, and the Teke migrated to the Akhal region near the Kopetdag Mountains and eventually into the Murgap River basin. Other Salor tribes moved into the region near the Amu Darya delta and into other parts of modern-day southeast Turkmenistan. Salor groups also live in Turkey, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and China.
The history of Turkmenistan from the 16th until the 19th century is mostly known by the relations with the states of Iran, Khiva, Bukhara, and Afghanistan. Wars of the period took place mostly in the lands of Turkmenistan. The invasion of the Khan of Khiva, Abul Gazi Bahadur Khan, from 1645 to 1663, caused some difficulties to the Turkmens, coupled with the impact of the drought that occurred at about the same period, most of the Turkmens within the khanate moved to areas around Akhal, Atrek, Murgap and Tedjen. In this period, many of the Turkmens tribes living around the Lake Aral left also migrated because of pressures from both the Khanate of Khiva and the Kalmyks and migrated to around Astrakhan and Stavropol in northern Caucasus.
Popular epics such as Koroglu, and other oral traditions, took shape during this period which could be taken as a beginning of Turkmen nation. The poets and thinkers of the time such as Devlet Mehmed Azadi and Makhtumkuli became a voice for an emerging nation, calling for unity, brotherhood and peace among Turkmen tribes. Makhtumkuli is venerated in Turkmenistan as the father of the national literature. Most of present Turkmenistan was divided between Khanates of Khiva and Bukhara except southernmost parts were handed to Persia. Nader, was shah of Persia conquered it in 1740 but after him assassination in 1747, Turkmen lands were recaptured by Uzbek khanates of Khiva and Bukhara. During the 1830s, the Tekke Turkomans, then living on the Tejen River, were forced by the Persians to migrate northward. Khiva contested the advance of the Tekkes, but ultimately, about 1856, the latter became the sovereign power of southern and southeastern parts of present Turkmenistan.
In the 18th century Turkoman tribes came into contact with Tsarist Empire. The Russian Empire began to move into the area in 1869 with the establishment of the Caspian Sea port of Krasnovodsk, current-day Turkmenbashy. After the suppression of Khanates of Bukhara (1868) and Khiva (1873) the Turkmen area remained independent. Russians decided to move into Transcaspian region, allegedly to subdue Turkmen slave trade and banditry. The service of some Turkmen tribes, especially the Yomud, for the Khivan Khan also encouraged the Russia to punish them by raids into Khorazm, which killed hundreds. These wars culminated in the Battle of Geok Tepe in 1881 where General Skobelev massacred 7,000 Turkmen at the desert fortress of Geok Depe, near modern Ashgabat; another 8,000 were killed trying to flee across the desert. By 1894 imperial Russia had taken control of almost all of Turkmenistan except around part of Konye-Urgench was in Khiva and around part of Charju was in Emirate of Bukhara.
The Transcaspian Railway was started from the shores of the Caspian in 1879 in order to secure Russian control over the region and provide a rapid military route to the Afghan border. In 1885 a crisis was precipitated by the Russian annexation of the Pandjeh oasis, to the south of Merv, on a territory of modern Afghanistan, which nearly led to war with Britain. as it was thought that the Russians were planning to march on to Herat in Afghanistan. Until 1898 Transcaspia was part of the Governor-Generalship of the Caucasus and administered from Tiflis, but in that year it was made an Oblast of Russian Turkestan and governed from Tashkent. Nevertheless, Turkestan remained an isolated colonial outpost, with an administration that preserved many distinctive features from the previous Islamic regimes, including Qadis' courts and a 'native' administration that devolved much power to local 'Aksakals' (Elders). In 1897 the Transcaspian Railway reached Tashkent, and finally in 1906 a direct rail link with European Russia was opened across the steppe from Orenburg to Tashkent. This led to much larger numbers of Slavic settlers flowing into Turkestan than had hitherto been the case, and their settlement was overseen by a specially created Migration Department in St. Petersburg (Переселенческое Управление). This caused considerable discontent amongst the local Turkmen population, as mainly Russian-populated cities such as Ashgabat appeared.
The best-known Military Governor to have ruled the region from Ashkhabad was probably General Kuropatkin, whose authoritarian methods and personal style of governance made the province very difficult for his successors to control and led to a revolt in 1916. Consequently, the administration of Transcaspia became a byword for corruption and brutality within Russian Turkestan, as Russian administrators turned their districts into petty fiefdoms and extorted money from the local population. In 1908 Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen led a reforming commission to Turkestan which produced a monumental report detailing these abuses of power, administrative corruption and inefficiency.
Following the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, Ashgabat became a base for anti-Bolshevik counter-revolutionaries, who soon came under attack from the Tashkent Soviet. The Communists succeeded in taking control of Ashkhabad in the summer of 1918, forming a Soviet. In response, Junaid Khan and forces loyal to the old Russian regime joined together to drive out the Communists. In July 1919, these anti-Communist allies established the independent state of Transcaspia. A small British force, led by General Wilfrid Malleson, from Meshed (Persia) occupied Ashgabat and parts of southern Turkmenistan until 1919. It is alleged that 26 Baku Commissars were gunned down by British forces or their Transcaspian allies. The region was one of the last centres of Basmachi resistance to Bolshevik rule, with the last of the rebellious Turkoman fleeing across the border to Afghanistan and Iran in 1922–23.
In 27 of October 1924, the Turkestan ASSR was dissolved, in accordance with the decree of the Central
Executive Committee of the USSR and the Turkmen SSR became one of the republics of the Soviet Union. At this time the modern borders of Turkmenistan were formed. The Turkmen Government renamed Ashgabat into Poltoratsk after a local revolutionary, however the name "Ashgabat" was restored in 1927. In February 1925, the Turkmenistan Communist Party held its first Congress in Ashkhabad. From this period onward the city experienced rapid growth and industrialisation, although it was severely disrupted by the October 1948 Ashgabat earthquake. With an estimated surface wave magnitude of 7.3, the earthquake killed 10,000–110,000. According to other local sources, two-third of a population of 176,000 inhabitants perished.
In the 1950s, the 1375 kilometer long Qaraqum Canal was built. Draining the Amu-Darya river, it enabled huge areas to be opened for cotton production. It also greatly diminished the inflow of water to the Aral Sea, resulting in an ecological catastrophe.
Turkmenistan was not among the most economically developed Soviet republics, with largely agrarian economy, despite exploration and exploitation of enormous oil and gas resources – discovery of 62 trillion cubic feet Dawletabad gas field in the 1960s became the largest gas field find in the world outside Russia and Middle East.
Turkmenistan became independent on October 27, 1991, amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union (commemorated annually). The former head of Turkmenistan's Communist Party at the time of independence, Saparmurat Niyazov, was elected president of the newly independent nation in an uncontested election. At the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan in the autumn of 1991, the party decided to dissolve itself, a process that continued into 1992. In its place, the Turkmenistan Democratic Party (TDP) was organized, and on December 16, 1991, Saparmurat
Niyazov, who was elected President of Turkmenistan in October 1990, signed a decree officially
conferring TDP membership on former TCP members.
The authoritarian Niyazov, who has assumed the title of "Turkmenbashi", or "Leader of all Turkmen", was accused of developing a totalitarian cult of personality. His opus, the "Ruhnama", was made a mandatory reading in Turkmenistan's schools and months of the calendar were renamed after members of his family. Opposition parties are banned in Turkmenistan and the government controls all sources of information. In December 1999, Turkmenistan's constitution was amended to allow Niyazov to serve as president for life.
Niyazov was the main proponent of Turkmenistan's constitutional neutrality. Under this policy, Turkmenistan does not participate in any military alliance and does not contribute to United Nations monitoring forces. This in fact means an internal isolation of Turkmenistan from world politics.
In late 2004, Niyazov met with former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to discuss an oil contract in Turkmenistan for a Canadian corporation. In March 2005, news of this meeting caused an uproar amongst opposition circles in Canada, who claimed the affair could damage Chrétien's legacy.
In 2005, Niyazov announced that his country would downgrade its links with the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance of post-Soviet states. He furthermore promised free and fair elections by 2010 in a move that surprised many Western observers.
Niyazov acknowledged having heart disease in November 2006. On December 21, 2006, Niyazov died unexpectedly, leaving no heir-apparent and an unclear line of succession. A former deputy prime minister rumored to be the illegitimate son of Niyazov, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, became acting president. Under the constitution the Chairman of the People's Council, Öwezgeldi Ataýew, should have succeeded to the post. Ataýew was accused of crimes and removed from office.
In an election on February 11, 2007, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president with 89% of the vote and 95% turnout, although the election was condemned by outside observers.
Following his election, Berdimuhamedow moved to reduce foreign isolation and reversed some of Niyazov's more egocentric and damaging policies. Internet cafes offering free and uncensored Web access opened in Ashgabat, compulsory education was extended from nine to ten years and classes in sports and foreign languages were re-introduced into the curriculum, and the government announced plans to open several specialized schools for the arts. President Berdimuhamedow has called for reform of education, health care and pension systems, and government officials of non-Turkmen ethnic origin who had been sacked by Niyazov have returned to work.
President Berdimuhamedow began to reduce the personality cult surrounding Niyazov and the office of the president. He called for an end to the elaborate pageants of music and dancing that formerly greeted the president on his arrival anywhere, and said that the Turkmen "sacred oath", part of which states that the speaker's tongue should shrivel if he ever speaks ill of Turkmenistan or its president, should not be recited multiple times a day but reserved for "special occasions." Previously the oath was recited at the beginning and end of TV news reports, by students at the beginning of the school day, and at the beginning of virtually all meetings of any official nature that took place in the country.
However, Berdimuhamedow is criticized for building a personality cult of his own (albeit a modest one compared to his predecessor's). For example, he is the only person whose first name is used in government press releases; other officials always have their first names abbreviated to a single letter. He is also sometimes called the "Turkmen leader" by his country's press. Additionally, while his regime is somewhat less heavy-handed than Niyazov's, it is still rigidly authoritarian.
On March 19, 2007, Berdimuhamedow reversed one of Niyazov's most unpopular decrees by giving pensions back to 100,000 elderly people whose pensions Niyazov had slashed in the face of an unspecified budget crisis.
On March 20, in a decision of significant symbolic weight in the ongoing rejection of Niyazov's personality cult, he abolished the power of the president to rename any landmarks, institutions, or cities.
On March 31, 2007, the 20th Congress of the Halk Maslahaty began in the city of Mary. New laws relating to agricultural efficiency were passed, and it was decreed that school teachers' wages would soon rise by 40%.
On May 12, Russia and Turkmenistan announced that they had reached an agreement to build a new natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Russia, via Kazakhstan. This has led to speculation that the European Union will become more energy-dependent on Russia, which buys Turkmen gas at below-market prices, and that as a result Russia's political influence in Eastern Europe may increase.
On May 16, in what was described as one of his boldest moves up to that time, Berdimuhamedow sacked a high-ranking security official who had been instrumental in building and maintaining the late president Niyazov's extensive cult of personality. According to official Turkmen news media, Akmyrat Rejepow, the head of the presidential security service, was removed from office by presidential decree and transferred to "another job." The nature of this job was not specified.
On June 14, Berdimuhamedow re-opened the Turkmen Academy of Sciences, which had been shut down by his predecessor. According to reports, as of June 25 Berdimuhamedow had also ordered the closure of the International Fund of Saparmurat Niyazov, the former Turkmenbashi's personal private fund, and stated his intent to begin a series of reforms in the military.
Berdimuhamedow celebrated his 50th birthday on June 29, 2007. He was awarded the Watan Order (Order of the Motherland) for his "outstanding achievements" – a gold and diamond pendant weighing about 1 kilogram. The President also published his biography and held a gala birthday celebration. The government also issued 400 gold and silver coins decorated with the president's portrait.
In 2008, Berdimuhamedow restored the traditional names of the months and days of the week (Niyazov had renamed them after himself and his mother, among other things), and announced plans to move the infamous gold rotating statue of Niyazov from Ashgabat's central square. He has not, however, moved toward Western-style democracy.
In September 2008, a new constitution was accepted by the People's Council. Parliamentary elections under this new constitution were held on December 14, 2008.
In December 2008, Berdimuhamedow announced changes to the national anthem, which involved removing the repeated references to former President Niyazov. The new version was to take effect on December 21, the second anniversary of Niyazov's death. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30208 |
Geography of Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the north-east, and Kazakhstan to the north-west. It is the southernmost republic of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the loose federation created at the end of 1991 by most of the Post-Soviet states.
Its longest border is with the Caspian Sea (). The other borders are with Iran (to the south, ), Afghanistan (to the south, ), Uzbekistan (to the north and east, ) and Kazakhstan (to the north, ). Turkmenistan is slightly larger than the US state of California in territory, occupying 488,100 km². By area, Turkmenistan ranks fourth among the former Soviet republics, after Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The country's greatest extent from west to east is , and its greatest north-to-south distance is .
Terrain of Turkmenistan consists of a flat-to-rolling sandy desert, the Karakum, with its dunes slowly rising to the south; by the time they reach the border with Iran, they become the low mountains known as the Kopet Dag. The Caspian Sea washes the western shores of this mostly arid country.
Turkmenistan's average elevation is 100 to 220 meters above sea level, with its highest point being Mount Aýrybaba (3,139 m) in the Köýtendag Range of the Pamir-Alay chain in the south-east, and its lowest point being the Akjagaýa Depression in Sarygamysh Lake, close to 100 meters below sea level (the actual water level in Sarygamysh Lake fluctuates widely from –110 m at its shallowest to –60 m).. The Mount Arlan rises sharply above sea level in the Great Balkhan Range in western Turkmenistan (Balkan Province). Nearly 80% of the republic lies within the Turan Depression, which slopes from south to north and from east to west.
Turkmenistan's mountains include 600 km of the northern reaches of the Kopet Dag Range, which it shares with Iran. The Kopet Dag Range is a region characterized by foothills, dry and sandy slopes, mountain plateaus, and steep ravines; Mount Şahşah (2,912 m), also known as Mount Rizeh, southwest of Ashgabat, is the highest elevation of the Kopet Dag Range in Turkmenistan. The Kopet Dag is undergoing tectonic transformation, meaning that the region is threatened by earthquakes such as the one that destroyed Ashgabat in 1948. The Krasnovodsk and Üstýurt plateaus are the prominent topographical features of northwestern Turkmenistan.
A dominant feature of the republic's landscape is the Garagum Desert (also known as Karakum), which occupies about 350,000 square kilometers (see Environmental Issues). Shifting winds create desert mountains that range from two to twenty meters in height and may be several kilometers in length. Chains of such structures are common, as are steep elevations and smooth, concrete-like clay deposits formed by the rapid evaporation of flood waters in the same area for a number of years. Large marshy salt flats, formed by capillary action in the soil, exist in many depressions, including the Garaşor, which occupies 1,500 square kilometers in the northwest. The Sandykly Desert west of the Amu Darya river is the southernmost extremity of the Qizilqum Desert, most of which lies in Uzbekistan to the northeast.
Turkmenistan has a cold desert climate that is severely continental. Summers are long (from May through September), hot, and dry, while winters generally are mild and dry, although occasionally cold and damp in the north. Most precipitation falls between January and May; precipitation is slight throughout the country, with annual averages ranging from in the Kopet Dag to in the northwest. The capital, Ashgabat, close to the Iranian border in south-central Turkmenistan, averages of rainfall annually. Average annual temperatures range from in Ashgabat to in Daşoguz, on the Uzbek border in north-central Turkmenistan. The almost constant winds are northerly, northeasterly, or westerly.
Almost 80% of the territory of Turkmenistan lacks a constant source of surface water flow. Its main rivers are located only in the southern and eastern peripheries; a few smaller rivers on the northern slopes of the Kopetdag are diverted entirely to irrigation. The most important river is the Amu Darya, which has a total length of 2,540 km from its farthest tributary, making it the longest river in Central Asia. The Amu Darya flows across northeastern Turkmenistan, thence eastward to form the southern borders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Damming and irrigation uses of the Amu Darya have had severe environmental effects on the Aral Sea, into which the river flows (see Environmental Issues). The river's average annual flow is 1,940 cubic meters per second. Other major rivers are the Tejen (1,124 km); the Murgab (852 km); and the Atrek (660 km).
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, environmental regulation is largely unchanged in Turkmenistan. The new government created the Ministry of Natural Resources Use and Environmental Protection in July 1992, with departments responsible for environmental protection, protection of flora and fauna, forestry, hydrometeorology, and administrative planning. Like other CIS republics, Turkmenistan has established an Environmental Fund based on revenues collected from environmental fines, but the fines generally are too low to accumulate significant revenue. Thanks to the former Soviet system of game preserves and the efforts of the Society for Nature Conservation and the Academy of Sciences, flora and fauna receive some protection in the republic; however, "hard-currency hunts" by wealthy Western and Arab businesspeople already are depleting animals on preserves.
Contamination of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salination, water-logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the Aral Sea; desertification
"party to:" Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection
"signed, but not ratified:" none of the selected agreements
According to estimates, as a result of desertification processes and pollution, biological productivity of the ecological systems in Turkmenistan has declined by 30% to 50% in recent decades. The Karakum and Kyzyl Kum deserts are expanding at a rate surpassed on a planetary scale only by the desertification process in the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa. Between 8,000 and 10,000 km² of new desert now appears each year in Central Asia.
The most irreparable type of desertification is the salinization process that forms marshy salt flats. A major factor that contributes to these conditions is inefficient use of water because of weak regulation and failure to charge for water that is used. Efficiency in application of water to the fields is low, but the main problem is leakage in main and secondary canals, especially Turkmenistan's main canal, the Karakum Canal. Nearly half of the canal's water seeps out into lakes and salt swamps along its path. Excessive irrigation brings salts to the surface, forming salt marshes that dry into unusable clay flats. In 1989 Turkmenistan's Institute for Desert Studies claimed that the area of such flats had reached 10,000 km².
The type of desertification caused by year-round pasturing of cattle has been termed the most devastating in Central Asia, with the gravest situations in Turkmenistan and the Kazakh steppe along the eastern and northern coasts of the Caspian Sea. Wind erosion and desertification also are severe in settled areas along the Garagum Canal; planted windbreaks have died because of soil waterlogging and/or salinization. Other factors promoting desertification are the inadequacy of the collector-drainage system built in the 1950s and inappropriate application of chemicals.
Turkmenistan both contributes to and suffers from the consequences of the desiccation of the Aral Sea. Because of excessive irrigation, Turkmen agriculture contributes to the steady drawdown of sea levels. In turn, the Aral Sea's desiccation, which had shrunk that body of water by an estimated 59,000 square kilometers by 1994, profoundly affects economic productivity and the health of the population of the republic. Besides the cost of ameliorating damaged areas and the loss of at least part of the initial investment in them, salinization and chemicalization of land have reduced agricultural productivity in Central Asia by an estimated 20 to 25%. Poor drinking water is the main health risk posed by such environmental degradation. In Dashhowuz Province, which has suffered the greatest ecological damage from the Aral Sea's desiccation, bacteria levels in drinking water exceeded ten times the sanitary level; 70% of the population has experienced illnesses, many with hepatitis, and infant mortality is high. Experts have warned that inhabitants will have to evacuate the province by the end of the century unless a comprehensive cleanup program is undertaken. Turkmenistan has announced plans to clean up some of the Aral Sea fallout with financial support from the World Bank.
The most productive cotton lands in Turkmenistan (the middle and lower Amu Darya and the Murgap oasis) receive as much as 250 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, compared with the average application of thirty kilograms per hectare. Furthermore, most fertilizers are so poorly applied that experts have estimated that only 15 to 40% of the chemicals can be absorbed by cotton plants, while the remainder washes into the soil and subsequently into the groundwater. Cotton also uses far more pesticides and defoliants than other crops, and application of these chemicals often is mishandled by farmers. For example, local herdsmen, unaware of the danger of DDT, have reportedly mixed the pesticide with water and applied it to their faces to keep away mosquitoes. In the late 1980s, a drive began in Central Asia to reduce agrochemical usage. In Turkmenistan the campaign reduced fertilizer use 30% between 1988 and 1989. In the early 1990s, use of some pesticides and defoliants declined drastically because of the country's shortage of hard currency.
Area:
"total:" 488,100 km²
"land:" 469,930 km²
"water:" 18,170 km²
Area - comparative: slightly larger than the US state of California
Land boundaries:
"total:" 3,736 km
"border countries:" Afghanistan 744 km, Iran 992 km, Kazakhstan 379 km, Uzbekistan 1,621 km
Coastline: 0 km
"Note:" Turkmenistan borders the Caspian Sea. Its coastline with the Caspian Sea is 1,768 km.
Maritime claims: none (landlocked)
Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, sulfur, salt
Land use:
"arable land:" 3.89%
"permanent crops:" 0.12%
"other:" 95.98% (2011)
Irrigated land: 19,910 km² (2006)
Total renewable water resources: 24.77 km2 (2011) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30209 |
Demographics of Turkmenistan
The Demographics of Turkmenistan is about the demographic features of the population of Turkmenistan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. The ethnic majority in Turkmenistan call themselves Turkmen.
The population of Turkmenistan increased from 1.5 million in the 1959 census to 4.5 million in the 1995 census. The population continued growing to over 5 million in 2001-2006.
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR):
Source: "UN World Population Prospects"
The table shows the ethnic composition of Turkmenistan's population (in percent) between 1926 and 1995. There has been a sharp decline in the Slavic ethnic groups (Russians and Ukrainians) and also Kazakhs and Tatars since independence (as captured in the 1979 and 1995 censuses). Uzbeks are now the second largest ethnic group in Turkmenistan, with Russians relegated to the third place. According to data announced in Ashgabat in February 2001, 91% of the population are Turkmen, 3% are Uzbeks, and 2% are Russians. Between 1989 and 2001 the number of Turkmen in Turkmenistan doubled (from 2.5 to 4.9 million), while the number of Russians dropped by two-thirds (from 334,000 to slightly over 100,000).
Formation of Azerbaijanis as an independent ethnic group in Turkmenistan coincides in the twentieth century. A massive influx of Azerbaijanis migrated to Turkmenistan due to the devastating earthquake in Shamakhi in 1902.
Beyler of Shamakhi settled mainly in Krasnovodsk and Ashabad (now known as Turkmenbashi and Ashgabad respectively). The Beyler's wealth spurred a big "investment boom" in Turkestan (Turkmenistan). Beyler began to build new buildings by using modernized technological equipment. In a short time, a large number of hotels, houses, teahouses, caravanserais, mosques, madrasas, schools, and theaters were built.
Azerbaijanis were also involved in the fight against the Bolsheviks. Azerbaijanis were found among the Basmachi fighters led by Enver Pasha, and some helped finance the movement. For decades, the fight against the colonial policy of Bolsheviks failed. Most of the members of Basmachi movement were killed in the battles of the independence of Turkestan, the other part were exiled to labor camps of Gulag.
During the 70 years of Soviet rule, Azerbaijani Bays and warriors were declared as a national enemy and their names were erased from history books. Today they have been rehabilitated.
At the period of the collapse of the USSR, 36,000 Azerbaijanis lived in Turkmenistan, now their population has reached over 52,000.
While living in Turkmenistan, Azerbaijanis have contributed to the culture and art of the country. Musical instruments such as Gaval, Nagara, Tar, Saz and Kamancheh have gained popularity in Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijani dishes like dovga, syabzi-frying, and sweet rice have become favorite dishes of Turkmenistanis. Today, the Azerbaijani community of Turkmenistan has its own mosques, musicians, and dancers.
Some famous Azerbaijanis from Turkmenistan are: the chief of Baku City Executive Power Hajibala Abutalibov, Elnur Huseynov who represented Azerbaijan twice in the Eurovision Song Contest and the winner of The Voice of Turkey, singer Natavan Habibi, a well-known geologist Shamil Azizbeko, film director Ajdar Ibrahimov, national heroes of Azerbaijan Fakhraddin Musayev and Tahir Bagirov, the first woman in the oil industry, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1959-1983. Tahira Tahirova also was born in Turkmenistan.
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook as of September 2018, unless otherwise indicated.
Demography of Central Asia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30210 |
Economy of Turkmenistan
The economy of Turkmenistan is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Turkmenistan is largely a desert country with intensive agriculture in irrigated areas, and huge gas and oil resources. In terms of natural gas reserves, it is ranked 6th in the world. Turkmenistan’s two largest agricultural crops are cotton, most of which is produced for export, and wheat, which is domestically consumed. Turkmenistan is among the top ten producers of cotton in the world.
From 1998 to 2005, Turkmenistan suffered from a lack of adequate export routes for natural gas and from obligations on extensive short-term external debt. At the same time, however, total exports rose by an average of roughly 15% per year from 2003 to 2008, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices. As in the Soviet era, central planning and state control pervade the system, and the Niyazov government (in power 1991–2006) consistently rejected market reform programs. The state subsidized a wide variety of commodities and services from the early 1990s to 2019. Since his election in 2007, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow has unified the country's dual currency exchange rate, ordered the redenomination of the manat, reduced state subsidies for gasoline, and initiated development of a special tourism zone (Awaza) on the Caspian Sea. Since 2009, Turkmenistan has maintained the fixed exchange rate. As of 2018, 1 United States dollar is equivalent to 3.50 Turkmenistan manat.
The budget-making process and its implementation go according to the Law “On Budget System”. The law fixes legal foundations of organizing management and operating budget system, regulates interrelations between budgets of all levels. The government of Turkmenistan discusses the state budget draft and submits it to the President of Turkmenistan. Prior to one month of the beginning of the financial year the President of Turkmenistan submits to the Assembly of Turkmenistan (Mejlis) the state budget draft for consideration and adoption.
Budget statistics are unreliable because the government spends large amounts of extra-budgetary funds. In 2012, it is estimated that the budget expenditures are US$26.9 billion, and revenues are US$26.4 billion, creating a slight deficit. Ministry of Finance is responsible for state finances.
In the post-Soviet era, Turkmenistan’s industrial sector has been dominated increasingly by the fuel and cotton processing industries to the detriment of light industry. Between 1991 and 2004, some 14 new cotton-processing plants were opened, sharply increasing the capability of processing domestically produced cotton. The construction industry depends mainly on government building projects because construction of private housing is a low priority.
Turkmenistan's major gas deposits were discovered in its central and eastern areas in the 1940s and '50s, and in the 1980s the republic became the second largest producer of gas in the Soviet Union, behind the Russian SFSR. During the Soviet era gas was exported mainly to other Soviet republics, as Turkmenistan steadily increased delivery from about 9.2 million m³ in 1940 to about 234 million m³ in 1960 and about 51 billion m³ in 1975. This export was under centralised control, and most of the export revenue was absorbed into the Soviet central budget.
This changed in 1991, when Turkmenistan gained independence and established full control over gas export and export revenues. However, Soviet-era pipelines dictate that much of the gas goes to the Caucasus, Russia and Ukraine. In the 1990s many of Turkmenistan's gas customers in the CIS failed to pay on time or negotiated barter deals. In the mid-1990s Turkmenistan stopped delivering gas to some CIS members, citing failure to pay and unprofitable barter deals. At the same time, the government tried to attract investments in building gas pipelines via Iran to Turkey and Western Europe via Afghanistan to Pakistan. Neither deal went through due to an unfavourable regional security environment and high costs; inflation and the budget deficit rose but privatisation was resisted. In the late 1990s the government renegotiated its export and price arrangements with Gazprom and renewed deliveries to Georgia, Ukraine, and some other countries. It also opened its first pipeline not to pass through Russia, the Korpezhe-Kurt Kui Pipeline.
The figures in the table below are taken from BP Statistical Review. The unit is billion cubic meters (bcm) per year.
It lists gas production, consumption, exports as total and also divided into countries. One observes that the production and exports
peaked in 2008 and dramatically decreased in 2009. This is due an explosion that occurred in the Central Asia–Center gas pipeline system in April 2009 for which Turkmenistan blamed Gazprom. Russia later restricted its imports to only around 10 bcm, and then 5 bcm. Production and exports started increasing again from 2010 owing to the opening of the Central Asia–China gas pipeline. Exports to Russia ceased in late 2015. Supplies to Iran were cancelled in early 2017, with Ashgabat claiming Tehran owed some $1.8 billion for supplies delivered nearly 10 years before.
As of 2010, Turkmenistan had 202,000 barrels per day oil production. Dragon Oil produced around 50,000 barrels per day. Domestic consumption was about 100,000 barrels per day.
The oil production data in the table below are taken from BP Statistical Review.
Three cement plants operate in Turkmenistan. These are located near Ashgabat, Balkan and Lebap provinces. Total production in 2013 is estimated to exceed 2 million tonnes.
Turkmenistan is building a potash plant with annual capacity of 2.8 million tonnes of potash fertilizers. The bulk of them will be exported since the domestic demand in the country does not exceed 10,000 tonnes.
The construction of the plant that would produce 640,000 tonnes/year of urea (carbamide) and 400,000 tonnes/year of ammonia is due to be completed by June 2014.
By 2016, the country is expected to produce 1m tonnes of urea (carbamide) annually.
In 2017, a potash plant with a capacity of over 1 million tonnes, which is said to be Central Asia's biggest, is opened.
The financial system is under full state control. The banking system, which was reduced substantially after the 1998 financial crisis, includes 12 national banks. These institutions have the same basic division of responsibility as in the Soviet era, overseen by the Central Bank of Turkmenistan. Lending operations and household savings have not been important functions of this system. In 2005 an estimated 95 percent of loans went to state enterprises. Turkmengosstrakh, the state insurance firm, has a complete monopoly of the very small insurance industry.
In the early 2000s, the contribution of Turkmenistan’s state-run agriculture sector to gross domestic product increased under close state supervision. As during the Soviet era, cotton is the dominant agricultural commodity because it is an export staple. However, in recent years state policy makers have increased the range of crops with the aim of making Turkmenistan self-sufficient in food. In the post-Soviet era, the area planted to grains (mainly wheat) has nearly tripled. However, most agricultural land is of poor quality and requires irrigation. Turkmenistan’s irrigation infrastructure and water-use policies have not responded efficiently to this need. Irrigation now depends mainly on the decrepit karakum Canal, which carries water across Turkmenistan from the Amu Darya. The Dostluk dam, opened at Serakhs on the Iranian border in 2005, has increased available irrigation water and improved efficiency. Plans call for a similar dam on the Atrek River west of Ashgabat. Private farmers grow most of Turkmenistan’s fruits and vegetables (chiefly tomatoes, watermelons, grapes, and onions), but all production phases of the main cash crops—grain and cotton—remain under state control. In 2006 grain crop failures led to steadily increasing bread lines and reinstatement of a ration system in most regions. At the root of those failures was a culture of falsifying output figures together with poor administration of the sector. In 2018, independent media reported food shortages in the country, with hundreds of people queuing for hours to buy bread and flour.
In 2016, Turkmenistan exported $6.987 billion in goods making it the 100th largest export economy in the world. The top exports are gas, crude oil, petrochemicals, textiles and cotton fiber. Most of these exports will end up in China 70%, Turkey 5.3%, Italy 5.3%, Afghanistan 4.5%, Russia 4.1%.
Also in that year Turkmenistan imported $5.001 billion in goods resulting it being the 121th largest importer in the world. This is $1.986 billion less in imports compared to exports meaning the country has a positive trade balance of $1.986 billion. Its top imports are machinery and equipment, chemicals, foodstuffs. The top origins of imports are Turkey 26.4%, Russia 10.5%, Japan 8.6%, Germany 8.2%, South Korea 7.8%, China 7.2%, Italy 5.2%.
Recent statistics are not available on Turkmenistan’s labor force. In 2004 the labor force was estimated to include more than 2.3 million workers, 48.2 percent of whom worked in agriculture, 37.8 percent in services, and 14 percent in industry and construction. Because the state dominates the economy, an estimated 90 percent of workers are in effect state employees. Unemployment statistics are not available because unemployment does not exist officially. It is believed that downsizing the government workforce, which began in 2003, increased unemployment in subsequent years. However, it is estimated that the unemployment rate is 11% as of a 2014 estimate.
The average monthly salary in Turkmenistan in 2007 was 507 TMT (178 USD) and the same indicator in 2012 was 943 TMT (331 USD). This is equivalent to 86% increase.
This dramatic increase is mainly due to the yearly increase of 10% of the state employer salaries by the Government of Turkmenistan.
By 1999, privatization in trade, catering, consumer services was fully completed. Availability of adequate legal base, opening of credit lines, including the foreign ones, simplified the procedure of private enterprises opening and licensing, led to enlargement of the sphere of entrepreneurship. The private sector dominates in agriculture (60%), trade (70%) and transport (56%). Turkmenistan plans to privatize several state companies during 2013-2016.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1993–2017.
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
Industrial production growth rate:
official government estimate: 22% (2003 est.)
Electricity:
Electricity - production by source:
Exchange rates:
Turkmen manats per US$1 – 5,200 (January 2000), 5,350 (January 1999), 4,070 (January 1997), 2,400 (January 1996)
"in recent years the unofficial rate has hovered around 24,000 to 25,000 Turkmen manats to the dollar. The official rate has consistently been 5,200 Manat to the dollar."
After denomination of national currency the last official rate is 3.5 manat-1$ | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30212 |
Telecommunications in Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan has a state-controlled press and monitored communication systems.
Turkmenistan's telecommunications services are considered to be the least developed of all the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Overall, the telecom market in this predominantly rural country is relatively small but has been trying boldly to expand in recent years. The state-owned Turkmen Telecom has been the primary provider of public telephone, email and internet services, and through a subsidiary has been operating a GSM mobile network in competition with a private mobile operator, BCTI (BCTI became MTS Turkmenistan in 2005).
The launch of the first Turkmen communication satellite TurkmenSat 1 is scheduled for launch in March 2015, the satellite has an anticipated service life of 15 years. The satellite will be launched aboard SpaceX Falcon 9. The satellite is built by French Thales Alenia Space and is from the Spacebus 4000 family. The satellite will cover Europe and significant part of Asian countries and Africa and will have transmission for TV, radio broadcasting and the internet. The satellite's operations will be controlled by the state-run Turkmenistan National Space Agency (TNSA).
BCTI was the only GSM operator in the country with a 10-year exclusive license granted in 1994. Due to lack of competition, BCTI continued to operate without investing much to cover rural areas. The expensive cost of the service has limited the number of subscribers to a very small percentage of the general population.
The Mobile phone sector started to improve rapidly after the expiration of company's exclusive license in 2004. The Russian mobile phone operator MTS acquired BCTI and state owned communication company TurkmenTelekom opened a new subsidiary, Altyn Asyr. The number of mobile phone subscribers has now reached over 4,440,000 (MTS - 1,440,000 and
Altyn Asyr GSM 3,000,000 ). With a population of 5 million, this translates into 88.8% mobile penetration rate.
Turkmenistan gained access to the Internet in 1997 through a contract with MCI Communications (later became MCI WorldCom). A small number of independent Internet Service Providers were forced out of business in 2001 when TurkmenTelecom was granted a monopoly over data services. Dependence on expensive satellite channels limited the availability of Internet to only two thousand subscribers. To upgrade the Internet backbone, Ministry of Communication signed a contract with TATA Communications for routing traffic through Transit-Asia-Europe fiber optic channel. As a result of this development, TurkmenTelecom started offering an access to the higher speed Internet with ADSL to the consumers in Turkmenistan.
In 2008, MTS started offering Internet service to mobile subscribers via GPRS. Altyn Asyr was first to launch 3G and 2 mbps mobile internet service in March 2010. The move surprised mobile customers as the provider was known for inferior but cheaper service. In 2013 Altyn Asyr launched a 4G network based on LTE. In 2013, unlimited use of the internet became available, reducing the total cost of services from Turkmentelecom.
Country code (Top level domain): TM
An Analog TV signal feed of 5 national channels is receivable over-the-air in all living areas across the country. Foreign TV channels are watched with digital satellite receiver. In some places of Ashgabat, cable service is available where satellite dishes are not allowed to be installed. DVB-T test transmission is only at the capital, no digital switch-over plan yet.
List of broadcast stations:
Previously, all 7 of the national channels were aired on the Yamal satellites for an international audience. Since 1 July 2016 all national channels in Turkmenistan are broadcast by the TürkmenÄlem 52°E national satellite that was launched on 27 April 2015.
Telephones - main lines in use:
500,000 (2006)
"domestic:"
500 automatic telephone stations and 500,000 telephone numbers.
"international:"
linked by cable and microwave radio relay to other Commonwealth of Independent States republics and to other countries by leased connections to the Moscow international gateway switch; a new telephone link from Ashgabat to Iran has been established; a new exchange in Ashgabat switches international traffic through Turkey via Intelsat; satellite earth stations - 1 Orbita and 1 Intelsat
List of newspapers in Turkmenistan:
Starting from 2007 the Ministry of Communication has organised the international exhibition "TurkmenTel" each year. Leading companies from all around the world are invited to Ashgabat to exhibit their technologies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30213 |
Transport in Turkmenistan
Transport in Turkmenistan includes such as roadways, railways, airways, seaways, waterways, oil, gas and water pipelines.
The transportation and transport infrastructure in Turkmenistan are the fastest developing sectors of the national economy.
During Soviet times Turkmenistan's transportation infrastructure was in general disrepair and neglected.
Since 1991 Turkmenistan has completed a number of major national and international transportation projects.
Turkmenistan is also part of the international transport corridor created under the Ashgabat agreement, signed by India, Oman, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, for creating an international transport and transit corridor facilitating transportation of goods between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.
In 2014, Turkmenistan had an estimated 26 airports. One heliport was in operation.
There are three international airports in the country. One is under construction.
Other main provincial airports are Dashoguz Airport, Balkanabat Airport and Türkmenabat Airport.
Flights are available from Ashgabat and Turkmenbashi to over 21 international destinations in United Kingdom, France, Germany, Turkey, Russia, China, India, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
Turkmenistan Airlines (Türkmenhowaýollary) is the flag carrier airline of Turkmenistan, headquartered in Ashgabat. The airline connects its home base of Ashgabat with destinations in Russia, Europe and Asia. All its international flights are operated by Western-trained pilots using two-class configuration Boeing aircraft. In 2012, the airline carried 57.5 thousand passengers to 15 international destinations and 90 thousand passengers on domestic routes per month. This translates into 1.77 million passengers per year.
In 2014 Turkmenistan had of rail line, most of which runs close to the northern and southern borders. The Tejen – Serakhs – Mashhad railway, built in 1996 by Turkmenistan and Iran, has become a vital link of Central Asian, Russian, and European rail systems with South Asia and the Persian Gulf. In February 2006, the final construction phase began on the Trans-Karakum Railway, a direct link between Ashgabat and Dashoguz that will halve travel time between the southern and northern borders. Urban transportation systems are being upgraded in Ashgabat, Dashoguz, and Mary.
The Kazakhstan - Turkmenistan - Iran railway link is a part of the North–South Transport Corridor and is a long railway line connecting Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan with Iran and the Persian Gulf. It links Uzen in Kazakhstan with Bereket - Etrek in Turkmenistan and end at Gorgan in Iran's Golestan province. In Iran, the railway will be linked to national network making its way to the ports of the Persian Gulf. The project is estimated to cost $620m which is being jointly funded by the governments of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran.
The project also aims to create a multi-modal transport system to provide seamless connectivity in the region for passenger travel as well. The link of the North-South Transnational Railway will run up to 137 km in Kazakhstan, 470 km in Turkmenistan and 70 km in Iran.
Work in Turkmenistan commenced in Bereket in December 2007 and in Kazakhstan in July 2009.
In May 2013, a Bereket – Uzen section of the North-South Transnational Railway was completed.
In February 2014 long section between Bereket and Etrek was completed. Currently railway stations along the new railway are being constructed.
The Kazakhstan - Turkmenistan - Iran railway link will be officially inaugurated in October 2014.
In late 2016, a railway line from Atamyrat south to Imamnazar on the border with Afghanistan and further to Aqina in Andkhoy district was opened. It is expected to become part of a railway corridor through northern Afghanistan.
In 2001 Turkmenistan had an estimated 22,000 kilometers of roads, about 18,000 kilometers of which were paved. One major highway runs westward from Mary, along the Iranian border through Ashgabat and then to Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea; a second runs northwestward from the Afghanistan border through Turkmenabat, along the Uzbekistan border to Dashoguz. In the early 2000s, major road-building projects improved sections of the highway connecting Ashgabat with Balkanabat, Bereket, Turkmenbashi and Mary.
Turkmenistan has one of the lowest gas prices in the world, at $0.72 per gallon ($0.19 per liter).
The main inland waterways are the Amu Darya River, which runs along the northern border, and the Karakum Canal, which runs from east to west from the Amu Darya near the Afghanistan border through Mary and Ashgabat to Turkmenbashi on the Caspian coast. The 1,400-kilometer canal, designed mainly for irrigation, is navigable for 450 kilometers from its Caspian terminus. Because water is withdrawn for irrigation, the Amu Darya is navigable only about 250 kilometers downstream from the Afghanistan border to Turkmenabat.
The official beginning of the organized navigation on the Amu Darya is 1873. In 1890, based on the Amu Darya military dam. In 1917 there were on the Amu Darya 20 and 50 self-propelled vessels and about 1500 boats.
In 1923 was created the Central Asian Turkmenabat Shipping. Shipping Company provided services to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and 10 regions of Kazakhstan, and transported by water loads on 1.5 thousand kilometers. August 15, 1992 Turkmen River Shipping company was established. In 2003, it was renamed into State Company Turkmen Riverways (Türkmenderýaýollary).
Derýaýollary within the territory of Turkmenistan serves the navigable part of the Amu Darya length of 813 kilometers, and the Karakum Canal length of 200 kilometers. Combining a universal and specialized vessels capable of carrying a variety of cargo and passengers.
The main port at Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea is being renovated. Main shipping lines cross the Caspian to Astrakhan in Russia and Baku in Azerbaijan. Smaller Caspian ports are Alaja, Hazar, and Ekerem. Plans call for expansion of Ekerem into a second major Caspian port. In 2006 Turkmenistan had eight merchant marine vessels of more than 1,000 tons displacement, of which four were cargo ships, two were oil tankers, one was for refrigerated cargo, and one was a combination ore and oil ship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30214 |
Armed Forces of Turkmenistan
The Armed Forces of Turkmenistan (), known informally as the Turkmen National Army () is the national military of Turkmenistan. It consists of the Ground Forces, the Air Force and Air Defense Forces, Navy, and other independent formations (etc. Border Troops, Internal Troops and National Guard).
After the fall of the Soviet Union, significant elements of the Soviet Armed Forces Turkestan Military District remained on Turkmen soil, including several motor rifle divisions. In June 1992, the new Russian government signed a bilateral defence treaty with Turkmenistan, encouraging the new Turkmen government to create its own armed forces but stipulating that they were to be placed under joint command.
The Library of Congress Country Studies said that 'the Treaty on Joint Measures signed by Russia and Turkmenistan in July 1992 provided for the Russian Federation to act as guarantor of Turkmenistan's security and made former Soviet army units in the republic the basis of the new national armed forces. The treaty stipulated that, apart from border troops and air force and air defense units remaining under Russian control, the entire armed forces would be under joint command, which would gradually devolve to exclusive command by Turkmenistan over a period of ten years. For a transitional period of five years, Russia would provide logistical support and pay Turkmenistan for the right to maintain special installations, while Turkmenistan would bear the costs of housing, utilities, and administration.'
The Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies's "Moscow Defence Brief" said that in 1992-1993 Turkmenistan attempted to create a small national armed force based on the former 52nd Army (Soviet Union), which was located in the country and depended on support from Russia. Of the 300 formations and units, numbering 110,000 people, 200 were transferred to the command of Turkmenistan, 70 remained under Russia's jurisdiction, and 30 were either withdrawn or demobilized."
In 1994, the chief of staff and first deputy minister of defense was Major General Annamurat Soltanov, a career officer who had served in Cuba and Afghanistan; another deputy minister of defense, Major General Begdzhan Niyazov, had been a law enforcement administrator prior to his appointment. Russian commanders included Major General Viktor Zavarzin, chief of staff and first deputy commander of the Separate Combined-Arms Army of Turkmenistan, and commander of the Separate Combined-Arms Army of Turkmenistan and deputy minister of defense Lieutenant General Nikolai Kormiltsev. Russian Major General Vladislav Shunevich served together with Turkmen Major General Akmurad Kabulov as joint commanders of the border troops in the Turkmen Border Guard.
Turkmenistan consistently has refused to join multilateral CIS military groupings, but Russia maintains joint command of the three motorized rifle divisions in the Turkmenistani army. Under a 1993 bilateral military cooperation treaty, some 2,000 Russian officers serve in Turkmenistan on contract, and border forces (about 5,000 in 1995) are under joint Russian and Turkmenistani command. Altogether, about 11,000 Russian troops remained in Turkmenistan in mid-1996.' From V.I. Feskov et al. 2013 and Michael Holm's data, it appears that the three divisions were the 58th, 88th, and 209th District Training Centre (former 61 Training MRD) at Ashkhabad.
Jane's Information Group said in 2009 that "Turkmenistan's military is, even by the standards of Central Asia, poorly maintained and funded."
Turkmenistan's first military doctrine was adopted in 1994. Weeks after he was inaugurated for a first term, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov announced his decision to endorse the country’s second military doctrine, officially declaring neutrality and stating that the border with Afghanistan will be a national security priority. In 2016, a new military doctrine was adopted by Berdimuhamedov. In November 2018, President Berdimuhamedov reiterated this at a session of the State Security Council.
The Ministry of Defense of Turkmenistan is a government agency of the armed forces which is the executive body in implementing defense policies in Turkmenistan. It was founded in January 1992 with the assistance of the Russian Armed Forces. Most of the original employees were retired Soviet officials in the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR.
The Chief of the General Staff of Turkmen Armed Forces is the highest-ranking military officer in the military, being responsible for maintaining the operational command of the military and its three major branches.
The territorial Armed Forces of Turkmenistan are divided into 5 military districts in accordance with the administrative division of the country into 5 regions:
Each military district includes district military command and control bodies, military units, individual military units and subunits, military commissariats of etraps and cities with etrap rights. The Territorial Defence Troops of Turkmenistan also serve regional purposes.
The Turkmen military inherited several motor rifle divisions from the Soviet Armed Forces Turkestan Military District, forming the basis of the Turkmen ground forces. Among them was the 58th Motor Rifle Division at Kyzyl-Arvat. Interim Russian commanders in the first half of the 1990s included Major General Viktor Zavarzin, chief of staff and first deputy commander of the Separate Combined-Arms Army of Turkmenistan, and commander of the Separate Combined-Arms Army of Turkmenistan and deputy minister of defence Lieutenant General Nikolai Kormiltsev.
Today the ground forces include the 2nd, 3rd, 11th, and 22nd Motor Rifle Divisions.
The 11th Motor Rifle Division is the former Soviet 88th Motor Rifle Division. The 11th (according to other sources 357th) MSD behalf of Sultan Sanjar (former Soviet 88th MSD; Kushka officially - Serhetabat).
It was reported in January 2007 that on the Caspian Sea and the coastal zone to a depth of 350 kilometers, and on the Turkmen-Iranian border is located about 90% of the Army (22nd Motorized Division on the Caspian coast, 2nd and 3rd motorized divisions on the Turkmen-Iranian border, 11th Motorized Division on the Tajik-Afghan border).
The military ranks have reverted to traditional names and structure, and are now:
The rank of a marshal has also apparently been reintroduced. The real cash payment to the warrior rank in the army is about US$1.5 - 3 (2005 rates) per month. Only some of the conscript's time in the military is occupied with military service, the rest being occupied with "labour" (half a day) and "self-improvement" (2–3 hours a day) by reciting traditional Turkoman texts, learning songs and playing music.
The number of vehicles is around 2,000, the number of tanks is around 700 and the number of artillery pieces is around 560.
Turkmen ground forces equipment includes 702 T-72, and
10 T-90, ordered in 2009 for approximately $30 million.
AIFV / APC include BTR-60/BTR-70/BTR-80 - 829, BMP-1/BMP-2 - 930, BRM-1 12, and BRDM-2 - 170.
Self-Propelled
Multiple launch Rocket Systems
Towed Guns
Mortars
The IISS in 2012 said the Air Force had 3,000 personnel with 94 combat capable aircraft. The total number of aircraft is around 120. It said there were two fighter/ground attack squadrons with MiG-29/MiG-29UB (total of 24 both types), Sukhoi Su-17 Fitter-Bs (65) and two Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots (with 41 more being refurbished). It reported one transport squadron with Antonov An-26 'Curl' (1), and Mi-8s and Mi-24s (8 and 10 listed in service respectively). Training units had Sukhoi Su-7 Fitter-As (3 listed in service) and L-39 Albatross. Air defence missile units had SA-2, SA-3, and SA-5.
Units:
Turkmen naval forces are currently directed by the defense ministry and consist of around 700 servicemen and sixteen patrol boats. The Congressional Research Service, citing the International Institute for Strategic Studies, reports a number of six patrol boats.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies reported in 2007 that Turkmenistan intended to form a navy and had a minor base at Turkmenbashy with one USCG Point class cutter and five Kalkan-class patrol vessels. Jane's Fighting Ships 2001-2002 reported that the Point-class cutter was the "Merjin," PB-129, (ex "Point Jackson," 82378), which was transferred on 30 May 2000.
The country acquired four missile boats in 2011. In 2014 they acquired 10 Tuzla-class patrol boats which were all delivered by 2015.
In 2012, Turkmenistan announced its first naval exercises in the Caspian Sea programmed for early September. Named Khazar-2012 ("Khazar" is the Persian name of the Caspian Sea), these tactical exercises came after a summer of somewhat heightened tensions with Azerbaijan over natural gas fields in a contested part of the sea.
The Presidential Security Service () is responsible for ensuring the protection and security of the president. Established in November 1990, it is an directly reporting body of the President of Turkmenistan s not part of the ministry of defnese. During state visits to foreign countries, the service provides at least 10 agents to protect the president. The Presidential Security Service is currently composed of 2,000 employees.
The State Border Service of Turkmenistan is a public service department in the government of the country and is under the command of the Ministry for National Security of Turkmenistan. The main tasks of the service include the following: protecting of the national border of the country, combating international terrorism and drug trafficking, targeting illegal migration and human trafficking, and protecting oil and gas platforms and pipelines in the Caspian Sea. The head of the service is a member of the Council of Border Guard Commanders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The Internal Troops is under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is designed to maintain law and order and enforce the status quo in terms of state sovereignty. It aides the Turkmen National Police in its everyday activities, being organized similarly to the ground forces.
Founded in 1993 and 2007 respectively, the Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of Turkmenistan and the Military Academy of Turkmenistan are the seniormost military academies of their kind in Turkmenistan. Other military academies include the Turkmen Police Academy, the Turkmen National Security Institute, and the Turkmen Naval Institute. Border guards are trained at special institutes in military universities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30215 |
Turks and Caicos Islands
The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies. They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. The resident population was 31,458 of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands; July 2020 estimates put the population at 55,926. It is the third largest of the British overseas territories by population.
The Turks and Caicos Islands lie southeast of Mayaguana in The Bahamas island chain, northeast of Cuba, and north of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cockburn Town, the capital since 1766, is situated on Grand Turk Island about east-southeast of Miami, United States. The islands have a total land area of .
The Turks and Caicos Islands were inhabited for centuries by native Amerindian peoples. The first recorded European sighting of the islands occurred in 1512. In the subsequent centuries, the islands were claimed by several European powers, with the British Empire eventually gaining control. For many years the islands were governed indirectly through Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the islands received their own governor, and have remained a separate autonomous British Overseas Territory since.
The Turks and Caicos Islands are named after the Turk's cap cactus ("Melocactus intortus"), and the Lucayan term "caya hico", meaning 'string of islands'.
The first inhabitants of the islands were the Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, who most likely crossed over from Hispaniola some time from AD 500 to 800. Together with Taíno who migrated from Cuba to the southern Bahamas around the same time, these people developed as the Lucayan. Around 1200, the Turks and Caicos Islands were resettled by Classical Taínos from Hispaniola.
It is unknown precisely who the first European to sight the islands was. Some sources state that Christopher Columbus saw the islands on his voyage to the Americas in 1492. However other sources state that it is more likely that Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León was the first European in Turks and Caicos, in 1512. In any case, after 1512 the Spanish began capturing the Taíno and Lucayans as slaves (technically, as workers in the "encomienda" system) to replace the largely depleted native population of Hispaniola. As a result of this, and the introduction of diseases to which the native people had no immunity, the southern Bahama Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands were completely depopulated by about 1513, and remained so until the 17th century.
From the mid 1600s Bermudian salt collectors began seasonally visiting the islands, later settling more permanently with their African slaves. For several decades around the turn of the 18th century, the islands became popular pirate hideouts. During the Anglo-French War (1778–1783) the French captured the archipelago in 1783, however it was later confirmed as British colony with the Treaty of Paris (1783). After the American War of Independence (1775–1783), many Loyalists fled to British Caribbean colonies, also bringing with them African slaves. They developed cotton as an important cash crop, but it was superseded by the development of the salt industry, with the labour done by African slaves forcibly imported from Africa or the other Caribbean islands and their descendants, who soon came to outnumber the European settlers.
In 1799, both the Turks and the Caicos island groups were annexed by Britain as part of the Bahamas. The processing of sea salt was developed as a highly important export product from the West Indies and continued to be a major export product into the nineteenth century.
In 1807, Britain prohibited the slave trade and, in 1833, abolished slavery in its colonies. British ships sometimes intercepted slave traders in the Caribbean, and some ships were wrecked off the coast of these islands. In 1837, the "Esperança," a Portuguese slaver, was wrecked off East Caicos, one of the larger islands. While the crew and 220 captive Africans survived the shipwreck, 18 Africans died before the survivors were taken to Nassau. Africans from this ship may have been among the 189 liberated Africans whom the British colonists settled in the Turks and Caicos from 1833 to 1840.
In 1841, the "Trouvadore", an illegal Spanish slave ship, was wrecked off the coast of East Caicos. All the 20-man crew and 192 captive Africans survived the sinking. Officials freed the Africans and arranged for 168 persons to be apprenticed to island proprietors on Grand Turk Island for one year. They increased the small population of the colony by seven percent. The remaining 24 were resettled in Nassau, Bahamas. The Spanish crew were also taken there, to be turned over to the custody of the Cuban consul and taken to Cuba for prosecution. An 1878 letter documents the "Trouvadore Africans" and their descendants as constituting an essential part of the "labouring population" on the islands. In 2004, marine archaeologists affiliated with the Turks and Caicos National Museum discovered a wreck, called the "Black Rock Ship", that subsequent research has suggested may be that of the "Trouvadore". In November 2008, a cooperative marine archaeology expedition, funded by the United States NOAA, confirmed that the wreck has artefacts whose style and date of manufacture link them to the "Trouvadore".
In 1848, Britain designated the Turks and Caicos as a separate colony under a council president. In 1873–4, the islands were made part of the Jamaica colony; in 1894, the chief colonial official was restyled commissioner. In 1917, Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden suggested that the Turks and Caicos join Canada, but this suggestion was rejected by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the islands remained a dependency of Jamaica.
On 4 July 1959 the islands were again designated as a separate colony, the last commissioner being restyled administrator. The governor of Jamaica also continued as the governor of the islands. When Jamaica was granted independence from Britain in August 1962, the Turks and Caicos Islands became a Crown colony. Beginning in 1965, the governor of the Bahamas was also governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands and oversaw affairs for the islands.
When the Bahamas gained independence in 1973, the Turks and Caicos received their own governor (the last administrator was restyled). In 1974, Canadian New Democratic Party MP Max Saltsman tried to use his private member's bill C-249, "An Act Respecting a Proposed Association Between Canada and the Caribbean Turks and Caicos Islands" that proposed that Canada form an association with the Turks and Caicos Islands; however, it was never submitted to a vote. Since August 1976, the islands have had their own government headed by a chief minister (now premier), the first of whom was James Alexander George Smith McCartney. Moves towards independence in the early 1980s were stalled by the election of an anti-independence party in 1980 and since then the islands have remained British territory. Local government was suspended from 1986–88, following allegation of government involvement with drug trafficking which resulted in the arrest of Chief Minister Norman Saunders.
In 2002 the islands were re-designated a British Overseas Territory, with islanders gaining full British citizenship. A new constitution was promulgated in 2006, however in 2009 Premier Michael Misick resigned in the face of corruption charges, and the United Kingdom took over direct control of the government. A new constitution was promulgated in October 2012 and the government was returned to full local administration after the November 2012 elections.
In the 2016 elections, Rufus Ewing's Progressive National Party (PNP) lost for the first time since they replaced Derek Hugh Taylor's government in 2003. The People's Democratic Movement (PDM) came to power with Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson as Premier.
The two island groups are in the North Atlantic Ocean, southeast of the Bahamas, northeast of Cuba, about north of Hispaniola, and about from Miami in the United States, at . The territory is geographically contiguous to the Bahamas, both comprising the Lucayan Archipelago, but is politically a separate entity. The Caicos Islands are separated by the Caicos Passage from the closest Bahamian islands, Mayaguana and Great Inagua. The nearest foreign landmass from the Turks and Caicos Islands is the Bahamian island of Little Inagua, about 30 miles from West Caicos.
The eight main islands and more than 22 smaller islands have a total land area of , consisting primarily of low, flat limestone with extensive marshes and mangrove swamps and of beach front. The tallest peaks in the islands are Blue Hills on Providenciales and Flamingo Hill on East Caicos, both at a modest 48m. The weather is usually sunny (it is generally regarded that the islands receive 350 days of sun each year) and relatively dry, but suffers frequent hurricanes. The islands have limited natural fresh water resources; private cisterns collect rainwater for drinking. The primary natural resources are spiny lobster, conch, and other shellfish.
The two distinct island groups are separated by the Turks Islands Passage.
The Turks Islands are separated from the Caicos Islands by Turks Island Passage, which is more than deep. The islands form a chain that stretches north–south. The 2012 census population was 4,939 on the two main islands, the only inhabited islands of the group:
Together with nearby islands, all on Turks Bank, those two main islands form the two administrative districts of the territory (out of six in total) that fall within the Turks Islands. Turks Bank, which is smaller than Caicos Bank, has a total area of about .
The main uninhabited islands are:
east of the Turks Islands and separated from them by Mouchoir Passage is the Mouchoir Bank. Although it has no emergent cays or islets, some parts are very shallow and the water breaks on them. Mouchoir Bank is part of the Turks and Caicos Islands and falls within its Exclusive Economic Zone. It measures in area. Two banks further east, Silver Bank and Navidad Bank, are geographically a continuation, but belong politically to the Dominican Republic.
The largest island in the Caicos archipelago is the sparsely-inhabited Middle Caicos, which measures in area, but has a population of only 168 at the 2012 Census. The most populated island is Providenciales, with 23,769 inhabitants in 2012, and an area of . North Caicos ( in area) had 1,312 inhabitants. South Caicos ( in area) had 1,139 inhabitants, and Parrot Cay ( in area) had 131 inhabitants. East Caicos (which is administered as part of South Caicos District) is uninhabited, while the only permanent inhabitants of West Caicos (administered as part of Providenciales District) are resort staff.
The Caicos Islands comprise the following main islands:
The Turks and Caicos Islands feature tropical climate, with relatively consistent temperatures throughout the course of the year. Summertime temperatures rarely exceed and winter nighttime temperatures rarely fall below .
The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory. As a British territory, its sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, represented by a governor appointed by the monarch, on the advice of the Foreign Office. With the election of the territory's first Chief Minister, J.A.G.S. McCartney, the islands first adopted a constitution on 30 August 1976. The national holiday, Constitution Day, is celebrated annually on 30 August.
The territory's legal system is based on English common law, with a small number of laws adopted from Jamaica and the Bahamas. Suffrage is universal for those over 18 years of age. English is the official language. Grand Turk is the administrative and political capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Cockburn Town has been the seat of government since 1766.
The Turks and Caicos Islands participate in the Caribbean Development Bank, is an associate in CARICOM, member of the Universal Postal Union and maintains an Interpol sub-bureau. The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization includes the territory on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
Under the new Constitution that came into effect in October 2012, legislative power is held by a unicameral House of Assembly, consisting of 19 seats, 15 elected and 4 appointed by the governor; of elected members, five are elected at large and 10 from single-member districts for four-year terms.
In the 2016 elections the People's Democratic Movement prevailed and Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson became Premier.
The Turks and Caicos Islands are divided into six administrative districts (two in the Turks Islands and four in the Caicos Islands), headed by district commissioners. For the House of Assembly, the Turks and Caicos Islands are divided into 15 electoral districts (four in the Turks Islands and eleven in the Caicos Islands).
The judicial branch of government is headed by a Supreme Court; appeals are heard by the Court of Appeal and final appeals by the United Kingdom's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. There are three justices of the Supreme Court, a Chief Justice and two others. The Court of Appeal consists of a president and at least two justices of appeal.
Magistrates' Courts are the lower courts and appeals from Magistrates' Courts are sent to the Supreme Court.
As of September 2014, the Chief Justice is Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale.
As a British Overseas Territory, defence is the responsibility of the United Kingdom.
It was announced by Governor Nigel Dakin in early December 2019 that Turks and Caicos will build its own defense regiment with the assistance of the UK's Ministry of Defence and it is to be similar to the Bermuda Regiment and the Cayman Regiment. The Turks & Caicos Regiment, like the Bermuda Regiment and the Cayman Regiment, will focus on increasing the nation's security, and, in times of Natural Disasters like Hurricanes, the Regiment would be trained in engineering and communications. In mid December 2019, a team from the UK'S Ministry of Defence was on Turks and Caicos to start on building the Regiment. It is projected that the Turk and Caicos Regiment will go operational sometime within the 3rd Quarter of 2020, putting it nearly half a year after the Cayman Regiment.
Eight of the thirty islands in the territory are inhabited, with a total population estimated from preliminary results of the census of 25 January 2012 (released on 12 August 2012) of 31,458 inhabitants, an increase of 58.2% from the population of 19,886 reported in the 2001 census. July 2018 estimates put the population at 53,700. One-third of the population is under 15 years old, and only 4% are 65 or older. In 2000 the population was growing at a rate of 3.55% per year. The infant mortality rate was 18.66 deaths per 1,000 live births and the life expectancy at birth was 73.28 years (71.15 years for males, 75.51 years for females). The total fertility rate was 3.25 children born per woman. The annual population growth rate is 2.82%.
The CIA World Factbook breaks down the islanders' ethnicity as African 87%, European 7.9%, Mixed 2.5.%, East Indian 1.3% and Other 0.7%. There is a small Haitian community on the islands
Vital statistics related to the population are:
The official language of the islands is English, but the population also speaks Turks and Caicos Islands Creole, which is similar to Bahamian Creole. Due to its close proximity to Cuba and Hispaniola, large Haitian Creole and Spanish-speaking communities have developed in the territory due to immigration, both legal and illegal, from Creole-speaking Haiti and from Spanish-speaking Cuba and Dominican Republic.
72.8% of the population of Turks and Caicos are Christian (Baptists 35.8%, Church of God 11.7%, Roman Catholics 11.4%, Anglicans 10%, Methodists 9.3%, Seventh-day Adventists 6%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.8%), with other faiths making up the remaining 14%.
Catholics are served by the Mission "Sui Iuris" for Turks and Caicos, which was erected in 1984 with territory taken from the then Diocese of Nassau.
The Turks and Caicos Islands are perhaps best known musically for ripsaw music, a genre which originated on the islands. The Turks and Caicos Islands are known for their annual Music and Cultural Festival showcasing many local talents and other dynamic performances by many music celebrities from around the Caribbean and United States.
Women continue traditional crafts of using a straw to make baskets and hats on the larger Caicos islands. It is possible that this continued tradition is related to the liberated Africans who joined the population directly from Africa in the 1830s and 1841 from shipwrecked slavers; they brought cultural craft skills with them.
The island's most popular sports are fishing, sailing, football (soccer) and cricket (which is the national sport).
Turks and Caicos cuisine is based primarily around seafood, especially conch. Two common dishes, whilst not traditionally 'local', are conch fritters and conch salad.
Because the Turks and Caicos is a British Overseas Territory and not an independent country, they at one time could not confer citizenship. Instead, people with close ties to Britain's Overseas Territories all held the same nationality: British Overseas Territories Citizen (BOTC) as defined by the British Nationality Act 1981 and subsequent amendments. BOTC, however, does not confer any right to live in any British Overseas Territory, including the territory from which it is derived; instead, the rights normally associated with citizenship derive from what is called Belonger status and island natives or those descended from natives are said to be Belongers.
In 2002, the British Overseas Territories Act restored full British citizenship status to all citizens of British Overseas Territories, including the Turks and Caicos.
The Ministry of Health, Education, Youth, Sports, and Women's Affairs oversees education in Turks and Caicos. Public education is supported by taxation and is mandatory for children aged five to sixteen. Primary education lasts for six years and secondary education lasts for five years. In the 1990s the Primary In-Service Teacher Education Project (PINSTEP) was launched in an effort to increase the skills of its primary school teachers, nearly one-quarter of whom were unqualified. Turks and Caicos also worked to refurbish its primary schools, reduce textbook costs, and increase equipment and supplies given to schools. For example, in September 1993, each primary school was given enough books to allow teachers to establish in-class libraries. In 2001, the student-teacher ratio at the primary level was roughly 15:1.
Public secondary schools include:
International School of the Turks and Caicos Islands, a private school which serves preschool through grade six, is in Leeward, Providenciales. In 2014 it had 106 students. It was known as The Ashcroft School until 2014.
The Turks and Caicos Islands Community College offers free higher education to students who have successfully completed their secondary education. The community college also oversees an adult literacy program. Once a student completes their education at Turks and Caicos Islands Community College, they are allowed to further their education at a university in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom for free. They have to commit to working in The Turks and Caicos Islands for four years to receive this additional education.
The public University of the West Indies Open Campus has one site in the territory. Charisma University is a private and non-profit university that also provides higher education in Turks & Caicos Islands.
The Turks and Caicos established a National Health Insurance Plan in 2010. Residents contribute to a National Health Insurance Plan through salary deduction and nominal user fees. Majority of care is provided by the private-public-partnership hospitals on Providenciales and Grand Turk. In addition, there are a number of government clinics and private clinics. The hospital opened in 2010 is administered by Interhealth Canada and has been accredited by Accreditation Canada in 2012 and 2015.
The economy of Turks and Caicos is dominated by tourism, offshore finance and fishing. The US dollar is the main currency used on the islands.
Historically the salt industry, along with small sponge and hemp exports, sustained the Turks and Caicos Islands (only barely, however; there was little population growth and the economy stagnated). The economy grew in the 1960s, when American investors arrived on the islands and funded the construction of an airstrip on Providenciales and built the archipelago's first hotel, "The Third Turtle". A small trickle of tourists began to arrive, supplementing the salt-based economy. Club Med set up a resort at Grace Bay soon after. In the 1980s, Club Med funded an upgrading of the airstrip to allow for larger aircraft, and since then, tourism has been gradually on the increase.
In 2009, GDP contributions were as follows: Hotels & Restaurants 34.67%, Financial Services 13.12%, Construction 7.83%, Transport, Storage & Communication 9.90%, and Real Estate, Renting & Business Activities 9.56%. Most capital goods and food for domestic consumption are imported.
In 2010/2011, major sources of government revenue included Import Duties (43.31%), Stamp Duty on Land Transaction (8.82%), Work Permits and Residency Fees (10.03%) and Accommodation Tax (24.95%). The territory's gross domestic product as of late 2009 is approximately US$795 million (per capita $24,273).
The labour force totalled 27,595 workers in 2008. The labour force distribution in 2006 is as follows:
The unemployment rate in 2008 was 8.3%. In 2007–2008, the territory took in revenues of $206.79 million against expenditures of $235.85 million. In 1995, the island received economic aid worth $5.7 million. The territory's currency is the United States dollar, with a few government fines (such as airport infractions) being payable in pounds sterling. Most commemorative coin issues are denominated in crowns.
The primary agricultural products include limited amounts of maize, beans, cassava (tapioca) and citrus fruits. Fish and conch are the only significant export, with some $169.2 million of lobster, dried and fresh conch, and conch shells exported in 2000, primarily to the United Kingdom and the United States. In recent years, however, the catch has been declining. The territory used to be an important trans-shipment point for South American narcotics destined for the United States, but due to the ongoing pressure of a combined American, Bahamian and Turks and Caicos effort this trade has been greatly reduced.
The islands import food and beverages, tobacco, clothing, manufacture and construction materials, primarily from the United States and the United Kingdom. Imports totalled $581 million in 2007.
The islands produce and consume about 5 GWh of electricity, per year, all of which comes from fossil fuels.
Tourism is one of the largest sources of income for the islands, with most visitors coming from America via ship. Tourist arrivals had risen to 264,887 in 2007 and to 351,498 by 2009. In 2010, a total of 245 cruise ships arrived at the Grand Turk Cruise Terminal, carrying a total of 617,863 visitors.
The government is pursuing a two-pronged strategy to increase tourism. Upscale resorts are aimed at the wealthy, while a large new cruise ship port and recreation centre has been built for the masses visiting Grand Turk. Turks and Caicos Islands has one of the longest coral reefs in the world and the world's only conch farm.
The French vacation village company of Club Mediterannee (Club Med) has an all-inclusive adult resort called 'Turkoise' on one of the main islands.
The islands have become popular with various celebrities. Several Hollywood stars have owned homes in the Turks and Caicos, including Dick Clark and Bruce Willis. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner married on Parrot Cay in 2005. Actress Eva Longoria and her ex-husband Tony Parker went to the islands for their honeymoon in July 2007 and "High School Musical" actors Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens went for a vacation there. In 2013 Hollywood writer/director Rob Margolies and actress Kristen Ruhlin vacationed here. Musician Nile Rodgers has a vacation home on the island.
To boost tourism during the Caribbean low season of late summer, since 2003 the Turks and Caicos Tourist Board have organised and hosted an annual series of concerts during this season called the Turks & Caicos Music and Cultural Festival. Held in a temporary bandshell at The Turtle Cove Marina in The Bight on Providenciales, this festival lasts about a week and has featured several notable international recording artists, such as Lionel Richie, LL Cool J, Anita Baker, Billy Ocean, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Kenny Rogers, Michael Bolton, Ludacris, Chaka Khan, and Boyz II Men. More than 10,000 people attend annually.
The Turks and Caicos Islands are a biodiversity hotspot. The islands have many endemic species and others of international importance, due to the conditions created by the oldest established salt-pan development in the Caribbean. The variety of species includes a number of endemic species of lizards, snakes, insects and plants, and marine organisms; in addition to being an important breeding area for seabirds.
The UK and Turks and Caicos Islands Governments have joint responsibility for the conservation and preservation to meet obligations under international environmental conventions.
Due to this significance, the islands are on the United Kingdom's tentative list for future UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Providenciales International Airport is the main entry point for the Turks and Caicos Islands, with JAGS McCartney International Airport serving the capital Cockburn Town on Grand Turk Island. Altogether, there are seven airports, located on each of the inhabited islands. Five have paved runways (three of which are approximately long and one is approximately long), and the remaining two have unpaved runways (one of which is approximately long and the other is significantly shorter).
The islands have of highway, paved and unpaved. Like the United States Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands drive on the left.
The territory's main international ports and harbours are on Grand Turk and Providenciales.
The islands have no significant railways. In the early twentieth century East Caicos operated a horse-drawn railway to transport sisal from the plantation to the port. The route was removed after sisal trading ceased.
From 1950 to 1981, the United States had a missile tracking station on Grand Turk. In the early days of the American space program, NASA used it. After his three earth orbits in 1962, American astronaut John Glenn successfully landed in the nearby ocean and was brought back ashore to Grand Turk island.
There is no postal delivery in the Turks and Caicos; mail is picked up at one of four post offices on each of the major islands. Mail is transported three or seven times a week, depending on the destination. The Post Office is part of the territory's government and reports to the Minister of Government Support Services.
Mobile phone service is provided by Cable & Wireless Communications, through its Flow brand, using GSM 850 and TDMA, and Digicel, using GSM 900 and 1900 and Islandcom Wireless, using 3G 850. Cable & Wireless provides CDMA mobile phone service in Providenciales and Grand Turk. The system is connected to the mainland by two submarine cables and an Intelsat earth station. There were three AM radio stations (one inactive) and six FM stations (no shortwave) in 1998. The most popular station is Power 92.5 FM which plays Top 100 hits. Over 8000 radio receivers are owned across the territory.
West Indies Video (WIV) has been the sole cable television provider for the Turks and Caicos Islands for over two decades and WIV4 (a subsidiary of WIV) has been the only broadcast station in the islands for over 15 years; broadcasts from the Bahamas can also be received. The territory has two internet service providers and its country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is ".tc". Amateur radio callsigns begin with "VP5" and visiting operators frequently work from the islands.
WIV introduced Channel 4 News in 2002 broadcasting local news and infotainment programs across the country. Channel 4 was re-launched as WIV4 in November 2007.
Since 2013 4NEWS has become the Islands first HD Cable News service with Television Studios in Grace Bay, Providenciales. DigicelPlay is the local cable provider.
Turks and Caicos's newspapers include the "Turks and Caicos Weekly News", the "Turks and Caicos SUN" and the "Turks and Caicos Free Press". All three publications are weekly. The "Weekly News" and the "Sun" both have supplement magazines. Other local magazines "Times of the Islands", "s3 Magazine", "Real Life Magazine", "Baller Magazine", and "Unleashed Magazine".
Cricket is the islands' national sport. The national team takes part in regional tournaments in the ICC Americas Championship, as well as having played one Twenty20 match as part of the 2008 Standford 20/20. Two domestic leagues exist, one on Grand Turk with three teams and another on Providenciales.
As of 4 July 2012, Turks and Caicos Islands' football team shared the position of the lowest ranking national men's football team in the world at the rank of 207th.
Because the territory is not recognized by the International Olympic Committee, Turks and Caicos Islanders compete for Great Britain at the Olympic Games. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30217 |
Telecommunications in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Communications in the Turks and Caicos Islands
Telephones - main lines in use: 3,000 (1994)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 0 (1994)
Telephone system: fair cable and radiotelephone services
Radio broadcast stations: AM 3 (one inactive), FM 6, shortwave 0 (1998)
A partial list of AM/FM/SW stations in the Turks and Caicos Islands is provided below:
AM Radio:
FM Radio:
Shortwave:
Defunct:
Radios: 8,000 (1997)
Television broadcast stations: 2
WIV Cable has been operating on the islands for over 10 years (Channel 4)
New to Turks & Caicos, TCeyeTV started broadcasting on 3 July 2007
broadcasts from The Bahamas are also received; cable television is established) (1997)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 3 (2013)
Country code (Top level domain): TC | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30223 |
Tuvalu
Tuvalu ( ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is a microstate in Polynesia, located in the Pacific Ocean, situated in Oceania and about midway between Hawaii and Australia. The island country lies east-northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands (which belong to the Solomon Islands), southeast of Nauru, south of Kiribati, west of Tokelau, northwest of Samoa and Wallis and Futuna, and north of Fiji. It is composed of three reef islands and six true atolls spread out between the latitude of 5° to 10° south and longitude of 176° to 180°, west of the International Date Line. Tuvalu has a population of 11,192 (2017 census). The total land area of the islands of Tuvalu is .
The first inhabitants of Tuvalu were Polynesians. The origins of the people of Tuvalu are addressed in the theories regarding migration into the Pacific that began about three thousand years ago. During pre-European-contact times there was frequent canoe voyaging between the islands as Polynesian navigation skills are recognised to have allowed deliberate journeys on double-hull sailing canoes or outrigger canoes. The pattern of settlement that is believed to have occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from Samoa and Tonga into the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a stepping stone to further migration into the Polynesian outliers in Melanesia and Micronesia.
In 1568, Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to sail through the archipelago, sighting the island of Nui during his expedition in search of Terra Australis. The island of Funafuti was named Ellice's Island in 1819; the name Ellice was applied to all of the nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay. The Ellice Islands came into Great Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century, as the result of a treaty between Great Britain and Germany relating to the demarcation of the spheres of influence in the Pacific Ocean. Each of the Ellice Islands was declared a British Protectorate by Captain Gibson of between 9 and 16 October 1892. The Ellice Islands were administered as a British protectorate by a Resident Commissioner from 1892 to 1916, as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT), and then as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1976.
A referendum was held in December 1974 to determine whether the Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands should each have their own administration. As a consequence of the referendum, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony ceased to exist on 1 January 1976, and the separate British colonies of Kiribati and Tuvalu came into existence. Tuvalu became fully independent as a sovereign state within the Commonwealth on 1 October 1978. On 5 September 2000, Tuvalu became the 189th member of the United Nations.
The origins of the people of Tuvalu are addressed in the theories regarding migration into the Pacific that began about 3000 years ago. During pre-European-contact times there was frequent canoe voyaging between the nearer islands including Samoa and Tonga. Eight of the nine islands of Tuvalu were inhabited; thus the name, Tuvalu, means "eight standing together" in Tuvaluan (compare to "*walo" meaning "eight" in Proto-Austronesian). Possible evidence of fire in the Caves of Nanumanga may indicate human occupation for thousands of years.
An important creation myth of the islands of Tuvalu is the story of the "te Pusi mo te Ali" (the Eel and the Flounder) who created the islands of Tuvalu; "te Ali" (the flounder) is believed to be the origin of the flat atolls of Tuvalu and the "te Pusin" (the Eel) is the model for the coconut palms that are important in the lives of Tuvaluans. The stories as to the ancestors of the Tuvaluans vary from island to island. On Niutao, Funafuti and Vaitupu, the founding ancestor is described as being from Samoa, whereas on Nanumea, the founding ancestor is described as being from Tonga.
Tuvalu was first sighted by Europeans on 16 January 1568, during the voyage of Álvaro de Mendaña from Spain, who sailed past Nui and charted it as "Isla de Jesús" (Spanish for "Island of Jesus") because the previous day was the feast of the Holy Name. Mendaña made contact with the islanders but was unable to land. During Mendaña's second voyage across the Pacific he passed Niulakita on 29 August 1595, which he named "La Solitaria".
Captain John Byron passed through the islands of Tuvalu in 1764, during his circumnavigation of the globe as captain of the . He charted the atolls as "Lagoon Islands". Keith S. Chambers and Doug Munro (1980) identified Niutao as the island that Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa sailed past on 5 May 1781, thus solving what Europeans had called "The Mystery of Gran Cocal". Mourelle's map and journal named the island "El Gran Cocal" ('The Great Coconut Plantation'); however, the latitude and longitude was uncertain. Longitude could only be reckoned crudely at the time, as accurate chronometers only became available in the late 18th century.
The next European to visit was Arent Schuyler de Peyster, of New York, captain of the armed brigantine or privateer "Rebecca", sailing under British colours, which passed through the southern Tuvaluan waters in May 1819; de Peyster sighted Nukufetau and Funafuti, which he named Ellice's Island after an English politician, Edward Ellice, the Member of Parliament for Coventry and the owner of the "Rebecca"s cargo. The name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay.
In 1820, the Russian explorer Mikhail Lazarev visited Nukufetau as commander of the "Mirny". Louis Isidore Duperrey, captain of "La Coquille", sailed past Nanumanga in May 1824 during a circumnavigation of the earth (1822–1825). A Dutch expedition (the frigate "Maria Reigersberg") found Nui on the morning of 14 June 1825, and named the main island (Fenua Tapu) as "Nederlandsch Eiland".
Whalers began roving the Pacific, although they visited Tuvalu only infrequently because of the difficulties of landing on the atolls. Captain George Barrett of the Nantucket whaler "Independence II" has been identified as the first whaler to hunt the waters around Tuvalu. He bartered coconuts from the people of Nukulaelae in November 1821, and also visited Niulakita. A shore camp was established on Sakalua islet of Nukufetau, where coal was used to melt down the whale blubber.
For less than a year between 1862 and 1863, Peruvian ships engaged in the so-called "blackbirding" trade combed the smaller islands of Polynesia from Easter Island in the eastern Pacific to Tuvalu and the southern atolls of the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), seeking recruits to fill the extreme labour shortage in Peru. While some islanders were voluntary recruits, the "blackbirders" were notorious for enticing islanders on to ships with tricks, such as pretending to be Christian missionaries, as well as kidnapping islanders at gunpoint. The Rev. A. W. Murray, the earliest European missionary in Tuvalu, reported that in 1863 about 170 people were taken from Funafuti and about 250 were taken from Nukulaelae, as there were fewer than 100 of the 300 recorded in 1861 as living on Nukulaelae.
Christianity came to Tuvalu in 1861 when Elekana, a deacon of a Congregational church in Manihiki, Cook Islands, became caught in a storm and drifted for eight weeks before landing at Nukulaelae on 10 May 1861. Elekana began preaching Christianity. He was trained at Malua Theological College, a London Missionary Society (LMS) school in Samoa, before beginning his work in establishing the Church of Tuvalu. In 1865, the Rev. A. W. Murray of the LMS – a Protestant congregationalist missionary society – arrived as the first European missionary, where he too evangelised among the inhabitants of Tuvalu. Protestantism was well established by 1878, with preachers on each island. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries the ministers of what became the Church of Tuvalu (Te Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu) were predominantly Samoans, who influenced the development of the Tuvaluan language and the music of Tuvalu.
The islands came into Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when each of the Ellice Islands was declared a British protectorate by Captain Gibson of , between 9 and 16 October 1892.
Trading companies became active in Tuvalu in the mid-19th century; the trading companies engaged palagi traders who lived on the islands. John (also known as Jack) O'Brien was the first European to settle in Tuvalu; he became a trader on Funafuti in the 1850s. He married Salai, the daughter of the paramount chief of Funafuti. Louis Becke, who later found success as a writer, was a trader on Nanumanga from April 1880 until the trading station was destroyed later that year in a cyclone. He then became a trader on Nukufetau.
In 1892, Captain Davis of reported on trading activities and traders on each of the islands visited. Captain Davis identified the following traders in the Ellice Group: Edmund Duffy (Nanumea); Jack Buckland (Niutao); Harry Nitz (Vaitupu); Jack O'Brien (Funafuti); Alfred Restieaux and Emile Fenisot (Nukufetau); and Martin Kleis (Nui). During this time, the greatest number of palagi traders lived on the atolls, acting as agents for the trading companies. Some islands would have competing traders, while dryer islands might only have a single trader.
In the later 1890s and into first decade of the 20th century, structural changes occurred in the operation of the Pacific trading companies; they moved from a practice of having traders resident on each island to instead becoming a business operation where the supercargo (the cargo manager of a trading ship) would deal directly with the islanders when a ship visited an island. From 1900, the numbers of palagi traders in Tuvalu declined; the last of them were Fred Whibley on Niutao, Alfred Restieaux on Nukufetau, and Martin Kleis on Nui. By 1909 there were no more resident palagi traders representing the trading companies, although Whibley, Restieaux and Kleis remained in the islands until their deaths.
The United States Exploring Expedition under Charles Wilkes visited Funafuti, Nukufetau and Vaitupu in 1841. During this expedition, engraver and illustrator Alfred Thomas Agate recorded the dress and tattoo patterns of the men of Nukufetau.
In 1885 or 1886, the New Zealand photographer Thomas Andrew visited Funafuti and Nui.
In 1890, Robert Louis Stevenson, his wife Fanny Vandegrift Stevenson and her son Lloyd Osbourne sailed on the "Janet Nicoll", a trading steamer owned by Henderson and Macfarlane of Auckland, New Zealand, which operated between Sydney and Auckland and into the central Pacific. The "Janet Nicoll" visited three of the Ellice Islands; while Fanny records that they made landfall at Funafuti, Niutao and Nanumea, Jane Resture suggests that it was more likely they landed at Nukufetau rather than Funafuti. An account of this voyage was written by Fanny Stevenson and published under the title "The Cruise of the Janet Nichol", together with photographs taken by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne.
In 1894, Count Rudolf Festetics de Tolna, his wife Eila ("née" Haggin) and her daughter Blanche Haggin visited Funafuti aboard the yacht "Le Tolna". The Count spent several days photographing men and woman on Funafuti.
The boreholes on Funafuti, at the site now called "Darwin's Drill", are the result of drilling conducted by the Royal Society of London for the purpose of investigating the formation of coral reefs to determine whether traces of shallow water organisms could be found at depth in the coral of Pacific atolls. This investigation followed the work on "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs" conducted by Charles Darwin in the Pacific. Drilling occurred in 1896, 1897 and 1898. Professor Edgeworth David of the University of Sydney was a member of the 1896 "Funafuti Coral Reef Boring Expedition of the Royal Society", under Professor William Sollas and led the expedition in 1897. Photographers on these trips recorded people, communities, and scenes at Funafuti.
Charles Hedley, a naturalist at the Australian Museum, accompanied the 1896 expedition, and during his stay on Funafuti he collected invertebrate and ethnological objects. The descriptions of these were published in "Memoir III of the Australian Museum Sydney" between 1896 and 1900. Hedley also wrote the "General Account of the Atoll of Funafuti", "The Ethnology of Funafuti", and "The Mollusca of Funafuti". Edgar Waite was also part of the 1896 expedition and published "The mammals, reptiles, and fishes of Funafuti". William Rainbow described the spiders and insects collected at Funafuti in "The insect fauna of Funafuti".
Harry Clifford Fassett, captain's clerk and photographer, recorded people, communities and scenes at Funafuti in 1900 during a visit of USFC "Albatross" when the United States Fish Commission was investigating the formation of coral reefs on Pacific atolls.
The Ellice Islands were administered as a British Protectorate from 1892 to 1916, as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT), by a Resident Commissioner based in the Gilbert Islands. The administration of the BWTP ended in 1916, and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony was established, which existed until 1976.
During the Second World War, Tuvalu was informally aligned with the Allies.
Early in the war, the Japanese invaded and occupied Tarawa and other islands in what is now Kiribati.
The United States Marine Corps landed on Funafuti on 2 October 1942 and on Nanumea and Nukufetau in August 1943.
Funafuti was used as a base to prepare for the subsequent seaborne attacks on the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) that were occupied by Japanese forces.
The islanders assisted the American forces building airfields on Funafuti, Nanumea and Nukufetau and to unload supplies from ships. On Funafuti, the islanders shifted to the smaller islets so as to allow the American forces to build the airfield and to build naval bases and port facilities on Fongafale. A Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees) built a seaplane ramp on the lagoon side of Fongafale islet, for seaplane operations by both short- and long-range seaplanes, and a compacted coral runway was also constructed on Fongafale, with runways also constructed to create Nanumea Airfield and Nukufetau Airfield. USN Patrol Torpedo Boats (PTs) were based at Funafuti from 2 November 1942 to 11 May 1944.
The atolls of Tuvalu acted as staging posts during the preparation for the Battle of Tarawa and the Battle of Makin that commenced on 20 November 1943, which were part of the implementation of "Operation Galvanic". After the war, the military airfield on Funafuti was developed into Funafuti International Airport.
The formation of the United Nations after World War II resulted in the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization committing to a process of decolonisation; as a consequence, the British colonies in the Pacific started on a path to self-determination.
In 1974, the ministerial government was introduced to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony through a change to the Constitution. In that year a general election was held, and a referendum was held in December 1974 to determine whether the Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands should each have their own administration. As a consequence of the referendum, separation occurred in two stages. The Tuvaluan Order 1975, which took effect on 1 October 1975, recognised Tuvalu as a separate British dependency with its own government. The second stage occurred on 1 January 1976, when separate administrations were created out of the civil service of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.
Elections to the House of Assembly of the British Colony of Tuvalu were held on 27 August 1977, with Toaripi Lauti being appointed Chief Minister in the House of Assembly of the Colony of Tuvalu on 1 October 1977. The House of Assembly was dissolved in July 1978, with the government of Toaripi Lauti continuing as a caretaker government until the 1981 elections were held. Toaripi Lauti became the first Prime Minister on 1 October 1978, when Tuvalu became an independent nation.
Tuvalu became fully independent within the Commonwealth on 1 October 1978. On 5 September 2000, Tuvalu became the 189th member of the United Nations.
The "Constitution of Tuvalu" states that it is "the supreme law of Tuvalu" and that "all other laws shall be interpreted and applied subject to this Constitution"; it sets out the Principles of the Bill of Rights and the Protection of the Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.
Tuvalu is a parliamentary democracy and Commonwealth realm with Elizabeth II as Queen of Tuvalu. Since the Queen resides in the United Kingdom, she is represented in Tuvalu by a Governor General, whom she appoints upon the advice of the Prime Minister of Tuvalu. In 1986 and 2008, referenda confirmed the monarchy.
From 1974 (the creation of the British colony of Tuvalu) until independence, the legislative body of Tuvalu was called the "House of the Assembly" or "Fale I Fono". Following independence in October 1978, the House of the Assembly was renamed the Parliament of Tuvalu or "Palamene o Tuvalu". The unicameral Parliament has 15 members, with elections held every four years. The members of parliament select the Prime Minister (who is the head of government) and the Speaker of Parliament. The ministers that form the Cabinet are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. There are no formal political parties; election campaigns are largely based on personal/family ties and reputations.
The Tuvalu National Library and Archives holds "vital documentation on the cultural, social and political heritage of Tuvalu", including surviving records from the colonial administration, as well as Tuvalu government archives.
Tuvalu is a state party to the following human rights treaties: the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and; the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Tuvalu has commitments to ensuring human rights are respected under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the "Te Kakeega III – National Strategy for Sustainable Development-2016-2020" (TK III), which sets out the development agenda of the Government of Tuvalu. TK III includes new strategic areas, in addition to the eight identified in TK II, which are climate change; environment; migration and urbanisation; and oceans and seas.
There are eight Island Courts and Lands Courts; appeals in relation to land disputes are made to the Lands Courts Appeal Panel. Appeals from the Island Courts and the Lands Courts Appeal Panel are made to the Magistrates Court, which has jurisdiction to hear civil cases involving up to $T10,000. The superior court is the High Court of Tuvalu as it has unlimited original jurisdiction to determine the Law of Tuvalu and to hear appeals from the lower courts. Rulings of the High Court can be appealed to the Court of Appeal of Tuvalu. From the Court of Appeal, there is a right of appeal to Her Majesty in Council, i.e., the Privy Council in London.
With regard to the judiciary, "the first female Island Court magistrate was appointed to the Island Court in Nanumea in the 1980s and another in Nukulaelae in the early 1990s." There were 7 female magistrates in the Island Courts of Tuvalu (as of 2007) in comparison "to the past where only one woman magistrate served in the Magistrate Court of Tuvalu."
The Law of Tuvalu comprises the Acts voted into law by the Parliament of Tuvalu and statutory instruments that become law; certain Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom (during the time Tuvalu was either a British protectorate or British colony); the common law; and customary law (particularly in relation to the ownership of land). The land tenure system is largely based on "kaitasi" (extended family ownership).
Tuvalu participates in the work of the Pacific Community (SPC) and is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum, the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations. It has maintained a mission at the United Nations in New York City since 2000. It is a member of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Tuvalu maintains close relations with Fiji, New Zealand, Australia (which has maintained a High Commission in Tuvalu since 2018), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the European Union. It has diplomatic relations with Taiwan; the country maintains one of the two foreign embassies in Tuvalu and has a large assistance programme in the islands.
A major international priority for Tuvalu in the UN, at the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa and in other international fora, is promoting concern about global warming and the possible sea level rising. Tuvalu advocates ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. In December 2009, the islands stalled talks on climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, fearing some other developing countries were not committing fully to binding deals on a reduction in carbon emissions. Their chief negotiator stated, "Tuvalu is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change and our future rests on the outcome of this meeting."
Tuvalu participates in the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which is a coalition of small island and low-lying coastal countries that have concerns about their vulnerability to the adverse effects of global climate change. Under the Majuro Declaration, which was signed on 5 September 2013, Tuvalu has made a commitment to implement power generation of 100% renewable energy (between 2013 and 2020), which is proposed to be implemented using Solar PV (95% of demand) and biodiesel (5% of demand). The feasibility of wind power generation will be considered. Tuvalu participates in the operations of the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).
Tuvalu is party to a treaty of friendship with the United States, signed soon after independence and ratified by the US Senate in 1983, under which the United States renounced prior territorial claims to four Tuvaluan islands (Funafuti, Nukufetau, Nukulaelae and Niulakita) under the Guano Islands Act of 1856.
Tuvalu participates in the operations of the Pacific Island Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). The Tuvaluan government, the US government, and the governments of other Pacific islands are parties to the South Pacific Tuna Treaty (SPTT), which entered into force in 1988. Tuvalu is also a member of the Nauru Agreement which addresses the management of tuna purse seine fishing in the tropical western Pacific. The United States and the Pacific Islands countries have negotiated the Multilateral Fisheries Treaty (which encompasses the South Pacific Tuna Treaty) to confirm access to the fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific for US tuna boats. Tuvalu and the other members of the Pacific Island Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the United States have settled a tuna fishing deal for 2015; a longer-term deal will be negotiated. The treaty is an extension of the Nauru Agreement and provides for the US flagged purse seine vessels to fish 8,300 days in the region in return for a payment of US$90 million made up by tuna fishing industry and US-Government contributions. In 2015, Tuvalu refused to sell fishing days to certain nations and fleets that have blocked Tuvaluan initiatives to develop and sustain their own fishery. In 2016, the Minister of Natural Resources drew attention to Article 30 of the WCPF Convention, which describes the collective obligation of members to consider the disproportionate burden that management measures might place on small-island developing states.
In July 2013, Tuvalu signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish the Pacific Regional Trade and Development Facility, which Facility originated in 2006, in the context of negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Pacific ACP States and the European Union. The rationale for the creation of the Facility being to improve the delivery of aid to Pacific island countries in support of the Aid-for-Trade (AfT) requirements. The Pacific ACP States are the countries in the Pacific that are signatories to the Cotonou Agreement with the European Union. On 18 February 2016, Tuvalu signed the Pacific Islands Development Forum Charter and formally joined the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF). In June 2017, Tuvalu signed the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER).
In March 2017, at the 34th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, Vanuatu made a joint statement on behalf of Tuvalu and some other Pacific nations raising human rights violations in the Western New Guinea, which has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, and requested that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights produce a report. Indonesia rejected Vanuatu's allegations. More than 100,000 Papuans have died during a 50-year Papua conflict. In September 2017, at the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly, the Prime Ministers of Tuvalu, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands once again raised human rights abuses in Indonesian-occupied West Papua.
Tuvalu has no regular military forces, and spends no money on the military. Its national police force, the "Tuvalu Police Force" headquartered in Funafuti, includes a maritime surveillance unit, customs, prisons and immigration. Police officers wear British-style uniforms.
From 1994 to 2019 the Tuvalu policed its 200 kilometre Exclusive Economic Zone with the Pacific-class patrol boat HMTSS "Te Mataili", provided by Australia. Australia gave Tuvalu and 11 other partners in the Pacific Forum, for use in maritime surveillance and fishery patrol and for search-and-rescue missions. ("HMTSS" stands for "His/Her Majesty's Tuvaluan State Ship" or for "His/Her Majesty's Tuvalu Surveillance Ship".) On 7 April 2019, Australia donated a Guardian-class patrol boat that was named HMTSS "Te Mataili II", and which will be operated by the maritime surveillance unit of the Tuvalu Police Force.
Male homosexuality is illegal in Tuvalu. Crime in Tuvalu is not a significant social problem due to an effective criminal justice system, also due to the influence of the "Falekaupule" (the traditional assembly of elders of each island) and the central role of religious institutions in the Tuvaluan community.
Tuvalu consists of six atolls and three reef islands. The smallest, Niulakita, is administered as part of Niutao.
Each island has its own high-chief, or ulu-aliki, and several sub-chiefs (alikis). The community council is the "Falekaupule" (the traditional assembly of elders) or "te sina o fenua" (literally: "grey-hairs of the land"). In the past, another caste, the priests (tofuga), were also amongst the decision-makers. The ulu-aliki and aliki exercise informal authority at the local level. Ulu-aliki are always chosen based on ancestry. Under the Falekaupule Act (1997), the powers and functions of the "Falekaupule" are now shared with the "pule o kaupule" (elected village presidents; one on each atoll).
Local government districts consisting of more than one islet:
Local government districts consisting of only one island:
Tuvalu has defined for one town council (Funafuti) and seven island councils. Niulakita, which now has its own island council, is not listed, as it is administered as part of Niutao.
The population at the 2002 census was 9,561, and the population at the 2012 census was 10,640. The most recent census in 2017 puts the population at 11,192. The population of Tuvalu is primarily of Polynesian ethnicity, with approximately 5.6% of the population being Micronesian.
Life expectancy for women in Tuvalu is 69.5 years and 65 years for men (2018 est.). The country's population growth rate is 0.86% (2018 est.). The net migration rate is estimated at −6.6 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2018 est.). The threat of global warming in Tuvalu is not yet a dominant motivation for migration as Tuvaluans appear to prefer to continue living on the islands for reasons of lifestyle, culture and identity.
From 1947 to 1983, a number of Tuvaluans from Vaitupu migrated to Kioa, an island in Fiji. The settlers from Tuvalu were granted Fijian citizenship in 2005. In recent years, New Zealand and Australia have been the primary destinations for migration or seasonal work.
In 2014, attention was drawn to an appeal to the New Zealand Immigration and Protection Tribunal against the deportation of a Tuvaluan family on the basis that they were "climate change refugees", who would suffer hardship resulting from the environmental degradation of Tuvalu. However, the subsequent grant of residence permits to the family was made on grounds unrelated to the refugee claim. The family was successful in their appeal because, under the relevant immigration legislation, there were "exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian nature" that justified the grant of resident permits, for the family was integrated into New Zealand society with a sizeable extended family that had effectively relocated to New Zealand. Indeed, in 2013 a claim of a Kiribati man of being a "climate change refugee" under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) was determined by the New Zealand High Court to be untenable, for there was no persecution or serious harm related to any of the five stipulated Refugee Convention grounds. Permanent migration to Australia and New Zealand, such as for family reunification, requires compliance with the immigration legislation of those countries.
New Zealand has an annual quota of 75 Tuvaluans granted work permits under the "Pacific Access Category", as announced in 2001. The applicants register for the Pacific Access Category (PAC) ballots; the primary criterion is that the principal applicant must have a job offer from a New Zealand employer. Tuvaluans also have access to seasonal employment in the horticulture and viticulture industries in New Zealand under the "Recognised Seasonal Employer" (RSE) Work Policy introduced in 2007 allowing for employment of up to 5,000 workers from Tuvalu and other Pacific islands. Tuvaluans can participate in the Australian "Pacific Seasonal Worker Program", which allows Pacific Islanders to obtain seasonal employment in the Australian agriculture industry, in particular, cotton and cane operations; fishing industry, in particular aquaculture; and with accommodation providers in the tourism industry.
The Tuvaluan language and English are the national languages of Tuvalu. Tuvaluan is of the Ellicean group of Polynesian languages, distantly related to all other Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Māori, Tahitian, Rapa Nui, Samoan and Tongan. It is most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian outliers in Micronesia and northern and central Melanesia. The Tuvaluan language has borrowed from the Samoan language, as a consequence of Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries being predominantly Samoan.
The Tuvaluan language is spoken by virtually everyone, while a language very similar to Gilbertese is spoken on Nui. English is also an official language but is not spoken in daily use. Parliament and official functions are conducted in the Tuvaluan language.
There are about 13,000 Tuvaluan speakers worldwide. Radio Tuvalu transmits Tuvaluan-language programming.
The Congregational Christian Church of Tuvalu, which is part of the Christian Reformed tradition, is the state church of Tuvalu; although in practice this merely entitles it to "the privilege of performing special services on major national events". Its adherents comprise about 97% of the 10,837 (2012 census) inhabitants of the archipelago. The Constitution of Tuvalu guarantees freedom of religion, including the freedom to practice, the freedom to change religion, the right not to receive religious instruction at school or to attend religious ceremonies at school, and the right not to "take an oath or make an affirmation that is contrary to his religion or belief".
Other Christian groups include the Roman Catholic community served by the Mission Sui Iuris of Funafuti, and the Seventh-day Adventist which has 2.8% of the population. According to its own estimates, the Tuvalu Brethren Church has about 500 members (i.e. 4.5% of the population).
The Bahá'í Faith is the largest minority religion and the largest non-Christian religion in Tuvalu. It constitutes 2.0% of the population. Bahais forms the majority in the Nanumea Island of Tuvalu. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community with about 50 members (0.4% of the population).
The introduction of Christianity ended the worship of ancestral spirits and other deities (animism), along with the power of the "vaka-atua" (the priests of the old religions). Laumua Kofe describes the objects of worship as varying from island to island, although ancestor worship was described by Rev. D.J. Whitmee in 1870 as being common practice.
Since the late 20th century the biggest health problem in Tuvalu, and the leading cause of death, has been heart disease, which is closely followed by diabetes and high blood pressure. In 2016 the majority of deaths resulted from cardiac diseases, with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, obesity, and cerebral-vascular disease among the other causes of death.
Education in Tuvalu is free and compulsory between the ages of 6 and 15 years. Each island has a primary school. Motufoua Secondary School is located on Vaitupu. Students board at the school during the school term, returning to their home islands each school vacation. Fetuvalu Secondary School, a day school operated by the Church of Tuvalu, is on Funafuti.
Fetuvalu offers the Cambridge syllabus. Motufoua offers the Fiji Junior Certificate (FJC) at year 10, Tuvaluan Certificate at Year 11 and the Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate (PSSC) at Year 12, which is set by SPBEA, the Fiji-based exam board. Sixth form students who pass their PSSC go on to the Augmented Foundation Programme, funded by the Tuvalu government. This program is required for tertiary education programmes outside of Tuvalu and is available at the University of the South Pacific (USP) Extension Centre in Funafuti.
Required attendance at school is 10 years for males and 11 years for females (2001). The adult literacy rate is 99.0% (2002). In 2010, there were 1,918 students who were taught by 109 teachers (98 certified and 11 uncertified). The teacher-pupil ratio for primary schools in Tuvalu is around 1:18 for all schools with the exception of Nauti School, which has a ratio of 1:27. Nauti School on Funafuti is the largest primary school in Tuvalu with more than 900 students (45 percent of the total primary school enrollment). The pupil-teacher ratio for Tuvalu is low compared to the entire Pacific region (ratio of 1:29).
Community Training Centres (CTCs) have been established within the primary schools on each atoll. They provide vocational training to students who do not progress beyond Class 8 because they failed the entry qualifications for secondary education. The CTCs offer training in basic carpentry, gardening and farming, sewing and cooking. At the end of their studies the graduates can apply to continue studies either at Motufoua Secondary School or the Tuvalu Maritime Training Institute (TMTI). Adults can also attend courses at the CTCs.
The Tuvaluan Employment Ordinance of 1966 sets the minimum age for paid employment at 14 years and prohibits children under the age of 15 from performing hazardous work.
The traditional buildings of Tuvalu used plants and trees from the native broadleaf forest, including timber from "pouka" ("Hernandia peltata"); "ngia" or "ingia" bush ("Pemphis acidula"); "miro" ("Thespesia populnea"); "Tonga" ("Rhizophora mucronata"); "Fau" or "Fo fafini", or woman's fibre tree ("Hibiscus tiliaceus"). Fibre is from coconut; "ferra", native fig ("Ficus aspem"); "fala", screw pine or "Pandanus". The buildings were constructed without nails and were lashed together with a plaited sennit rope that was handmade from dried coconut fibre.
Following contact with Europeans, iron products were used including nails and corrugated roofing material. Modern building in Tuvalu are constructed from imported building materials, including imported timber and concrete.
Church and community buildings ("maneapa") are usually coated with white paint that is known as "lase", which is made by burning a large amount of dead coral with firewood. The whitish powder that is the result is mixed with water and painted on the buildings.
The women of Tuvalu use cowrie and other shells in traditional handicrafts. The artistic traditions of Tuvalu have traditionally been expressed in the design of clothing and traditional handicrafts such as the decoration of mats and fans. Crochet ("kolose") is one of the art forms practised by Tuvaluan women. The material culture of Tuvalu uses traditional design elements in artefacts used in everyday life such as the design of canoes and fish hooks made from traditional materials. The design of women's skirts ("titi"), tops ("teuga saka"), headbands, armbands, and wristbands, which continue to be used in performances of the traditional dance songs of Tuvalu, represents contemporary Tuvaluan art and design.
In 2015, an exhibition was held on Funafuti of the art of Tuvalu, with works that addressed climate change through the eyes of artists and the display of "Kope ote olaga" (possessions of life), a display of the various artefacts of Tuvalu culture.
The traditional music of Tuvalu consists of a number of dances, including "fakaseasea", "fakanau" and "fatele". The "fatele", in its modern form, is performed at community events and to celebrate leaders and other prominent individuals, such as the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in September 2012. The Tuvaluan style can be described "as a musical microcosm of Polynesia, where contemporary and older styles co-exist".
The cuisine of Tuvalu is based on the staple of coconut and the many species of fish found in the ocean and lagoons of the atolls. Desserts made on the islands include coconut and coconut milk, rather than animal milk. The traditional foods eaten in Tuvalu are pulaka, taro, bananas, breadfruit and coconut. Tuvaluans also eat seafood, including coconut crab and fish from the lagoon and ocean. Another traditional food source is seabirds ("taketake" or black noddy and "akiaki" or white tern), with pork being eaten mostly at "fateles" (or parties with dancing to celebrate events).
Pulaka is the main source for carbohydrates. Seafood provides protein. Bananas and breadfruit are supplemental crops. Coconut is used for its juice, to make other beverages and to improve the taste of some dishes.
A 1560-square-metre pond was built in 1996 on Vaitupu to sustain aquaculture in Tuvalu.
Flying fish are also caught as a source of food; and as an exciting activity, using a boat, a butterfly net and a spotlight to attract the flying fish.
The traditional community system still survives to a large extent on Tuvalu. Each family has its own task, or "salanga", to perform for the community, such as fishing, house building or defence. The skills of a family are passed on from parents to children.
Most islands have their own "fusi", community-owned shops similar to convenience stores, where canned foods and bags of rice can be purchased. Goods are cheaper, and fusis give better prices for their own produce.
Another important building is the "falekaupule" or "maneapa", the traditional island meeting hall, where important matters are discussed and which is also used for wedding celebrations and community activities such as a "fatele" involving music, singing and dancing. "Falekaupule" is also used as the name of the council of elders – the traditional decision-making body on each island. Under the Falekaupule Act, "Falekaupule" means "traditional assembly in each island...composed in accordance with the Aganu of each island". "Aganu" means traditional customs and culture.
"Paopao" (from the Samoan language, meaning a small fishing-canoe made from a single log), is the traditional single-outrigger canoe of Tuvalu, of which the largest could carry four to six adults. The variations of single-outrigger canoes that had been developed on Vaitupu and Nanumea were reef-type or paddled canoes; that is, they were designed for carrying over the reef and being paddled, rather than being sailed. Outrigger canoes from Nui were constructed with an indirect type of outrigger attachment and the hull is double-ended, with no distinct bow and stern. These canoes were designed to be sailed over the Nui lagoon. The booms of the outrigger are longer than those found in other designs of canoes from the other islands. This made the Nui canoe more stable when used with a sail than the other designs.
A traditional sport played in Tuvalu is "kilikiti", which is similar to cricket. A popular sport specific to Tuvalu is "Ano", which is played with two round balls of diameter. "Ano" is a localised version of volleyball, in which the two hard balls made from pandanus leaves are volleyed at great speed with the team members trying to stop the "Ano" hitting the ground. Traditional sports in the late 19th century were foot racing, lance throwing, quarterstaff fencing and wrestling, although the Christian missionaries disapproved of these activities.
The popular sports in Tuvalu include "kilikiti", "Ano", association football, futsal, volleyball, handball, basketball and rugby union. Tuvalu has sports organisations for athletics, badminton, tennis, table tennis, volleyball, football, basketball, rugby union, weightlifting and powerlifting. At the 2013 Pacific Mini Games, Tuau Lapua Lapua won Tuvalu's first gold medal in an international competition in the weightlifting 62 kilogram male snatch. (He also won bronze in the clean and jerk, and obtained the silver medal overall for the combined event.) In 2015, Telupe Iosefa received the first gold medal won by Tuvalu at the Pacific Games in the powerlifting 120 kg male division.
Football in Tuvalu is played at club and national team level. The Tuvalu national football team trains at the Tuvalu Sports Ground in Funafuti and competes in the Pacific Games. The Tuvalu National Football Association is an associate member of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) and is seeking membership in FIFA. The Tuvalu national futsal team participates in the Oceanian Futsal Championship.
A major sporting event is the "Independence Day Sports Festival" held annually on 1 October. The most important sports event within the country is arguably the Tuvalu Games, which are held yearly since 2008. Tuvalu first participated in the Pacific Games in 1978 and in the Commonwealth Games in 1998, when a weightlifter attended the games held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two table tennis players attended the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England; Tuvalu entered competitors in shooting, table tennis and weightlifting at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia; three athletes participated in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, entering the discus, shot put and weightlifting events; and a team of 3 weightlifters and 2 table tennis players attended the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Tuvaluan athletes have also participated in the men's and women's 100 metres sprint at the World Championships in Athletics from 2009.
The Tuvalu Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee (TASNOC) was recognised as a National Olympic Committee in July 2007. Tuvalu entered the Olympic Games for the first time at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China, with a weightlifter and two athletes in the men's and women's 100 metres sprint. A team with athletes in the same events represented Tuvalu at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Etimoni Timuani was the sole representative of Tuvalu at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the 100m event.
From 1996 to 2002, Tuvalu was one of the best-performing Pacific Island economies and achieved an average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 5.6% per annum. Economic growth slowed after 2002, with GDP growth of 1.5% in 2008. Tuvalu was exposed to rapid rises in world prices of fuel and food in 2008, with the level of inflation peaking at 13.4%.
Tuvalu joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 24 June 2010. The IMP 2010 Report on Tuvalu estimates that Tuvalu experienced zero growth in its 2010 GDP, after the economy contracted by about 2% in 2009. On 5 August 2012, the Executive Board of the IMF concluded the Article IV consultation with Tuvalu, and assessed the economy of Tuvalu: "A slow recovery is underway in Tuvalu, but there are important risks. GDP grew in 2011 for the first time since the global financial crisis, led by the private retail sector and education spending. We expect growth to rise slowly". The IMF 2014 Country Report noted that real GDP growth in Tuvalu had been volatile averaging only 1 percent in the past decade. The 2014 Country Report describes economic growth prospects as generally positive as the result of large revenues from fishing licences, together with substantial foreign aid. While a budget deficit of A$0.4 million was projected for 2015, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) assessed the budget as being A$14.3m in surplus as the result of high tuna fish licence fees. The ADB predicted that the 2% growth rate for 2015 would continue into 2016. Nonetheless, Tuvalu has the smallest GDP of any sovereign nation in the world.
The government is the primary provider of medical services through Princess Margaret Hospital on Funafuti, which operates health clinics on the other islands. Banking services are provided by the National Bank of Tuvalu. Public sector workers make up about 65% of those formally employed. Remittances from Tuvaluans living in Australia and New Zealand, and remittances from Tuvaluan sailors employed on overseas ships are important sources of income for Tuvaluans. Approximately 15% of adult males work as seamen on foreign-flagged merchant ships. Agriculture in Tuvalu is focused on coconut trees and growing pulaka in large pits of composted soil below the water table. Tuvaluans are otherwise involved in traditional subsistence agriculture and fishing.
Tuvaluans are well known for their seafaring skills, with the Tuvalu Maritime Training Institute on Amatuku motu (island), Funafuti, providing training to approximately 120 marine cadets each year so that they have the skills necessary for employment as seafarers on merchant shipping. The Tuvalu Overseas Seamen's Union (TOSU) is the only registered trade union in Tuvalu. It represents workers on foreign ships. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that 800 Tuvaluan men are trained, certified and active as seafarers. The ADB estimates that, at any one time, about 15% of the adult male population works abroad as seafarers. Job opportunities also exist as observers on tuna boats where the role is to monitor compliance with the boat's tuna fishing licence.
Government revenues largely come from sales of fishing licences, income from the Tuvalu Trust Fund, and from the lease of its ".tv" Internet Top Level Domain (TLD). In 1998, Tuvalu began deriving revenue from the use of its area code for premium-rate telephone numbers and from the commercialisation of its ".tv" Internet domain name, which is now managed by Verisign until 2021. Tuvalu also generates income from postage stamps by the Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau, and from the Tuvalu Ship Registry.
The Tuvalu Trust Fund was established in 1987 by the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The value of the Tuvalu Trust Fund is approximately $100 million. Financial support to Tuvalu is also provided by Japan, South Korea and the European Union. Australia and New Zealand continue to contribute capital to the Tuvalu Trust Fund, and provide other forms of development assistance.
The US government is also a major revenue source for Tuvalu. In 1999, the payment from the South Pacific Tuna Treaty (SPTT) was about $9 million, with the value increasing in the following years. In May 2013, representatives from the United States and the Pacific Islands countries agreed to sign interim arrangement documents to extend the Multilateral Fisheries Treaty (which encompasses the South Pacific Tuna Treaty) for 18 months.
The United Nations designates Tuvalu as a least developed country (LDC) because of its limited potential for economic development, absence of exploitable resources and its small size and vulnerability to external economic and environmental shocks. Tuvalu participates in the Enhanced Integrated Framework for Trade-Related Technical Assistance to Least Developed Countries (EIF), which was established in October 1997 under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation. In 2013, Tuvalu deferred its graduation from least developed country (LDC) status to a developing country to 2015. Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga said that this deferral was necessary to maintain access by Tuvalu to the funds provided by the United Nations's National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA), as "Once Tuvalu graduates to a developed country, it will not be considered for funding assistance for climate change adaptation programmes like NAPA, which only goes to LDCs". Tuvalu had met targets so that Tuvalu was to graduate from LDC status. Prime minister Enele Sopoaga wants the United Nations to reconsider its criteria for graduation from LDC status as not enough weight is given to the environmental plight of small island states like Tuvalu in the application of the Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI).
Due to the country's remoteness, tourism is not significant. Visitors totalled 1,684 in 2010: 65% were on business, development officials or technical consultants, 20% were tourists (360 people), and 11% were expatriates returning to visit family. In 2016, the number of visitors had increased to 2,000.
The main island of Funafuti is the focus of travellers, since the only airport in Tuvalu is the Funafuti International Airport and Funafuti is the only island that has hotel facilities. However, there are no tour guides, tour operators or organised activities and no cruise ships visit. Ecotourism is a motivation of travellers to Tuvalu. The Funafuti Conservation Area consists of of ocean, reef, lagoon, channel and six uninhabited islets.
The outer atolls can be visited on the two passenger-cargo ships, "Nivaga III" and "Manú Folau", which provide round-trip visits to the outer islands every three or four weeks. There is guesthouse accommodation on many of the outer islands.
The Tuvalu Media Department of the Government of Tuvalu operates "Radio Tuvalu" which broadcasts from Funafuti. In 2011, the Japanese government provided financial support to construct a new AM broadcast studio. The installation of upgraded transmission equipment allows Radio Tuvalu to be heard on all nine islands of Tuvalu. The new AM radio transmitter on Funafuti replaced the FM radio service to the outer islands and freed up satellite bandwidth for mobile services. "Fenui – news from Tuvalu" is a free digital publication of the Tuvalu Media Department that is emailed to subscribers and operates a Facebook page, which publishes news about government activities and news about Tuvaluan events.
The Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation (TTC), a state-owned enterprise, provides fixed line telephone communications to subscribers on each island, mobile phone services on Funafuti, Vaitupu and Nukulaelae and is a distributor of the Fiji Television service (Sky Pacific satellite television service).
Communications in Tuvalu rely on satellite dishes for telephone and internet access. The available bandwidth is only 512 kbit/s uplink, and 1.5 Mbit/s downlink. Throughout Tuvalu are more than 900 subscribers who want to use the satellite service, with demand slowing down the speed of the system.
There are limited transport services in Tuvalu. There are about of roads. The streets of Funafuti were paved in mid-2002, but other roads are unpaved. Tuvalu does not have any railroads.
Funafuti is the only port, but there is a deep-water berth in the lagoon at Nukufetau. The merchant marine fleet consists of two passenger/cargo ships "Nivaga III" and "Manu Folau". The "Nivaga III" and "Manu Folau" provide round-trip visits to the outer islands every three or four weeks, and travel between Suva, Fiji and Funafuti three or four times a year. The "Manu Folau", a 50-metre vessel, was a gift from Japan to the people of Tuvalu. In 2015, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) assisted the government of Tuvalu to acquire "MV Talamoana", a 30-metre vessel that will be used to implement Tuvalu's National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to transport government officials and project personnel to the outer islands. In 2015, the "Nivaga III" was donated by the government of Japan; it replaced the "Nivaga II", which had been in service in Tuvalu from 1989.
The only airport in Tuvalu is Funafuti International Airport. It is a tarred strip. Fiji Airways, the owner of Fiji Airlines (trading as Fiji Link) operates services three times a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) between Suva (originating from Nadi) and Funafuti with ATR 72–600, a 68-seat plane. Air Kiribati service provides one flight a week to Funafuti from Tarawa on a Wednesday. The service uses a Bombardier Dash 8 100 series aircraft, which has the capacity to take up to 35 passengers.
Tuvalu is a volcanic archipelago, and consists of three reef islands (Nanumanga, Niutao and Niulakita) and six true atolls (Funafuti, Nanumea, Nui, Nukufetau, Nukulaelae and Vaitupu). Its small, scattered group of atolls have poor soil and a total land area of only about making it the fourth smallest country in the world. Over four decades, there had been a net increase in land area of the islets of 73.5 ha (2.9%), although the changes are not uniform, with 74% increasing and 27% decreasing in size. The sea level at the Funafuti tide gauge has risen at 3.9 mm per year, which is approximately twice the global average. The rising sea levels are identified as creating an increased transfer of wave energy across reef surfaces, which shifts sand, resulting in accretion to island shorelines. The Tuvalu Prime Minister objected to the report's implication that there were "alternate" strategies for Islanders to adapt to rising sea levels, and criticised it for neglecting issues such as saltwater intrusion into groundwater tables as a result of sea level rise.
Funafuti is the largest atoll, and comprises numerous islets around a central lagoon that is approximately (N–S) by (W-E), centred on 179°7'E and 8°30'S. On the atolls, an annular reef rim surrounds the lagoon with several natural reef channels. Surveys were carried out in May 2010 of the reef habitats of Nanumea, Nukulaelae and Funafuti; a total of 317 fish species were recorded during this "Tuvalu Marine Life" study. The surveys identified 66 species that had not previously been recorded in Tuvalu, which brings the total number of identified species to 607. Tuvalu's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) covers an oceanic area of approximately 900,000 km2.
Tuvalu is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The predominant vegetation type on the islands of Tuvalu is the cultivated coconut woodland, which covers 43% of the land, the native broadleaf forest is limited to 4.1% of the vegetation types.
Tuvalu experiences two distinct seasons, a wet season from November to April and a dry season from May to October. Westerly gales and heavy rain are the predominant weather conditions from October to March, the period that is known as "Tau-o-lalo", with tropical temperatures moderated by easterly winds from April to November.
Tuvalu experiences the effects of El Niño and La Niña, which is caused by changes in ocean temperatures in the equatorial and central Pacific. El Niño effects increase the chances of tropical storms and cyclones, while La Niña effects increase the chances of drought. Typically the islands of Tuvalu receive between of rainfall per month. However, in 2011, a weak La Niña effect caused a drought by cooling the surface of the sea around Tuvalu. A state of emergency was declared on 28 September 2011, with rationing of fresh water on the islands of Funafuti and Nukulaelae. Households on Funafuti and Nukulaelae were restricted to two buckets of fresh water per day (40 litres).
The governments of Australia and New Zealand responded to the 2011 fresh water crisis by supplying temporary desalination plants, and assisted in the repair of the existing desalination unit that was donated by Japan in 2006. In response to the 2011 drought, Japan funded the purchase of a 100 m3/d desalination plant and two portable 10 m3/d plants as part of its Pacific Environment Community (PEC) program. Aid programs from the European Union and Australia also provided water tanks as part of a longer-term solution for the storage of available fresh water. The La Niña event that caused the drought ended in April–May 2012. The central Pacific Ocean experiences changes from periods of La Niña to periods of El Niño.
The eastern shoreline of Funafuti Lagoon on Fongafale was modified during World War II when the airfield (now Funafuti International Airport) was constructed. The coral base of the atoll was used as fill to create the runway. The resulting borrow pits impacted the fresh-water aquifer. In the low-lying areas of Funafuti, the sea water can be seen bubbling up through the porous coral rock to form pools with each high tide. In 2014, the Tuvalu Borrow Pits Remediation (BPR) project was approved so that 10 borrow pits would be filled with sand from the lagoon, leaving Tafua Pond, which is a natural pond. The New Zealand Government funded the BPR project. The project was carried out in 2015, with 365,000 sqm of sand being dredged from the lagoon to fill the holes and improve living conditions on the island. This project increased the usable land space on Fongafale by eight per cent.
During World War II, several piers were also constructed on Fongafale in the Funafuti Lagoon; beach areas were filled and deep-water access channels were excavated. These alterations to the reef and shoreline resulted in changes to wave patterns, with less sand accumulating to form the beaches, compared to former times; the shoreline is now exposed to wave action. Several attempts to stabilise the shoreline have not achieved the desired effect.
The reefs at Funafuti have suffered damage, with 80 percent of the coral becoming bleached as a consequence of the increase in ocean temperatures and ocean acidification. The coral bleaching, which includes staghorn corals, is attributed to the increase in water temperature that happened during the El Niños that occurred between 1998 and 2001. A reef restoration project has investigated reef restoration techniques; and researchers from Japan have investigated rebuilding the coral reefs through the introduction of foraminifera. The project of the Japan International Cooperation Agency is designed to increase the resilience of the Tuvalu coast against sea level rise, through ecosystem rehabilitation and regeneration and through support for sand production.
The rising population has resulted in an increased demand on fish stocks, which are under stress, although the creation of the Funafuti Conservation Area has provided a fishing exclusion area to help sustain the fish population across the Funafuti lagoon. Population pressure on the resources of Funafuti, and inadequate sanitation systems, have resulted in pollution. The Waste Operations and Services Act of 2009 provides the legal framework for waste management and pollution control projects funded by the European Union directed at organic waste composting in eco-sanitation systems. The Environment Protection (Litter and Waste Control) Regulation 2013 is intended to improve the management of the importation of non-biodegradable materials. Plastic waste is a problem in Tuvalu, for much imported food and other commodities are supplied in plastic containers or packaging.
Rainwater harvesting is the principal source of fresh water in Tuvalu. Nukufetau, Vaitupu and Nanumea are the only islands with sustainable groundwater supplies. The effectiveness of rainwater harvesting is diminished because of poor maintenance of roofs, gutters and pipes. Aid programmes of Australia and the European Union have been directed to improving the storage capacity on Funafuti and in the outer islands.
Reverse osmosis (R/O) desalination units supplement rainwater harvesting on Funafuti. The 65 m3 desalination plant operates at a real production level of around 40 m3 per day. R/O water is only intended to be produced when storage falls below 30%, however demand to replenish household storage supplies with tanker-delivered water means that the R/O desalination units are continually operating. Water is delivered at a cost of A$3.50 per m3. Cost of production and delivery has been estimated at A$6 per m3, with the difference subsidised by the government.
In July 2012, a United Nations Special Rapporteur called on the Tuvalu Government to develop a national water strategy to improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In 2012, Tuvalu developed a National Water Resources Policy under the Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) Project and the Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) Project, which are sponsored by the Global Environment Fund/SOPAC. Government water planning has established a target of between 50 and 100L of water per person per day accounting for drinking water, cleaning, community and cultural activities.
Tuvalu is working with the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) to implement composting toilets and to improve the treatment of sewage sludge from septic tanks on Fongafale, for septic tanks are leaking into the freshwater lens in the sub-surface of the atoll as well as the ocean and lagoon. Composting toilets reduce water use by up to 30%.
Because of the low elevation, the islands that make up this nation are vulnerable to the effects of tropical cyclones and by the threat of current and future sea level rise. A warning system, which uses the Iridium satellite network, was introduced in 2016 in order to allow outlying islands to be better prepared for natural disasters.
The highest elevation is above sea level on Niulakita, Tuvalu thus has the second-lowest maximum elevation of any country (after the Maldives). The highest elevations are typically in narrow storm dunes on the ocean side of the islands which are prone to overtopping in tropical cyclones, as occurred with Cyclone Bebe, which was a very early-season storm that passed through the Tuvaluan atolls in October 1972. Cyclone Bebe submerged Funafuti, eliminating 90% of structures on the island. Sources of drinking water were contaminated as a result of the system's storm surge and the flooding of the sources of fresh water.
George Westbrook, a trader on Funafuti, recorded a cyclone that struck Funafuti on 23–24 December 1883. A cyclone struck Nukulaelae on 17–18 March 1886.
A cyclone caused severe damage to the islands in 1894.
Tuvalu experienced an average of three cyclones per decade between the 1940s and 1970s; however, eight occurred in the 1980s. The impact of individual cyclones is subject to variables including the force of the winds and also whether a cyclone coincides with high tides. Funafuti's Tepuka Vili Vili islet was devastated by Cyclone Meli in 1979, with all its vegetation and most of its sand swept away during the cyclone. Along with a tropical depression that affected the islands a few days later, Severe Tropical Cyclone Ofa had a major impact on Tuvalu with most islands reporting damage to vegetation and crops. Cyclone Gavin was first identified during 2 March 1997, and was the first of three tropical cyclones to affect Tuvalu during the 1996–97 cyclone season, with Cyclones Hina and Keli following later in the season.
In March 2015, the winds and storm surge created by Cyclone Pam resulted in waves of to breaking over the reef of the outer islands, causing damage to houses, crops and infrastructure. A state of emergency was declared. On Nui, the sources of fresh water were destroyed or contaminated. The flooding in Nui and Nukufetau caused many families to shelter in evacuation centres or with other families. Nui suffered the most damage of the three central islands (Nui, Nukufetau and Vaitupu); with both Nui and Nukufetau suffering the loss of 90% of the crops. Of the three northern islands (Nanumanga, Niutao and Nanumea), Nanumanga suffered the most damage, with from 60 to 100 houses flooded, with the waves also causing damage to the health facility. Vasafua islet, part of the Funafuti Conservation Area, was severely damaged by Cyclone Pam. The coconut palms were washed away, leaving the islet as a sand bar.
The Tuvalu Government carried out assessments of the damage caused by Cyclone Pam to the islands and has provided medical aid, food as well as assistance for the cleaning-up of storm debris. Government and Non-Government Organisations provided assistance technical, funding and material support to Tuvalu to assist with recovery, including WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, OCHA, World Bank, DFAT, New Zealand Red Cross & IFRC, Fiji National University and governments of New Zealand, Netherlands, UAE, Taiwan and the United States.
Tuvalu is also affected by perigean spring tide events which raise the sea level higher than a normal high tide. The highest peak tide recorded by the Tuvalu Meteorological Service is , on 24 February 2006 and again on 19 February 2015. As a result of the historical sea level rise, the king tide events lead to flooding of low-lying areas, which is compounded when sea levels are further raised by La Niña effects or local storms and waves.
As low-lying islands lacking a surrounding shallow shelf, the communities of Tuvalu are especially susceptible to changes in sea level and undissipated storms. At its highest, Tuvalu is only above sea level. Tuvaluan leaders have been concerned about the effects of rising sea levels. It is estimated that a sea level rise of 20–40 centimetres (8–16 inches) in the next 100 years could make Tuvalu uninhabitable. A study published in 2018 estimated the change in land area of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, indicating that 75% of the islands had grown in area, with an overall increase of more than 2%. Enele Sopoaga, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, responded to the research by stating that Tuvalu is not expanding and has gained no additional habitable land. Sopoaga, has also said that evacuating the islands is the last resort.
Whether there are measurable changes in the sea level relative to the islands of Tuvalu is a contentious issue. There were problems associated with the pre-1993 sea level records from Funafuti which resulted in improvements in the recording technology to provide more reliable data for analysis. The degree of uncertainty as to estimates of sea level change relative to the islands of Tuvalu was reflected in the conclusions made in 2002 from the available data. The uncertainty as to the accuracy of the data from this tide gauge resulted in a modern Aquatrak acoustic gauge being installed in 1993 by the Australian National Tidal Facility (NTF) as part of the AusAID-sponsored South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project. The 2011 report of the "Pacific Climate Change Science Program" published by the Australian Government, concludes: "The sea-level rise near Tuvalu measured by satellite altimeters since 1993 is about per year."
Tuvalu has adopted a national plan of action as the observable transformations over the last ten to fifteen years show Tuvaluans that there have been changes to the sea levels. These include sea water bubbling up through the porous coral rock to form pools at high tide and the flooding of low-lying areas including the airport during spring tides and king tides.
The atolls have shown resilience to gradual sea-level rise, with atolls and reef islands being able to grow under current climate conditions by generating sufficient sand and coral debris that accumulates and gets dumped on the islands during cyclones. Gradual sea-level rise also allows for coral polyp activity to increase the reefs. However, if the increase in sea level occurs at faster rate as compared to coral growth, or if polyp activity is damaged by ocean acidification, then the resilience of the atolls and reef islands is less certain. The 2011 report of "Pacific Climate Change Science Program" of Australia concludes, in relation to Tuvalu, that over the course of the 21st century:
The South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) suggests that, while Tuvalu is vulnerable to climate change, environmental problems such as population growth and poor coastal management also affect sustainable development. SOPAC ranks the country as extremely vulnerable using the Environmental Vulnerability Index.
While some commentators have called for the relocation of Tuvalu's population to Australia, New Zealand or Kioa in Fiji, in 2006 Maatia Toafa (Prime Minister from 2004 to 2006) said his government did not regard rising sea levels as such a threat that the entire population would need to be evacuated. In 2013, Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga said that relocating Tuvaluans to avoid the impact of sea level rise "should never be an option because it is self defeating in itself. For Tuvalu I think we really need to mobilise public opinion in the Pacific as well as in the [rest of] world to really talk to their lawmakers to please have some sort of moral obligation and things like that to do the right thing."
Women from Tuvalu, such as Moira Simmons-Avafoa, along with others from Pacific countries have been encouraged to use their voices to contribute to discussion about climate change - in particular how it disproportionately affects women and children.
Enele Sopoaga said at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) that the goal for COP21 should be a global temperature goal of below 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels, which is the position of the Alliance of Small Island States.
Sopoaga said in his speech to the meeting of heads of state and government:
His speech concluded with the plea:
The countries participating in the Paris Agreement agreed to reduce their carbon output "as soon as possible" and to do their best to keep global warming "to well below 2 °C". Enele Sopoaga described the important outcomes of COP21 as including the stand-alone provision for assistance to small island states and some of the least developed countries for loss and damage resulting from climate change and the ambition of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.
Documentary films about Tuvalu: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30227 |
Geography of Tuvalu
The Western Pacific nation of Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands. It is situated northeast of Australia and is approximately halfway between Hawaii and Australia. It lies east-northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands (belonging to the Solomons), southeast of Nauru, south of Kiribati, west of Tokelau, northwest of Samoa and Wallis and Futuna and north of Fiji. It is a very small island country of and is . Due to the spread out islands it has the 38th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of .
Tuvalu consists of three reef islands and six atolls. The reef islands have a different structure to the atolls, and are described as reef platforms as they are smaller tabular reef platforms that do not have a salt-water lagoon, although they have a completely closed rim of dry land, with the remnants of a lagoon that has no connection to the open sea or that may be drying up. For example, Niutao has two lakes, which are brackish to saline; and are the degraded lagoon as the result of coral debris filling the lagoon.
The Tuvalu islands have poor soil and a total land area of only about 26 km², less than . The land is very low-lying, with narrow coral atolls. The highest elevation is above sea level on Niulakita. Over 4 decades, there had been a net increase in land area of the islets of 73.5 ha (2.9%), although the changes are not uniform, with 74% increasing and 27% decreasing in size. The sea level at the Funafuti tide gauge has risen at 3.9 mm per year, which is approximately twice the global average. The rising sea levels are identified as creating an increased transfer of wave energy across reef surfaces, which shifts sand, resulting in accretion to island shorelines, although this process does not result in additional habitable land. but as of March 2018 Enele Sopoaga, the prime minister of Tuvalu, stated that Tuvalu is not expanding and has gained no additional habitable land.
Tuvalu experiences two distinct seasons, a wet season from November to April and a dry season from May to October. Westerly gales and heavy rain are the predominate weather conditions from October to March, the period that is known as "Tau-o-lalo", with tropical temperatures moderated by easterly winds from April to November. In terms of size, it is the second-smallest country in Oceania.
Location:
Oceania, island group of nine islands comprising three reef islands and six true atolls in the South Pacific Ocean. The islands of Tuvalu are spread out between the latitude of 5° to 10° south and longitude of 176° to 180°, west of the International Date Line.
Geographic coordinates: to
Map references:
Oceania
Area:
"total:"
26 km²
"land:"
26 km²
"water:"
0 km²
Area – comparative:
0.1 times the size of Washington, DC
Land boundaries:
0 km
Coastline:
Maritime claims:
"contiguous zone:"
"exclusive economic zone:"
"territorial sea:"
Tuvalu's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers an oceanic area of approximately .
On 29 August 2012 an "Agreement between Tuvalu and Kiribati concerning their Maritime Boundary", was signed by their respective leaders that determined the boundary as being seaward of Nanumea and Niutao in Tuvalu on the one hand and Tabiteuea, Tamana and Arorae in Kiribati on the other hand, along the geodesics connecting the points of latitude and longitude set out in the agreement.
In October 2014 the prime ministers of Fiji and Tuvalu signed the "Fiji-Tuvalu Maritime Boundary Treaty", which establishes the extent of the national areas of jurisdiction between Fiji and Tuvalu as recognized in international law under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Climate:
tropical; moderated by easterly trade winds (March to November); westerly gales and heavy rain (November to March).
Terrain:
low-lying and narrow coral atolls.
Elevation extremes:
"lowest point:"
Pacific Ocean 0 m
"highest point:"
unnamed location, on Niulakita.
Extreme points:
This is a list of the extreme points of Tuvalu, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location:
Natural resources:
fish
Land use:
"arable land:"
0%
"permanent crops:"
60%
"other:"
40% (2011)
Irrigated land:
NA km²
The native broadleaf forest is limited to 4.1% of the vegetation types on the islands of Tuvalu. The islets of the Funafuti Conservation Area have 40% of the remaining native broadleaf forest on Funafuti atoll. While Coconut palms are common in Tuvalu, they are usually cultivated rather than naturally seeding and growing. Tuvaluan traditional histories are that the first settlers of the islands planted Coconut palms as they were not found on the islands. The native broadleaf forest of Funafuti would include the following species, that were described by Charles Hedley in 1896, which include the Tuvaluan name (some of which may follow Samoan plant names):
The blossoms that are valued for their scent and for use in flower necklaces and headdresses include: "Fetau", ("Calophyllum inophyllum"); "Jiali", ("Gardenia taitensis"); "Boua" ("Guettarda speciosa"); and "Crinum".
Donald Gilbert Kennedy, the resident District Officer in the administration of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony from 1932 to 1938, identified other trees found in the broadleaf forest:
Charles Hedley (1896) identified the uses of plants and trees from the native broadleaf forest as including:
Thaman (1992) provides a literature review of the ethnobiology of the Pacific Islands.
Tuvalu experiences the effects of El Niño and La Niña that flow from changes in ocean temperatures in equatorial and central Pacific. El Niño effects increase the chances of tropical storms and cyclones; while La Niña effects increase the chances of drought conditions in Tuvalu. On 3 October 2011, drought conditions resulted in a state of emergency being declared as water reserves ran low. Typically the islands of Tuvalu receive between 200mm to 400mm of rainfall per month, however a weak La Niña effect causes a drought by cooling the surface of the sea around Tuvalu.
Severe tropical cyclones are usually rare, however the low level of islands makes them very sensitive to sea-level rise. Tuvalu experienced an average of three cyclones per decade between the 1940s and 1970s, however eight occurred in the 1980s. The impact of individual cyclones is subject to variables including the force of the winds and also whether a cyclone coincides with high tides. A warning system, which uses the Iridium satellite network, was introduced in 2016 in order to allow outlying islands to be better prepare for natural disasters.
George Westbrook recorded a cyclone that struck Funafuti on 23–24 December 1883. A cyclone struck Nukulaelae on 17–18 March 1886. Captain Davis of HMS "Royalist", who visited the Ellice Group in 1892, recorded in the ship's diary that in February 1891 the Ellice Group was devastated by a severe cyclone. A cyclone caused severe damage to the islands in 1894.
Cyclone Bebe caused severe damage to Funafuti during the 1972–73 South Pacific cyclone season. Funafuti's Tepuka Vili Vili islet was devastated by Cyclone Meli in 1979, with all its vegetation and most of its sand swept away during the cyclone. Cyclone Gavin was first identified during 2 March 1997, and was the first of three tropical cyclones to affect Tuvalu during the 1996–97 cyclone season with Cyclones Hina and Keli following later in the season. Cyclone Ofa had a major impact on Tuvalu in late January and early February 1990. On Vaitupu Island around 85 percent of residential homes, trees and food crops were destroyed, while residential homes were also destroyed on the islands of Niutao, Nui and Nukulaelae. The majority of the islands in Tuvalu reported damage to vegetation and crops especially bananas, coconuts and breadfruit, with the extent of damage ranging from 10 to 40 percent. In Funafuti sea waves flattened the Hurricane Bebe bank at the southern end of the airstrip, which caused sea flooding and prompted the evacuation of several families from their homes. In Nui and Niulakita there was a minor loss of the landscape because of sea flooding while there were no lives lost. Soon after the systems had impacted Tuvalu, a Disaster Rehabilitation Sub-Committee was appointed to evaluate the damage caused and make recommendations to the National Disaster Committee and to the Cabinet of Tuvalu, on what should be done to help rehabilitate the affected areas.
In March 2015 Cyclone Pam, the Category 5 cyclone that devastated Vanuatu, caused damage to houses, crops and infrastructure on the outer islands. A state of emergency was subsequently declared on 13 March. An estimated 45 percent of the nation's nearly 10,000 people were displaced, according to Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga. The three northern islands, Nanumea, Nanumanga and Niutao were badly affected by flooding as the result of storm surges. More than 400 people from the northern island of Nanumanga were moved to emergency accommodation in the school buildings, as well as another 85 families from Nukulaelae in the south of Tuvalu. On Nui the storm surges contaminated the water supplies and damaged septic tanks and grave sites. The central islands of Vaitupu and Nukufetau were also affected by flooding caused by storm surges. The Situation Report published on 30 March reported that on Nukufetau all the displaced people have returned to their homes.
Nui suffered the most damage of the three central islands (Nui, Nukufetau and Vaitupu); with both Nui and Nukufetau suffering the loss of 90% of the crops. Of the three northern islands (Nanumanga, Niutao, Nanumea), Nanumanga suffered the most damage, with 60–100 houses flooded and damage to the health facility. Vasafua islet, part of the Funafuti Conservation Area, was severely damaged by Cyclone Pam. The coconut palms were washed away, leaving the islet as a sand bar.
Nui was struck by a giant wave on 16 February 1882; earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occurring in the basin of the Pacific Ocean and along the Pacific Ring of Fire are a possible cause of a tsunami. There is earthquake activity in the Solomon Islands, where earthquakes occurred along the boundary of the Pacific Plate with, respectively, the Indo-Australia, Woodlark, and Solomon Sea plates.
Tuvalu consists of three reef islands and six true atolls. Its small, scattered group of atolls have poor soil and a total land area of only about 26 square kilometres (less than 10 sq. mi.) making it the fourth smallest country in the world. The islets that form the atolls are very low-lying. Nanumaga, Niutao, Niulakita are reef islands and the six true atolls are Funafuti, Nanumea, Nui, Nukufetau, Nukulaelae and Vaitupu. Funafuti is the largest atoll of the nine low reef islands and atolls that form the Tuvalu volcanic island chain. It comprises numerous islets around a central lagoon that is approximately 25.1 kilometres (15.6 mi) (N–S) by 18.4 kilometres (11.4 mi) (W-E), centred on 179°7’E and 8°30’S. On the atolls an annular reef rim surrounds the lagoon, with several natural reef channels. A standard definition of an "atoll" is "an annular reef enclosing a lagoon in which there are no promontories other than reefs and islets composed of reef detritus".The northern part of the Funafuti lagoon has a deep basin (maximum depth recorded of 54.7 m) basin, and the southern part of the lagoon has very narrow shallow basin.
The eastern shoreline of Fongafale in the Funafuti lagoon ("Te Namo") was modified during World War II; several piers were constructed, beach areas filled, and deep water access channels were excavated. These alternations to the reef and shoreline have resulted in changes to wave patterns with less sand accumulating to form the beaches as compared to former times; and the shoreline is now exposed to wave action. Several attempts to stabilize the shoreline have not achieved the desired effect.
The rising population results in increased demand on fish stocks, which are under stress; although the creation of the Funafuti Conservation Area has provided a fishing exclusion area that helps sustain fish populations across the Funafuti lagoon. Population pressure on the resources of Funafuti and in-adequation sanitation systems have resulted in pollution. The Waste Operations and Services Act 2009 provides the legal framework for the waste management and pollution control projects funded by the European Union that are directed to organic waste composting in eco-sanitation systems. Plastic waste is also a problem as much imported food and other commodities is supplied in plastic containers or packaging.
Surveys were carried out in May 2010 of the reef habitats of Nanumea, Nukulaelae and Funafuti (including the Funafuti Conservation Area) and a total of 317 fish species were recorded during this "Tuvalu Marine Life" study. The surveys identified 66 species that had not previously been recorded in Tuvalu, which brings the total number of identified species to 607.
Since there are no streams or rivers and groundwater is not potable, most water needs must be met by catchment systems with storage facilities; beachhead erosion because of the use of sand for building materials; excessive clearance of forest undergrowth for use as fuel; damage to coral reefs from the bleaching of the coral as a consequence of the increase of the ocean temperatures and acidification from increased levels of carbon dioxide; Tuvalu is very concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water table. Tuvalu has adopted a national plan of action as the observable transformations over the last ten to fifteen years show Tuvaluans that there have been changes to the sea levels.
Because of the low elevation, the islands that make up this nation are threatened by current and future sea level rise. The highest elevation is above sea level on Niulakita, which gives Tuvalu the second-lowest maximum elevation of any country (after the Maldives). However, the highest elevations are typically in narrow storm dunes on the ocean side of the islands which are prone to over topping in tropical cyclones, such as occurred on Funafuti with Cyclone Bebe.
Tuvalu is mainly composed of coral debris eroded from encircling reefs and pushed up onto the islands by winds and waves. Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji released a study in 2010 on the dynamic response of reef islands to sea level rise in the central Pacific. Tuvalu was mentioned in the study, and Webb and Kench found that seven islands in one of its nine atolls have spread by more than 3 per cent on average since the 1950s. One island, Funamanu, gained 0.44 hectares, or nearly 30 per cent of its previous area. In contrast, Tepuka Vili Vili has suffered a net loss in area of 22 percent since 1896. The shape and orientation of the reef has also changed over time.
Further research by Kench et al., published in 2018 identifies rising sea levels as creating an increased transfer of wave energy across the reef surfaces of the atolls of Tuvalu, which shifts sand, resulting in accretion to island shorelines. Over 4 decades, there had been a net increase in land area of the islets of 73.5 ha (2.9%), although the changes are not uniform, with 74% increasing and 27% decreasing in size. However, this process does not result in additional habitable land.
The storm surge resulting from a tropical cyclone can dramatically shift coral debris. In 1972 Funafuti was in the path of Cyclone Bebe. Tropical Cyclone Bebe was a pre-season tropical cyclone that impacted the Gilbert, Ellice Islands, and Fiji island groups. The storm surge created a wall of coral rubble along the ocean side of Fongafale and Funafala that was about long, and about to thick at the bottom. The cyclone knocked down about 90% of the houses and trees on Funafuti and contaminated sources of drinking water as a result of the system's storm surge and fresh water flooding.
Tuvalu is affected by perigean spring tide events which raise the sea level higher than a normal high tide. The highest peak tide recorded by the Tuvalu Meteorological Service was on 24 February 2006 and again on 19 February 2015. As a result of historical sea level rise, the king tide events lead to flooding of low-lying areas, which is compounded when sea levels are further raised by La Niña effects or local storms and waves. In the future, sea level rise may threaten to submerge the nation entirely as it is estimated that a sea level rise of 20–40 centimetres (8–16 inches) in the next 100 years could make Tuvalu uninhabitable.
Tuvalu experiences westerly gales and heavy rain from October to March – the period that is known as "Tau-o-lalo"; with tropical temperatures moderated by easterly winds from April to November. Drinking water is mostly obtained from rainwater collected on roofs and stored in tanks; these systems are often poorly maintained, resulting in lack of water. Aid programs of Australia and the European Union have been directed to improving the storage capacity on Funafuti and in the outer islands.
The reefs at Funafuti have suffered damage, with 80 per cent of the coral having been bleached as a consequence of the increase of the ocean temperatures and acidification from increased levels of carbon dioxide. The coral bleaching, which includes staghorn corals, is attributed to the increase in water temperature that occurred during the El Niños that occurred from 1998–2000 and from 2000–2001. Researchers from Japan have investigated rebuilding the coral reefs through introduction of foraminifera.
When the airfield, which is now Funafuti International Airport, was constructed during World War II. The coral base of the atoll was used as fill to create the runway. The resulting borrow pits impacted the fresh-water aquifer. In the low areas of Funafuti the sea water can be seen bubbling up through the porous coral rock to form pools with each high tide. Since 1994 a project has been in development to assess the environmental impact of transporting sand from the lagoon to fill all the borrow pits and low-lying areas on Fongafale. In 2013 a feasibility study was carried out and in 2014 the Tuvalu Borrow Pits Remediation (BPR) project was approved, so that all ten borrow pits would be filled, leaving Tafua Pond, which is a natural pond. The New Zealand Government funded the BPR project. The project was carried out in 2015 with 365,000 sqm of sand being dredged from the lagoon to fill the holes and improve living conditions on the island. This project increased the usable land space on Fongafale by eight per cent.
Tuvalu is a party to:
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Whaling
"signed, but not ratified:" none
Tuvalu ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1993.
Tuvalu signed the Pacific Islands Cetaceans Memorandum of Understanding on 9 September 2010.
Funafuti atoll consists of a narrow sweep of land between wide, encircling a large lagoon ("Te Namo") of about long and wide. The average depth in the Funafuti lagoon is about 20 fathoms (36.5 metres or 120 feet). With a surface of , it is by far the largest lagoon in Tuvalu. The northern part of the lagoon has a deep basin (maximum depth recorded of 54.7 m) basin, and the southern part of the lagoon has very narrow shallow basin. The land area of the 33 islets aggregates to , less than one percent of the total area of the atoll.
The boreholes on Fongafale islet at the site now called "Darwin's Drill", are the result of drilling conducted by the Royal Society of London for the purpose of investigating the formation of coral reefs to determine whether traces of shallow water organisms could be found at depth in the coral of Pacific atolls. This investigation followed the work on The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs conducted by Charles Darwin in the Pacific. Drilling occurred in 1896, 1897 and 1898. Professor Edgeworth David of the University of Sydney was a member of the 1896 "Funafuti Coral Reef Boring Expedition of the Royal Society", under Professor William Sollas and lead the expedition in 1897. However, the geologic history of atolls is more complex than Darwin (1842) and Davis (1928) envisioned. The survey of the atoll published in 1970 described its structure as being:
The investigation of groundwater dynamics of Fongafale Islet, Funafuti, show that tidal forcing results in salt water contamination of the surficial aquifer during spring tides. The degree of aquifer salinization depends on the specific topographic characteristics and the hydrologic controls in the sub-surface of the atoll. About half of Fongafale islet is reclaimed swamp that contains porous, highly permeable coral blocks that allow the tidal forcing of salt water. There was extensive swamp reclamation during World War II to create the air field that is now the Funafuti International Airport. As a consequence of the specific topographic characteristics of Fongafale, unlike other atoll islands of a similar size, Fongafale does not have a thick freshwater lens. The narrow fresh water and brackish water sheets in the sub-surface of Fongafale islet results in the taro swamps and the fresh groundwater resources of the islet being highly vulnerable to salinization resulting from the rising sea-level.
In addition to the increased risk of salinized by the sea-level rise, the freshwater lens is at risk from over extraction due to the large population that now occupies Fongafale islet; the increased extraction can be exacerbated by a decrease of the rainfall recharge rate associated with the climate change. Water pollution is also a chronic problem, with domestic wastewater identified as the primary pollution source. Approximately 92% of households on Fongafale islet have access to septic tanks and pit toilets. However these sanitary facilities are not built as per the design specifications or they are not suitable for the geophysical characteristics, which results in seepage into the fresh water lens and run off into coastal waters.
On Funafuti and on the other islands, rainwater collected off the corrugated iron roofs of buildings is now the primary source of fresh water. On Funafuti a desalination unit that was donated by Japan in 2006 also provides fresh water. In response to the 2011 drought, Japan funded the purchase of a 100 m³/d desalination plant and two portable 10 m³/d plants as part of its Pacific Environment Community (PEC) program. Aid programs from the European Union and Australia also provided water tanks as part of the longer term solution for the storage of available fresh water.
Swamp taro ("Cyrtosperma chamissonis"), known in Tuvalu as "Pulaka", is grown in large pits of composted soil below the water table, Pulaka has been the main source for carbohydrates, it is similar to taro, but "with bigger leaves and larger, coarser roots".
In recent years the Tuvaluan community have raised concerns over increased salinity of the groundwater in pits that are used to cultivate pulaka. Pits on all islands of Tuvalu (except Niulakita) were surveyed in 2006. Nukulaelae and Niutao each had one pit area in which salinity concentrations thought to be too high for successful swamp taro growth. However, on Fongafale in Funafuti all pits surveyed were either too saline or very marginal for swamp taro production, although a more salt tolerant species of taro ("Colocasia esculenta") was being grown in Fongafale.
The extent of the salinization of the aquifer on Fongafale Islet is the result of both man-made changes to the topography that occurred when the air field was built in World War II by reclaiming swamp land and excavating coral rock from other parts of the islet. These topographic changes are exacerbated by the groundwater dynamics of the islet, as tidal forcing pushes salt water into the surficial aquifer during spring tides.
The freshwater lens of each atoll is a fragile system. Tropical cyclones and other storm events also result in wave wash over and extreme high water also occurs during spring tides. These events can result in salt water contamination of the fresh groundwater lens. Periods of low rainfall can also result in contraction of the freshwater lens as the coconut trees and other vegetation draw up the water at a greater than recharge than it can be recharged. The over extraction of ground water to supply human needs has a similar result as drought conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30229 |
Demographics of Tuvalu
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Tuvalu, including the age structure, ethnicity, education level, life expectancy, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The population of Tuvalu is predominately of Polynesian ethnicity with approximately 5.6% of the population being Micronesian. Tuvaluans are ethnically related to the people of Samoa and Tonga. There is evidence for a dual genetic origin of Pacific Islanders in Asia and Melanesia, which results from an analysis of Y chromosome (NRY) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) markers. There is also evidence of Fiji playing a pivotal role in west-to-east expansion within Polynesia.
The vast majority of Tuvaluans belong to the Church of Tuvalu, a Protestant denomination. Their ancestors were converted by Christian missionaries in the 19th century.
Infant mortality in Tuvalu was 25 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2012, with an under-five mortality rate of 30 deaths per 1,000 live births. There has been a consistent decline in the under-five mortality rate since 1990.
School attendance at school is 10 years for males and 11 years for females (2001). Adult literacy rate is 99.0% (2002).
Life expectancy for women in Tuvalu is 68.41 years and 64.01 years for men (2015 est.).
The population of Tuvalu is recorded by the Central Statistics Department (CSD) of Tuvalu in the census information:
The net migration rate is estimated at -6.81 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2015 est.). The threat of global warming in Tuvalu is not a dominant motivation for migration as Tuvaluans appear to prefer to continue living on the islands for reasons of lifestyle, culture and identity.
The Census Monograph on Migration, Urbanization and Youth provides an analysis of the 2012 census and reported:
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30230 |
Telecommunications in Tuvalu
Telecommunications in Tuvalu cover Tuvalu's 6 atolls and 3 reef islands. The islands of Tuvalu rely on satellite dishes for communication and internet access.
The Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation (TTC), a state-owned enterprise, provides fixed line telephone communications to subscribers on each island and mobile phone services on Funafuti, Vaitupu and Nukulaelae. TTC is a distributor of Fiji Television service (Sky Pacific satellite television service).
Telephones - main lines in use:
900 (2005)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
1300 (2005)
Telephone system:
"domestic:"
radiotelephone communications between islands
"international:"
country code - 688; international calls can be made by satellite
Radio broadcast stations:
AM 1, FM 0, shortwave 0 (2011) - The Tuvalu Media Department of the Government of Tuvalu operates "Radio Tuvalu", which broadcasts on the AM frequency. In 2011 the Japanese government provided financial support to construct a new AM broadcast studio. The new AM radio transmitter on Funafuti replaced the FM radio service to the outer islands and freed up satellite bandwidth for mobile services.
Radios:
4,000 (1997)
Television broadcast stations:
TTC is a distributor of Fiji Television service (Sky Pacific satellite television service).
Televisions:
unknown number.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
"Tuvalu.tv" is the sole provider of Internet access in Tuvalu. The ISP is operated by the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Department of the Government of Tuvalu.
The available bandwidth is only 512 kbit/s uplink, and 1.5 Mbit/s downlink. Throughout Tuvalu are more than 900 subscribers who want to use the satellite service, with demand slowing down the speed of the entire system. TTC currently operates satellite internet services with less than 20 Mbit/s of capacity. In June 2014 TTC signed a five-year agreement with Kacific Broadband Satellites for the supply of provide high speed bandwidth to the islands of Tuvalu.
The service will be provided by the Kacific-1 satellite - Ka band High Throughput Satellite (HTS) - that is due to be launched in late 2016 or early 2017. Kacific will provide TTC with increasing levels of capacity over the period, starting with 80Mbit/s and up to 150 Mbit/s after four years. TTC can, take extra capacity - up to 225 Mbit/s.
In January 2019 the World Bank approved a US$29 million grant for the Tuvalu Telecommunications and ICT Development Project which is intended to boost internet connectivity in Tuvalu, including to the country's outer islands. The project will also support investments in an international optical fiber submarine cable to provide faster, lower-cost internet bandwidth. The project will include reforms of the Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation (TCC) to redevelop the government-run entity as a public-private partnership (PPP) in cooperation with an experienced international telecommunications operator, which will selected using a competitive process.
Country code (Top level domain): TV (see .tv) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30233 |
Traveller (role-playing game)
Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game, first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc W. Miller designed "Traveller" with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren K. Wiseman.
Characters typically journey between various star systems and engage in activities such as exploration, ground and space battles, and interstellar trading. Characters are defined not by the need to increase native skill and ability but by achievements, discoveries, wealth, titles, and political power.
Key features derived from literary sources are incorporated into "Traveller" in all its forms :
"Traveller" uses a lifepath-style system for character generation. Characters get their skills and experience in a mini-game, where the player makes career choices that determine the character's life right up to the point before adventuring begins.
A character can be human, robot, alien, or of a genetically engineered species. A character can be civilian, military, or noble, a young cadet or a tried-and-true veteran, each with strengths and weaknesses. Death during character generation is even a possibility in some editions, a mechanic that became infamous.
Characters are described by six primary characteristics: strength, dexterity, endurance, intelligence, education, and social standing. These characteristics are typically generated with a roll of two six-sided dice. Other general characteristics also exist, such as psionics and sanity. There are also variant characteristics, such as charisma and caste, which replace a primary characteristic, to add nuance to alien characters.
Extra-sensory perception, telekinesis, telepathy, and other psychic abilities are organized and standardized into "psionics". Depending on their choice, characters can be psionic.
Each rule system has its own task mechanic for resolving character actions. Some systems use two or three six-sided dice, while others use multiple six-sided dice or a twenty-sided die. Target numbers are typically determined by the referee, who takes into account task difficulty, skill level, and a characteristic. Situation and equipment used can provide a bonus or penalty to a roll. Depending on the task, a success may require rolling above or below the target number.
Equipment typically emphasizes wilderness exploration, hazardous environments, and combat. As a result, equipment lists are heavy on vehicles, sensor equipment, communicators, rations, personal armor, and weapons.
Low-technology: Since primitive worlds exist near technological worlds, primitive weapons are also typically included, such as swords, shields, pikes, and bows.
High-technology: And since high technology is available, cybernetic implants and non-sentient robots typically also show up in equipment lists, as well as artifacts from ancient, vanished technological civilizations.
Hard Sci-fi Flavor: While there are energy weapons, there is also a strong presence of slug-throwing weapons such as rifles and pistols. The prevailing theory is that (usually) the most efficient way to stop someone is with kinetic energy (e.g. bullets).
Rules for starship design and combat are like games unto themselves with a complex balance of ship components fitting within certain hull volumes, technology levels, and modifiers based upon characters' skills. It is complex enough to be able to generically represent most starships used in role-playing games, and flexible enough to support custom add-ons to the system. (GDW published several board games allowing "Traveller" space battles to be played out as games in their own right - "Mayday" using the "Traveller" rules, "Brilliant Lances" and "Battle Rider" using the "Traveller: The New Era" rules.)
Computer programs have been created to model and predict starship combat using "Traveller" rules. The most famous case involved Douglas Lenat applying his "Eurisko" heuristic learning program to the scenario in the "Traveller" adventure "", which contained rules for resolving very large space battles statistically. Eurisko discovered exploitable features of the starship design system that allowed it to build unusual fleets that won the 1981 and 1982 championships. The sponsor stated that if Lenat entered and won the next year they would stop the sponsorship, so Lenat stopped attending.
Worlds represent a wide spectrum of conditions, from barren planetoid moons to large gas giant worlds, from uncolonized territory to planets with tens of billions of people. Most worlds tend to be only modestly colonized, though some worlds may be dangerously overcrowded.
The world generation system is geared to produce a highly random mix of worlds. Extensions take star system generation into account, and modify the process depending on the fecundity and history of the targeted area of space. Similar to the use of the UPP for characters, worlds are represented by an alphanumeric Universal World Profile that encodes key physical, social, and economic properties of the world.
The original booklets were promoted as generic rules for running general science fiction role-playing games with no official setting. However, in the
adventures and supplements that soon followed a suggested setting began to emerge, in which the human-dominated Third Imperium was the largest interstellar empire in charted space, a feudalistic union of worlds, where local nobility operate largely free from oversight, restricted by convention and feudal obligations.
The setting features various descendants of humanity, who are collectively called "Humaniti". These include the "Solomani", humans emigrated from Earth within the last few thousand years, the "Vilani", humans transplanted from Earth tens of thousands of years ago by the Ancients (see below) who founded the First Imperium, and the "Zhodani", psychic humans ruled by psionically-gifted nobles.
Despite the thematic dominance of the human race, with most adventures taking place in human space, the "Traveller" universe is cosmopolitan, containing many technologically advanced species known as "sophonts", a term borrowed from earlier science fiction material. The setting principally concerns itself with six "major races" that developed faster-than-light travel independently. In addition to Humaniti, the standard list of major races includes the honor-bound felinoid "Aslan", the winged reptilioid "Droyne", the sixfold-symmetric and manipulative "Hivers", the centaur-like militant vegetarian "K'kree", and the uplifted wolf-hybrid "Vargr".
Additional minor races are numerous. An early publication from GDW noted that "The minor races, of which there are hundreds within the area of known space, will be largely left up to individual referees." GDW's quarterly publication, the "Journal of the Travellers Aid Society" designed by Loren K. Wiseman, sketched out about one race per quarter, starting with the Aslan in Issue 7. Taken together with aliens casually mentioned or introduced in separate scenarios or adventures—often arbitrarily—there is therefore no indication that the number of minor races is limited in any sense.
The Ancients were a major race in the distant past; their ruins dot planets throughout charted space and their artifacts are more technically advanced than those of any existing civilization. For unknown reasons, they transplanted humans from Earth to dozens of worlds, uplifted Terran wolves to create the Vargr, and undertook many megascale engineering projects before destroying their civilization in a catastrophic war.
The original gamebooks were distinctive digest-sized black pamphlets (the so-called "little black books") produced by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW). The main rules were detailed in three such booklets, sold as a boxed set while the same format was used for early support material, such as the adventures, supplements and further books. Later supplements and updated versions of the main game system introduced full sized booklets, complete re-writes of the game system and significant changes to the Third Imperium.
Though nearly all older versions of "Traveller" are available in PDF format, "Traveller5" and "Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed." are the two current rulesets. Both rely on six-sided dice exclusively, and both draw from the original "Traveller" rules.
The original version was designed and published by GDW in 1977. This edition is also sometimes called, retroactively, "Classic Traveller". The core rules originally came as a box set of three little black books, and were later compiled into a single volume rulebook. Supplemental booklets included advanced character generation, capital ship design, robots, and more. Eight boxed wargames were released as tie-in products.
A major overhaul published by GDW in 1987, but designed by Digest Group Publications. The game system used revised rules developed in DGP's "Traveller's Digest" periodical. The game was set during the rebellion which shattered the Imperium. Supplements and magazines produced during this era detailed the progression of the rebellion from the initial assassination of the Emperor in 1116 to the collapse of large-scale interstellar trade in roughly 1124 (the beginning of the supplement "Hard Times").
A Japanese edition of MegaTraveller was published by Hobby Japan.
Published in 1993, this was the final edition published by GDW. Set in the former territory of the Third Imperium after interstellar government and society had largely collapsed. "TNE" introduced "Virus", a silicon chip-life form that infected and took over computers. The game mechanics used GDW's house system, derived from ", 2nd Ed". The game used a more realism-centered approach to science fiction, doing away with reactionless thrusters, shortening laser ranges to a reasonable distance, etc.
Published by Imperium Games in 1996, T4 is set in the early days of the Third Imperium ("Milieu 0"), with the small, newly formed empire surrounded by regressed or barbaric worlds. The mechanics and text resemble a mix of "Classic Traveller" and "The New Era".
Designed by Loren K. Wiseman and published in 1998, "GURPS Traveller" uses the third edition of the "GURPS" system and takes place in an alternate timeline in which no Rebellion occurred and Virus was never released. Steve Jackson Games produced numerous supplements for the line, including details for all of the major races, many of the minor races, interstellar trade, expanded world generation, the military forces of the Third Imperium, and starships.
Published by Quick Link Interactive in 2002, this version uses the d20 System as its base and is set at the time of the Solomani Rim War around Imperial year 990, about a century before the era depicted in the original game. The preferred setting is the "Gateway Domain" region of the Imperium. After the company's license to the "Traveller" brand and setting lapsed, the purely mechanical elements of this game were republished as the generic "SciFi20" system.
In 2006, Steve Jackson Games released "" ("GTISW", sometimes "GTIW") for the 4th edition of GURPS from 2004. The timeline was rolled back to 2170, which is several millennia earlier than the usual "Traveller" setting, to the early days of Earth's presence in space at the time when Earth first started to send out interstellar ships to include the period just after the Third Interstellar War between the Terran Confederation (Earth) and the gigantic "Ziru Sirka Empire (Vland)".
A port of the "Traveller" setting to the "Hero System", produced under license by Comstar Games in 2006.
Mongoose Publishing published this version both in a traditional format and as an open gaming SRD around which other games may be built. It is adapted from Traveller, with updated careers and technology. It is referred to as "MgT" or "MGT" to differentiate it from "MT", or "MegaTraveller". The core rule book was released in April 2008, with a regular series of supplements following. The SRD has since served as the basis for "Cepheus Engine", an independent retroclone of original "Traveller".
In 2013, Far Future Enterprises published a new set of rules by re-working and integrating concepts from earlier rulesets. The "Traveller5" Core Rules book is a rules mechanics reference, pulled from "Traveller" adventures and toolbox material from supplements. It has a "retro" black-and-white production style.
A second edition of Mongoose's "Traveller" was published in 2016. It uses a full color production style while resembling the original "Traveller" rules in scope. This edition is not licensed under the Open Game License. The second edition core rules include pre-career university and military academy education options. Skills specialization have been reorganized to reduce skill bloat. Some equipment descriptions have been altered and spacecraft operations and combat now have a different approach. Additional supplements flesh out rules further, including a revision to "High Guard" to handle all starship design.
In the April–May 1978 edition of "White Dwarf" (Issue #6), Don Turnbull gave a strong recommendtion for the new game, saying, "Altogether, what is here is very satisfactory and much of it is stimulating. The presentation is exemplary, the detail impressive, the treatment exacting and the inventiveness inspired."
In the September 1978 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 18), Tony Watson complimented the game on the high production value of its components, saying, "Physically, "Traveller" is first class, a tradition with Game Designer’s Workshop. The box lid and covers of the three booklets are done in a simple but highly effective combination of red and white lettering on a black background. The interior layout and printing is also of the best quality; the printing is an entirely professional job." Watson liked that experience points were not emphasized in gameplay: "It is refreshing to see that the adventures and color of the game’s play is reward enough and the players are not channeling their energy into the rather silly chase of ethereal experience points. Too often, this chase becomes more important than actual play itself!" He concluded with a strong recommendation, saying, ""Traveller" is a unique SF game and probably the best of the role-playing variety. It offers a colorful but consistent future for players to adventure in."
In the inaugural edition of "Ares" (March 1980), David Ritchie was enthusiastic about "Traveller", giving it an above average rating of 8 out of 9 and commenting, "This game starts off where "Dungeons and Dragons" left off, but, if there is any justice, will end up being more popular than that venerable relic. For one thing, the "Traveller" rules are fairly consistent (moreso than is usual for such games)."
In the May-June 1980 edition of "The Space Gamer" (Issue No. 28), Forrest Johnson gave a good review, saying, ""Traveller" is the best game of its type, recommended for the sophisticated science fiction gamer."
In the November 1980 edition of "Ares" (Issue #5), Eric Goldberg called "Traveller" "a most impressive achievement from a design standpoint... This mark of distinction is the main reason why I consider "Traveller" the finest commercially available role-playing game." Goldberg didn't consider it perfect, criticizing the game's lack of imaginary vision of technology of the future. Although he liked the "sophisticated and elegant" character generation system, he felt that "All too often, a player will have to spend an entire afternoon rolling dice before he gains a reasonable character." Goldberg concluded with a positive recommendation: "If you have at least a casual interest in science fiction and role-playing, you should definitely invest in a copy of "Traveller""
In the October-November 1981 edition of "White Dwarf", Andy Slack reviewed the "Deluxe Traveller Edition", a compilation of the three original rules booklets, plus "Book 0 - An Introduction to Traveller", and an adventure, "The Imperial Fringe". Slack thought this edition was better laid out, and "typos have been rectified." Because he blieved that this edition was not substantially different than the original set, he only rated this edition a 4 out of 10 for experienced players who already owned the original rule booklets; but for new players, he rated it a perfect 10 out of 10.
Chris W. McCubbin reviewed "Traveller: The New Era" for "Pyramid" #2 (July/Aug., 1993) and concluded that, despite some complaints he had about the new version, ""Traveller"'s still around and that's good. I hope it always will be."
In the August 1997 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 238), Rick Swan reviewed the fourth edition of "Traveller", and called it "a masterful effort... the best science-fiction RPG I've ever played." On the downside, Swan thought that "The inclusion of anachronistic weapons like swords and crossbows can turn combat into a bad episode of "Star Trek"." He also pointed out that character growth in the game is very slow: "PCs acquire new skills and abilities about as fast as a tree trunk acquires new growth rings." He also wanted to see more setting information. But he concluded that the fourth edition of "Traveller" was close to perfect, giving it a top rating of 6 out of 6 and saying, "Time-tested and buffed to a sheen, "Traveller" will endure as long there’s enough plastic to manufacture six-sided dice."
In a 1996 reader poll by "Arcane" magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, "Traveller" (as either "Traveller", "MegaTraveller", or "Traveller: The New Era") was ranked 3rd. The magazine's editor Paul Pettengale commented: "Although originally intended as a generic science fiction system, "Traveller" quickly became linked with the Imperium campaign background developed by GDW... This background offers a great degree of freedom for individual referees to run campaigns of their own devising, while providing enough basic groundwork to build from, and has proved to be immensely successful. Everything from political intrigue to action-packed mercenary actions, trading or scientific exploration is possible, and a lot more besides... "Traveller" [is] one of the true classics of the roleplaying hobby".
"Traveller: The New Era" won the 1993 Origins Award for "Best Roleplaying Rules".
In 1996, "Traveller" was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame.
"The Imperial Data Recovery System" is a computer program published by FASA in 1981 as a play aid to speed up bookkeeping for "Traveller", and assist with sector maps, character and ship records, accounting, and encounters. John M. Morrison reviewed "The Imperial Data Recovery System" in "The Space Gamer" No. 50. Morrison commented that "I would seriously recommend that FASA take this off the market and re-write it form the ground up. There's definitely room for a "Traveller" aid program on the market, but not this one."
GDW licensee Paragon produced two video games based on the "Traveller" universe:
Several novels have been specifically set in the various "Traveller" universes:
Gaming magazine "White Dwarf" ran a comic strip called "The Travellers" by Mark Harrison from 1983 to 1986. The strip spoofed "Traveller" and other space opera settings.
The concept album "Traveller" by heavy metal band The Lord Weird Slough Feg is based on the game.
Originally published by GDW as an updated replacement for "Traveller", eschewing classic space opera to take inspiration from the grittier contemporary hard science fiction media of the 1980s. The first edition was named "Traveller: 2300", which incited both confusion and criticism since the game carried over neither the rules nor setting of its namesake. The second edition was renamed "2300 AD", and added some cyberpunk rules and adventures. It is presented as a future extrapolation of the speculative World War III of GDW's popular military role-playing game "Twilight: 2000". In the "2300 AD" setting, interstellar travel is relatively new, Earth is still divided into nation-states, and the most powerful nations are competitively exploring and colonizing the fifty light year sphere of surrounding space. Mongoose Publishing released a sourcebook for the setting in 2012 that adapted it to their version of the "Traveller" rules. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30245 |
Tracking shot
A tracking shot is any shot where the camera follows backward, forward or moves alongside the subject being recorded. In cinematography, the term refers to a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly that is then placed on rails – like a railroad track. A handheld steadycam or gimbal may also be used for smaller scale productions. The camera is then pushed along the track while the scene is being filmed or moved manually when using a handheld rig.
The technique is often used to follow a subject that would otherwise leave the frame (ergo, it is often called a following shot), such as an actor or vehicle in motion. In this spirit, any conveyance, such as a motorized vehicle like a car, may also be used to create a tracking shot. A handheld or Steadicam mounted camera following a similar trajectory is called a tracking shot as well. While the core idea is that the camera moves parallel to its subject, a tracking shot may move in a semi-circular fashion, rotating around its subject while remaining equidistant.
A variant of the tracking shot is the onride video, also known as a phantom ride, where the camera films during a ride on a train, an amusement ride (especially a roller coaster) or another vehicle. Such videos may be used to document the route, and the camera can be fixed to the vehicle or held by a person in the vehicle.
The "rail cam" made a public debut in the NHL on November 20, 2006 in the Colorado Avalanche/Dallas Stars hockey game. The Versus cable television network used the camera during the game to test it out for a live use on a nationally broadcast program. The camera was fastened to a rail system that ran on the top of the glass on one side of the ice rink. As the play shifted from end to end, the motorized mount allowed the camera to follow the action, sliding rapidly down the side of the ice. The system was developed by Fletcher Chicago. The experiment was short-lived, and the "rail-cam" is no longer used in NHL hockey games. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30247 |
Justification (epistemology)
Justification (also called epistemic justification) is a concept in epistemology used to describe beliefs that one has good reason for holding. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, knowledge, rationality, and probability, among others. Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone holds a rationally admissible belief (although the term is also sometimes applied to other propositional attitudes such as doubt).
Debates surrounding epistemic justification often involve the "structure" of justification, including whether there are foundational justified beliefs or whether mere coherence is sufficient for a system of beliefs to qualify as justified. Another major subject of debate is the sources of justification, which might include perceptual experience (the evidence of the senses), reason, and authoritative testimony, among others.
Justification is the reason why someone properly holds a belief, the explanation as to why the belief is a true one, or an account of how one knows what one knows. In much the same way arguments and explanations may be confused with each other, so may explanations and justifications. Statements that are justifications of some action take the form of arguments. For example, attempts to justify a theft usually explain the motives (e.g., to feed a starving family).
Justification is a property of beliefs insofar as they are held blamelessly. According to Edmund Gettier, many figures in the history of philosophy have treated "justified true belief" as constituting knowedge. It is particularly associated with a theory discussed in Plato's dialogues "Meno" and "Theaetetus". While in fact Plato seems to disavow justified true belief as constituting knowledge at the end of "Theaetetus", the claim that Plato unquestioningly accepted this view of knowledge stuck.
The subject of justification has played a major role in the value of knowledge as "justified true belief". Some contemporary epistemologists, such as Jonathan Kvanvig assert that justification isn't necessary in getting to the truth and avoiding errors. Kvanvig attempts to show that knowledge is no more valuable than true belief, and in the process dismissed the necessity of justification due to justification not being connected to the truth.
There are several different views as to what entails justification, mostly focusing on the question "How sure do we need to be that our beliefs correspond to the actual world?" Different theories of justification require different amounts and types of evidence before a belief can be considered justified. Theories of justification generally include other aspects of epistemology, such as knowledge.
Popular theories of justification include:
If a belief is justified, there is something that justifies it, which can be called its "justifier". Common examples include:
The major opposition against the theory of justification (also called justificationism in this context) is non-justificational criticism (a synthesis of skepticism and absolutism), which is most notably held by some of the proponents of critical rationalism: W. W. Bartley, David Miller and Karl Popper. (But not all proponents of critical rationalism oppose justificationism; it is supported most prominently by John W. N. Watkins.)
In justificationism, criticism consists of trying to show that a claim cannot be reduced to the authority or criteria that it appeals to. That is, it regards the justification of a claim as primary, while the claim itself is secondary. By contrast, non-justificational criticism works towards attacking claims themselves.
Bartley also refers to a third position, which he calls critical rationalism in a more specific sense, claimed to have been Popper's view in his "Open Society". It has given up justification, but not yet adopted non-justificational criticism. Instead of appealing to criteria and authorities, it attempts to describe and explicate them.
Fogelin claims to detect a suspicious resemblance between the Theories of Justification and Agrippa's five modes leading to the suspension of belief. He concludes that the modern proponents have made no significant progress in responding to the ancient modes of pyrrhonic skepticism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30248 |
Regress argument
The regress argument is the argument that any proposition requires a justification. However, any justification itself requires support. This means that any proposition whatsoever can be endlessly (infinitely) questioned, resulting in infinite regress. It is a problem in epistemology and in any general situation where a statement has to be justified.
The argument is also known as diallelus (Latin) or diallelon, from Greek "di allelon" "through or by means of one another" and as the epistemic regress problem. It is an element of the Münchhausen trilemma.
The argument is usually attributed to the Pyrrhonist philosopher Agrippa the Skeptic as part of what has become known as "Agrippa's trilemma". The argument can be seen as a response to the suggestion in Plato's "Theaetetus" that knowledge is justified true belief. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus described Agrippa's trope as follows:
The regress argument must, however, predate Agrippa, as Aristotle was aware of it and argued that knowing does not necessitate an infinite regress because some knowledge does not depend on demonstration:
Assuming that knowledge is justified true belief, then:
Throughout history many responses to this problem have been generated. The major counter-arguments are
Perhaps the chain begins with a belief that is justified, but which is not justified by another belief. Such beliefs are called basic beliefs. In this solution, which is called foundationalism, all beliefs are justified by basic beliefs. Foundationalism seeks to escape the regress argument by claiming that there are some beliefs for which it is improper to ask for a justification. (See also "a priori".) This would be a claim that some things (basic beliefs) are true in and of themselves.
Foundationalism is the belief that a chain of justification begins with a belief that is justified, but which is not justified by another belief. Thus, a belief is justified if and only if:
Foundationalism can be compared to a building. Ordinary individual beliefs occupy the upper stories of the building; basic, or foundational beliefs are down in the basement, in the foundation of the building, holding everything else up. In a similar way, individual beliefs, say about economics or ethics, rest on more basic beliefs, say about the nature of human beings; and those rest on still more basic beliefs, say about the mind; and in the end the entire system rests on a set of basic beliefs which are not justified by other beliefs.
Alternatively, the chain of reasoning may loop around on itself, forming a circle. In this case, the justification of any statement is used, perhaps after a long chain of reasoning, in justifying itself, and the argument is circular. This is a version of coherentism.
Coherentism is the belief that an idea is justified if and only if it is part of a coherent system of mutually supporting beliefs (i.e., beliefs that support each other). In effect Coherentism denies that justification can only take the form of a chain. Coherentism replaces the chain with a holistic web.
The most common objection to naïve Coherentism is that it relies on the idea that circular justification is acceptable. In this view, P ultimately supports P, begging the question. Coherentists reply that it is not just P that is supporting P, but P along with the totality of the other statements in the whole system of belief.
Coherentism accepts any belief that is part of a coherent system of beliefs. In contrast, P can cohere with P1 and P2 without P, P1 or P2 being true. Instead, Coherentists might say that it is very unlikely that the whole system would be both untrue and consistent, and that if some part of the system was untrue, it would almost certainly be inconsistent with some other part of the system.
A third objection is that some beliefs arise from experience and not from other beliefs. An example is that one is looking into a room which is totally dark. The lights turn on momentarily and one sees a white canopy bed in the room. The belief that there is a white canopy bed in this room is based entirely on experience and not on any other belief. Of course other possibilities exist, such as that the white canopy bed is entirely an illusion or that one is hallucinating, but the belief remains well-justified. Coherentists might respond that the belief which supports the belief that there is a white canopy bed in this room is that one saw the bed, however briefly. This appears to be an immediate qualifier which does not depend on other beliefs, and thus seems to prove that Coherentism is not true because beliefs can be justified by concepts other than beliefs. But others have argued that the experience of seeing the bed is indeed dependent on other beliefs, about what a bed, a canopy and so on, actually look like.
Another objection is that the rule demanding "coherence" in a system of ideas seems to be an unjustified belief.
Infinitism argues that the chain can go on forever. Critics argue that this means there is never adequate justification for any statement in the chain.
Skeptics reject the three above responses and argue that beliefs cannot be justified as beyond doubt. Note that many skeptics do not deny that things may appear in a certain way. However, such sense impressions cannot, in the skeptical view, be used to find beliefs that cannot be doubted. Also, skeptics do not deny that, for example, many laws of nature give the appearance of working or that doing certain things give the appearance of producing pleasure/pain or even that reason and logic seem to be useful tools. Skepticism is in this view valuable since it encourages continued investigation.
The method of common sense espoused by such philosophers as Thomas Reid and G. E. Moore points out that whenever we investigate anything at all, whenever we start thinking about some subject, we have to make assumptions. When one tries to support one's assumptions with reasons, one must make yet more assumptions. Since it is inevitable that we will make some assumptions, why not assume those things that are most obvious: the matters of common sense that no one ever seriously doubts.
"Common sense" here does not mean old adages like "Chicken soup is good for colds" but statements about the background in which our experiences occur. Examples would be "Human beings typically have two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet", or "The world has a ground and a sky" or "Plants and animals come in a wide variety of sizes and colors" or "I am conscious and alive right now". These are all the absolutely most obvious sorts of claims that one could possibly make; and, said Reid and Moore, these are the claims that make up "common sense".
This view can be seen as either a version of foundationalism, with common sense statements taking the role of basic statements, or as a version of Coherentism. In this case, commonsense statements are statements that are so crucial to keeping the account coherent that they are all but impossible to deny.
If the method of common sense is correct, then philosophers may take the principles of common sense for granted. They do not need criteria in order to judge whether a proposition is true or not. They can also take some justifications for granted, according to common sense. They can get around Sextus' problem of the criterion because there is no infinite regress or circle of reasoning, because the principles of common sense ground the entire chain of reasoning.
Another escape from the diallelus is critical philosophy, which denies that beliefs should ever be "justified" at all. Rather, the job of philosophers is to subject all beliefs (including beliefs about truth criteria) to "criticism", attempting to discredit them rather than justifying them. Then, these philosophers say, it is rational to act on those beliefs that have best withstood criticism, whether or not they meet any specific criterion of truth. Karl Popper expanded on this idea to include a "quantitative" measurement he called verisimilitude, or truth-likeness. He showed that even if one could never justify a particular claim, one "can" compare the verisimilitude of two competing claims by criticism to judge which is superior to the other.
The pragmatist philosopher William James suggests that, ultimately, everyone settles at some level of explanation based on one's personal preferences that fit the particular individual's psychological needs. People select whatever level of explanation fits their needs, and things other than logic and reason determine those needs. In "The Sentiment of Rationality", James compares the philosopher, who insists on a high degree of justification, and the boor, who accepts or rejects ideals without much thought: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30249 |
Justification for the state
The justification of the state refers to the source of legitimate authority for the state or government. Typically, such a justification explains why the state should exist, and to some degree scopes the role of government - what a legitimate state should or should not be able to do.
There is no single, universally accepted justification of the state. In fact, anarchists believe that there is no justification for the state at all, and that human societies would be better off without it. However, most political ideologies have their own justifications, and thus their own vision of what constitutes a legitimate state. Indeed, a person's opinions regarding the role of government often determine the rest of their political ideology. Thus, discrepancy of opinion in a wide array of political matters is often directly traceable back to a discrepancy of opinion in the justification for the state.
The constitutions of various countries codify views as to the purposes, powers, and forms of their governments, but they tend to do so in rather vague terms, which particular laws, courts, and actions of politicians subsequently flesh out. In general, various countries have translated vague talk about the purposes of their governments into particular state laws, bureaucracies, enforcement actions, etc.
The following are just a few examples.
In feudal Europe the most widespread justification of the state was the emerging idea of the divine right of kings, which stated that monarchs draw their power from God, and that the state should only be an apparatus that puts the monarch's will into practice. The legitimacy of the state's lands derived from the lands being the personal possession of the monarch. The divine-right theory, combined with primogeniture, became a theory of hereditary monarchy in the nation states of the early modern period. The Holy Roman Empire was not a state in that sense, and was not a true theocracy, but rather a federal entity.
The political ideas current in China at that time involved the idea of the mandate of heaven. It resembled the theory of divine right in that it placed the ruler in a divine position, as the link between Heaven and Earth, but it differed from the divine right of kings in that it did not assume a permanent connection between a dynasty and the state. Inherent in the concept was that a ruler held the mandate of heaven only as long as he provided good government. If he did not, heaven would withdraw its mandate and whoever restored order would hold the new mandate. This is true theocracy; the power and wisdom to govern is granted by a higher power, not by human political schemes, and can be equally removed by heaven. This has similarities to the idea presented in the Judeo-Christian Bible from the time when Israel requests "a king like the nations" () through to Christ himself telling his contemporary leaders that they only had power because God gave it to them. The classic Biblical example comes in the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, who according to the Book of Daniel ruled the Babylonian empire because God ordained his power, but who later ate grass like an ox for seven years because he deified himself instead of acknowledging God. Nebuchadnezzar is restored when he again acknowledges God as the true sovereign.
In Renaissance Italy, contemporary theoreticians saw the primary purpose of the less-overtly monarchical Italian city-states as civic glory.
In the period of the eighteenth century, usually called the Enlightenment, a new justification of the European state developed. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract theory states that governments draw their power from the governed, its 'sovereign' people (usually a certain ethnic group, and the state's limits are legitimated theoretically as that people's lands, although that is often not, rarely exactly, the case), that no person should have absolute power, and that a "legitimate" state is one which meets the needs and wishes of its citizens. These include security, peace, economic development and the resolution of conflict. Also, the social contract requires that an individual gives up some of his natural rights in order to maintain social order via the rule of law. Eventually, the divine right of kings fell out of favor and this idea ascended; it formed the basis for modern democracy.
This is an example of the theoretical thinking shifting the emphasis from faith and theoretical principles such as sovereignty to the socio-economic logic, as Karl Marx did.
Thus modern political theorists typically legitimize the state with two major ideas: redistribution and the provision of public goods. In "The Limits of Government", philosopher David Schmidtz takes on the second of these ideas.
While a market system may allow self-interested to create and allocate many goods optimally, there exists a class of "collective" - or "public goods" that are not produced adequately in a market system. These collective goods are goods that all individuals want but for whose production it is often not individually rational for people voluntarily to do their part to secure a collectively rational outcome. The state can step in and force us all to contribute toward the production of these goods, and we can all thereby be made better off. There are actually many different opinions when it comes to this topic.
It is on those questions that one can find the differences between conservatism, socialism, liberalism, libertarianism, fascism, especially the latter, and other political ideologies. There are also two ideologies—anarchism and communism—which argue that the existence of the state is ultimately unjustified and harmful. For this reason, the kind of society they aim to establish would be stateless.
Anarchism claims that the community of those fighting to create a new society must themselves constitute a stateless society. Communism wishes to immediately or eventually replace the communities, unities and divisions that things such as work, money, exchange, borders, nations, governments, police, religion, and race create with the universal community possible when these things are replaced.
State socialism states that the degree to which a state is working class is the degree to which it fights government, class, work, and rule. The degree to which it wins such a fight is held to be the degree to which it is communist instead of capitalist, socialist, or the state. Anarcho-capitalism argues that taxes are theft, that government and the business community complicit in governance is organized crime and is equivalent to the criminal underworld, and that defense of life and property is just another industry, which must be privatized. Anarcho-communism and anarcho-collectivism says that taxes, being theft, are just property, which is also theft, and that the state is inherently capitalist and will never result in a transition to communism, and says that those fighting against capitalism and the state to produce a communist society must themselves already form such a community. However, the majority of viewpoints agree that the existence of "some" kind of government is morally justified. What they disagree about is the proper role and the proper form of that government.
There are several ways to conceive of the differences between these different political views. For example, one might ask "in what areas" should the government have jurisdiction, to "what extent" it may intervene in those areas, or even what constitutes "intervention" in the first place. Some institutions can be said to exist only because the government provides the framework for their existence; for instance, Marxists argue that the institution of private property only exists due to government. The intervention debate can be framed in terms of big government versus small government. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30252 |
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used, but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start of the Cenozoic Era, and extended to the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation at the end of the Pliocene Epoch. The time span covered by the Tertiary has no exact equivalent in the current geologic time system, but it is essentially the merged Paleogene and Neogene periods, which are informally called the Lower Tertiary and the Upper Tertiary, respectively.
The term Tertiary was first used by Giovanni Arduino during the mid-18th century. He classified geologic time into primitive (or primary), secondary, and tertiary periods based on observations of geology in northern Italy. Later a fourth period, the Quaternary, was applied.
In the early development of the study of geology, the periods were thought by scriptural geologists to correspond to the Biblical narrative, the rocks of the Tertiary being thought to be associated with the Great Flood.
In 1828, Charles Lyell incorporated a Tertiary Period into his own, far more detailed system of classification. He subdivided the Tertiary Period into four epochs according to the percentage of fossil mollusks resembling modern species found in those strata. He used Greek names: Eocene, Miocene, Older Pliocene, and Newer Pliocene.
Although these divisions seemed adequate for the region to which the designations were originally applied (parts of the Alps and plains of Italy), when the same system was later extended to other parts of Europe and to America, it proved to be inapplicable. Therefore, the use of mollusks was abandoned from the definition and the epochs were renamed and redefined.
The Tertiary's time span lies between the Mesozoic and the Quaternary, although no longer recognized as a formal unit by the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
The span of the Tertiary is subdivided into the Paleocene (56–66 million years BP), the Eocene (33.9–56 million years BP), the Oligocene (23–33.9 million years BP), the Miocene (5.3–23 million years BP) and the Pliocene (2.6–5.3 million years BP), extending to the first stage of the Pleistocene, the Gelasian stage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30253 |
Tamara E. Jernigan
Tamara Elizabeth "Tammy" Jernigan, Ph.D. (born May 7, 1959, in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is an American scientist and former NASA astronaut and a veteran of five shuttle missions. She currently serves as Deputy Principal Associate Director in the Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) organization at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Jernigan attended Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs, CA. She graduated in 1977. Jernigan attended Stanford University, where she earned a B.S. degree in physics in 1981, an M.S. in engineering science in 1983. At the University of California, Berkeley, she received an M.S. in astronomy in 1985. In 1988 she was awarded a Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University. Her research focused on the modeling of high-velocity outflows in regions of star formation, gamma-ray bursters, and the study of radiation produced by interstellar shock waves.
Jernigan began working for NASA in June 1981 at the Ames Research Center while earning her degrees at Stanford and Berkeley. She worked at the research center until June 1985 when she was selected to be an astronaut.
She entered the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1986 and retired in 2001. Her first trip to space was on June 5, 1991. She flew on five Space Shuttle program missions (three on "Columbia" and one each on "Endeavour" and "Discovery") and logged 1512 hours in space. In her last mission on "Discovery" in 1999, she performed an extra-vehicular activity for 7 hours and 55.5 minutes.
Jernigan has served as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office, assisting with the management of both military and civilian astronauts and support personnel and as Deputy for the Space Station program where she developed and advocated Astronaut Office positions on the design and operation of the International Space Station. She also represented NASA management on the U.S. negotiating team in Moscow during technical interchange meetings designed to resolve crew training, crew rotation, and operational issues.
She is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal.
She currently resides in Pleasanton, California. She is married and has a child, Jeffrey Wisoff with former astronaut Peter Wisoff. They both currently work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30262 |
Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than 100 million copies of his books were sold. His name was also used on movie scripts written by ghostwriters, nonfiction books on military subjects occasionally with co-authors, and video games. He was a part-owner of his hometown Major League Baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles of the American League and vice-chairman of their community activities and public affairs committees.
Clancy's literary career began in 1984 when he sold his first military thriller novel "The Hunt for Red October" for $5,000 published by the small academic Naval Institute Press of Annapolis, Maryland.
His works "The Hunt for Red October" (1984), "Patriot Games" (1987), "Clear and Present Danger" (1989), and "The Sum of All Fears" (1991) have been turned into commercially successful films. Actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and John Krasinski have played Clancy's most famous fictional character, Jack Ryan. Another well-known character of his, John Clark, has been portrayed by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. Tom Clancy's works also inspired games such as the "Ghost Recon", "Rainbow Six", and "Splinter Cell" series. Since Clancy's death in 2013, the Jack Ryan series has been continued by his family estate through a series of authors.
Clancy was born on April 12, 1947, at Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in the Northwood neighborhood in northeast Baltimore. The family were Irish-American.He was the second of three children to Thomas Clancy, who worked for the United States Postal Service, and Catherine Clancy, who worked in a store's credit department. He was a member of Troop 624 of the Boy Scouts of America. His mother worked to send him to the private Catholic secondary school taught by the Jesuit religious order (Society of Jesus), Loyola High School in Towson, Maryland, the suburban county seat of Baltimore County, just north of the city, from which he graduated in 1965. He then attended the associated Loyola College (now Loyola University Maryland) in Baltimore, graduating in 1969 with a bachelor's degree in English literature. While at Loyola College, he was president of the chess club. He joined the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps; however, he was ineligible to serve due to his myopia (nearsightedness), which required him to wear thick eyeglasses. After graduating, he worked for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1973, he joined the O. F. Bowen Agency, a small insurance agency based in Owings, Maryland, founded by his wife's grandfather. In 1980, he purchased the insurance agency from his wife's grandmother and wrote novels in his spare time. While working at the insurance agency, he wrote his debut novel, "The Hunt for Red October" (1984).
Clancy's literary career began in 1982 when he started writing "The Hunt for Red October", which in 1984 he sold for publishing to the Naval Institute Press for $5,000. The publisher was impressed with the work; Deborah Grosvenor, the Naval Institute Press editor who read through the book, said later that she convinced the publisher: "I think we have a potential best seller here, and if we don't grab this thing, somebody else would." She believed Clancy had an "innate storytelling ability, and his characters had this very witty dialogue". Clancy, who had hoped to sell 5,000 copies, ended up selling over 45,000. After publication, the book received praise from President Ronald Reagan, who called the work "the best yarn", subsequently boosting sales to 300,000 hardcover and 2 million paperback copies of the book, making it a national bestseller. The book was critically praised for its technical accuracy, which led to Clancy meeting several high-ranking officers in the U.S. military including Steve Pieczenik, and to inspiration for reoccurring characters in his works. Clancy's novels focus on the hero, most notably Jack Ryan and John Clark, both Irish Catholics like himself. He repeatedly uses the formula whereby the heroes are "highly skilled, disciplined, honest, thoroughly professional, and only lose their cool when incompetent politicians or bureaucrats get in their way. Their unambiguous triumphs over evil provide symbolic relief from the legacy of the Vietnam War."
Clancy's novels "The Hunt for Red October", "Patriot Games" (1987), "Clear and Present Danger" (1989), and "The Sum of All Fears" (1991), have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine as Clancy's most famous fictional character, Jack Ryan; his second most famous character, John Clark, has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. All but two of Clancy's solely written novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark.
The Cold War epic "Red Storm Rising" (1986) was co-written (according to Clancy in the book's foreword) with fellow military-oriented author Larry Bond. The book was published by Putnam and sold almost a million copies within its first year. Clancy became the cornerstone of a publishing list by Putnam which emphasized authors like Clancy who would produce annually. His publisher, Phyllis E. Grann, called these "repeaters."
Clancy has author status on the cover of dozens of books. Seventeen of his novels made it to the top of the "New York Times" best seller list. He co-authored memoirs of top generals, and produced numerous guided tours of the elite aspects of the American military. Andrew Bacevich states:
By 1988, Clancy had earned $1.3 million for "The Hunt for Red October" and had signed a $3 million contract for his next three books. In 1992, he sold North American rights to "Without Remorse" for $14 million, a record for a single book. By 1997, Penguin Putnam Inc. (part of Pearson Education) reportedly paid Clancy $50 million for world rights to two new books and another $25 million to Red Storm Entertainment for a four-year book/multimedia deal. Clancy followed this up with an agreement with Penguin's Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries "Tom Clancy's Net Force" aired in the fall/winter of 1998. The Op-Center universe has laid the ground for the series of books written by Jeff Rovin, which was in an agreement worth $22 million, bringing the total value of the package to $97 million.
In 1993, Clancy joined a group of investors that included Peter Angelos, and bought the Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs. In 1998, he reached an agreement to purchase the Minnesota Vikings, but had to abandon the deal because of a divorce settlement cost.
The first NetForce novel, titled "Net Force" (1999), was adapted as a 1999 TV movie starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going. The first Op-Center novel ("Tom Clancy's Op-Center" published in 1995) was released to coincide with a 1995 NBC television miniseries of the same name starring Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the miniseries did not continue, the book series did, but later had little in common with the first TV miniseries other than the title and the names of the main characters.
Clancy wrote several nonfiction books about various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces (see nonfiction listing,in the bibliography article). He also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy's works.
With the release of "The Teeth of the Tiger" (2003), Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews as main characters; these characters continued in his last four novels, "Dead or Alive" (2010), "Locked On" (2011), "Threat Vector" (2012), and "Command Authority" (2013).
In 2008, the French video game manufacturer Ubisoft purchased the use of Clancy's name for an undisclosed sum. It has been used in conjunction with video games and related products such as movies and books. Based on his interest in private spaceflight and his investment in the launch vehicle company Rotary Rocket,
Clancy was interviewed in 2007 for the documentary film "Orphans of Apollo" (2008).
A long-time proponent of conservative and Republican views, Clancy dedicated books to American conservative political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan. A week after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, on "The O'Reilly Factor", Clancy suggested that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for the failure to prevent the attacks due to their "gutting" of the Central Intelligence Agency.
On September 11, 2001, Clancy was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN. During the interview, he asserted "Islam does not permit suicide." Among other observations during this interview, Clancy cited discussions he had with military experts on the lack of planning to handle a hijacked plane being used in a suicide attack and criticized the news media's treatment of the United States Intelligence Community. Clancy appeared again on PBS's "Charlie Rose", to discuss the implications of the day's events with Richard Holbrooke, "New York Times" journalist Judith Miller, and Senator John Edwards, among others. Clancy was interviewed on these shows because his book "Debt of Honor" (1994) included a scenario wherein a disgruntled Japanese airline pilot crashes a fueled Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol dome during an address by the President to a joint session of Congress, killing the President and most of Congress.
Numerous scholars have examined the political dimensions of Clancy's book, especially in the context of the Cold War. Historian Walter Hixson has argued that Clancy's novels, especially "The Hunt for Red October" and "Red Storm Rising," were:
Clancy's first wife, Wanda Thomas King, was a nurse. They married in 1969, and had four children: daughters Michelle, Christine, and Kathleen and son Thomas Leo III. The couple separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996. Wanda Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997, which became final in January 1999.
On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997. Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn and a family friend of Colin Powell, who originally introduced the couple to each other. They remained together until Clancy's death in October 2013. The two had one daughter.
Clancy was a Roman Catholic.
Clancy's 80-acre estate, which was once a summer camp, is located in Calvert County, Maryland. It has a panoramic view of the Chesapeake Bay. The stone mansion, which cost $2 million, has 24 rooms and features a shooting range in the basement. The property also features a World War II-era M4 Sherman tank, a Christmas gift from his first wife.
Clancy also purchased a 17,000 square foot penthouse condominium in the Ritz-Carlton, in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, for $16 million. Clancy and his wife combined four units to create the apartment.
, both properties are listed for sale by his estate. The property is described as approximately 537 acres by the realtor. It is unclear when the estate expanded to its present size.
Clancy died of heart failure on October 1, 2013, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, near his Baltimore home. John D. Gresham, a co-author and researcher with Clancy on several books, said Clancy had been suffering heart problems for some time prior: "Five or six years ago Tom suffered a heart attack and he went through bypass surgery. It wasn't that he had another heart attack, his heart just wore out."
The "Chicago Tribune" quoted Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Hunter as saying, "When he published "The Hunt for Red October", he redefined and expanded the genre and as a consequence of that, many people were able to publish such books who had previously been unable to do so."
On March 31, 2014, the Orioles honored Clancy with a video tribute during their home opener, and the team wore a tribute patch on their jerseys through the season.
Officially licensed games based on "The Hunt for Red October" were released in the late 1980s and early 1990s for various 8-bit home computers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. These included a submarine combat simulation (based on the book) and an action game (based on the film).
More recently, Ubisoft has made many video game series based on Tom Clancy's books. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30265 |
Tonyukuk
Tonyukuk (,, , , born c. 646, died c. 726) was the baga-tarkhan (supreme commander) and adviser of four successive Göktürk khagans - Elteriš Qaγan, Qapγan Qaγan, İnäl Qaγan and Bilgä Qaγan. He conducted victorious campaigns against various Turkic and non-Turkic steppe peoples, such as Tôlis, Xueyantuo, Toquz Oguz, Yenisei Kyrgyz, Kurykans, Thirty Tatar, Khitan and Tatabi as well as China. He was described as a kingmaker by historians such as E. P. Thompson and Peter Benjamin Golden.
The name is spelled as "t-o-ň-uq-uq" () in the Old Turkic script, variously interpreted as "Tunuquq", "Tonuquq", "Tuj-uquq", " Tony Yuguq", "Tujun-oq", "Tojuquq", with a number of suggestions for its etymology. In Old Turkic he is written as Tunuq-uq or Tuniq-Oq. Tunuk means "clear, pure, abyss, who reached the depth" or "pure, penetrative", and uq or oq means "idea, wise, well-informed". Thus, Tonuquq is the owner of deep and pure idea. His title "Bilge" means wise or master. According to Klyashtorny, "tonyuquq" is derived from the verb "yoq/yuq" meaning "to hide, to protect" and it was used in Uyghur legal documents. Thus, the name's first element means "hidden, protected thing, value, treasure, jewelry" and the other "ton" means "first"; thus his Chinese name 元珍 Yuánzhēn is a calque of his Turkic name Tonyuquq, both meaning "first treasure" Jean-Paul Roux suggested a rather bizarre idea and explains the word as "with oiled dress", discussing the culinary culture of the
Mongols and suggesting that they had dirty and stained clothes.
He was born around 646, near Tuul River in Ashide tribe. He fled Tang in 679 and joined Elteriš in 681.
Chinese sources state that Tonyuquq's name was Yuanzhen, and he learned all Chinese traditions and was aware of the gaps in the borders and the Chinese wall. While he was supervising the surrendered clans in Chanyü military governorship, he was dismissed and jailed by the military governor Changshih.
Although he lost early wars against Xue Rengui, he was formidable force in establishing Turkic Khaganate. In 687, another invasion of Tang by Elteriš and Ashide Yuanzhen began. Empress Dowager Wu commissioned the ethnically Baekje general Heichi Changzhi, assisted by Li Duozuo, to defend against Turkic attack and they were able to defeat Turk forces at Huanghuadui (modern day Shuozhou, Shanxi) causing Turk forces to flee.
In 703, he was sent by qaγan for marriage proposal to China. Wu Zetian accepted the proposal, in exchange Wu Yanxiu was released on khagan's order. However, Emperor Zhongzhong's accession changed political climate. Marriage was cancelled.
In 712, he commanded Tujue army during Battle of Bolchu which proved disastrous for Turgesh army.
He was not in active politics during Inäl's reign. Although Mihaly Dobrovits believes he accepted him as legitimate ruler.
In 716 he was appointed to be Master Strategist (Bagha Tarkhan) by his son-in-law Bilgä Qaγan.
Chinese sources state, Bilgä Qaγan wanted to convert to Buddhism, establish cities and temples. However, Tonyukuk discouraged him from this by pointing out that their nomadic lifestyle was what made them a greater military power when compared to Tang dynasty. While Turks' power rested on their mobility, conversion to Buddhism would bring pacifism among population. Therefore sticking to Tengriism was necessary to survive.
In 720 Tang chancellor Wang Jun proposed a plan to attack Bilgä Qaγan along with the Baximi, Xi, and Khitan. Emperor Xuanzong also recruited Qapγan Qaγan's sons Bilgä Tegin and Mo Tegin, Yenisei Kyrgyz Qaγan Qutluğ Bilgä Qaγan and Huoba Guiren to fight against Tujue. Tonyukuk cunningly launched first attack on Baximi in 721 autumn, completely crushing them. Meanwhile Bilgä raided Gansu, taking much of the livestock. Later that year Khitans, next year Xi were also crushed.
He died around 726.
He was father to Eletmiš Bilgä Qatun and a father-in-law to Bilgä Qaγan, thus a grandfather to Yollïg and Teŋrï Qaγans.
His biography, achievements and advice for state administration were carved in the so-called Orkhon-Turkic script on two stele erected around 716 (before his death) at a site known as Bayn Tsokto, in Ulaanbataar's Nalaikh district. He was mentioned and remembered in some Uyghur Manichaean texts later in Qocho. Yuan era Uyghur official Xie Wenzhi (楔文質), as well as Korean Gyeongju Seol clan claimed descent from Tonyukuk. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30266 |
Tyburn
Tyburn was a village in the county of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch and the southern end of Edgware Road in present-day London. It took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne means 'boundary stream', but Tyburn Brook should not be confused with the better known River Tyburn, which is the next tributary of the River Thames to the east of the Westbourne.
For many centuries, the name Tyburn was synonymous with capital punishment, it having been the principal place for execution of London criminals and convicted traitors, including many religious martyrs. It was also known as 'God's Tribunal', in the 18th century.
The village was one of two manors of the parish of Marylebone, which was itself named after the stream, "St Marylebone" being a contraction of "St Mary's church by the bourne". Tyburn was recorded in the Domesday Book and stood approximately at the west end of what is now Oxford Street at the junction of two Roman roads. The predecessors of Oxford Street (called Tyburn Road in the mid 1700s) and Edgware Road were roads leading to the village, later joined by Park Lane (originally Tyburn Lane).
In the 1230s and 1240s the village of Tyburn was held by Gilbert de Sandford, the son of John de Sandford, who had been the chamberlain to Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1236 the city of London contracted with Sir Gilbert to draw water from Tyburn Springs, which he held, to serve as the source of the first piped water supply for the city. The water was supplied in lead pipes that ran from where Bond Street Station stands today, east of Hyde Park, down to the hamlet of Charing (Charing Cross), along Fleet Street and over the Fleet Bridge, climbing Ludgate Hill (by gravitational pressure) to a public conduit at Cheapside. Water was supplied free to all comers.
Tyburn had significance from ancient times and was marked by a monument known as "Oswulf's Stone", which gave its name to the Ossulstone Hundred of Middlesex. The stone was covered over in 1851 when Marble Arch was moved to the area, but it was shortly afterwards unearthed and propped up against the Arch. It has not been seen since 1869.
For much of its history, public executions took place at Tyburn, with prisoners processed from Newgate Prison in the City, via St Giles in the Fields and Oxford Street. After the late 18th century, when public executions were no longer carried out at Tyburn, they were carried out at Newgate Prison itself and at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Southwark.
The first recorded execution took place at a site next to the stream in 1196. William Fitz Osbert, populist leader who played a major role in an 1196 popular revolt in London, was cornered in the church of St Mary-le-Bow. He was dragged naked behind a horse to Tyburn, where he was hanged.
In 1537, Henry VIII used Tyburn to execute the ringleaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, including Sir Nicholas Tempest, one of the northern leaders of the Pilgrimage and the King's own Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland.
In 1571, the Tyburn Tree was erected at the junction of today's Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Oxford Street, near where Marble Arch is currently situated. The "Tree" or "Triple Tree" was a novel form of gallows, consisting of a horizontal wooden triangle supported by three legs (an arrangement known as a "three-legged mare" or "three-legged stool"). Several felons could thus be hanged at once, and so the gallows were used for mass executions, such as on 23 June 1649 when 24 prisoners—23 men and one woman—were hanged simultaneously, having been conveyed there in eight carts.
The Tree stood in the middle of the roadway, providing a major landmark in west London and presenting a very obvious symbol of the law to travellers. After executions, the bodies would be buried nearby or in later times removed for dissection by anatomists. The crowd would sometimes fight over a body with surgeons, for fear that dismemberment could prevent the resurrection of the body on Judgement Day (see Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin or William Spiggot).
The first victim of the "Tyburn Tree" was John Story, a Roman Catholic who was convicted and tried for treason. A plaque to the "Catholic martyrs" executed at Tyburn in the period 1535–1681 is located at 8 Hyde Park Place, the site of Tyburn convent.
Among the more notable individuals suspended from the "Tree" in the following centuries were John Bradshaw, Henry Ireton and Oliver Cromwell, who were already dead but were disinterred and hanged at Tyburn in January 1661 on the orders of the Cavalier Parliament in an act of posthumous revenge for their part in the beheading of King Charles I.
The gallows seem to have been replaced several times, probably because of wear, but in general, the entire structure stood all the time in Tyburn. After some acts of vandalism, in October 1759 it was decided to replace the permanent structure with new moving gallows until the last execution in Tyburn, probably carried out in November 1783.
The executions were public spectacles and proved extremely popular, attracting crowds of thousands. The enterprising villagers of Tyburn erected large spectator stands so that as many as possible could see the hangings (for a fee). On one occasion, the stands collapsed, reportedly killing and injuring hundreds of people. This did not prove a deterrent, however, and the executions continued to be treated as public holidays, with London apprentices being given the day off for them. One such event was depicted by William Hogarth in his satirical print "The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn" (1747).
Tyburn was commonly invoked in euphemisms for capital punishment—for instance, to "take a ride to Tyburn" (or simply "go west") was to go to one's hanging, "Lord of the Manor of Tyburn" was the public hangman, "dancing the Tyburn jig" was the act of being hanged, and so on. Convicts would be transported to the site in an open ox-cart from Newgate Prison. They were expected to put on a good show, wearing their finest clothes and going to their deaths with insouciance. The crowd would cheer a "good dying", but would jeer any displays of weakness on the part of the condemned.
On 19 April 1779, clergyman James Hackman was hanged there following his 7 April murder of courtesan and socialite Martha Ray, the mistress of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. The Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783, when John Austin, a highwayman, was hanged; for the next eighty-five years hangings were staged outside Newgate prison. Then, in 1868, due to public disorder during these public executions, it was decided to execute the convicts inside the prison.
The site of the gallows is now marked by three young oak trees that were planted in 2014 on an island in the middle of Edgware Road at its junction with Bayswater Road. Between the trees is a roundel with the inscription "The site of Tyburn Tree". It is also commemorated by the Tyburn Convent, a Catholic convent dedicated to the memory of martyrs executed there and in other locations for the Catholic faith.
Although most historical records and modern science agree that the Tyburn gallows were situated where Oxford Street meets Edgware Road and Bayswater Road, in the January 1850 issue of "Notes and Queries", the book collector and musicologist Edward Francis Rimbault published a list of faults he had found in Peter Cunningham's 1849 "Handbook of London", in which he claimed that the correct site of the gallows is where 49 Connaught Square later was built, stating that ""in the lease granted by the Bishop of London, this is particularly mentioned"".
Tyburn was primarily known for its gallows, which functioned as the main execution site for London-area prisoners from the 16th through to the 18th centuries. For those people found guilty of capital crimes who could not get a pardon, which accounted for approximately 40%, a probable destiny was to be hanged at Tyburn. Other contemporary methods of punishment that may have been used as alternatives to Tyburn included execution, followed by being hung in chains, where the crime was committed; or burning at the stake; and being drawn and quartered, of which the latter two were common in cases of treason.
The last days of the condemned were marked by religious events. On the Sunday before every execution, a sermon was preached in Newgate's chapel, which those unaffiliated with the execution could pay to attend. Furthermore, the night before the execution, around midnight, the sexton of St Sepulchre's church, adjacent to Newgate, recited verses outside the wall of the condemned. The following morning, the convicts heard prayers and, those who wished to do so, received the sacrament.
On the day of execution, the condemned were transported to the Tyburn gallows from Newgate in a horse-drawn open cart. The distance between Newgate and Tyburn was approximately , but due to streets often being crowded with onlookers, the journey could last up to three hours. A usual stop of the cart was at the Bowl Inn in St Giles, where the condemned were allowed to drink strong liquors or wine.
Having arrived at Tyburn, the condemned found themselves in front of a crowded and noisy square; the wealthy paid to sit on the stands erected for the occasion, in order to have an unobstructed view. Before the execution, the condemned were allowed to say a few words—the authorities expected that most of the condemned, before their death, before commending their own souls to God, would admit their guilt. It is reported that the majority of the condemned did so. A noose was then placed around their neck and the cart pulled away, leaving them hanging. Death was not immediate; the fight against strangulation could last for three-quarters of an hour.
Instances of pickpocketing have been reported in the crowds of executions, a mockery of the deterrent effect of capital punishment, which at the time was considered proper punishment for theft.
Sites of public executions were significant gathering places and executions themselves often functioned as public entertainment, in contrast with their intended deterrent effect. Scholars have described the executions at Tyburn as "carnivalesque occasion[s] in which the normative message intended by the authorities is reappropriated and inverted by an irreverent crowd" that found them a source of "entertainment as well as conflict." This analysis is supported by the presence of shouting street traders and food vendors and the erection of seating for wealthier onlookers. Additionally, a popular belief held that the hand of an executed criminal could cure cancers, and it was not uncommon to see mothers brushing their child's cheek with the hand of the condemned. The gallows at Tyburn were sources of cadavers for surgeons and anatomists.
Hall. Hen. VIII an. 30, cited in "A New Dictionary of the English Language", Charles Richardson (1836) William Pickering, London. Vol 1 P. 962, col 1 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30267 |
Tube map
The Tube map (sometimes called the London Underground Map or the TfL Services Map) is a schematic transport map of the lines, stations and services of the London Underground, known colloquially as "the Tube", hence the map's name. The first schematic Tube map was designed by Harry Beck in 1931. Since then, it has been expanded to include more of London's public transport systems, including the Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, TfL Rail, Tramlink and the Emirates Air Line cable car.
As a schematic diagram, it does not show the geographic locations but rather the relative positions of the stations, lines, the stations' connective relations, and fare zones. The basic design concepts have been widely adopted for other such maps around the world, and for maps of other sorts of transport networks and even conceptual schematics.
A regularly updated version of the map is available from the official Transport for London website. In 2006, the tube map was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons which included Concorde, Mini, Supermarine Spitfire, K2 telephone box, World Wide Web and the AEC Routemaster bus.
As London's early transport system was operated by a variety of independent companies, there were no complete maps of the network, just for the individual companies' routes. These maps were not typically schematic and were simply the line overlaid on a regular city map. There was no integration of the companies' services, nor was there any co-operation in advertising.
In 1907, "The Evening News" commissioned a pocket map titled The Evening News London "Tube Map". This map was the first to show all of the lines with equal weight given to each line. In addition, it was the first to use a different colour for each line.
Another early combined map was published in 1908 by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) in conjunction with four other underground railway companies using the "Underground" brand as part of a common advertising factor.
The map showed eight routes – four operated by the UERL and one from each of the other four companies:
Being geographical presented restrictions in this early map; to enable sufficient clarity of detail in the crowded central area of the map, the extremities of the District and Metropolitan lines were omitted, so a full network diagram was not provided. The problem of truncation remained for nearly half a century. Although all of the western branches of the District and Piccadilly lines were included for the first time in 1933 with Harry Beck's first proper Tube map, the portion of the Metropolitan line beyond did not appear until 1938 and the eastern end of the District line did not appear until the mid-1950s.
The route map continued to be developed and was issued in various formats and artistic styles until 1920, when, for the first time, the geographic background detail was omitted in a map designed by MacDonald Gill. This freed the design to enable greater flexibility in the positioning of lines and stations. The routes became more stylised but the arrangement remained, largely, geographic in nature. The 1932 edition was the last geographic map to be published, before Beck's diagrammatic map was introduced.
The first diagrammatic map of London's rapid transit network was designed by Harry Beck in 1931. Beck was a London Underground employee who realised that because the railway ran mostly underground, the physical locations of the stations were largely irrelevant to the traveller wanting to know how to get from one station to another — only the topology of the route mattered. This approach is similar to that of electrical circuit diagrams; while these were not the inspiration for Beck's maps, his colleagues pointed out the similarities and he once produced a joke map with the stations replaced by electrical circuit symbols and names, with terminology such as "Bakerlite" for the Bakerloo line.
To this end, Beck devised a simplified map, consisting of stations, straight line segments connecting them, and the River Thames; lines ran only vertically, horizontally, or on 45-degree diagonals. To make the map clearer and to emphasise connections, Beck differentiated between ordinary stations (marked with tick marks) and interchange stations (marked with diamonds). London Underground was initially sceptical of his proposal — it was an uncommissioned spare-time project, and it was tentatively introduced to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. However, it immediately became popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since.
Despite the complexity of making the map, Beck was paid just ten guineas for the artwork and design of the card edition (five guineas for the poster). After its initial success he continued to design the Tube map until 1960, a single (and unpopular) 1939 edition by Hans Scheger being the only exception. During this time, as well as accommodating new lines and stations, Beck continually altered the design, for example changing the interchange symbol from a diamond to a circle, as well as altering the line colours – the Central line from orange to red, and the Bakerloo line from red to brown. Beck's final design, in 1960, bears a strong resemblance to the present-day map. Beck lived in Finchley, north London, and one of his maps is still preserved on the southbound platform at Finchley Central station on the Northern line.
In 1997, Beck's importance was posthumously recognised, and as of 2013 the statement is printed on every Tube map: "This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck".
By 1960, Beck had fallen out with the Underground's publicity officer, Harold Hutchison. Hutchison, though not a designer himself, drafted his own version of the Tube map that year. It removed the smoothed corners of Beck's design and created some highly cramped areas (most notably around Liverpool Street station); in addition, lines were generally less straight. However, Hutchison also introduced interchange symbols (circles for Underground-only, squares for connections with British Rail main line services) that were black and allowed multiple lines through them, as opposed to Beck who used one circle for each line at an interchange, coloured according to the corresponding line.
In 1964, the design of the map was taken over by Paul Garbutt who, like Beck, had produced a map in his spare time due to his dislike of the Hutchison design. Garbutt's map restored curves and bends to the diagram, but retained Hutchison's black interchange circles (the squares however were replaced with circles with a dot inside). Garbutt continued to produce Underground maps for at least another 20 years — Tube maps stopped bearing the designer's name in 1986, by which time the elements of the map bore a very strong resemblance to today's map.
While the standard Tube map mostly avoided representing main line services, a new variant of the map issued in 1973, the "London's Railways" map, was the first to depict Tube and above-ground main line rail services in a diagrammatic style closely matched to Beck's designs. This version was created by Tim Demuth of the London Transport publicity office and was jointly sponsored by British Rail and London Transport. Demuth's map did not replace the standard Tube map but continued to be published as a supplementary resource, later known as the "London Connections" map.
Some alterations have been made to the map over the years. More recent designs have incorporated changes to the network, such as the Docklands Light Railway and the extension of the Jubilee line. It has also been expanded to include routes brought under Transport for London control such as TfL Rail, and to indicate which Tube stops connect with National Rail services, links to airports, and River Services. In some cases, stations within short walking distance are now shown, often with the distance between them, such as 's distance from (this is an evolution of the pedestrian route between Bank and Monument stations, which was once prominently marked on the map). Further, step-free access notations are also incorporated in the current map.
In addition, since 2002 the fare zones have been added to help passengers judge the cost of a journey. Nevertheless, the map remains true to Beck's original scheme, and many other transport systems use schematic maps to represent their services, likely inspired by Beck. A facsimile of Beck's original design is on display on the southbound platform at his local station, Finchley Central.
Despite there having been many versions over the years, somehow the perception of many users is that the current map actually is, more or less, Beck's original version from the 1930s — a testament to the effectiveness of his design. Beck did actually draw versions with other formats, 22½ degrees rather than 45 (the Paris Métro version uses 22½ degrees as a base); and an unused version for the 1948 Olympic Games.
One of the major changes to be made to the revision of the Tube map put out in September 2009 was the removal of the River Thames. Although historically the river was not present on several official maps (for example, according to David Leboff and Tim Demuth's book; in 1907, 1908, and 1919), from 1921 it was absent for several years (on pocket maps designed by MacDonald Gill). The Thames-free 2009 version was the first time that the river has not appeared on the Tube map since the Stringemore pocket map of 1926. This latest removal resulted in widespread international media attention, and general disapproval from most Londoners as well as from the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Based on this reaction, the following edition of the diagram in December 2009 reinstated both the river and fare zones.
In more recent years, TfL has expanded its rail services, notably with the expansion of the London Overground network, which has taken over a number of National Rail lines and brought them into the TfL network, each of these converted lines being added to the Tube map. Further additions have been made such as the Emirates Air Line cable car and the boundaries of fare zones. Some commentators have suggested that Beck's design should be replaced with a new design that can incorporate the new lines more comfortably.
The designers of the map have tackled a variety of problems in showing information as clearly as possible and have sometimes adopted different solutions.
The font for the map, including station names, is Johnston, which uses perfect circles for the letter 'O'. This is historic and the generic font for all TfL uses, from station facades to bus destination blinds.
The table below shows the changing use of colours since Beck's first map. The current colours are taken from Transport for London's colour standards guide, which defines the precise colours from the Pantone palette, and also a colour naming scheme that is particular to TfL. Earlier maps were limited by the number of colours available that could be clearly distinguished in print. Improvements in colour printing technology have reduced this problem and the map has coped with the identification of new lines without great difficulty.
Pecked lines have at various times indicated construction, limited service, or sections closed for renovation.
From the start, interchange stations were given a special mark to indicate their importance, though its shape has changed over the years. In addition, from 1960, marks were used to identify stations that offered connections with British Rail (now National Rail). The following shapes have been used:
Since 1970 the map has used a reversed (red on white) British Rail "double arrow" beside the station name to indicate main line interchanges. Where the main line station has a different name from the Underground station that it connects with, since 1977 this has been shown in a box. The distance between the Tube station and the main line station is now shown.
Contemporary maps have marked stations offering step-free access with a blue circle containing a wheelchair symbol in white.
Stations with links to airports (Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3, Terminal 4, and Terminal 5 for Heathrow Airport, and the DLR station at City Airport) are shown with a black aeroplane symbol.
Since 2000, stations with a nearby interchange to river bus piers on the Thames have been marked with a small boat symbol to promote London River Services.
When Eurostar services used , the Eurostar logo was shown next to Waterloo station. In November 2007 the terminus was transferred to St Pancras International.
The Tube map aims to make the complicated network of services easy to understand, but it is not possible to have complete information about the services that operate on each line.
Limited-service routes have sometimes been identified with hatched lines, with some complications added to the map to show where peak-only services ran through to branches, such as that to Chesham on the Metropolitan line. The number of routes with a limited service has declined in recent years as patronage recovered from its early-1980s low point. As there are now fewer restrictions to show, the remaining ones are now mainly indicated in the accompanying text rather than by special line markings.
The Tube map exists to help passengers navigate the London rapid transit network and it has been questioned whether it should play a wider role in helping people navigate London itself. The question has been raised as to whether mainline railways should be shown on the map, in particular those in inner-London. The Underground has largely resisted adding additional services to the standard Tube map, instead producing separate maps with different information, including:
Maps are produced in different sizes, the most common being Quad Royal (40 × 50 inches) poster size and Journey Planner pocket size. The maps showing all the National Rail routes provide useful additional information at the expense of considerably increased complexity, as they contain almost 700 stations.
Some non-Underground lines have appeared on the standard tube map:
When Transport for London expanded its London Overground service to include the East London Line in 2010, the East London line (extended to Croydon) changed from a solid orange line to a double orange stripe. According to 2007 proposals, the addition of the South London Line to London Overground was due to add the southern loop onto future tube maps in late 2010, and, as of May 2013, it is up and running.
Like many other rapid transit maps, because the Tube map ignores geography, it may not accurately depict the relative orientation and distance between stations.
Transport for London formerly published several bus maps that depicted the approximate paths of tube routes relative to major streets and London bus routes. These maps also show locations of certain cultural attractions and geographic landmarks.
Internet mapping services (e.g. Google Maps) offer a "Transit Layer" showing actual routes superimposed on the standard street map. A map shows underground, overground and DLR lines and National Rail stations within Zone 1–2.
The website "carto.metro" offers extremely detailed maps showing individual tracks, platforms, yards, turning loops, abandoned lines, etc., in their geographical position.
The 'look' of the London Underground map (including 45 degree angles, evenly spaced 'stations', and some geographic distortion) has been emulated by many other subway systems around the world. While London Underground have been protective of their copyright they have also allowed their concepts to be shared with other transport operators (Amsterdam's GVB even pays tribute to them on their map).
The success of the tube map as a piece of information design has led to many imitations of its format. What is probably the earliest example is the Sydney Suburban and City Underground railway map of 1939. Not only does it follow Beck's styling cues, but in size, design and layout it is a near-clone to the London map of the late 1930s, right down to the use of the Underground roundel.
In 2002, Transport for London launched a series of London Buses "spider diagrams" to display at bus stops around the city, conveying bus route information in a schematic style similar to Beck's design, with straight lines and 45° angles depicting geographically distorted bus routes, coloured lines and numbers to differentiate services, and graphical markers to show bus stops. Tube and rail lines are not included, but interchanges are denoted with appropriate symbols by bus stop names, such as the Tube roundel. Unlike the traditional Tube map, the bus maps display services appropriate to specific transport hubs rather than a full network. Each map also contains a central rectangle of a simple, geographically accurate street map to display the positions of bus stops; outside this rectangle, the only geographic feature to appear on the bus maps is the River Thames. These maps are also available for electronic download, with map collections ordered by London borough councils. The bus maps were designed for TfL by the cartographic design company T-Kartor group.
An isochrone map of the network was made available in 2007.
In 2009, British Waterways produced their own map of London's waterways in a Tube-style diagrammatic map, depicting the River Thames, the various and subterranean rivers in the city.
Attempts to create alternative versions to the official London Underground map have continued. In June 2011, British Designer Mark Noad unveiled his vision for a more 'geographically accurate' London Underground map. The map is an attempt to see if it is possible to create a geographically-accurate representation of the underground system while still retaining some of the clarity of Beck's original diagram. It uses similar principles, fixed line angles – in this case 30 and 60 degrees instead of 45 – and shortens the extremities of the lines to make it more compact. In 2013, Dr Max Roberts, a psychology lecturer at the University of Essex with a particular interest in usability, information design and schematic mapping, issued his own version of the Tube map. His design, based on a series of concentric circles, emphasised the concept of the newly completed orbital loop surrounding Central London with radial lines. A map created to illustrate Tube-related articles on Wikipedia in 2014 was praised for its clarity and for including future developments such as Crossrail.
In July 2015, a map of the network displaying walking calorie burn information for each leg was published by Metro newspaper.
The design has become so widely known that it is now instantly recognisable as representing London. It has been featured on T-shirts, postcards, and other memorabilia. In 2006, the design came second in a televised search for the most well known British design icon. It is widely cited by academics and designers as a 'design classic' and it is due to these cultural associations that London Underground does not usually permit the design to be used or altered for any other purpose. This has only been officially sanctioned on a few occasions:
Stylistic aspects of the London diagram, such as the line colours and styles, the station ticks or interchange symbols, are also frequently used in advertising. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30268 |
The Hague
The Hague (; or ) is a city on the western coast of the Netherlands on the North Sea and the capital of the province of South Holland. It is also the seat of government of the Netherlands and hosts the International Court of Justice, one of the most important courts in the world.
With a metropolitan population of more than 1 million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, with a population of approximately 2.7 million, is the 13th-largest in the European Union and the most populous in the country. In the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation.
The Hague is the seat of the Cabinet, the States General, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State of the Netherlands, but the city is not the constitutional capital of the Netherlands, which is Amsterdam. King Willem-Alexander lives in Huis ten Bosch and works at the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, together with Queen Máxima. Most foreign embassies in the Netherlands are located in the city. The Hague is also home to the world headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell and other Dutch companies.
The Hague is known as the home of international law and arbitration. The International Court of Justice, the main judicial arm of the United Nations, is located in the city, as well as the International Criminal Court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, Europol, and approximately 200 other international governmental organisations.
The Hague was first mentioned as "Die Haghe" in 1242. In the 15th century, the name "des Graven hage" came into use, literally "The Count's Wood", with connotations like "The Count's Hedge, Private Enclosure or Hunting Grounds". "'s Gravenhage" was officially used for the city from the 17th century onward. Today, this name is only used in some official documents like birth and marriage certificates. The city itself uses "Den Haag" in all its communications.
The area was part of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and was close to the border of the empire, the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes. In 1997, four Roman milestones were discovered at Wateringse Veld. The originals are in the "Museon" museum. The milestones indicate the distance from the nearest Roman city, Forum Hadriani (modern Voorburg) and can be dated to the reign of the emperors Antoninus Pius (138-161; the column is dated 151), Caracalla (211-217), Gordian III (238-244), and Decius (249-251).
Little is known about the origin of The Hague. There are no contemporary documents describing it, and later sources are often of dubious reliability. What is certain is that The Hague was founded by the last counts of the House of Holland. Floris IV already owned two residences in the area, but presumably purchased a third court situated by the present-day Hofvijver in 1229, previously owned by a woman called Meilendis. Presumably, Floris IV intended to rebuild the court into a large castle, but he died in a tournament in 1234, before anything was built. His son and successor William II lived in the court, and after he was elected King of the Romans in 1248, he promptly returned to The Hague, and had builders turn the court into a "royal palace" ("regale palacium"), which would later be called the Binnenhof ("Inner Court"). He died in 1256 before this palace was completed but parts of it were finished during the reign of his son Floris V, of which the Ridderzaal ("Knights' Hall"), still intact, is the most prominent. It is still used for political events, such as the annual speech from the throne by the Dutch monarch. From the 13th century onward, the counts of Holland used The Hague as their administrative center and residence when in Holland.
The village that originated around the Binnenhof was first mentioned as "Die Haghe" in a charter dating from 1242. It became the primary residence of the Counts of Holland in 1358, and thus became the seat of many government institutions. This status allowed the village to grow; by the Late Middle Ages, it had grown to the size of a city, although it did not receive city rights. In its early years, the village was located in the "ambacht", or rural district, of Monster, which was governed by the Lord of Monster. Seeking to exercise more direct control over the village, however, the Count split the village off and created a separate "ambacht" called Haagambacht, governed directly by the Counts of Holland. The territory of Haagambacht was considerably expanded during the reign of Floris V.
When the House of Burgundy inherited the counties of Holland and Zeeland in 1432, they appointed a stadtholder to rule in their stead with the States of Holland and West Friesland as an advisory council. Although their seat was located in The Hague, the city became subordinate to more important centres of government such as Brussels and Mechelen, from where the sovereigns ruled over the increasingly centralised Burgundian Netherlands.
At the beginning of the Eighty Years' War, the absence of city walls proved disastrous, as it allowed Spanish troops to easily occupy the town. In 1575, the States of Holland, temporarily based in Delft, even considered demolishing the city but this proposal was abandoned, after mediation by William the Silent. In 1588, The Hague became the permanent seat of the States of Holland as well as the States General of the Dutch Republic. In order for the administration to maintain control over city matters, The Hague never received official city status, although it did have many of the privileges normally granted only to cities. In modern administrative law, "city rights" have no place anymore.
In 1806, when the Kingdom of Holland was a puppet state of the First French Empire, the settlement was granted city rights by Louis Bonaparte. After the Napoleonic Wars, modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands were combined in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to form a buffer against France. As a compromise, Brussels and Amsterdam alternated as capital every two years, with the government remaining in The Hague. After the separation of Belgium in 1830, Amsterdam remained the capital of the Netherlands, while the government was situated in The Hague. When the government started to play a more prominent role in Dutch society after 1850, The Hague quickly expanded. Many streets were specifically built for the large number of civil servants employed in the country's government and for the Dutchmen who were retiring from the administration of the Netherlands East Indies. The growing city annexed the rural municipality of Loosduinen partly in 1903 and completely in 1923.
The city sustained heavy damage during World War II. Many Jews were killed during the German occupation. Additionally, the Atlantic Wall was built through the city, causing a large quarter to be torn down by the Nazi occupants. On 3 March 1945, the Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the Bezuidenhout quarter. The target was an installation of V-2 rockets in the nearby Haagse Bos park, but because of navigational errors, the bombs fell on a heavily populated and historic part of the city. The bombardment wreaked widespread destruction in the area and caused 511 fatalities.
After the war, The Hague became at one time the largest building site in Europe. The city expanded massively to the south-west, and the destroyed areas were quickly rebuilt. The population peaked at 600,000 inhabitants around 1965. In the 1970s and 1980s, mostly white middle-class families moved to neighbouring towns like Voorburg, Leidschendam, Rijswijk and, most of all, Zoetermeer. This led to the traditional pattern of an impoverished inner city and more prosperous suburbs. Attempts to include parts of these municipalities in the city of The Hague were highly controversial. In the 1990s, with the consent of the Dutch Parliament, The Hague annexed fairly large areas from neighbouring towns as well as from not even bordering ones, on which the complete new residential areas were built and are still being built.
The Hague is the largest Dutch city on the North Sea in the Netherlands and forms the centre of a conurbation called Haaglanden. Westland and Wateringen lie to the south, Rijswijk, Delft and the Rotterdam conurbation (called "Stadsregio Rotterdam" or "Rijnmond") to the southeast, Pijnacker-Nootdorp and Zoetermeer to the east, Leidschendam-Voorburg, Voorschoten and the Leiden conurbation to the northeast and Wassenaar to the north.
The conurbations around The Hague and Rotterdam are close enough to be a single conurbation in some contexts. For example, they share the Rotterdam The Hague Airport and a light rail system called RandstadRail. Consideration is being given to creating a Rotterdam-The Hague metropolitan area. This large conurbation centred on The Hague and Rotterdam is, in turn, part of the Randstad—specifically a band of municipalities called the South Wing (Zuidvleugel). The Randstad, which also includes among others Amsterdam and Utrecht, has a population of 6,659,300. The Hague lies at the southwestern corner of one of the largest urban areas in Europe.
The Hague is divided into eight official districts which are, in turn, divided into neighbourhoods. Some of the most prosperous and some of the poorest neighbourhoods of the Netherlands can be found in The Hague. The wealthier areas like Statenkwartier, Belgisch Park, Marlot, Benoordenhout and Archipelbuurt are generally located in the northwestern part of the city, closer to the sea, whereas the southeastern neighbourhoods like Transvaal, Moerwijk, and the Schilderswijk are significantly poorer, with the exception of the Vinex-locations of Leidschenveen-Ypenburg and Wateringse Veld. This division is reflected in the local accent: The more affluent citizens are usually called "Hagenaars" and speak so-called "bekakt Haags" ("posh"), this contrasts with the "Hagenezen", who speak "plat Haags" ("vulgar"); see Demographics below.
The districts are:
The Hague experiences a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb") similar to almost all of the Netherlands. Because of its location on the coast, it experiences milder winters and cooler summers than more inland locations. It also gets more sunshine.
City life concentrates around the Hofvijver and the Binnenhof, where the States General of the Netherlands are located. Because of its history, the historical inner city of The Hague differs in various aspects from the nearby smaller cities of Leiden and Delft. It does not have a cramped inner city, bordered by canals and walls. Instead, it has some small streets in the town centre that may be dated from the late Middle Ages and several spacious streets boasting large and luxurious 18th-century residences built for diplomats and affluent Dutch families. It has a large church dating from the 15th century, an impressive City Hall (built as such) from the 16th century, several large 17th-century palaces, a 17th-century Protestant church built in what was then a modern style, and many important 18th-century buildings.
The city is becoming more student friendly with the introduction of a new campus in 2012 of Leiden University as well as Leiden University College The Hague, which was established in 2010. The Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the Royal Academy of Art are also located there, as well as The Hague University, a vocational university and a branch of The Open University of the Netherlands. The city has many civil servants and diplomats. In fact, the number and variety of foreign residents (especially the expatriates) make the city quite culturally diverse, with many foreign pubs, shops and cultural events.
The Hague is the largest Dutch city on the North Sea and includes two distinct beach resorts. The main beach resort Scheveningen, in the northwestern part of the city is a popular destination for tourists as well as for inhabitants. With 10 million visitors a year, it is the most popular beach town in the Benelux area. Kijkduin, in the south west, is The Hague's other beach resort. It is significantly smaller and attracts mainly local residents.
The former Dutch colony of the East Indies, now Indonesia, has left its mark on The Hague. Since the 19th century, high level civil servants from the Dutch East Indies often spent long term leave and vacation in The Hague. Many streets are named after places in the Netherlands East Indies (as well as other former Dutch colonies such as Suriname) and there is a sizable "Indo" (i.e. mixed Dutch-Indonesian) community. Since the loss of these Dutch possessions in December 1949, "Indo people" also known as "Indische people" often refer to The Hague as "the Widow of the Indies".
The older parts of the town have many characteristically wide and long streets. Houses are generally low-rise (often not more than three floors). A large part of the south western city was planned by the progressive Dutch architect H.P. Berlage about 1910. This 'Plan Berlage' decided the spacious and homely streets for several decades. In World War II, a large amount of the western portion of The Hague was destroyed by the Germans. Afterwards, modernist architect W.M. Dudok planned its renewal, putting apartment blocks for the middle class in open park-like settings.
The layout of the city is more spacious than other Dutch cities and because of the incorporation of large and old nobility estates, the creation of various parks and the use of green zones around natural streams, it is a much more green city than any other in the Netherlands. That is, excepting some medieval close-knitted streets in the centre. The Hague has a canal system around the old city center, which is mainly used for boat tours around the city. Most of the canals were drained in the late 19th century but many have been restored recently.
The tallest buildings of The Hague are both 146-metre-tall ministries of Justice and Security and the Interior and Kingdom Relations of the Netherlands, designed by Hans Kollhoff. Other significant skyscrapers include the Hoftoren, Het Strijkijzer and De Kroon.
As of 1 January 2014, The Hague counts 509,779 inhabitants, making it the third largest city of the Netherlands. Between 1800 and 1960, the city saw a considerable growth from 40,000 in 1800 to 200,000 in 1900 and eventually 600,000 in 1960. The growth following 1900 was partially caused by the housing act of 1901, which stimulated the expansion of cities such as The Hague. In the period between 1960 and 1980, The Hague saw a shrinkage from 600,000 to 440,000 inhabitants, caused mostly by the spatial policy, demographic processes and lack of space. After several annexations and housing constructions, The Hague has since grown again, celebrating its 500,000th inhabitant in 2011. The municipality expects the growth to continue to 513,000 inhabitants in 2020.
The demonym of The Hague officially is "Hagenaar", but the term "Hagenees" is informally used for someone who was born and raised in The Hague. The usage of these demonyms appears to be class-bound, with Hagenaar being the upper-class term and Hagenees being that of the lower-class.
The proportion of Dutch people is 48%, while that of Western immigrants is 15.6%, and that of non-western immigrants is 34.4%.
Just under half of The Hague's population identifies with a religious group. The two most popular religions are Christianity (29%) and Islam (14.1%). Indonesian, Turks, Moroccans and Surinamese people are particularly likely to adhere to a religion. Islam is the most common religion among Turks and, particularly, among Moroccans. Surinamese people are more religiously mixed, although Hinduism is the most common. Of The Hague's native Dutch population, almost all religious people belong to Christianity. Just under 40% of the population of The Hague regularly attends a house of worship.
As of the 2018 municipal election, The Hague's municipal council contains fifteen parties, most notably the local Group de Mos (9 seats), the VVD (7 seats), D66 (6 seats) and GroenLinks (5 seats).
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center colspan=2|Party
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Seats
Since 2018, the municipal executive has comprised Group de Mos, VVD, D66 and GroenLinks. The chairman of the college is Mayor Pauline Krikke (VVD), and the city has eight aldermen: Richard de Mos, Rachid Guernaoui (both Group de Mos), Boudewijn Revis, Kavita Parbhudayal (both VVD), Saskia Bruines, Robert van Asten (both D66), Liesbeth van Tongeren and Bert van Alphen (both GroenLinks). Each alderman is responsible for a number of particular policy areas and one of the city's eight districts.
On 1 October 2019, the National Department of Criminal Investigation ("Rijksrecherche") performed a raid on the homes and offices of aldermen Richard de Mos and Rachid Guernaoui, as part of an investigation of alleged administrative corruption, bribery and violation of confidentiality. Offices of several municipal civil servants and the homes of three entrepreneurs were also searched for the investigation. The aldermen are suspected of receiving bribes in exchange for granting permits.
The Hague is home to many different international judicial bodies, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT). The Hague is the fourth major centre for the United Nations, after New York, Geneva and Vienna.
The foundation of The Hague as an "international city of peace and justice" started at the end of the 19th century, when the first global Conference of peace took place in The Hague on Tobias Asser's initiative, with a second one a few years later. A direct result of these meetings was the establishment of the world's first organisation for the settlement of international disputes: the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). Shortly thereafter, the Scottish-American millionaire Andrew Carnegie made the necessary funds available to build the Peace Palace to house the PCA. After the establishment of the League of Nations, The Hague became the seat of the Permanent Court of International Justice, which was replaced (after World War II) by the UN's International Court of Justice. The establishments of the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal (1981), the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1993) and the International Criminal Court (2002) in the city further consolidated its role as a centre for international legal arbitration. Most recently, on 1 March 2009, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a UN tribunal to investigate and prosecute suspects in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, opened in the former headquarters of the Netherlands General Intelligence Agency in Leidschendam, a town within the greater area of The Hague.
Other major international and European organisations based in The Hague include:
Many academic institutions in the fields of international relations, international law and international development are based in The Hague. The Hague Academic Coalition (HAC) is a consortium of those institutions.
Its member institutions are:
In 1948, the Congress of Europe was held with 750 delegates from 26 European countries, providing them with the opportunity to discuss ideas about the development of the European Union.
The Hague is twinned with
The Hague has a service-oriented economy. Professional life in the city is dominated by the large number of civil servants and diplomats working in the city; , 26% of the jobs in The Hague are those offered by the Dutch government or the international institutions. Large employers in this sector include the ministries of Defence, Justice, Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and Transport, Public Works and Water Management.
Several large international businesses have their headquarters in The Hague, including Royal Dutch Shell, the world's fifth largest company in terms of revenue. Other significant companies headquartered in The Hague include Aegon, APM Terminals, Damco, NIBC Bank, Chicago Bridge & Iron Company and PostNL. The city is also host to the regional headquarters of Siemens, T-Mobile, AT&T, Huawei, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Saudi Aramco and Total S.A.. There has never been any large-scale industrial activity in The Hague, with the possible exception of the fishing activities of the harbour in Scheveningen. Many of the city's logistical and minor-industrial services are located in the Binckhorst in the Laak district, which contains many sizeable warehouses.
Tourism is an important sector in The Hague. The city is the second biggest Dutch tourist destination, after Amsterdam. In 2012, The Hague welcomed 1.2 million tourists (an increase of 80,000 compared to the previous year), half of whom came from abroad. The number of hotel nights in the city increased by 5%; in particular, visitors from neighbouring countries are finding their way to The Hague. Compared to 2011 Belgians booked 27% more hotel nights, while the Germans were good for 24% more hotel nights, and the French booked 20% more hotel nights. The 14% average increase in visits by foreign tourists more than compensated for the slight decrease of less than 1% by Dutch visitors. Tourists spend an average of €2 billion a year in the local economy. Today 1 in 10 residents make their living from the tourism sector.
The Hague originated around the 13th-century Binnenhof, and this is still considered the cultural centre of the city. Night life centres around the three main squares in the city centre. The "Plein" (literally "Square") is taken by several large sidewalk cafés where often politicians may be spotted. The "Grote Markt" (literally "Great Market") is completely strewn with chairs and tables, summer or winter. The Buitenhof (literally "Outer Court", located just outside the Binnenhof) contains a six screen Pathé cinema and a handful of bars and restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Adjacent to the Buitenhof is De Passage, the country's first covered shopping mall. Dating from the late 19th century, it contains many expensive and speciality shops. One of the country's largest music venues, Paard van Troje, can be found in the centre of The Hague. Another popular music venue in The Hague is Muziekcafé de Paap.
The Spuiplein is a modern fourth square in the city centre, opposite the Nieuwe Kerk. Besides the City Hall, this was also the location of the Dr. Anton Philipszaal, home to the Residentie Orchestra, and the Lucent Danstheater, home to the internationally celebrated modern dance company Nederlands Dans Theater. These buildings, designed by Rem Koolhaas in 1988, have been demolished to make space for a new theatre, the Spuiforum, which would house both institutes as well as the Royal Conservatory. Despite efforts of the municipality, public support for the proposed theatre remains low. At the heart of the city centre across the palace gardens is the home of Summerschool Den Haag, international school for dance with guest teachers such as Valentina Scaglia, Igone de Jongh, and Maia Makhateli. The Koninklijke Schouwburg, home to the Nationaal Toneel, can also be found in the city centre – on the Korte Voorhout. New European Ensemble is a collective for contemporary music consisting on international musicians. The ensemble has its main base in the city.
Scheveningen forms a second cultural centre of The Hague, having its own Pathé cinema as well as the musical theatre Circustheater although, especially in the summer, most night life concentrates around the sea-front boulevard with its bars, restaurants and gambling halls. Several other attractions can be found in Scheveningen, such as the miniature park Madurodam, the Beelden aan Zee museum, and a Sea Life Centre.
The Hague is the residence of the Dutch monarch, and several (former) royal palaces can be found in the city. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands live in Huis ten Bosch in the Haagse Bos, and work in the Noordeinde Palace in the city centre. Moreover, there are two former royal palaces in The Hague. The Kneuterdijk Palace, built in 1716, is now home to the Council of State of the Netherlands, and the Lange Voorhout Palace is now occupied by the Escher Museum, dedicated to Dutch graphical artist M. C. Escher.
The Hague has its share of museums, most notably the Mauritshuis, located next to the Binnenhof, which exhibits many paintings by Dutch masters, such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn and Paulus Potter. Other museums include the science museum Museon, the modern art museum Gemeentemuseum, the historic museum Haags Historisch Museum, the national postal museum Museum voor Communicatie, the Museum Bredius, the Louis Couperus Museum, the museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen, and the Gevangenpoort, a former prison housed in a 15th-century gatehouse.
Since early times, possibly as far back as the 16th century, the stork has been the symbol of The Hague.
Several films have been (partially) shot in The Hague, including "Mindhunters" (2004), "Hum Tum" (2004), "Ocean's Twelve" (2004), "Black Book" (2006) and "Sonny Boy" (2011). Parts of the second season of the Netflix series "Sense8" were filmed in The Hague. Notable actors and filmmakers from The Hague include Martin Koolhoven, Georgina Verbaan, Carel Struycken, Frederique van der Wal, Marwan Kenzari, Anna Drijver, Renée Soutendijk and Paul Verhoeven, who grew up in the city from an early age.
An alternative music video for the Coldplay single "Viva la Vida" was also shot in The Hague.
Currently the city's major football club is ADO Den Haag, who compete in the Eredivisie, the top division in the Netherlands. ADO Den Haag have won the KNVB Cup twice and won the League twice in the era before professional football. They play their matches at the 15,000 seat Cars Jeans Stadion. Amateur team HVV are also based in the city. Prior to the professional era the club won 10 national titles and one KNVB Cup, and they remain fourth in the all-time list of national title winners. HBS Craeyenhout are another amateur club in the city, who won three national titles before the establishment of the Eredivisie
The local rugby union team is Haagsche Rugby Club (a.k.a. HRC) and has been in the Guinness Book of Records for becoming Dutch (in adult and youth) champions so often. The ice hockey team is HYS The Hague. The handball team is SV Wings, active in the top division. The local American Football team is Den Haag Raiders'99.
Darts is another sport played in The Hague; its popularity was increased by Raymond van Barneveld winning several World Championships.
The half marathon race CPC Loop Den Haag is held annually in The Hague. In 1994, The Hague held the FEI World Equestrian Games.
Koningsdag, or "King's Day", is held annually on 27 April. It is traditionally celebrated with fairs and flea markets throughout the city. On this day, the colour orange predominates at a funfair (which sells orange cotton candy) and scores of informal street markets. The day is a "vrijmarkt" (literally "free market"), which means no licence is needed for street vending; children traditionally use this day to sell old unwanted toys. Since King's Day is a national holiday and thus a day off, many people also go out and party on the evening before King's Day. This evening is called King's Night, or "Koningnach" in The Hague. The "t" is left out because "nacht" is pronounced as "nach" in The Hague. Outdoor concerts throughout the city centre of The Hague draw tens of thousands of visitors every year.
Every third Tuesday in September is Prinsjesdag, or "Prince's Day", the opening of Dutch parliament. A festive day, children in The Hague are free from school so they may watch the procession of the Golden Coach. The King is driven in the coach from Noordeinde Palace to the Ridderzaal in the Binnenhof. Here, the King reads the Speech from the Throne, written jointly by the Ministers and Secretaries of State. This "troonrede" outlines the government's plans for the coming year. As the procession returns to the Noordeinde Palace, the road is lined with members of the Dutch Royal Armed Forces, and in the afternoon, the Royal Family appears on the palace balcony to address an adoring and often frenzied public ("balkonscène").
Vlaggetjesdag (), literally "Flag Day", is the annual celebration of the arrival of the year's first herring (Hollandse Nieuwe) in Scheveningen. Hundreds of thousands of people gather in Scheveningen for the festivities, and the fishing boats are decorated specially for the occasion. In addition to the omnipresent herring, this day also features a number of activities unrelated to fish. In Scheveningen, the first barrel of herring is traditionally sold at an auction on the Thursday preceding the official Vlaggetjesdag, and the proceeds go to charity. Vlaggetjesdag was made official in 1947, although the festive tradition around the beginning of herring season is much older: in the 18th century, the villages along the coast, including Scheveningen, were forbidden to gut the caught herring. Since herring was most appropriate for smoking around September, most fishing boats caught flatfish or round-bodied fish during part of the summer, so as to avoid a surplus of fresh herring. In July or August, The Hague hosts a series of weekly firework displays by the sea front in Scheveningen, as part of an international fireworks festival and competition.
Tong Tong Fair, formerly "Pasar Malam Besar", is the largest festival in the world for Indo culture. Established in 1959, it is one of the oldest festivals and the fourth largest grand fair in the Netherlands. It is also the annual event with the highest number of paying visitors of The Hague, having consistently attracted more than 100,000 visitors since 1993. The Milan Festival is Europe's biggest Hindustani open-air event, annually held in Zuiderpark. The Hague also hosts several annual music festivals; on the last Sunday in June, the city hosts Parkpop, the largest free open air pop concert in Europe. Crossing Border Festival, State-X and The Hague Jazz festival are among other music festivals in The Hague.
Crossing Border Festival is an annual festival in November, focusing on music and literature. The first edition took place in 1993.
Movies That Matter is an international film and debate festival about peace and justice that takes place every year at the end of March; nine days filled with screenings of fiction films and documentaries, daily talk-shows, music performances and exhibitions. The first such event took place in 2006.
Moreover, The Hague International Model United Nations, annually held in January, is a five-day conference held at the World Forum, gathering over 4,000 students from over 200 secondary schools across the globe. It is the oldest and largest high school United Nations simulation in the world. "Den Haag Sculptuur" is an open-air exhibition of sculptures; the 10th such event, in 2007, celebrated the 400 years of the relationship between the Netherlands and Australia. Since 2009, the city of The Hague also annually presents an LGBT-emancipation award called the John Blankenstein Award. The exact date of the ceremony varies each year.
The Hague shares an airport with Rotterdam. It can be reached from Central Station by RandstadRail Line E, with an Airport Shuttle to and from Meijersplein Station. However, with several direct trains per hour from the railway stations Hollands Spoor and Centraal, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is more frequently used by people travelling to and from The Hague by air.
There are two main railway stations in The Hague: Hollands Spoor (HS) and Centraal Station (CS), only away from each other. Because these two stations were built and exploited by two different railway companies in the 19th century, east–west lines terminate at Centraal Station, whereas north–south lines run through Hollands Spoor. Centraal Station does, however, now offer good connections with the rest of the country, with direct services to most major cities, for instance Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht.
Other destinations include Leiden, Haarlem, Zwolle, Groningen, Leeuwarden, Amersfoort, Enschede, Breda, Tilburg and Eindhoven. There is an international service to Antwerp and Brussels.
Public transport in The Hague consists of a tramway network and a sizeable number of bus routes, operated by HTM Personenvervoer. Plans for a subway were shelved in the early 1970s. However, in 2004 a tunnel was built under the city centre with two underground tram stations (Spui and Grote Markt); it is shared by RandstadRail lines 3 and 4 and tram routes 2 and 6.
RandstadRail connects The Hague to nearby cities, Zoetermeer, Rotterdam and Leidschendam-Voorburg. It consists of four light rail lines (3, 4 and 19 to Zoetermeer, Rijswijk, Delft and Leidschendam-Voorburg) and one subway line (E to Rotterdam).
Major motorways connecting to The Hague include the A12, running to Utrecht and the German border. The A12 runs directly into the heart of the city in a cutting. Built in the 1970s, this section of motorway (the "Utrechtsebaan") is now heavily overburdened. Plans were made in the late 1990s for a second artery road into the city (the "Rotterdamsebaan", previously called the "Trekvliettracé") which is due to be built between 2016 and 2019. Other connecting motorways are the A4, which connects the city with Amsterdam, and the A13, which runs to Rotterdam and connects to motorways towards the Belgian border. There is also the A44 that connects the city to Leiden, Haarlem and Amsterdam. In the 1970s, plans of building another motorway to Leiden existed. This "Leidsebaan" was supposed to start in the city centre and then follow the railway line from The Hague to Amsterdam. Some works had been executed, but had been removed by the 1980s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30269 |
Tim Powers
Timothy Thomas "Tim" Powers (born February 29, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels "Last Call" and "Declare". His 1987 novel "On Stranger Tides" served as inspiration for the "Monkey Island" franchise of video games and was optioned for adaptation into the .
Most of Powers' novels are "secret histories". He uses actual, documented historical events featuring famous people, but shows another view of them in which occult or supernatural factors heavily influence the motivations and actions of the characters.
Typically, Powers strictly adheres to established historical facts. He reads extensively on a given subject, and the plot develops as he notes inconsistencies, gaps and curious data; regarding his 2001 novel "Declare", he stated,
Powers was born in Buffalo, New York but has lived in California since 1959. He studied English Literature at Cal State Fullerton, and earned his B.A. in 1976. It was there that he first met James Blaylock and K. W. Jeter, both of whom remained close friends and occasional collaborators; the trio have half-seriously referred to themselves as "steampunks" in contrast to the prevailing cyberpunk genre of the 1980s. Powers and Blaylock invented the poet William Ashbless while they were at Cal State Fullerton.
Another friend Powers first met during this period was noted science fiction writer Philip K. Dick; the character named "David" in Dick's novel "VALIS" is based on Powers. When "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was retitled "Blade Runner" to tie-in with the movie based on the novel, Dick dedicated it to Tim and Serena Powers.
Powers' first major novel was "The Drawing of the Dark" (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was "The Anubis Gates", which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages.
Powers also teaches part-time in his role as Writer in Residence for the Orange County High School of the Arts and California School of the Arts in San Gabriel Valley in the Creative Writing Conservatory, as well as Chapman University, where Blaylock teaches. He also taught part-time at the University of Redlands.
Powers and his wife, Serena Batsford Powers, currently live in Muscoy, California. He has frequently served as a mentor author as part of the Clarion science fiction/fantasy writer's workshop. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30271 |
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was an American-British poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work and marry there. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, subsequently renouncing his American citizenship.
Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), which was seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including "The Waste Land" (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), and "Four Quartets" (1943). He was also known for his seven plays, particularly "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935) and "The Cocktail Party" (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".
The Eliots were a Boston Brahmin family with roots in England and New England. Eliot's paternal grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, had moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to establish a Unitarian Christian church there. His father, Henry Ware Eliot (1843–1919), was a successful businessman, president and treasurer of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company in St Louis. His mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns (1843–1929), wrote poetry and was a social worker, a new profession in the early 20th century. Eliot was the last of six surviving children. Known to family and friends as Tom, he was the namesake of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Stearns.
Eliot's childhood infatuation with literature can be ascribed to several factors. First, he had to overcome physical limitations as a child. Struggling from a congenital double inguinal hernia, he could not participate in many physical activities and thus was prevented from socialising with his peers. As he was often isolated, his love for literature developed. Once he learned to read, the young boy immediately became obsessed with books, favouring tales of savage life, the Wild West, or Mark Twain's thrill-seeking Tom Sawyer. In his memoir of Eliot, his friend Robert Sencourt comments that the young Eliot "would often curl up in the window-seat behind an enormous book, setting the drug of dreams against the pain of living." Secondly, Eliot credited his hometown with fuelling his literary vision: "It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London."
From 1898 to 1905, Eliot attended Smith Academy, the boys college preparatory division of Washington University, where his studies included Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and German. He began to write poetry when he was fourteen under the influence of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." He said the results were gloomy and despairing and he destroyed them. His first published poem, "A Fable For Feasters", was written as a school exercise and was published in the "Smith Academy Record" in February 1905. Also published there in April 1905 was his oldest surviving poem in manuscript, an untitled lyric, later revised and reprinted as "Song" in "The Harvard Advocate", Harvard University's student magazine. He also published three short stories in 1905, "Birds of Prey", "A Tale of a Whale" and "The Man Who Was King". The last mentioned story significantly reflects his exploration of the Igorot Village while visiting the 1904 World's Fair of St. Louis. Such a link with Indigenous peoples importantly antedates his anthropological studies at Harvard.
Eliot lived in St. Louis, Missouri for the first sixteen years of his life at the house on Locust St. where he was born. After going away to school in 1905, he only returned to St. Louis for vacations and visits. Despite moving away from the city, Eliot wrote to a friend that the "Missouri and the Mississippi have made a deeper impression on me than any other part of the world."
Following graduation, Eliot attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts for a preparatory year, where he met Scofield Thayer who later published "The Waste Land". He studied philosophy at Harvard College from 1906 to 1909, earning a B.A. in 1909 and a M.A. the following year. Because of his year at Milton Academy, Eliot was allowed to take a B.A. after three years instead of the usual four. While a student at Harvard, Eliot was placed on academic probation and graduated with a pass degree (i.e. no honours). His B.A. was in an elective program best described as comparative literature, and his M.A. English Literature. Frank Kermode writes that the most important moment of Eliot's undergraduate career was in 1908 when he discovered Arthur Symons's "The Symbolist Movement in Literature". This introduced him to Jules Laforgue, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine. Without Verlaine, Eliot wrote, he might never have heard of Tristan Corbière and his book "Les amours jaunes", a work that affected the course of Eliot's life. The "Harvard Advocate" published some of his poems and he became lifelong friends with Conrad Aiken, the American writer and critic.
After working as a philosophy assistant at Harvard from 1909 to 1910, Eliot moved to Paris where, from 1910 to 1911, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He attended lectures by Henri Bergson and read poetry with Henri Alban-Fournier. From 1911 to 1914, he was back at Harvard studying Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. Whilst a member of the Harvard Graduate School, Eliot met and fell in love with Emily Hale. Eliot was awarded a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, in 1914. He first visited Marburg, Germany, where he planned to take a summer programme, but when the First World War broke out he went to Oxford instead. At the time so many American students attended Merton that the Junior Common Room proposed a motion "that this society abhors the Americanization of Oxford". It was defeated by two votes after Eliot reminded the students how much they owed American culture.
Eliot wrote to Conrad Aiken on New Year's Eve 1914: "I hate university towns and university people, who are the same everywhere, with pregnant wives, sprawling children, many books and hideous pictures on the walls ... Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead." Escaping Oxford, Eliot spent much of his time in London. This city had a monumental and life-altering effect on Eliot for several reasons, the most significant of which was his introduction to the influential American literary figure Ezra Pound. A connection through Aiken resulted in an arranged meeting and on 22 September 1914, Eliot paid a visit to Pound's flat. Pound instantly deemed Eliot "worth watching" and was crucial to Eliot's beginning career as a poet, as he is credited with promoting Eliot through social events and literary gatherings. Thus, according to biographer John Worthen, during his time in England Eliot "was seeing as little of Oxford as possible". He was instead spending long periods of time in London, in the company of Ezra Pound and "some of the modern artists whom the war has so far spared... It was Pound who helped most, introducing him everywhere." In the end, Eliot did not settle at Merton and left after a year. In 1915 he taught English at Birkbeck, University of London.
By 1916, he had completed a doctoral dissertation for Harvard on "Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley", but he failed to return for the "viva voce" exam.
Before leaving the US, Eliot had told Emily Hale that he was in love with her; he exchanged letters with her from Oxford during 1914 and 1915 but they did not meet again until 1927. In a letter to Aiken late in December 1914, Eliot, aged 26, wrote, "I am very dependent upon women (I mean female society)." Less than four months later, Thayer introduced Eliot to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a Cambridge governess. They were married at Hampstead Register Office on 26 June 1915.
After a short visit alone to his family in the United States, Eliot returned to London and took several teaching jobs, such as lecturing at Birkbeck College, University of London. The philosopher Bertrand Russell took an interest in Vivienne while the newlyweds stayed in his flat. Some scholars have suggested that she and Russell had an affair, but the allegations were never confirmed.
The marriage was markedly unhappy, in part because of Vivienne's health problems. In a letter addressed to Ezra Pound, she covers an extensive list of her symptoms, which included a habitually high temperature, fatigue, insomnia, migraines, and colitis. This, coupled with apparent mental instability, meant that she was often sent away by Eliot and her doctors for extended periods of time in the hope of improving her health, and as time went on, he became increasingly detached from her. The couple formally separated in 1933 and in 1938 Vivienne's brother, Maurice, had her committed to a mental hospital, against her will, where she remained until her death of heart disease in 1947.
Their relationship became the subject of a 1984 play "Tom & Viv", which in 1994 was adapted as a film of the same name.
In a private paper written in his sixties, Eliot confessed: "I came to persuade myself that I was in love with Vivienne simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of [Ezra] Pound) that she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came "The Waste Land"."
After leaving Merton, Eliot worked as a schoolteacher, most notably at Highgate School, a private school in London, where he taught French and Latin—his students included the young John Betjeman. Later he taught at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, a state school in Buckinghamshire. To earn extra money, he wrote book reviews and lectured at evening extension courses at the University College London, and Oxford. In 1917, he took a position at Lloyds Bank in London, working on foreign accounts. On a trip to Paris in August 1920 with the artist Wyndham Lewis, he met the writer James Joyce. Eliot said he found Joyce arrogant—Joyce doubted Eliot's ability as a poet at the time—but the two soon became friends, with Eliot visiting Joyce whenever he was in Paris. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis also maintained a close friendship, leading to Lewis's later making his well-known portrait painting of Eliot in 1938.
Charles Whibley recommended T.S. Eliot to Geoffrey Faber. In 1925 Eliot left Lloyds to become a director in the publishing firm Faber and Gwyer, later Faber and Faber, where he remained for the rest of his career. At Faber and Faber, he was responsible for publishing important English poets like W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Ted Hughes.
On 29 June 1927, Eliot converted to Anglicanism from Unitarianism, and in November that year he took British citizenship. He became a warden of his parish church, St Stephen's, Gloucester Road, London, and a life member of the Society of King Charles the Martyr. He specifically identified as Anglo-Catholic, proclaiming himself "classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic in religion". About 30 years later Eliot commented on his religious views that he combined "a Catholic cast of mind, a Calvinist heritage, and a Puritanical temperament". He also had wider spiritual interests, commenting that "I see the path of progress for modern man in his occupation with his own self, with his inner being" and citing Goethe and Rudolf Steiner as exemplars of such a direction.
One of Eliot's biographers, Peter Ackroyd, commented that "the purposes of [Eliot's conversion] were two-fold. One: the Church of England offered Eliot some hope for himself, and I think Eliot needed some resting place. But secondly, it attached Eliot to the English community and English culture."
By 1932, Eliot had been contemplating a separation from his wife for some time. When Harvard offered him the Charles Eliot Norton professorship for the 1932–1933 academic year, he accepted and left Vivienne in England. Upon his return, he arranged for a formal separation from her, avoiding all but one meeting with her between his leaving for America in 1932 and her death in 1947. Vivienne was committed to the Northumberland House mental hospital, Stoke Newington, in 1938, and remained there until she died. Although Eliot was still legally her husband, he never visited her. From 1933 to 1946 Eliot had a close emotional relationship with Emily Hale. Eliot later destroyed Hale's letters to him, but Hale donated Eliot's to Princeton University Library where they were sealed until 2020. When Eliot heard of the donation he deposited his own account of their relationship with Harvard University to be opened whenever the Princeton letters were.
From 1938 to 1957 Eliot's public companion was Mary Trevelyan of London University, who wanted to marry him and left a detailed memoir.
From 1946 to 1957, Eliot shared a flat at 19 Carlyle Mansions, Chelsea, with his friend John Davy Hayward, who collected and managed Eliot's papers, styling himself "Keeper of the Eliot Archive". Hayward also collected Eliot's pre-Prufrock verse, commercially published after Eliot's death as "Poems Written in Early Youth". When Eliot and Hayward separated their household in 1957, Hayward retained his collection of Eliot's papers, which he bequeathed to King's College, Cambridge, in 1965.
On 10 January 1957, at the age of 68, Eliot married Esmé Valerie Fletcher, who was 30. In contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary at Faber and Faber since August 1949. They kept their wedding secret; the ceremony was held in St. Barnabas' Church, Kensington, London, at 6:15 am with virtually no one in attendance other than his wife's parents. Eliot had no children with either of his wives. In the early 1960s, by then in failing health, Eliot worked as an editor for the Wesleyan University Press, seeking new poets in Europe for publication. After Eliot's death, Valerie dedicated her time to preserving his legacy, by editing and annotating "The Letters of T. S. Eliot" and a facsimile of the draft of "The Waste Land". Valerie Eliot died on 9 November 2012 at her home in London.
Eliot died of emphysema at his home in Kensington in London, on 4 January 1965, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were taken to St Michael and All Angels' Church, East Coker, the village in Somerset from which his Eliot ancestors had emigrated to America. A wall plaque in the church commemorates him with a quotation from his poem "East Coker": "In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."
In 1967, on the second anniversary of his death, Eliot was commemorated by the placement of a large stone in the floor of Poets' Corner in London's Westminster Abbey. The stone, cut by designer Reynolds Stone, is inscribed with his life dates, his Order of Merit, and a quotation from his poem "Little Gidding", "the communication / of the dead is tongued with fire beyond / the language of the living."
The apartment block where he died, No. 3 Kensington Court Gardens, has had a blue plaque on it since 1986.
For a poet of his stature, Eliot produced a relatively small number of poems. He was aware of this even early in his career. He wrote to J.H. Woods, one of his former Harvard professors, "My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing two or three more poems in a year. The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event."
Typically, Eliot first published his poems individually in periodicals or in small books or pamphlets and then collected them in books. His first collection was "Prufrock and Other Observations" (1917). In 1920, he published more poems in "Ara Vos Prec" (London) and "Poems: 1920" (New York). These had the same poems (in a different order) except that "Ode" in the British edition was replaced with "Hysteria" in the American edition. In 1925, he collected "The Waste Land" and the poems in "Prufrock" and "Poems" into one volume and added "The Hollow Men" to form "Poems: 1909–1925". From then on, he updated this work as "Collected Poems". Exceptions are "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" (1939), a collection of light verse; "Poems Written in Early Youth", posthumously published in 1967 and consisting mainly of poems published between 1907 and 1910 in "The Harvard Advocate", and "Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917", material Eliot never intended to have published, which appeared posthumously in 1997.
During an interview in 1959, Eliot said of his nationality and its role in his work: "I'd say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I'm sure of. ... It wouldn't be what it is, and I imagine it wouldn't be so good; putting it as modestly as I can, it wouldn't be what it is if I'd been born in England, and it wouldn't be what it is if I'd stayed in America. It's a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America."
Cleo McNelly Kearns notes in her biography that Eliot was deeply influenced by Indic traditions, notably the Upanishads. From the Sanskrit ending of "The Waste Land" to the "What Krishna meant" section of "Four Quartets" shows how much Indic religions and more specifically Hinduism made up his philosophical basic for his thought process. It must also be acknowledged, as Chinmoy Guha showed in his book "Where the Dreams Cross: T S Eliot and French Poetry" (Macmillan, 2011) that he was deeply influenced by French poets from Baudelaire to Paul Valéry. He himself wrote in his 1940 essay on W.B. Yeats: "The kind of poetry that I needed to teach me the use of my own voice did not exist in English at all; it was only to be found in French." ("Yeats", "On Poetry and Poets", 1948).
In 1915, Ezra Pound, overseas editor of "Poetry" magazine, recommended to Harriet Monroe, the magazine's founder, that she publish "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Although the character Prufrock seems to be middle-aged, Eliot wrote most of the poem when he was only twenty-two. Its now-famous opening lines, comparing the evening sky to "a patient etherised upon a table", were considered shocking and offensive, especially at a time when Georgian Poetry was hailed for its derivations of the nineteenth century Romantic Poets.
The poem's structure was heavily influenced by Eliot's extensive reading of Dante and refers to a number of literary works, including "Hamlet" and those of the French Symbolists. Its reception in London can be gauged from an unsigned review in "The Times Literary Supplement" on 21 June 1917. "The fact that these things occurred to the mind of Mr. Eliot is surely of the very smallest importance to anyone, even to himself. They certainly have no relation to "poetry"."
In October 1922, Eliot published "The Waste Land" in "The Criterion". Eliot's dedication to "il miglior fabbro" ("the better craftsman") refers to Ezra Pound's significant hand in editing and reshaping the poem from a longer Eliot manuscript to the shortened version that appears in publication.
It was composed during a period of personal difficulty for Eliot—his marriage was failing, and both he and Vivienne were suffering from nervous disorders. Before the poem's publication as a book in December 1922, Eliot distanced himself from its vision of despair. On 15 November 1922, he wrote to Richard Aldington, saying, "As for "The Waste Land", that is a thing of the past so far as I am concerned and I am now feeling toward a new form and style." The poem is often read as a representation of the disillusionment of the post-war generation. Dismissing this view, Eliot commented in 1931, "When I wrote a poem called "The Waste Land", some of the more approving critics said that I had expressed ‘the disillusion of a generation’, which is nonsense. I may have expressed for them their own illusion of being disillusioned, but that did not form part of my intention"
The poem is known for its obscure nature—its slippage between satire and prophecy; its abrupt changes of speaker, location, and time. This structural complexity is one of the reasons why the poem has become a touchstone of modern literature, a poetic counterpart to a novel published in the same year, James Joyce's "Ulysses".
Among its best-known phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" and ""Shantih shantih shantih"". The Sanskrit "mantra" ends the poem.
"The Hollow Men" appeared in 1925. For the critic Edmund Wilson, it marked "The nadir of the phase of despair and desolation given such effective expression in "The Waste Land"." It is Eliot's major poem of the late 1920s. Similar to Eliot's other works, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary. Post-war Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised), the difficulty of hope and religious conversion, Eliot's failed marriage.
Allen Tate perceived a shift in Eliot's method, writing, "The mythologies disappear altogether in 'The Hollow Men'." This is a striking claim for a poem as indebted to Dante as anything else in Eliot's early work, to say little of the modern English mythology—the "Old Guy Fawkes" of the Gunpowder Plot—or the colonial and agrarian mythos of Joseph Conrad and James George Frazer, which, at least for reasons of textual history, echo in "The Waste Land". The "continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity" that is so characteristic of his mythical method remained in fine form. "The Hollow Men" contains some of Eliot's most famous lines, notably its conclusion: "This is the way the world ends""Not with a bang but a whimper."
"Ash-Wednesday" is the first long poem written by Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930, it deals with the struggle that ensues when a person who has lacked faith acquires it. Sometimes referred to as Eliot's "conversion poem", it is richly but ambiguously allusive, and deals with the aspiration to move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation. Eliot's style of writing in "Ash-Wednesday" showed a marked shift from the poetry he had written prior to his 1927 conversion, and his post-conversion style continued in a similar vein. His style became less ironic, and the poems were no longer populated by multiple characters in dialogue. Eliot's subject matter also became more focused on his spiritual concerns and his Christian faith.
Many critics were particularly enthusiastic about "Ash-Wednesday". Edwin Muir maintained that it is one of the most moving poems Eliot wrote, and perhaps the "most perfect", though it was not well received by everyone. The poem's groundwork of orthodox Christianity discomfited many of the more secular "literati".
In 1939, Eliot published a book of light verse, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ("Old Possum" was Ezra Pound's nickname for him). This first edition had an illustration of the author on the cover. In 1954, the composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems for speaker and orchestra in a work titled "Practical Cats". After Eliot's death, the book was adapted as the basis of the musical "Cats" by Andrew Lloyd Webber, first produced in London's West End in 1981 and opening on Broadway the following year.
Eliot regarded "Four Quartets" as his masterpiece, and it is the work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. It consists of four long poems, each first published separately: "Burnt Norton" (1936), "East Coker" (1940), "The Dry Salvages" (1941) and "Little Gidding" (1942). Each has five sections. Although they resist easy characterisation, each poem includes meditations on the nature of time in some important respect—theological, historical, physical—and its relation to the human condition. Each poem is associated with one of the four classical elements, respectively: air, earth, water, and fire.
"Burnt Norton" is a meditative poem that begins with the narrator trying to focus on the present moment while walking through a garden, focusing on images and sounds such as the bird, the roses, clouds and an empty pool. The meditation leads the narrator to reach "the still point" in which there is no attempt to get anywhere or to experience place and/or time, instead experiencing "a grace of sense". In the final section, the narrator contemplates the arts ("words" and "music") as they relate to time. The narrator focuses particularly on the poet's art of manipulating "Words [which] strain, / Crack and sometimes break, under the burden [of time], under the tension, slip, slide, perish, decay with imprecision, [and] will not stay in place, / Will not stay still." By comparison, the narrator concludes that "Love is itself unmoving, / Only the cause and end of movement, / Timeless, and undesiring."
"East Coker" continues the examination of time and meaning, focusing in a famous passage on the nature of language and poetry. Out of darkness, Eliot offers a solution: "I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope."
"The Dry Salvages" treats the element of water, via images of river and sea. It strives to contain opposites: "The past and future / Are conquered, and reconciled."
"Little Gidding" (the element of fire) is the most anthologised of the "Quartets". Eliot's experiences as an air raid warden in the Blitz power the poem, and he imagines meeting Dante during the German bombing. The beginning of the "Quartets" ("Houses / Are removed, destroyed") had become a violent everyday experience; this creates an animation, where for the first time he talks of love as the driving force behind all experience. From this background, the "Quartets" end with an affirmation of Julian of Norwich: "All shall be well and / All manner of thing shall be well."
The "Four Quartets" cannot be understood without reference to Christian thought, traditions, and history. Eliot draws upon the theology, art, symbolism and language of such figures as Dante, and mystics St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich. The "deeper communion" sought in "East Coker", the "hints and whispers of children, the sickness that must grow worse to find healing", and the exploration which inevitably leads us home all point to the pilgrim's path along the road of sanctification.
With the important exception of "Four Quartets", Eliot directed much of his creative energies after "Ash Wednesday" to writing plays in verse, mostly comedies or plays with redemptive endings. He was long a critic and admirer of Elizabethan and Jacobean verse drama; witness his allusions to Webster, Thomas Middleton, William Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd in "The Waste Land". In a 1933 lecture he said "Every poet would like, I fancy, to be able to think that he had some direct social utility . . . . He would like to be something of a popular entertainer and be able to think his own thoughts behind a tragic or a comic mask. He would like to convey the pleasures of poetry, not only to a larger audience but to larger groups of people collectively; and the theatre is the best place in which to do it."
After "The Waste Land" (1922), he wrote that he was "now feeling toward a new form and style". One project he had in mind was writing a play in verse, using some of the rhythms of early jazz. The play featured "Sweeney", a character who had appeared in a number of his poems. Although Eliot did not finish the play, he did publish two scenes from the piece. These scenes, titled "Fragment of a Prologue" (1926) and "Fragment of an Agon" (1927), were published together in 1932 as "Sweeney Agonistes". Although Eliot noted that this was not intended to be a one-act play, it is sometimes performed as one.
A pageant play by Eliot called "The Rock" was performed in 1934 for the benefit of churches in the Diocese of London. Much of it was a collaborative effort; Eliot accepted credit only for the authorship of one scene and the choruses. George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, had been instrumental in connecting Eliot with producer E. Martin Browne for the production of "The Rock", and later commissioned Eliot to write another play for the Canterbury Festival in 1935. This one, "Murder in the Cathedral", concerning the death of the martyr, Thomas Becket, was more under Eliot's control. Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd comments that "for [Eliot], "Murder in the Cathedral" and succeeding verse plays offered a double advantage; it allowed him to practice poetry but it also offered a convenient home for his religious sensibility." After this, he worked on more "commercial" plays for more general audiences: "The Family Reunion" (1939), "The Cocktail Party" (1949), "The Confidential Clerk", (1953) and "The Elder Statesman" (1958) (the latter three were produced by Henry Sherek and directed by E. Martin Browne). The Broadway production in New York of "The Cocktail Party" received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play. Eliot wrote "The Cocktail Party" while he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Regarding his method of playwriting, Eliot explained, "If I set out to write a play, I start by an act of choice. I settle upon a particular emotional situation, out of which characters and a plot will emerge. And then lines of poetry may come into being: not from the original impulse but from a secondary stimulation of the unconscious mind."
Eliot made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, strongly influencing the school of New Criticism. He was somewhat self-deprecating and minimising of his work and once said his criticism was merely a "by-product" of his "private poetry-workshop", but the critic William Empson once said, "I do not know for certain how much of my own mind [Eliot] invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed a consequence of misreading him. He is a very penetrating influence, perhaps not unlike the east wind."
In his critical essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent", Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in the context of previous pieces of art. "In a peculiar sense [an artist or poet] ... must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past." This essay was an important influence over the New Criticism by introducing the idea that the value of a work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist's previous works, a "simultaneous order" of works (i.e., "tradition"). Eliot himself employed this concept on many of his works, especially on his long-poem "The Waste Land".
Also important to New Criticism was the idea—as articulated in Eliot's essay "Hamlet and His Problems"—of an "objective correlative", which posits a connection among the words of the text and events, states of mind, and experiences. This notion concedes that a poem means what it says, but suggests that there can be a non-subjective judgment based on different readers' different—but perhaps corollary—interpretations of a work.
More generally, New Critics took a cue from Eliot in regard to his "'classical' ideals and his religious thought; his attention to the poetry and drama of the early seventeenth century; his deprecation of the Romantics, especially Shelley; his proposition that good poems constitute 'not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion'; and his insistence that 'poets... at present must be difficult'."
Eliot's essays were a major factor in the revival of interest in the metaphysical poets. Eliot particularly praised the metaphysical poets' ability to show experience as both psychological and sensual, while at the same time infusing this portrayal with—in Eliot's view—wit and uniqueness. Eliot's essay "The Metaphysical Poets", along with giving new significance and attention to metaphysical poetry, introduced his now well-known definition of "unified sensibility", which is considered by some to mean the same thing as the term "metaphysical".
His 1922 poem "The Waste Land" also can be better understood in light of his work as a critic. He had argued that a poet must write "programmatic criticism", that is, a poet should write to advance his own interests rather than to advance "historical scholarship". Viewed from Eliot's critical lens, "The Waste Land" likely shows his personal despair about World War I rather than an objective historical understanding of it.
Late in his career, Eliot focused much of his creative energy on writing for the theatre; some of his earlier critical writing, in essays such as "Poetry and Drama", "Hamlet and his Problems", and "The Possibility of a Poetic Drama", focused on the aesthetics of writing drama in verse.
The writer Ronald Bush notes that Eliot's early poems like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", "Portrait of a Lady", "La Figlia Che Piange", "Preludes", and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" had "[an] effect [that] was both unique and compelling, and their assurance staggered [Eliot's] contemporaries who were privileged to read them in manuscript. [Conrad] Aiken, for example, marveled at 'how sharp and complete and sui generis the whole thing was, from the outset. The wholeness is there, from the very beginning.'"
The initial critical response to Eliot's "The Waste Land" was mixed. Bush notes that the piece was at first correctly perceived as a work of jazz-like syncopation—and, like 1920s jazz, essentially iconoclastic." Some critics, like Edmund Wilson, Conrad Aiken, and Gilbert Seldes thought it was the best poetry being written in the English language while others thought it was esoteric and wilfully difficult. Edmund Wilson, being one of the critics who praised Eliot, called him "one of our only authentic poets". Wilson also pointed out some of Eliot's weaknesses as a poet. In regard to "The Waste Land", Wilson admits its flaws ("its lack of structural unity"), but concluded, "I doubt whether there is a single other poem of equal length by a contemporary American which displays so high and so varied a mastery of English verse."
Charles Powell was negative in his criticism of Eliot, calling his poems incomprehensible. And the writers of "Time" magazine were similarly baffled by a challenging poem like "The Waste Land". John Crowe Ransom wrote negative criticisms of Eliot's work but also had positive things to say. For instance, though Ransom negatively criticised "The Waste Land" for its "extreme disconnection", Ransom was not completely condemnatory of Eliot's work and admitted that Eliot was a talented poet.
Addressing some of the common criticisms directed against "The Waste Land" at the time, Gilbert Seldes stated, "It seems at first sight remarkably disconnected and confused... [however] a closer view of the poem does more than illuminate the difficulties; it reveals the hidden form of the work, [and] indicates how each thing falls into place."
Eliot's reputation as a poet, as well as his influence in the academy, peaked following the publication of "The Four Quartets". In an essay on Eliot published in 1989, the writer Cynthia Ozick refers to this peak of influence (from the 1940s through the early 1960s) as "the Age of Eliot" when Eliot "seemed pure zenith, a colossus, nothing less than a permanent luminary, fixed in the firmament like the sun and the moon". But during this post-war period, others, like Ronald Bush, observed that this time also marked the beginning of the decline in Eliot's literary influence: As Eliot's conservative religious and political convictions began to seem less congenial in the postwar world, other readers reacted with suspicion to his assertions of authority, obvious in "Four Quartets" and implicit in the earlier poetry. The result, fueled by intermittent rediscovery of Eliot's occasional anti-Semitic rhetoric, has been a progressive downward revision of his once towering reputation. Bush also notes that Eliot's reputation "slipped" significantly further after his death. He writes, "Sometimes regarded as too academic (William Carlos Williams's view), Eliot was also frequently criticized for a deadening neoclassicism (as he himself—perhaps just as unfairly—had criticized Milton). However, the multifarious tributes from practicing poets of many schools published during his centenary in 1988 was a strong indication of the intimidating continued presence of his poetic voice."
Although Eliot's poetry is not as influential as it once was, notable literary scholars, like Harold Bloom and Stephen Greenblatt, still acknowledge that Eliot's poetry is central to the literary English canon. For instance, the editors of "The Norton Anthology of English Literature" write, "There is no disagreement on [Eliot's] importance as one of the great renovators of the English poetry dialect, whose influence on a whole generation of poets, critics, and intellectuals generally was enormous. [However] his range as a poet [was] limited, and his interest in the great middle ground of human experience (as distinct from the extremes of saint and sinner) [was] deficient." Despite this criticism, these scholars also acknowledge "[Eliot's] poetic cunning, his fine craftsmanship, his original accent, his historical and representative importance as "the" poet of the modern symbolist-Metaphysical tradition".
The depiction of Jews in some of Eliot's poems has led several critics to accuse him of anti-Semitism. This case has been presented most forcefully in a study by Anthony Julius: "T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form" (1996). In "Gerontion", Eliot writes, in the voice of the poem's elderly narrator, "And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner [of my building] / Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp." Another well-known example appears in the poem, "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar". In this poem, Eliot wrote, "The rats are underneath the piles. / The jew is underneath the lot. / Money in furs." Interpreting the line as an indirect comparison of Jews to rats, Julius writes: "The anti-Semitism is unmistakable. It reaches out like a clear signal to the reader." Julius's viewpoint has been supported by literary critics such as Harold Bloom, Christopher Ricks, George Steiner, Tom Paulin and James Fenton.
In a series of lectures delivered at the University of Virginia in 1933, published under the title "After Strange Gods: A Primer of Modern Heresy" (1934), Eliot wrote of societal tradition and coherence, "What is still more important [than cultural homogeneity] is unity of religious background, and reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable." Eliot never re-published this book/lecture. In his 1934 pageant play "The Rock", Eliot distances himself from Fascist movements of the Thirties by caricaturing Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, who "firmly refuse/ To descend to palaver with anthropoid Jews". The "new evangels" of totalitarianism are presented as antithetic to the spirit of Christianity.
Craig Raine, in his books "In Defence of T. S. Eliot" (2001) and "T. S. Eliot" (2006), sought to defend Eliot from the charge of anti-Semitism. Reviewing the 2006 book, Paul Dean stated that he was not convinced by Raine's argument. Nevertheless, he concluded, "Ultimately, as both Raine and, to do him justice, Julius insist, however much Eliot may have been compromised as a person, as we all are in our several ways, his greatness as a poet remains." In another review of Raine's 2006 book, the literary critic Terry Eagleton also questioned the validity of Raine's defence of Eliot's character flaws as well as the entire basis for Raine's book, writing, "Why do critics feel a need to defend the authors they write on, like doting parents deaf to all criticism of their obnoxious children? Eliot's well-earned reputation [as a poet] is established beyond all doubt, and making him out to be as unflawed as the Archangel Gabriel does him no favours."
Eliot influenced, among many others, Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máirtín Ó Díreáin, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, William Gaddis, Allen Tate, Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney, Kamau Brathwaite, Russell Kirk, George Seferis (who in 1936 published a modern Greek translation of "The Waste Land") and James Joyce.
Below is a partial list of honours and awards received by Eliot or bestowed or created in his honour.
These honours are displayed in order of precedence based on Eliot's nationality and rules of protocol, not awarding date.
Source: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30273 |
Tommy Lee
Thomas Lee Bass (born October 3, 1962) is an American musician and founding member of Mötley Crüe. As well as being the band's long-term drummer, Lee founded rap-metal band Methods of Mayhem, and has pursued solo musical projects.
Lee was born Thomas Lee Bass on October 3, 1962 in Kipseli,Athens, Greece, to father David Lee Thomas Bass, an American U.S. Army sergeant, and mother Vassilikki "Voula" Papadimitriou (Greek: Βασιλική Παπαδημητρίου), a Miss Greece contestant for the 1960 Miss World event. He has a younger sister, Athena, who is also a drummer. When Lee was approximately one year old, his father moved the family back to the United States, settling in California.
Lee received his first drum sticks when he was four years old, and his first proper drum kit when he was a teenager. He dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music, starting with the L.A. club band Suite 19. As a teenager, he listened to Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Kiss, AC/DC and Sweet. His main drumming influences are John Bonham, Tommy Aldridge, Alex Van Halen and Terry Bozzio.
In the late 1970s Lee's band, Suite 19, was a regular on the Sunset Strip club circuit in Los Angeles along with other up-and-coming acts such as Van Halen and Quiet Riot. He became acquainted with bassist Nikki Sixx, whose bands Sister and later London played the same circuit. Sixx was forming a theatrical band that borrowed heavily from Sister's fusion of occult imagery with a theatrical heavy metal performance, and became a fan of Lee's drumming. It was during this time period that Lee dropped his surname and earned the nickname "T-bone" due to his 6′ 2½″ height and his lean physique. When London finally broke up in 1981, Lee and Sixx decided to form a new group together. Shortly afterward, guitarist Mick Mars joined the band. Seeking a charismatic frontman, Lee mentioned to the others a singer, Vince Neil, whom he had known casually in high school; Neil soon joined the group, and Mötley Crüe was formed.
Mötley Crüe quickly built a strong fanbase, and released its debut album "Too Fast for Love" in 1981 on its own independent label (Leathür Records). Elektra Records decided to sign the band shortly thereafter, reissuing the debut in 1982. The band then began a string of hit releases throughout the decade—1983's "Shout at the Devil", 1985's "Theatre of Pain", 1987's "Girls, Girls, Girls", and 1989's "Dr. Feelgood"—establishing the quartet as one of the biggest hard rock/metal bands of the 1980s.
Lee used several memorable gimmicks during his drum solos at concerts, such as having his entire kit revolving and spinning, or having the entire kit float above the crowd while he continued to play. He was noted for mooning the crowd at nearly every show. The band was known for its decadent behavior both on and offstage, often consuming excessive amounts of drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, pills and alcohol.
In 2004, Lee reunited with the original Mötley Crüe line-up to release the double-disc anthology album entitled "Red, White & Crüe", which went quadruple-platinum and launched a monumental reunion tour to support it, "The Red, White & Crüe Tour 2005: Better Live Than Dead", the band's first tour in six years. Mötley Crüe finished the year at #8 on the Top Concert Money Earners list. It played 81 shows and grossed million according to "Billboard" Boxscore.
Lee came back once with Motley Crüe to go on the "Crüe's Greatest Hits" tour in 1999. With the popularity of rap metal, he formed a band called Methods of Mayhem. The band released a self-titled album the same year and toured in support of it. Although Lee distanced himself from Mötley Crüe after splitting, he agreed to take part in the band's 2001 autobiography, "". In addition to Mötley Crüe and Methods of Mayhem, Lee has made guest appearances on albums by other artists, such as Stuart Hamm, Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie. He also contributed a song, "Planet Boom" (originally on Mötley Crüe's Quaternary EP) to the soundtrack of then-wife Pamela Anderson's 1996 movie, "Barb Wire", and produced an album for the pre-Goldfinger project from John Feldmann and Simon Williams, the Electric Love Hogs.
Lee parted ways with Methods of Mayhem partner TiLo and began recording with members of Incubus. He then released his first solo album. The album, 2002's "Never a Dull Moment", has tones of rap metal and electronica. The song "Blue" features guest vocalist Rodleen Getsic (the credits read: "Rolleen"). In August 2002, Tommy Lee and his solo band joined Ozzfest, mainstage. In 2006, he formed a new band called Rock Star Supernova with Jason Newsted (Voivod, ex-Metallica) and Gilby Clarke (ex-Guns N' Roses).
The 2006 of "Rock Star" selected Lukas Rossi as the lead singer for Supernova. Dilana, Magni Ásgeirsson, and Toby Rand with his own band Juke Kartel were the three runners up and accepted an offer to go on tour with Supernova. The self-titled debut album "Rock Star Supernova" was released on November 21, 2006.
Lee released his autobiography, "Tommyland" and his second solo album, "" in 2005. The CD featured as a soundtrack to the book and includes the singles, "Tryin to be Me", "Good Times" which was the theme song to his reality TV series "Tommy Lee Goes to College" and "Hello, Again" which features Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin. Lee was also a guest DJ at WXRK "K-Rock" in New York during the Fourth of July Monster Metal Meltdown in 2005.
He also recorded drum tracks for the alternative rock band Jack's Mannequin, which has released the album "Everything in Transit".
In November 2007, it was announced by Nikki Sixx that Lee was no longer a member of Mötley Crüe. The drummer reportedly quit after the rest of the band sued his manager, Carl Stubner, for forcing Tommy to take part in reality TV shows, thus forcing the cancellation of a lengthy leg of Crüe tour dates in 2006. Lee had already quit once in September 2007 before returning to the band. Vince Neil refuted the claims that Tommy Lee resigned from the band, and said that Mötley Crüe would be going into the studio in January to start recording its new album. In the end, Lee did end up recording the new album, "Saints of Los Angeles", and toured with the band in 2008 on its Crüe Fest tour.
Tommy Lee's current artistic endeavors include touring as an electronic dance music DJ with his Methods of Mayhem DJ/production partner, DJ Aero (birth name: Chester Deitz). As DJs, they are also known as Electro Mayhem and have clocked over 60 club dates as DJs throughout North America (with stops in the Bahamas and Central America) in 2007 alone, with more international dates planned for 2008 (including a stop in Iceland). Lee and Aero debuted as DJs on the mainstage at Ultra Music Festival during Winter Music Conference (WMC) in 2004. Lee and Aero have been DJing together since 2000, and they will again have a major presence at Miami's WMC in 2008. In 2009, Lee appeared in select cities with Sharam, one half of Grammy-winning Deep Dish, accompanying Sharam live on the piano during his house DJ sets. Lee and DJ Aero also accompanied deadmau5 in his 2011 Meowington Hax tour. He played keyboards too with Deftones at a benefit show for now deceased bassist Chi Cheng in 2009.
In an interview held backstage at the 2009 Download Festival, Lee confirmed that he is currently working on his yet-to-be-named third solo album. It is expected to be released sometime in 2010. On June 27, 2010 Tommy played drums for Ludacris at the BET Awards 2010. On March 25, 2010, he co-presented the International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) along with Roger Sanchez and DJ Rap.
In 2014, Tommy Lee joined the Smashing Pumpkins to perform drums for their Monuments to an Elegy album. That same year Tommy Lee joined the rest of his Mötley Crüe bandmates in a farewell tour. As part of the tour each member signed a legal document preventing them from ever touring under the Mötley Crüe moniker again.
In 2004, he starred in a reality show for NBC called "Tommy Lee Goes to College". Lee was also one of the producers of the show. In spring 2008, Lee commenced filming another reality TV show with rapper Ludacris for Planet Green (Discovery Channel's 24-hour eco-friendly network) titled "Battleground Earth". He guest starred on Season 7, Episode 14 of "The Goldbergs" as Professor Lee.
Lee has been married four times; his first wife was Elaine Starchuk. They were married in 1984 and divorced the following year.
On May 10, 1986, Lee married his second wife, actress Heather Locklear. The couple divorced in 1993.
Before meeting actress and "Playboy" Playmate Pamela Anderson, Lee was engaged to model Bobbie Brown. On February 19, 1995, just four days after meeting her, Lee married Anderson. They have two sons together: Brandon Thomas (born June 5, 1996) and Dylan Jagger (born December 29, 1997). The couple divorced in 1998. Although divorced, the couple reunited briefly upon Lee's release from jail but eventually split again in 2001.
From 2002 until 2003, Lee was engaged to dancer Mayte Garcia, ex-wife of Prince. Garcia sang on Lee's album "Never a Dull Moment" and toured with him.
In 2008, it was announced that Lee and his ex-wife Anderson were back together and living with each other and their children, but they split for good soon afterward.
From 2014 until 2017, Lee was engaged to Greek-German singer Sofia Toufa.
Lee announced on February 14, 2018 that he had proposed to his girlfriend, social media celebrity Brittany Furlan. They were married a year later on February 14, 2019.
Lee and Anderson had videotaped their sexual activities while on vacation. The video was stolen in 1995, released on the Internet, and became a prime example of viral pornography. According to "The Dirt", Lee claims that he was having work done at his house, and a person (who, according to the book, was a former porn star by the name of Rand Gauthier) working at the house found the tape and sold it. Anderson sued the video distribution company, Internet Entertainment Group. Ultimately, the Lees entered into a confidential settlement agreement with IEG. Thereafter, the company began making the tape available to subscribers to its websites again, resulting in triple the normal traffic on the site.
In 1998, Lee served six months in county jail after pleading no contest to kicking Pamela Anderson while she was holding their son Dylan. During an altercation over Anderson's refusal to call and ask her parents not to come over to the family's house, Lee assaulted his wife, leaving her with "bruises, a torn fingernail and fear for the safety of her two sons, Dylan and Brandon."
Lee faced a 1998 lawsuit when he allegedly exposed a right-facing Nazi swastika tattoo on his arm to public scrutiny (the tattoo was actually a left-facing swastika). In 1996, Lee had pleaded no contest to criminal charges of battery against a Jewish photographer after Lee attacked the man outside the famous Viper Room, in L.A. When the photographer sued Lee, the swastika tattoo (which has since been removed) was said to be visible, and Lee's lawyer argued it would inflame the jury and create unfair prejudice against Lee. Shortly after claiming that the introduction of the tattoo into the court record would produce prejudice, Lee denied its existence. Lee's attorney reported the swastika was a "stupid tattoo obtained several years ago."
In October 1999, Lee was arrested in North Carolina after instigating a riot during the 1997 concert at Greensboro Coliseum. Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx allegedly made racist comments to a black security guard, suggesting that the crowd attack him. Sixx and Lee were said to have poured beer over the guard's head.
On June 16, 2001, 4-year-old Daniel Karven-Veres drowned in Lee's swimming pool while attending a birthday party for Lee's 5-year-old son, Brandon. Daniel's parents, James Veres and Ursula Karven, sued Lee for negligence. Lee was cleared by a jury in April 2003.
In September 2007, Lee was kicked out of the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony after engaging in a fight with Kid Rock. Kid Rock was cited for assault on Lee and pleaded guilty.
Lee is a supporter of animal rights and PETA. In 2010, Lee sent a letter to Terry Prather, the president of SeaWorld, protesting the treatment of Tilikum the killer whale. Lee believed the animal should be set free and claimed that SeaWorld would not comply, as Tilikum is their primary sperm donor. Lee wrote that he was appalled by SeaWorld's "sick and twisted" methods for obtaining Tilikum's sperm. Lee concluded that he wished to avoid further tragedies of trainers being killed, as these tragedies had resulted from the whales' aversion to captivity.
In 2013, Lee sent a letter to the Alberta Premier Alison Redford requesting that she end the Calgary Stampede's chuckwagon races that have resulted in the deaths of 50 horses since 1986 (the horses were euthanized after suffering injuries). Lee, in his capacity as a member of PETA, wrote, "There was a time when cowboys respected their horses instead of riding them to death just to show off for a crowd"; the ministry responded that Lee's letter was worthwhile.
Lee currently uses DW drums, DW and Remo drum heads, Zildjian cymbals, and Ahead drumsticks. He has, in the past, also used drum sets by various other companies including Tama drums in Mötley Crüe's early days, Sonor, and Pearl drums. He has since returned to DW drums in 2020. In the past Lee also used Paiste cymbals and signature Vic Firth and later Vater drumsticks before signing on with Ahead. He also briefly used Aquarian drumheads in the late 1990s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30274 |
Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film written, directed, photographed and edited by George A. Romero, co-written by John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in western Pennsylvania, which is under assault by an enlargening group of cannibalistic, undead corpses.
The film was completed on a budget and shot outside Pittsburgh, where it had its theatrical premiere on October 1, 1968. The film grossed domestically and internationally, earning more than 250 times its budget. "Night of the Living Dead" has been regarded as a cult classic by film scholars and critics, despite being heavily criticized upon its release for its explicit gore. It eventually garnered critical acclaim and was selected in 1999 by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as a film deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
"Night of the Living Dead" led to five subsequent films between 1978 and 2009, also directed by Romero, and inspired several remakes; the most well-known remake was released in 1990, directed by Tom Savini.
Siblings Barbra and Johnny drive to a cemetery in rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave. As they are leaving, a strange man kills Johnny and viciously attacks Barbra. She flees and attempts to take shelter in a farmhouse, but finds the woman who lived there dead and half-eaten. She sees a multiplying number of strange ghouls, led by the man from the cemetery, approaching the house. A man named Ben arrives, secures the farmhouse by boarding the windows and doors, and drives away the ghouls with a lever-action rifle he finds in the closet and with fire, which he previously discovered the ghouls fear.
Barbra, in a catatonic state from shock, is surprised when a couple, Harry and Helen Cooper, emerge from the cellar. They had been taking shelter there with their young daughter Karen after a group of the same monsters overturned their car and bit Karen, leaving her seriously ill. Also sheltering there are Tom and Judy, a teenage couple who came to the house after hearing an emergency broadcast about a series of brutal killings. Tom aids Ben in securing the farmhouse while Harry angrily protests that it is unsafe before returning to the cellar, which he believes is safer. Ghouls continue to besiege the farmhouse in ever-increasing numbers.
The refugees listen to radio and television reports of a wave of mass murders being committed across the east coast of the United States by an army of cannibalistic, reanimating corpses, and posses of armed men patrolling the countryside to kill the ghouls. They confirm that the ghouls can be stopped with a bullet or heavy blow to the head, or by being burned, as Ben discovered, and that various rescue centers are offering refuge and safety. Scientists theorize that the reanimations are occurring due to radiation from a space probe that exploded in Earth's atmosphere on the way back from Venus.
Ben devises a plan to obtain medical supplies for Karen and transport the group to a rescue center by refueling his truck. Ben, Tom, and Judy drive to a nearby gas pump, holding the ghouls off with torches and Molotov cocktails. However, the gas from the pump spills and causes the truck to catch fire and explode, killing Tom and Judy.
Ben beats off the ghouls and runs back to the house, and has to break down the door when Harry does not let him back in. Ben beats Harry for his cowardice, and the remaining survivors attempt to find a way out. However, the ghouls break through the barricades. In the ensuing chaos, Harry is shot by Ben, Karen dies from her injuries, reanimates, and begins to eat her father, Helen dies in the cellar after Karen stabs her with a masonry trowel, and Barbra recovers from her catatonic state and tries to help Ben keep the ghouls out, but is dragged away by her reanimated brother and the other ghouls when they break through the door.
Ben takes refuge in the cellar, where he has to shoot Harry and Helen's reanimated bodies as the ghouls break in upstairs. The next morning, Ben hears sirens and the approaching posse outside and emerges from the cellar, but is shot and killed when they mistake him for a ghoul. His body is thrown onto a bonfire and burned with the rest of the ghouls.
Romero embarked upon his career in the film industry while attending Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He directed and produced television commercials and industrial films for The Latent Image, in the 1960s, a company he co-founded with friends John Russo, and Russell Streiner. The trio grew bored making commercials and wanted to film a horror movie during this period. They wanted to capitalize on the film industry's "thirst for the bizarre", according to Romero. He and Streiner contacted Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman, president and vice president respectively of a Pittsburgh-based industrial film firm called Hardman Associates, Inc. They pitched their idea for a then-untitled horror film. A production company, conceived by Romero, called Image Ten, was formed which included Romero, Russo, Streiner, Hardman and Eastman. The initial budget was $6,000 with the ten members of the production company, investing $600 each for a share of the profits. Another ten investors were found when it was found that another $6,000 was required but this was also soon found to be inadequate. Image Ten eventually raised approximately $114,000 for the budget (equivalent to approximately $850,000 in 2019 dollars).
Co-written as a horror comedy by John Russo and George A. Romero under the title "Monster Flick", an early screenplay draft concerned the exploits of adolescent aliens who visit Earth and befriend human teenagers. A second version of the script featured a young man who runs away from home and discovers rotting human corpses that aliens use for food scattered across a meadow. Russo came up with the concept that they would be the recently dead only, because they could not afford to bring long-dead people out of their graves. He also came up with the idea that they would be "flesh-eaters". The final draft, written mainly by Russo during three days in 1967, focused on reanimated human corpses – Romero refers to them as "ghouls" – that consume the flesh of the living. In a 1997 interview with the BBC's "Forbidden Weekend", Romero explained that the script developed into a three-part short story. Part one became "Night of the Living Dead". Sequels "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) and "Day of the Dead" (1985) were adapted from the two remaining parts.
Romero drew inspiration from Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" (1954), a horror novel about a plague that ravages a futuristic Los Angeles. The infected in "I Am Legend" become vampire-like creatures and prey on the uninfected. Discussing the creation of "Night of the Living Dead", Romero remarked, "I had written a short story, which I basically had ripped off from a Richard Matheson novel called "I Am Legend"." Romero further explained:
Official film adaptations of Matheson's novel appeared in 1964 as "The Last Man on Earth", in 1971 as "The Omega Man", and the 2007 release "I Am Legend". Matheson was not impressed by Romero's interpretation, feeling that "It was ... kind of cornball", though he later said, "George Romero's a nice guy, though. I don't harbor any animosity toward him."
Russo and Romero revised the screenplay while filming. Karl Hardman attributed the edits to lead actor Duane Jones:
Eastman modified cellar scenes featuring dialogue between Helen and Harry Cooper. According to lead actress Judith O'Dea, much of the dialogue was improvised. She told an interviewer, "I don't know if there was an actual working script! We would go over what basically had to be done, then just did it the way we each felt it "should" be done". One example offered by O'Dea concerns a scene where Barbra tells Ben about Johnny's death:
Although the film is regarded as one of the launching pads for the modern zombie movie, the screenplay itself never uses the word. In fact, Romero would later confess that he felt the film's antagonists were distinct enough from Haitian zombies that they were "something completely new" with Romero actively avoiding any similarities between the two creatures although he notes that he may have subtly been inspired by them.
The lead role was originally written for someone of Caucasian descent, but upon casting African-American actor Duane Jones, Romero intentionally did not alter the script to reflect this. Asked in 2013 if he took inspiration from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. that same year, Romero responded in the negative, noting that he only heard about the shooting when he was on his way to find distribution for the finished film.
The small budget dictated much of the production process. According to Hardman, "We knew that we could not raise enough money to shoot a film on a par with the classic horror films with which we had all grown up. The best that we could do was to place our cast in a remote spot and then bring the horror to be visited on them in that spot". Scenes were filmed near Evans City, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh in rural Butler County; the opening sequence was shot at the Evans City Cemetery on Franklin Road, south of the borough. The cemetery chapel was under warrant for demolition; however, Gary R. Steiner led a successful effort to raise $50,000 to restore the building, and the chapel is currently undergoing renovations.
The outdoor, indoor (downstairs) and basement scenes were filmed at a location northeast of Evans City, near a park. The basement door (external view) shown in the film was cut into a wall by the production team and led nowhere. As this house was scheduled for demolition, damage during filming was permitted. The site is now a turf farm.
Props and special effects were fairly simple and limited by the budget. The blood, for example, was Bosco Chocolate Syrup drizzled over cast members' bodies. Consumed flesh consisted of roasted ham and entrails donated by one of the actors, who also owned a chain of butcher shops. Costumes consisted of second-hand clothing from cast members and Goodwill. Zombie makeup varied during the film. Initially, makeup was limited to white skin with blackened eyes; but as filming progressed, mortician's wax was used to simulate wounds and decaying flesh. As filming was not linear, the piebald faces appear sporadically. Eastman supervised the special effects, wardrobe and makeup. Filming took place between June and December 1967 under the working title "Night of Anubis" and later "Night of the Flesh Eaters". The small budget led Romero to shoot on 35 mm black-and-white film. The completed film ultimately benefited from the decision, as film historian Joseph Maddrey describes the black-and-white filming as "guerrilla-style", resembling "the unflinching authority of a wartime newsreel". Maddrey adds, it "seem[s] as much like a documentary on the loss of social stability as an exploitation film".
"Night of the Living Dead" was the first feature-length film directed by George A. Romero. His initial work involved filming shorts for Pittsburgh public broadcaster WQED's children's series "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood". Romero's decision to direct "Night of the Living Dead" essentially launched his career as a horror director. He took the helm of the sequels as well as "Season of the Witch" (1972), "The Crazies" (1973), "Martin" (1978), "Creepshow" (1982) and "The Dark Half" (1993). Critics saw the influence of the horror and science-fiction films of the 1950s in Romero's directorial style. Stephen Paul Miller, for instance, witnessed "a revival of fifties schlock shock ... and the army general's television discussion of military operations in the film echoes the often inevitable calling-in of the army in fifties horror films". Miller admits that ""Night of the Living Dead" takes greater relish in mocking these military operations through the general's pompous demeanor" and the government's inability to source the zombie epidemic or protect the citizenry. Romero describes the mood he wished to establish: "The film opens with a situation that has already disintegrated to a point of little hope, and it moves progressively toward absolute despair and ultimate tragedy." According to film historian Carl Royer, Romero "employs chiaroscuro (film noir style) lighting to emphasize humanity's nightmare alienation from itself."
While some critics dismissed Romero's film because of the graphic scenes, writer R. H. W. Dillard claimed that the "open-eyed detailing" of taboo heightened the film's success. He asks, "What girl has not, at one time or another, wished to kill her mother? And Karen, in the film, offers a particularly vivid opportunity to commit the forbidden deed vicariously." Romero featured social taboos as key themes, particularly cannibalism. Although zombie cannibals were inspired by Matheson's "I Am Legend", film historian Robin Wood sees the flesh-eating scenes of "Night of the Living Dead" as a late-1960s critique of American capitalism. Wood asserts that the zombies represent capitalists, and "cannibalism represents the ultimate in possessiveness, hence the logical end of human relations under capitalism". He argues that the zombies' victims symbolized the repression of "the Other" in bourgeois American society, namely activists in the civil rights movement, feminists, homosexuals, and counterculturalists in general.
Members of Image Ten were involved in filming and post-production, participating in loading camera magazines, gaffing, constructing props, recording sounds and editing. Production stills were shot and printed by Karl Hardman, who stated in an interview that a "number of cast members formed a production line in the darkroom for developing, washing and drying of the prints as I made the exposures. As I recall, I shot over 1,250 pictures during the production". Upon completion of post-production, Image Ten found it difficult to secure a distributor willing to show the film with the gruesome scenes intact. Columbia and American International Pictures declined after requests to soften it and re-shoot the final scene were rejected by producers. Romero admitted that "none of us wanted to do that. We couldn't imagine a happy ending. . . . Everyone want[ed] a Hollywood ending, but we stuck to our guns". The Manhattan-based Walter Reade Organization agreed to show the film uncensored, but changed the title from "Night of the Flesh Eaters" to "Night of the Living Dead" because a film had already been produced under a similar title to the former. While changing the title, the copyright notice was accidentally deleted from the early releases of the film.
The opening title music with the car on the road had been used in a 1961 episode of the TV series "Ben Casey" entitled "I Remember a Lemon Tree" and is also featured in an episode of "" entitled "Bullets Cost Too Much". Most of the music in the film had previously been used on the soundtrack for the science-fiction B-movie "Teenagers from Outer Space" (1959), as well as a number of pieces used in the classic Steve McQueen western series "Wanted Dead or Alive" (1958–61). The eerie musical piece during the tense scene in the film where Ben finds the rifle in the closet inside the farmhouse as the radio reports of mayhem play in the background, can be heard in longer and more complete form during the opening credits and the beginning of "The Devil's Messenger" (1961) starring Lon Chaney, Jr. Another piece, accompanying Barbra's flight from the cemetery zombie, was taken from the score for "The Hideous Sun Demon" (1959). According to WRS, "We chose a selection of music for each of the various scenes and then George made the final selections. We then took those selections and augmented them electronically". Sound tech R. Lococo's choices worked well, as film historian Sumiko Higashi believes that the music "signifies the nature of events that await".
A soundtrack album featuring music and dialogue cues from the film was compiled and released on LP by Varèse Sarabande in 1982. In 2008, recording group 400 Lonely Things released the album "Tonight of the Living Dead", "an instrumental album composed entirely of ambient music and sound effects sampled from Romero's 1968 horror classic".
"Night of the Living Dead" premiered on October 1, 1968, at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh. Nationally, it was shown as a Saturday afternoon matinée – as was typical for horror films at the time – and attracted an audience consisting of pre-teens and adolescents. The MPAA film rating system was not in place until November 1968, so even young children were able to purchase tickets. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film with such potent content for a horror film they were entirely unprepared for: "I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them," he said. "They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else." According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately:
Response from "Variety" after the initial release reflects the outrage generated by Romero's film: "Until the Supreme Court establishes clear-cut guidelines for the pornography of violence, "Night of the Living Dead" will serve nicely as an outer-limit definition by example. In [a] mere 90 minutes this horror film (pun intended) casts serious aspersions on the integrity and social responsibility of its Pittsburgh-based makers, distributor Walter Reade, the film industry as a whole and [exhibitors] who book [the picture], as well as raising doubts about the future of the regional cinema movement and about the moral health of film goers who cheerfully opt for this unrelieved orgy of sadism ..."
One commentator asserts that the film garnered little attention from critics, "except to provoke argument about censoring its grisly scenes".
Despite the controversy, five years after the premiere Paul McCullough of "Take One" observed that "Night of the Living Dead" was the "most profitable horror film ever ... produced outside the walls of a major studio". The film had earned between $12 and $15 million at the U.S. box office after a decade. It was translated into more than 25 languages and released across Europe, Canada and Australia. "Night of the Living Dead" grossed $30 million internationally, and "the Wall Street Journal" reported that it was the top-grossing film in Europe in 1969.
Fifty years after its release, the film enjoys a reputation as a classic and still receives positive reviews, being regarded by many as one of the best films of 1968. In 2008, the film was ranked by "Empire" magazine No. 397 of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". "The New York Times" also placed the film on their "Best 1000 Movies Ever" list. In January 2010, "Total Film" included the film on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time". "Rolling Stone" named "Night of the Living Dead" one of "The 100 Maverick Movies in the Last 100 Years". "Reader's Digest" found it to be the 12th scariest movie of all time.
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives "Night of the Living Dead" a 97% approval rating based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 8.94/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "George A. Romero's debut set the template for the zombie film, and features tight editing, realistic gore, and a sly political undercurrent."
"Night of the Living Dead" was awarded two distinguished honors decades after its debut. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 1999 with other films deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". In 2001, the film was ranked No. 93 by the American Film Institute on their "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Thrills" list, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies. The zombies in the picture were also a candidate for AFI's "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains", in the villains category, but failed to make the official list. The Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 5th scariest film ever made. The film also ranked No. 9 on Bravo's "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments".
Some reviewers disliked the film's gory special effects. "Variety" labeled "Night of the Living Dead" an "unrelieved orgy of sadism" and questioned the "integrity and social responsibility of its Pittsburgh-based makers". "The New York Times" critic Vincent Canby referred to the film as a "junk movie" as well as "spare, uncluttered, but really silly".
Some reviewers cited the film as groundbreaking. Pauline Kael called the film "one of the most gruesomely terrifying movies ever made – and when you leave the theatre you may wish you could forget the whole horrible experience. . . . The film's grainy, banal seriousness works for it – gives it a crude realism". A "Film Daily" critic commented, "This is a pearl of a horror picture that exhibits all the earmarks of a sleeper." While Roger Ebert criticized the matinée screening, he admitted that he "admires the movie itself". Critic Rex Reed wrote, "If you want to see what turns a B movie into a classic ... don't miss "Night of the Living Dead". It is unthinkable for anyone seriously interested in horror movies not to see it."
"Night of the Living Dead" entered the public domain in the United States because the original theatrical distributor, the Walter Reade Organization, failed to place a copyright indication on the prints, and at that time, United States copyright law held that public dissemination required copyright notice to maintain a copyright. Image Ten displayed such a notice on the title frames of the film beneath the original title, "Night of the Flesh Eaters", but the distributor erroneously removed the statement when it changed the title.
Because "Night of the Living Dead" was not copyrighted, it has received numerous home video releases on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. , Amazon.com lists editions of "Night of the Living Dead" numbering 13 on VHS, 130 on DVD, 12 on Blu-ray, 1 on Blu-ray 3D and 56 on Amazon Video. The original film is available to view or download for free on various websites, such as the Internet Archive and YouTube. , it is the Internet Archive's most-downloaded film, with over 3.1 million downloads.
The film received a VHS release in 1993 through Tempe Video. In 1998, Russo's revised version of the film, "Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition", was released on VHS and DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment. In 2002, Elite Entertainment released a special edition DVD featuring the original cut. Dimension Extreme released a restored print of the film on DVD. On October 3, 2017, Mill Creek Entertainment released a standard 1080p version of the film on Blu-ray in the United States, however, this was a transfer of an existing release print, and not a restoration. This release was also not authorized or licensed by Image Ten. This was followed by a 4K restoration Blu-ray released by The Criterion Collection on February 13, 2018, sourced from a print owned by the Museum of Modern Art and acquired by Janus Films. The new 4K restoration is protected by copyright. This release also features a workprint edit of the film under the title of "Night of Anubis", in addition to various bonus materials.
In February 2020, Netflix revealed that it responded to a German request in 2017 to remove the film from its service in that country because, as stated in their report, “a version of the film is banned in that country.”
The first revisions of "Night of the Living Dead" involved colorization by home video distributors. Hal Roach Studios released a colorized version in 1986 that featured ghouls with pale green skin. Another colorized version appeared in 1997 from Anchor Bay Entertainment with grey-skinned zombies. In 2004, Legend Films produced a new colorized version. Technology critic Gary W. Tooze wrote that "The colorization is damn impressive", but noticed the print used was not as sharp as other releases of the film. In 2009, Legend Films coproduced a colorized 3D version of the film with PassmoreLab, a company that converts 2-D film into 3-D format. The film was theatrically released on October 14, 2010. According to Legend Films founder Barry Sandrew, "Night of the Living Dead" is the first entirely live action 2-D film to be converted to 3-D.
In 1999, co-writer John A. Russo released a modified version called "Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition". He filmed additional scenes and recorded a revised soundtrack composed by Scott Vladimir Licina. In an interview with "Fangoria" magazine, Russo explained that he wanted to "give the movie a more modern pace". Russo took liberties with the original script. The additions are neither clearly identified nor even listed. "Entertainment Weekly" reported "no bad blood" between Russo and Romero. The magazine quoted Romero as saying, "I didn't want to touch "Night of the Living Dead"". Critics disliked the revised film, notably Harry Knowles of "Ain't It Cool News", who promised to permanently ban anyone from his publication who offered positive criticism of the film.
A collaborative animated project known as "Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated" was screened at several film festivals and was released onto DVD on July 27, 2010, by Wild Eye Releasing. This project aims to "reanimate" the 1968 film by replacing Romero's celluloid images with animation done in a wide variety of styles by artists from around the world, laid over the original audio from Romero's version. "Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated" premiered theatrically on October 10, 2009, in Ramsey, New Jersey at the Zombie Encounter and Film Festival. "Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated" was nominated in the category of Best Independent Production (film, documentary or short) for the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, but lost to "American Scary", a documentary on television horror movie hosts.
Starting in 2015, and working from the original camera negatives and audio track elements, a 4K digital restoration of "Night of the Living Dead" was undertaken by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and The Film Foundation. The fully restored version was shown at MoMA in November 2016 as part of "To Save and Project: The 14th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation". This same restoration was released on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection on February 13, 2018.
"Night of the Living Dead" is the first of six " ... of the Dead" films directed by George Romero. Following the 1968 film, Romero released "Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead", "Land of the Dead", "Diary of the Dead" and "Survival of the Dead". Each film traces the evolution of the living dead epidemic in the United States and humanity's desperate attempts to cope with it. As in "Night of the Living Dead", Romero peppered the other films in the series with critiques specific to the periods in which they were released.
The same year "Day of the Dead" premiered, "Night of the Living Dead" co-writer John Russo released a film titled "The Return of the Living Dead" that offers an alternate continuity to the original film than "Dawn of the Dead". Russo's film spawned four sequels. "Return of the Living Dead" sparked a legal battle with Romero, who believed Russo marketed his film in direct competition with "Day of the Dead" as a sequel to the original film. In the case "Dawn Associates v. Links", Romero accused Russo of "appropriat[ing] part of the title of the prior work", plagiarizing "Dawn of the Dead"'s advertising slogan ("When there is no more room in hell ... the dead will walk the earth"), and copying stills from the original 1968 film. Romero was ultimately granted a restraining order that forced Russo to cease his advertising campaign. Russo, however, was allowed to retain his title.
George Cameron Romero, the son of director George A. Romero, has developed "Rise of the Living Dead", a prelude to his father's classic pitched with the working title "Origins". The film tracks a six-year period leading up to the story told by his father. George Cameron Romero's script is intended to be an homage to his father's work, a glimpse into the political turmoil of the mid-to-late 1960s and a bookend piece to his father's original story. Despite raising funds for the film on Indiegogo in 2014, the film has yet to go into production as of May 2020.
The first remake, debuting in 1990, was directed by special effects artist Tom Savini. It was based on the original screenplay, but included more gore and a revised plot that portrayed Barbra (Patricia Tallman) as a capable and active heroine. Tony Todd played the role of Ben. Film historian Barry Grant saw the new Barbra as a corrective on the part of Romero. He suggests that the character was made stronger to rectify the depiction of female characters in the original film.
The second remake was in 3-D and released in September 2006 under the title "Night of the Living Dead 3D", directed by Jeff Broadstreet. Unlike Savini's 1990 film, Broadstreet's project was not affiliated with Romero. Broadstreet's film was followed in 2012 by the prequel "".
On September 15, 2009, it was announced that Simon West was producing a 3D animated retelling of the original movie, originally titled "Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D" and later re-titled "". The movie is written and directed by Zebediah de Soto. The voice cast includes Tony Todd as Ben, Danielle Harris as Barbra, Joseph Pilato as Harry Cooper, Alona Tal as Helen Cooper, Bill Moseley as Johnny, Tom Sizemore as Chief McClellan and newcomers Erin Braswell as Judy and Michael Diskint as Tom.
Director Doug Schulze's 2011 film "" relates the story of a group of horror film fans who become involved in a "real-life" version of the 1968 film.
Due to the film's public domain status, several independent film companies have also done remakes of the film.
At the suggestion of Bill Hinzman (the actor who played the zombie which first attacks Barbra in the graveyard and kills her brother Johnny at the beginning of the original film), composers Todd Goodman and Stephen Catanzarite composed an opera "Night of the Living Dead" based on the film. The Microscopic Opera Company produced its world premiere, which was performed at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, in October 2013. The opera was awarded the American Prize for Theater Composition in 2014.
Romero revolutionized the horror film genre with "Night of the Living Dead"; according to Almar Haflidason of the BBC, the film represented "a new dawn in horror film-making". The film has also effectively redefined the use of the term "zombie". While the word "zombie" itself is never used—the word used in the film is "ghoul"—Romero's film introduced the theme of zombies as reanimated, flesh-eating cannibals. Romero himself didn't initially consider the antagonists in the film to be zombies, later saying "I never thought of my guys as zombies, when I made the first film ... To me, zombies were still those boys in the Caribbean doing the wetwork for [Bela] Lugosi."
The film and its successors spawned countless imitators, in cinema, television and video gaming, which borrowed elements invented by Romero. "Night of the Living Dead" ushered in the splatter film subgenre. As one film historian points out, horror prior to Romero's film had mostly involved rubber masks and costumes, cardboard sets, or mysterious figures lurking in the shadows. They were set in locations far removed from rural and suburban America. Romero revealed the power behind exploitation and setting horror in ordinary, unexceptional locations and offered a template for making an "effective and lucrative" film on a "minuscule budget". Slasher films of the 1970s and 80s such as John Carpenter's "Halloween" (1978), Sean S. Cunningham's "Friday the 13th" (1980), and Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984) "owe much to the original "Night of the Living Dead"", according to author Barry Keith Grant.
Since its release, some critics and film historians have interpreted "Night of the Living Dead" as a subversive film that critiques 1960s American society, international Cold War politics and domestic racism. Elliot Stein of "The Village Voice" saw the film as an ardent critique of American involvement in the Vietnam War, arguing that it "was not set in Transylvania, but Pennsylvania – this was Middle America at war, and the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam." Film historian Sumiko Higashi concurs, arguing that "Night of the Living Dead" was a film about the horrors of the Vietnam era. While she admits that "there are no Vietnamese in "Night of the Living Dead", ... they constitute an absent presence whose significance can be understood if narrative is construed". She points to aspects of the Vietnam War paralleled in the film: grainy black-and-white newsreels, search and destroy operations, helicopters, and graphic carnage. In the 2009 documentary film "Nightmares in Red, White and Blue", the zombies in the film are compared to the "silent majority" of the U.S. in the late 1960s.
While George Romero denied he considered race when casting Duane Jones, reviewer Mark Deming notes that "the grim fate of Duane Jones, the sole heroic figure and only African-American, had added resonance with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X fresh in the minds of most Americans". Stein adds, "In this first-ever subversive horror movie, the resourceful black hero survives the zombies only to be killed by a redneck posse". The deaths of Ben, Barbra and the supporting cast offered audiences an uncomfortable, nihilistic glimpse unusual for the genre.
Other prevalent themes included "disillusionment with government and patriarchal nuclear family" and "the flaws inherent in the media, local and federal government agencies, and the entire mechanism of civil defense". Film historian Linda Badley explains that the film was so horrifying because the monsters were not creatures from outer space or some exotic environment, "They're us." Romero confessed that the film was designed to reflect the tensions of the time: "It was 1968, man. Everybody had a 'message'. The anger and attitude and all that's there is just because it was the Sixties. We lived at the farmhouse, so we were always into raps about the implication and the meaning, so some of that crept in." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30275 |
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (), subtitled "A parable play", is a 1941 play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. It chronicles the rise of Arturo Ui, a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster, and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition. The play is a satirical allegory of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany prior to World War II.
Fearing persecution and blacklisted from publication and production, Brecht – who in his poetry referred to Adolf Hitler as "der Anstreicher" ("the housepainter") – left Germany in February 1933, shortly after the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg on the instigation of former Chancellor Franz von Papen. After moving around – Prague, Zürich, Paris – Brecht ended up in Denmark for six years. While there, c. 1934, he worked on the antecedent to "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui", a satire on Hitler called "Ui", written in the style of a Renaissance historian. The result was a story about "Giacomo Ui", a machine politician in Padua, a work which Brecht never completed. It was later published with his collected short stories.
Brecht left Denmark in 1939, moving first to Stockholm, and then, the next year, to Helsinki, Finland. He wrote the current play there in only three weeks in 1941, during the time he was waiting for a visa to enter the United States. The play was not produced on the stage until 1958, and not until 1961 in English. In spite of this, Brecht did not originally envision a version of the play in Germany, intending it all along for the American stage.
The play is consciously a highly satirical allegory of Hitler's rise to power in Germany and the advent of the National Socialist state. All the characters and groups in the play had direct counterparts in real life, with Ui representing Hitler, his henchman Ernesto Roma representing Ernst Röhm, the head of the Nazi brownshirts; Dogsborough representing General von Hindenburg, a hero of World War I and the President of the Weimar Republic (his name is a pun on the German "Hund" and "Burg"); Emanuele Giri representing Hermann Göring, a World War I flying ace who was Hitler's second in command; Giuseppe Givola representing the master propagandist Joseph Goebbels; the Cauliflower Trust representing the Prussian Junkers; the fate of the town of Cicero standing for the Anschluss, which brought Austria into the Third Reich; and so on. In addition, every scene in the play is based, albeit sometimes very loosely, on a real event, for example the warehouse fire which represents the Reichstag fire, and the Dock Aid Scandal which represents the (Eastern Aid) scandal. The play is similar in some respects to the film "The Great Dictator" (1940), which also featured an absurd parody of Hitler ("Adenoid Hynkel") by Charlie Chaplin, Brecht's favorite film actor.
Dramatically "Arturo Ui" is in keeping with Brecht's "epic" style of theatre. It opens with a prologue in the form of a direct address to the audience by an otherwise unidentified "Actor", who outlines all the major characters and explains the basis of the upcoming plot. This allows the audience to better focus on the message rather being concerned about what might happen next in the plot.
Brecht describes in the play's stage directions the use of signs or projections, which are seen first on the stage curtain, and later appear after certain scenes, presenting the audience with relevant information about Hitler's rise to power, in order to clarify the parallels between the play and actual events.
The play has frequent references to Shakespeare. To highlight Ui's evil and villainous rise to power, he is explicitly compared to Shakespeare's Richard III. Like Macbeth, Ui experiences a visitation from the ghost of one of his victims. Finally, Hitler's practiced prowess at public speaking is referenced when Ui receives lessons from an actor in walking, sitting and orating, which includes his reciting Mark Antony's famous speech from "Julius Caesar".
Equivalents for places and things cited in the text are:
"Source:"
There are fewer alternative copies of the script than is usual with Brecht's works, since "most of the revisions, such as they were, [had] been made directly on the first typescript", but he did refer to the play by a number of alternative names, among them "The Rise of Arturo Ui", "The Gangster Play We Know" and "That Well-Known Racket". At one point he referred to it as "Arturo Ui", labelled it a "Dramatic Poem" and ascribed authorship to K. Keuner ("Mr. Nobody").
"The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" was intended by Brecht to be first performed in the United States, but he was unable to get a production mounted. Brecht brought the play to the attention of director Erwin Piscator in New York, suggesting Oskar Homolka to play Ui. Piscator and Brecht's frequent musical collaborator, Hanns Eisler, got H. R. Hay to translate the work, which was completed by September 1941, and submitted to Louis Shaffer, the director of Labor Stage, who turned it down as "not advisable to produce", presumably because the United States was still, at the time, a neutral country.
The play lingered in the drawer until 1953, after Brecht had founded the Berliner Ensemble, and had produced there his major works. He showed the play around to a larger circle of people than had seen it previously, and this eventually led to the Berliner Ensemble's production – except that Brecht insisted that scenes from his "Fear and Misery of the Third Reich", a series of realistic short pieces about life in the Third Reich that was written around 1935 – needed to be produced first. His fear was that the German audience was still too close to their previous psychic connection to Hitler.
When Brecht died in 1956, the Berliner Ensemble still had not produced "Fear and Misery in the Third Reich" – which at various times was also called "99%" and "The Private Life of the Master Race" – but Brecht had prepared it for publication, which came out in 1957. That same year, scenes from the work were staged by five young directors of the Ensemble. One of them, Peter Palitzsch, directed the world premiere of "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" in Stuttgart, West Germany, in 1958. The Ensemble itself first produced the play four months later, with Palitzsch and Manfred Wekwerth co-directing, and Ekkehard Schall as Arturo Ui. This production, "staged in fairground style, with ruthless verve and brassy vulgarity" was presented also in Berlin, London and at the Paris International Theatre Festival. A later production by the Berliner Ensemble, directed by Heiner Müller has run in repertory since June 1995, with Martin Wuttke in the title role.
"The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" was presented twice on Broadway. The first production was in 1963, with Christopher Plummer in the lead role and Michael Constantine, Elisha Cook, Lionel Stander, Sandy Baron, Oliver Clark and James Coco in the cast. It was directed by Tony Richardson and ran for five previews and eight performances. The second Broadway production of the play took place in 1968–69 by the Guthrie Theater Company. It starred Robin Gammell as Ui, and was directed by Edward Payson Call. It ran for ten performances.
The play has been presented three times Off-Broadway. In 1991 it was produced by the Classic Stage Company, with John Turturro as Arturo Ui, directed by Carey Perloff. In 2002 it played at the National Actors Theatre, with Ui played by Al Pacino, and Steve Buscemi, Billy Crudup, Charles Durning, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Chazz Palminteri, Jacqueline McKenzie, Sterling K. Brown, Steve Buscemi and Tony Randall (who also produced) the cast. It was directed by Simon McBurney. The Classic Stage Company tackled it again in 2018, directed by John Doyle with Raúl Esparza in the title role and Eddie Cooper and Elizabeth A. Davis in the supporting cast. In 1986, the play was produced in Canada at the Stratford Festival, running for 46 performances with Maurice Godin in the lead role.
Most recently in 2017, Bruce Norris' adapted version of the play was performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, with Lenny Henry starring as Arturo Ui. Norris likened Ui's character, a parable of Adolf Hitler, to American president Donald Trump through the use of dialogue and placards stating "Let's make this country great again".
The part of Arturo Ui has also been played by a number of other notable actors including Peter Falk, Griff Rhys Jones, Leonard Rossiter, Antony Sher, Nicol Williamson, Henry Goodman and Hugo Weaving, as well as Jean Vilar and Australian actor John Bell. Simon Callow discusses his interpretation of the role in his autobiography, "Being an Actor", while Plummer explains why he felt he failed in the role on Broadway in his autobiography, "In Spite of Me".
At the time of the first stage production, in Stuttgart, Siegfried Melchinger, a West German critic, called it a "brilliant miscarriage", and complained that the play omitted the German people, echoing the complaint of the East German critic Lothar Kusche, who had read the play in manuscript. Brecht's answer was, in part
"Ui" is a "parable play", written with the aim of destroying the dangerous respect commonly felt for great killers. The circle described has been deliberately restricted; it is confined to the plane of state, industrialists, Junkers and petty bourgeois. This is enough to achieve the desired objective. The play does not pretend to give a complete account of the historical situation in the 1930s.
In his 1992 study, "Hitler: The Führer and the People", J. P. Stern, a professor of German literature, rejects both "Arturo Ui" and Chaplin's "The Great Dictator", writing: "[T]he true nature of [Hitler] is trivialized and obscured rather than illuminated by the antics of Charles Chaplin and the deeply unfunny comedy of Bertolt Brecht."
The play was listed in 1999 as No. 54 on "Le Monde" 100 Books of the Century.
Notes
Bibliography | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30276 |
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera () is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, "The Beggar's Opera", and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, Hauptmann might have contributed to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.
Songs from "The Threepenny Opera" have been widely covered and become standards, most notably "" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife") and "" ("Pirate Jenny").
In the winter of 1927–28, Elizabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's lover at the time, received a copy of Gay's play from friends in England and, fascinated by the female characters and its critique of the condition of the London poor, began translating it into German. Brecht at first took little interest in her translation project, but in April 1928 he attempted to interest the impresario in a play he was writing called "Fleischhacker", which he had, in fact, already promised to another producer. Aufricht was seeking a production to launch his new theatre company at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, but was not impressed by the sound of "Fleischhacker". Brecht immediately proposed a translation of "The Beggar's Opera" instead, claiming that he himself had been translating it. He delivered Hauptmann's translation to Aufricht, who immediately signed a contract for it.
Brecht's major addition to Hauptmann's text was the addition of four songs by the French poet François Villon. Rather than translate the French himself, he used (uncredited) the translations by (), the same source he had been using since his earliest plays.
The score by Weill uses only one of the melodies which Johann Pepusch wrote for the original " Beggar's Opera". The title "Die Dreigroschenoper" was determined only a week before the opening; it had been previously announced as simply "The Beggar's Opera" (in English), with the subtitle "Die Luden-Oper" ("The Pimp's Opera").
Writing in 1929, Weill made the political and artistic intents of the work clear:With the "Dreigroschenoper" we reach a public which either did not know us at all or thought us incapable of captivating listeners [...] Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art [...] If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age, then this framework must be destroyed...In the "Dreigroschenoper", reconstruction was possible insofar as here we had a chance of starting from scratch. Weill claimed at the time that "music cannot further the action of the play or create its background", but achieves its proper value when it interrupts the action at the right moments."
Weill's score shows the influence of jazz and German dance music of the time. The orchestration involves a small ensemble with a good deal of doubling-up on instruments (in the original performances, for example, some 7 players covered a total of 23 instrumental parts, though modern performances typically use a few more players).
"The Threepenny Opera" was first performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 1928 on a set designed by Caspar Neher. Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing 400 times in the next two years. The performance was a springboard for one of the best known interpreters of Brecht and Weill's work, Lotte Lenya, who was married to Weill. Ironically the production became a great favourite of Berlin's "smart set" – Count Harry Kessler recorded in his diary meeting at the performance an ambassador and a director of the Dresdner Bank (and their wives), and concluded "One simply has to have been there."
Critics did not fail to notice that Brecht had included the four Villon songs translated by Ammer. Brecht responded by saying that he had "a fundamental laxity in questions of literary property."
By 1933, when Weill and Brecht were forced to leave Germany by the Nazi seizure of power, the play had been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages.
In the United Kingdom, the first fully staged performance was given on 9 February 1956, under Berthold Goldschmidt, although there had been a concert performance in 1933, and a semi-staged performance on 28 July 1938. In between, on 8 February 1935 Edward Clark conducted the first British broadcast of the work. It received scathing reviews from Ernest Newman and other critics. But the most savage criticism came from Weill himself, who described it privately as "... the worst performance imaginable … the whole thing was completely misunderstood". But his criticisms seem to have been for the concept of the piece as a Germanised version of "The Beggar's Opera", rather than for Clark's conducting of it, of which Weill made no mention.
America was introduced to the work by the film version of G. W. Pabst, which opened in New York in 1931.
The first American production, adapted into English by Gifford Cochran and Jerrold Krimsky and staged by Francesco von Mendelssohn, featured Robert Chisholm as Macheath. It opened on Broadway at the Empire Theatre, on April 13, 1933, and closed after 12 performances. Mixed reviews praised the music but slammed the production, with the critic Gilbert Gabriel calling it "a dreary enigma".
A French version produced by Gaston Baty and written by Ninon Steinhof and André Mauprey was presented in October 1930 at the Théâtre Montparnasse in Paris. It was rendered as '; (', or "four pennies" being the idiomatically equivalent French expression for "Threepenny").
In 1930 the work was premiered in Moscow at the Kamerny Theatre, directed by Alexander Tairov. It was the only one of Brecht's works to be performed in Russia during his lifetime. "Izvestia" disapproved: "It is high time that our theatres ceased playing homage to petit-bourgeois bad taste and instead turned to more relevant themes."
The first Italian production, titled "L'opera da tre soldi" and directed by Giorgio Strehler, premiered at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan on 27 February 1956 in the presence of Bertolt Brecht. The cast included: Tino Carraro (Mackie), Mario Carotenuto (Peachum), (Polly), Milly (Jenny), (Chief of Police). The conductor was Bruno Maderna. Set designs were by Luciano Damiani and Teo Otto; costume design by Ezio Frigerio.
Set in Victorian London, the play focuses on Macheath, an amoral, antiheroic criminal.
Macheath ("Mackie," or "Mack the Knife") marries Polly Peachum. This displeases her father, who controls the beggars of London, and he endeavours to have Macheath hanged. His attempts are hindered by the fact that the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, is Macheath's old army comrade. Still, Peachum exerts his influence and eventually gets Macheath arrested and sentenced to hang. Macheath escapes this fate via a "deus ex machina" moments before the execution when, in an unrestrained parody of a happy ending, a messenger from the Queen arrives to pardon Macheath and grant him the title of Baron. The details of the original 1928 text have often been substantially modified in later productions.
A draft narration by Brecht for a concert performance begins: "You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was intended to be as splendid as only beggars can imagine, and yet cheap enough for beggars to be able to watch, it is called the "Threepenny Opera"."
A street singer entertains the crowd with the illustrated murder ballad or Bänkelsang, titled "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" ("Ballad of Mack the Knife"). As the song concludes, a well-dressed man leaves the crowd and crosses the stage. This is Macheath, alias "Mack the Knife".
The story begins in the shop of Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, the boss of London's beggars, who outfits and trains the beggars in return for a slice of their takings from begging. In the first scene, the extent of Peachum's iniquity is immediately exposed. Filch, a new beggar, is obliged to bribe his way into the profession and agree to pay over to Peachum 50 percent of whatever he made; the previous day he had been severely beaten up for begging within the area of jurisdiction of Peachum's protection racket.
After finishing with the new man, Peachum becomes aware that his grown daughter Polly did not return home the previous night. Peachum, who sees his daughter as his own private property, concludes that she has become involved with Macheath. This does not suit Peachum at all, and he becomes determined to thwart this relationship and destroy Macheath.
The scene shifts to an empty stable where Macheath himself is preparing to marry Polly once his gang has stolen and brought all the necessary food and furnishings. No vows are exchanged, but Polly is satisfied, and everyone sits down to a banquet. Since none of the gang members can provide fitting entertainment, Polly gets up and sings "Seeräuberjenny", a revenge fantasy in which she is a scullery maid turning pirate queen to order the execution of her bosses and customers. The gang becomes nervous when the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, arrives, but it's all part of the act; Brown had served with Mack in England's colonial wars and had intervened on numerous occasions to prevent the arrest of Macheath over the years. The old friends duet in the "Kanonen-Song" ("Cannon Song" or "Army Song"). In the next scene, Polly returns home and defiantly announces that she has married Macheath by singing the "Barbarasong" ("Barbara Song"). She stands fast against her parents' anger, but she inadvertently reveals Brown's connections to Macheath which they subsequently use to their advantage.
Polly warns Macheath that her father will try to have him arrested. He is finally convinced that Peachum has enough influence to do it and makes arrangements to leave London, explaining the details of his bandit "business" to Polly so she can manage it in his absence. Before he leaves town, he stops at his favorite brothel, where he sees his ex-lover, Jenny. They sing the "Zuhälterballade" ("Pimp's Ballad", one of the Villon songs translated by Ammer) about their days together, but Macheath doesn't know Mrs Peachum has bribed Jenny to turn him in. Despite Brown's apologies, there's nothing he can do, and Macheath is dragged away to jail. After he sings the "Ballade vom angenehmen Leben" ("Ballad of the Pleasant Life"), another Villon/Ammer song, another girlfriend, Lucy (Brown's daughter) and Polly show up at the same time, setting the stage for a nasty argument that builds to the "Eifersuchtsduett" ("Jealousy Duet"). After Polly leaves, Lucy engineers Macheath's escape. When Mr Peachum finds out, he confronts Brown and threatens him, telling him that he will unleash all of his beggars during Queen Victoria's coronation parade, ruining the ceremony and costing Brown his job.
Jenny comes to the Peachums' shop to demand her money for the betrayal of Macheath, which Mrs Peachum refuses to pay. Jenny reveals that Macheath is at Suky Tawdry's house. When Brown arrives, determined to arrest Peachum and the beggars, he is horrified to learn that the beggars are already in position and only Mr Peachum can stop them. To placate Peachum, Brown's only option is to arrest Macheath and have him executed. In the next scene, Macheath is back in jail and desperately trying to raise a sufficient bribe to get out again, even as the gallows are being assembled.
Soon it becomes clear that neither Polly nor the gang members can, or are willing to, raise any money, and Macheath prepares to die. He laments his fate and poses the 'Marxist' questions: "What's picking a lock compared to buying shares? What's breaking into a bank compared to founding one? What's murdering a man compared to employing one?" (These questions did not appear in the original version of the work, but first appeared in the musical "Happy End", another Brecht/Weill/Hauptmann collaboration, in 1929 – they may in fact have been written not by Brecht, but by Hauptmann).
Macheath asks everyone for forgiveness ("Grave Inscription"). Then a sudden and intentionally comical reversal: Peachum announces that in this opera mercy will prevail over justice and that a messenger on horseback will arrive ("Walk to Gallows"); Brown arrives as that messenger and announces that Macheath has been pardoned by the queen and granted a title, a castle and a pension. The cast then sings the Finale, which ends with a plea that wrongdoing not be punished too harshly as life is harsh enough.
1. Ouverture
2. Die Moritat von Mackie Messer ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife" – Street singer)
3. Morgenchoral des Peachum (Peachum's Morning Choral – Peachum, Mrs Peachum)
4. Anstatt dass-Song (Instead of Song – Peachum, Mrs Peachum)
5. Hochzeits-Lied (Wedding Song – Four Gangsters)
6. Seeräuberjenny (Pirate Jenny – Polly)
7. Kanonen-Song (Cannon Song – Macheath, Brown)
8. Liebeslied (Love Song – Polly, Macheath)
9. Barbarasong (Barbara Song – Polly)
10. I. Dreigroschenfinale (First Threepenny Finale – Polly, Peachum, Mrs Peachum)
11. Melodram (Melodrama – Macheath)
11a. Polly's Lied (Polly's Song – Polly)
12. Ballade von der sexuellen Hörigkeit (Ballad of Sexual Dependency – Mrs Peachum)
13. Zuhälterballade (Pimp's Ballad or Tango Ballad – Jenny, Macheath)
14. Ballade vom angenehmen Leben (Ballad of the Pleasant Life – Macheath)
15. Eifersuchtsduett (Jealousy Duet – Lucy, Polly)
15b. Arie der Lucy (Aria of Lucy – Lucy)
16. II. Dreigroschenfinale (Second Threepenny Finale – Macheath, Mrs Peachum, Chorus)
17. Lied von der Unzulänglichkeit menschlichen Strebens (Song of the Insufficiency of Human Struggling – Peachum)
17a. Reminiszenz (Reminiscence)
18. Salomonsong (Solomon Song – Jenny)
19. Ruf aus der Gruft (Call from the Grave – Macheath)
20. Grabschrift (Grave Inscription – Macheath)
20a. Gang zum Galgen (Walk to Gallows – Peachum)
21. III. Dreigroschenfinale (Third Threepenny Finale – Brown, Mrs Peachum, Peachum, Macheath, Polly, Chorus)
The ambivalent nature of "The Threepenny Opera", derived from an 18th-century ballad opera but conceived in terms of 20th-century musical theatre, has led to discussion as how it can best be characterised. According to critic and musicologist Hans Keller, the work is "the weightiest possible lowbrow opera for highbrows and the most full-blooded highbrow musical for lowbrows".
The Weill authority Stephen Hinton notes that "generic ambiguity is a key to the work’s enduring success", and points out the work's deliberate hybrid status: For Weill ["The Threepenny Opera"] was not just ‘the most consistent reaction to [Richard] Wagner’; it also marked a positive step towards an operatic reform. By explicitly and implicitly shunning the more earnest traditions of the opera house, Weill created a mixed form which incorporated spoken theatre and popular musical idioms. Parody of operatic convention – of Romantic lyricism and happy endings – constitutes a central device.
The work's opening and closing lament, "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", was written just before the Berlin premiere, when actor Harald Paulsen (Macheath) threatened to quit if his character did not receive an introduction; this creative emergency resulted in what would become the work's most popular song, later translated into English by Marc Blitzstein as "Mack the Knife" and now a jazz standard that Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, Robbie Williams, Ray Quinn, and countless others have covered. In 2015 the Library of Congress added "Mack the Knife" by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin to the National Recording Registry.
"Pirate Jenny" is another well-known song from the work, which has since been recorded by Nina Simone, Judy Collins, Tania Tsanaklidou, and Marc Almond, among others. In addition, Steeleye Span recorded it under the alternate title "The Black Freighter". Recently, the drag queen Sasha Velour has made an adaptation by the same name for an installment of One Dollar Drags, an anthology of short films.
Under the title "What Keeps Mankind Alive?", this number has been recorded by the Pet Shop Boys on the B-side of their 1993 single "Can You Forgive Her?", and on two albums. Tom Waits covered it on two albums, and William S. Burroughs performed it in a 1994 documentary.
After World War II the first theater performance in Berlin was a rough production of "The Threepenny Opera" at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. Wolf Von Eckardt described the 1945 performance where audience members climbed over ruins and passed through a tunnel to reach the open-air auditorium deprived of its ceiling. In addition to the smell of dead bodies trapped beneath the rubble, Eckardt recollects the actors themselves were "haggard, starved, [and] in genuine rags. Many of the actors … had only just been released from concentration camp. They sang not well, but free."
The Pabst film "The Threepenny Opera" was shown in its French version in 1931. In 1937 there was a production by Aufricht at the Théâtre de l'Étoile which failed, even though Brecht himself had attended rehearsals. The work was not revived in France until after World War II.
In London, West End and Off-West End revivals include:
In 2014, the Robert David MacDonald and Jeremy Sams translation (previously used in 1994 at the Donmar Warehouse) toured the UK, presented by the Graeae Theatre Company with Nottingham Playhouse, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse.
In 1946, four performances of the work were given at the University of Illinois in Urbana, and Northwestern University gave six performances in 1948 in Evanston, Illinois. In 1952, Leonard Bernstein conducted a concert performance of the work at the Brandeis University Creative Arts Festival in the Adolph Ullman Amphitheatre, Waltham, Massachusetts, to an audience of nearly 5,000. Marc Blitzstein, who translated the work, narrated.
At least five Broadway and Off-Broadway revivals have been mounted in New York City.
Regional productions include one at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Massachusetts, in June and July 2003. Directed by Peter Hunt, the musical starred Jesse L. Martin as Mack, Melissa Errico as Polly, David Schramm as Peachum, Karen Ziemba as Lucy Brown and Betty Buckley as Jenny. The production received favorable reviews.
German director G. W. Pabst made a 1931 German- and French-language version simultaneously, a common practice in the early days of sound films.
Another version was directed by Wolfgang Staudte in West Germany in 1962, starring Curd Jürgens, Gert Fröbe, and Hildegard Knef. Scenes with Sammy Davis Jr. were added for its American release.
In 1989 an American version (renamed "Mack the Knife") was released, directed by Menahem Golan, with Raul Julia as Macheath, Richard Harris as Peachum, Julie Walters as Mrs Peachum, Bill Nighy as Tiger Brown, Julia Migenes as Jenny, and Roger Daltrey as the Street Singer.
In 2009, BBC Radio 3 in collaboration with the BBC Philharmonic broadcast a complete radio production of the Michael Feingold translation directed by Nadia Molinari with the music performed by the BBC Philharmonic. The cast included Joseph Millson as Macheath, Elen Rhys as Polly/Whore, Ruth Alexander-Rubin as Mrs Peachum/Whore, Zubin Varla as Mr. Peachum/Rev. Kimball, Rosalie Craig as Lucy/Whore, Ute Gfrerer as Jenny, Conrad Nelson as Tiger Brown and HK Gruber as the Ballad Singer.
Recordings are in German, unless otherwise specified. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30277 |
Terence Hill
Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti; 29 March 1939) is an Italian actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer.
Hill started his career as a child actor and gained international fame for starring roles in action and comedy films, many with longtime film partner and friend Bud Spencer. During the height of his popularity Hill was among Italy's highest-paid actors. Hill's most widely seen films include comic and standard "Westerns all´Italiana" ("Italian-style Westerns", colloquially called "Spaghetti Westerns"), some based on popular novels by German author Karl May about the American frontier.
Of these, the most famous are "Lo chiamavano Trinità" ("They Call Me Trinity", 1970) and "Il mio nome è Nessuno" ("My Name Is Nobody", 1973), co-starring Henry Fonda. His film "Django, Prepare a Coffin", shot in 1968 by director Ferdinando Baldi, and co-starring Horst Frank and George Eastman, was featured at the 64th Venice Film Festival in 2007.
Hill, whose stage name was the product of a publicity stunt by film producers, also went on to a successful television career in Italy.
He holds dual Italian and American citizenship.
Hill was born on 29 March 1939 in Venice, Italy. Hill's mother, Hildegard Girotti (née Thieme), was a German, from Dresden; his father, Girolamo Girotti, was Italian, and a chemist by occupation.
During his childhood, Hill lived in the small town of Lommatzsch, Saxony. He was there through the end of World War II (1943–1945) and survived the Bombing of Dresden.
He was discovered by Italian filmmaker Dino Risi at a swimming meet at the age of 12, and became a child actor, appearing in Risi's "Il viale della speranza" (1953), billed as "Girolamo Girotti". He would act as "Mario Girotti". "They were looking for a boy gang leader and they found me," he later said.
He had small roles in "Voice of Silence" (1953) with Jean Marais, "Too Young for Love" (1953), and "It Happened in the Park" (1953), and had a particularly good part in "Vacation with a Gangster" (1953) with an imported star, Marc Lawrence.
He was in "La vena d'oro" (1954) with Marta Toren and Richard Basehart, "The Abandoned" (1955) and "Folgore Division" (1955).
Girotti had his first lead in "Guaglione" (1956). He could also be seen in "Mamma sconosciuta" (1956), "I vagabondi delle stelle" (1956), "La grande strada azzurra" (1956) with Yves Montand and Alida Valli, and "Lazzarella" (1957).
Girotti did "Anna of Brooklyn" (1958) with Gina Lollobrigida, "The Sword and the Cross" (1958) with Yvonne de Carlo (playing Lazarus of Bethany), and a TV version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1958).
He had support parts in "Il padrone delle ferriere" (1959) with Virna Lisi, "Juke box - Urli d'amore" (1959), and "Hannibal" (1959) with Victor Mature and Carlo Pedersoli, who would later become known as Bud Spencer. Girotti had the lead roles in "Spavaldi e innamorati" (1959) and "Cerasella" (1959), a teen comedy.
It was back to support roles with "Carthage in Flames" (1960), "Un militare e mezzo" (1960), and "The Story of Joseph and His Brethren" (1961) with Geoffrey Horne and Robert Morley, directed by Irving Rapper.
Girotti had support parts in "The Wonders of Aladdin" (1961) with Donald O'Connor and directed by Henry Levin and Mario Bava, "Pecado de amor" (1961), "Seven Seas to Calais" (1962) with Rod Taylor, and "The Shortest Day" (1963).
Girotti secured a substantial supporting role in Luchino Visconti's film epic "The Leopard" (1963) alongside Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon, in which he unsuccessfully tries to court the daughter of Lancaster's character. During this time he studied classical literature for three years at an Italian university.
In 1964, he returned to Germany and there appeared in a series of Heimatfilme, adventure and western films, based on novels by German author Karl May. These included "Last of the Renegades" (1964) with Lex Barker; three films with Stewart Granger, "Amongst Vultures" (1964), "The Oil Prince" (1965) and "Old Surehand" (1965); "Shots in 3/4 Time" (1965); "Duel at Sundown" (1965) with Peter Van Eyck; "Call of the Forest" (1965), an Austrian movie; "Die Nibelungen, Teil 1 - Siegfried" (1965) and "Die Nibelungen, Teil 2 - Kriemhilds Rache" (1967).
In 1967, he returned to Italy to make "Io non protesto, io amo" (1967), co starring Caterina Caselli.
Girotti then appeared alongside Bud Spencer (then known as Carlo Pedersoli) in Giuseppe Colizzi's Spaghetti Western "God Forgives... I Don't!" (1967). At the time cast and crew in Westerns frequently adopted American names to give the film a better chance of selling in English speaking countries; Girotti changed his to "Terence Hill". He took "Hill" from his wife's mother's name and "Terence" from a book on Roman poets. The film was a huge hit - the most popular film of the year in Italy - and established him as a star.
Hill followed it with a musicarello, "The Crazy Kids of the War" (1967), then did a Western, "Django, Prepare a Coffin" (1968) for director Ferdinando Baldi, a sequel to "Django" (1966) with Hill playing the role done by Franco Nero in the original; it co-starred Horst Frank and George Eastman (and would be featured, much later, at the 64th Venice Film Festival, in 2007).
Hill was a leading man in a musical Western "Crazy Westerners" (1968), then was reunited with Spencer in "Ace High" (1968), a sequel to "God Forgives" with a cast including several American actors such as Eli Wallach. Hill did "The Tough and the Mighty" (1968), a biopic of Graziano Mesina, then a second sequel to "God Forgives", "Boot Hill" (1969), co starring Spencer and Woody Strode.
Hill did "The Wind's Fierce" (1970) then had a huge hit with Spencer with the comedy Western "They Call Me Trinity" (1971). Hill did a swashbuckler, "Blackie the Pirate" (1971), in which Spencer had a small role; they reteamed properly for a "Trinity" sequel, "Trinity Is Still My Name" (1972). It was even more popular than the original and had a successful release in the USA.
Hill did a modern-day crime drama "The Hassled Hooker" (1972) and a comedy Western without Spencer, "Man of the East" (1972). He and Spencer did "... All the Way, Boys!" (1972), their first non-Western though it was still a comic adventure film.
Hill has stated in interviews that "My Name Is Nobody" (1973), in which he co-starred with Henry Fonda, is his personal favorite of all his films. The film was based on an idea for Sergio Leone.
Hill and Spencer appeared in "Watch Out, We're Mad" (1974) and "Two Missionaries" (1974) then without him he made the spaghetti Western "A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe" (1975). He moved from Italy to live in the US and settled in the Berkeshires.
Dino De Laurentiis cast Hill in his first American film, "Mr. Billion" (1977), directed by Jonathan Kaplan for 20th Century Fox co starring Valerie Perrine and Jackie Gleason. It was a box office flop.
Hill returned to Italy for "Crime Busters" (1977) with Spencer, then he made another English language movie, "March or Die" (1977), an $8 million French Foreign Legion tale for Lew Grade, co starring Gene Hackman and Catherine Deneuve. It was a box office disappointment.
Despite being fluent in Italian and English, Hill was usually dubbed by other actors in both languages. In the Italian versions of his films, his voice was provided by a variety of actors until the late 1960s, where he was primarily dubbed by Sergio Graziani; from 1970 to 1983, Hill was voiced by Pino Locchi, and by Michele Gammino from 1983 to 1996. For English dubs, Hill was dubbed by Lloyd Battista in six films, including the "Cat Stevens and Hutch Bessy" trilogy, while Roger Browne dubbed him in most of his early 1970s films ("They Call Me Trinity" to "A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe"); from "Mr. Billion" onward, Hill dubbed his own English voice.
Hill and Spencer starred in "Odds and Evens" (1978), "I'm for the Hippopotamus" (1979), "Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure" (1981), and "Go for It" (1983). Without Spencer, Hill made "Org" (1979), which he also produced, and "Super Fuzz" (1980).
Hill did "The World of Don Camillo" (1984), which he also produced and directed. He teamed with Spencer for "Double Trouble" (1984), and "Miami Supercops" (1985), then did "They Call Me Renegade" (1987), based on a story by Hill.
Hill turned director for "Lucky Luke" (1991) in which he starred and was shot in the USA; it led to a TV series of the same name.
He reunited with Spencer one last time for "Troublemakers" (1994) which Hill also directed. He did "Virtual Weapon" (1997) with Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
In 2000, he landed the leading role in the Italian television series "Don Matteo" (2000–2019), about an inspirational parish priest who assists the Carabinieri in solving crimes local to his community. This role earned Hill an international "Outstanding Actor of the Year" award at the 42nd Monte Carlo Television Festival, alongside ones for the series, and for producer Alessandro Jacchia at that festival.
During the series' run he appeared in TV movies "L'uomo che sognava con le aquile" (2009), "Riding the Dark" (2009), "Doc West" (2009), and "Triggerman" (2009); he co-directed the last two.
In the summer of 2010, Hill filmed another Italian television series for the Italian state television channel Rai Uno, this time entitled "Un passo dal cielo" ("One Step from Heaven"), playing a local chief of the state foresters in the region of Alto Adige, with a second season filmed in 2012.
On 19 April 2018 he directed "My Name Is Thomas", which he also appeared in. The same year, the co-op beat 'em up videogame "" was released.
Hill is married to Lori Hill (née Zwicklbauer). He has two sons, Jess (born 1969) and Ross (born 1973 died 1990). Ross was killed in a car accident in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in the winter of 1990, while Terence was preparing to film "Lucky Luke" (1991) on the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30278 |
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in "The Strand Magazine" from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson investigate the case. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in "The Final Problem", and the success of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" led to the character's eventual revival.
One of the most famous stories ever written, in 2003, the book was listed as number 128 of 200 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel". In 1999, it was listed as the top Holmes novel, with a perfect rating from Sherlockian scholars of 100.
Dr James Mortimer asks Sherlock Holmes for advice after his friend Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in the park surrounding his manor, in the moors of Devon. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but according to Mortimer, Sir Charles's face retained an expression of horror. Not only that but not far from the corpse the footprints of a gigantic hound were clearly visible. According to an old legend, a curse runs in the Baskerville family since the time of the English Civil War, when a Sir Hugo Baskerville was killed by a huge demonic hound. Allegedly, the same creature has been haunting the mires of Dartmoor ever since, causing the premature death of many Baskerville heirs. Sir Charles believed in the plague of the hound and Mortimer now fears for the next in line, Sir Henry Baskerville.
Even though he dismisses the whole curse story as nonsense, Holmes agrees to meet Sir Henry in London as soon as Sir Henry arrives from Canada, where his branch of the family had moved in the past. He is a young and jovial good-looking fellow, sceptical toward the grim legend and eager to take possession of Baskerville Hall, even though he has just received an anonymous note in the mail, warning him to stay away from the moor. When someone tries to follow Sir Henry while he is walking down a street, however, Holmes asks Watson to go with the young man and Mortimer to Dartmoor, in order to protect Sir Henry and search for any clue about who is menacing his life.
The trio arrives at Baskerville Hall, an old and imposing manor in the middle of a vast park, managed by a butler and his wife the housekeeper. The estate is surrounded by the moor and borders the Grimpen Mire, where animals and humans can sink to death in quicksand. The news that a convict named Selden has escaped from the local prison and is hiding in the nearby hills adds to the barren landscape and the gloomy atmosphere.
There are inexplicable events during the first night, keeping the guests awake, and only in the daylight can Watson and Sir Henry relax while exploring the neighbourhood and meeting the scarce but peculiar residents of Dartmoor. Watson keeps on searching for any lead to the identity of whoever is threatening Sir Henry's life, and faithfully telegraphs the details of his investigation to Holmes. Among the residents, the Stapletons, brother and sister, stand out: Jack is over friendly and a bit too curious toward the newly arrived, while Beryl, a rare beauty, seems all too weary of the place.
Distant howls and strange sightings trouble Watson during his long walks on the hills, and his mood gets no better even inside Baskerville Hall. Watson grows suspicious of the butler, Barrymore, who at night was signalling from a window of the house with a candle to someone on the moor. Meanwhile, Sir Henry is drawn to Beryl, who seems to be afraid of her brother's opinion on the matter. To make the puzzle more complex there are an old and grumpy neighbour, who likes to pry with his telescope into other people's houses; his daughter Laura, who had unclear ties to Sir Charles; and even a man roaming free in the hills and apparently hiding on a tor where there are ancient tombs.
Watson investigates the man on the tor, and discovers that Sherlock Holmes has been hiding on the moor all the time and is close to solving the mystery. He reveals that the hound is real and belongs to Stapleton, who seduced Laura and convinced her to lure Sir Charles out of his house by night, in order to frighten him with the apparition of the legendary hound. Beryl is indeed Jack's legitimate wife, abused and forced into posing as his sister to seduce Sir Henry and expose him also to the fangs of the hound. Meanwhile, the hound attempts to kill Sir Henry, but Barrymore had given the former's clothes to Selden, his brother-in-law, who dies in his place.
Unfortunately the collected evidence is not enough for a jury to condemn Stapleton, so Holmes decides to use young Baskerville as a bait to catch the criminal red-handed. Sir Henry will accept an invitation to Stapleton's house and will walk back after dark, giving his enemy every chance to unleash the hound on him. Holmes and Watson pretend to leave Dartmoor by train, but instead they hide near Stapleton's house with Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Despite the dark and a thick fog, Holmes and Watson are able to kill the fearsome beast as soon as it attacks the designated victim, while Stapleton, in his panicked flight from the scene, drowns in the mire.
Later Holmes explains to Watson that Stapleton's real name was Roger Baskerville Jr and outlines his criminal career: after marrying Beryl Garcia, Stapleton embezzled public money and was forced to flee Central America to England under an alias; he used the money to open a Public school in Yorkshire. Unfortunately for Stapleton, the teacher he had hired to make the school a success died of consumption as did three of his students; Stapleton was forced to close the school down and fled to his ancestral home where he engaged in a public life of a professional entomologist; Holmes cannot prove it but believes Stapleton supplemented his waning resources by engaging in four unsolved burglaries and one murder during his 4 year residence in the West Country. When he realized that one life was between him and a fortune, he brought about his Uncle's death. Only then did he discover the existence of Sir Henry Baskerville and nearly brought about his cousin's death as well.
Holmes remarks that not only was Stapleton a physical and spiritual throwback to Sir Hugo Baskerville, but also that for years he was a dangerous and desperate man and one of the most formidable foes Holmes had ever encountered.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this story shortly after returning to his home Undershaw from South Africa, where he had worked as a volunteer physician at the Langman Field Hospital in Bloemfontein during the Second Boer War. He had not written about Sherlock Holmes in eight years, having killed off the character in the 1893 story "The Final Problem". Although "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is set before the latter events, two years later Conan Doyle brought Holmes back for good, explaining in "The Adventure of the Empty House" that Holmes had faked his own death.
He was assisted with the plot by a 30-year-old "Daily Express" journalist named Bertram Fletcher Robinson (1870–1907).
His ideas came from the legend of Squire Richard Cabell of Brook Hall, in the parish of Buckfastleigh, Devon, which was the fundamental inspiration for the Baskerville tale of a hellish hound and a cursed country squire. Cabell's tomb survives in the village of Buckfastleigh.
Cabell lived for hunting, and was what in those days was described as a "monstrously evil man". He gained this reputation, amongst other things, for immorality and having sold his soul to the Devil. There was also a rumour that he had murdered his wife, Elizabeth Fowell, a daughter of Sir Edmund Fowell, 1st Baronet (1593–1674), of Fowelscombe. On 5 July 1677, he died and was buried in the sepulchre. The night of his interment saw a phantom pack of hounds come baying across the moor to howl at his tomb. From that night on, he could be found leading the phantom pack across the moor, usually on the anniversary of his death. If the pack were not out hunting, they could be found ranging around his grave howling and shrieking. To try to lay the soul to rest, the villagers built a large building around the tomb, and to be doubly sure a huge slab was placed.
Moreover, Devon's folklore includes tales of a fearsome supernatural dog known as the Yeth hound that Conan Doyle may have heard.
Weller (2002) believes that Baskerville Hall is based on one of three possible houses on or near Dartmoor: Fowelscombe in the parish of Ugborough, the seat of the Fowell Baronets; Hayford Hall, near Buckfastleigh (also owned by John King (d.1861) of Fowelscombe) and Brook Hall, in the parish of Buckfastleigh, about two miles east of Hayford, the actual home of Richard Cabell. It has also been claimed that Baskerville Hall is based on a property in Mid Wales, built in 1839 by one Thomas Mynors Baskerville. The house was formerly named Clyro Court and was renamed Baskerville Hall towards the end of the last century. Arthur Conan Doyle was apparently a family friend who often stayed there and may have been aware of a local legend of the hound of the Baskervilles.
Still other tales claim that Conan Doyle was inspired by a holiday in North Norfolk, where the tale of Black Shuck is well known. The pre-Gothic Cromer Hall, where Conan Doyle stayed, also closely resembles Doyle's vivid descriptions of Baskerville Hall.
James Lynam Molloy, a friend of Doyle's, and author of 'Love's Old Sweet Song', married Florence Baskerville, daughter of Henry Baskerville of Crowsley Park, Oxfordshire. The gates to the park had statues of hell hounds, spears through their mouths. Above the lintel there was another statue of a hell hound.
The Baskerville Curse in the story describes that a Sir Hugo Baskerville abducted a farm girl in the mires of Dartmoor, only for the farm girl to escape. Baskerville chased her across the moor and three of Baskerville's companions followed him only to find Hugo and the farm girl dead. She had died from fear and exhaustion, and Hugo had been killed by a giant spectral hound that stood over his body.
In 1902, Doyle's original manuscript of the book was broken up into individual leaves as part of a promotional campaign by Doyle's American publisher – they were used in window displays by individual booksellers. Out of an estimated 185-190 leaves, only 36 are known still to exist, including all the leaves from Chapter 11, held by the New York Public Library. Other leaves are owned by university libraries and private collectors. A newly rediscovered example was sold at auction in 2012 for US$158,500.
The novel uses many traditional novelistic techniques which had been largely abandoned by the time of writing, such as letters, diary extracts, interpolated manuscripts, and the like as seen in the works of Henry Fielding and, later, Wilkie Collins. It incorporates five plots: the ostensible 'curse' story, the two red-herring subplots concerning Selden and the other stranger living on the moor, the actual events occurring to Baskerville as narrated by Watson, and the hidden plot to be discovered by Holmes. Doyle wrote that the novel was originally conceived as a straight 'Victorian creeper' (as seen in the works of J. Sheridan Le Fanu), with the idea of introducing Holmes as the "deus ex machina" only arising later.
The "Hound of the Baskervilles" was first serialized in "The Strand Magazine" in 1901. It was well-suited for this type of publication, as individual chapters end in cliffhangers. It was printed in the form of a novel the following year.
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" has been adapted for many media.
Over 20 film and television versions of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" have been made.
Edith Meiser adapted the novel as six episodes of the radio series "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". The episodes aired in February and March 1932, with Richard Gordon as Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Dr. Watson. Another dramatisation of the story aired in November and December 1936, with Gordon as Holmes and Harry West as Watson.
The story was also adapted by Meiser as six episodes of "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. The episodes aired in January and February 1941.
A dramatisation of the novel by Felix Felton aired on the BBC Light Programme in 1958, with Carleton Hobbs as Sherlock Holmes and Norman Shelley as Dr. Watson. A different production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", also adapted by Felton and starring Hobbs and Shelley with a different supporting cast, aired in 1961 on the BBC Home Service.
The novel was adapted as an episode of "CBS Radio Mystery Theater". The episode, which aired in 1977, starred Kevin McCarthy as Holmes and Lloyd Battista as Watson.
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" has been adapted for radio for the BBC by Bert Coules on two occasions. The first starred Roger Rees as Holmes and Crawford Logan as Watson and was broadcast in 1988 on BBC Radio 4. Following its good reception, Coules proposed further radio adaptations, which eventually led to the dramatisation of the entire canon for radio, starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. The second adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", featuring this pairing, was broadcast in 1998, and also featured Judi Dench as Mrs Hudson and Donald Sinden as Sir Charles Baskerville.
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" was adapted as three episodes of the "Imagination Theatre" radio series "The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", with John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson. The episodes first aired in March 2008.
In 2011, Big Finish Productions released their adaptation of the book as part of their second series of Holmes dramas. Holmes was played by Nicholas Briggs, and Watson was played by Richard Earl.
In 2014, L.A. Theatre Works released their production, starring Seamus Dever as Holmes, Geoffrey Arend as Watson, James Marsters as Sir Henry, Sarah Drew as Beryl Stapleton, Wilson Bethel as Stapleton, Henri Lubatti as Dr Mortimer, Christopher Neame as Sir Charles and Frankland, Moira Quirk as Mrs Hudson & Mrs Barrymore, and Darren Richardson as Barrymore.
In 2007, Peepolykus Theatre Company premiered a new adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Adapted by John Nicholson and Steven Canny, the production involves only three actors and was praised by critics for its physical comedy. Following a UK tour, it transferred to the Duchess Theatre in London's West End. "The Daily Telegraph" described it as a 'wonderfully delightful spoof', whilst "The Sunday Times" praised its 'mad hilarity that will make you feel quite sane'. This adaptation continues to be presented by both amateur and professional companies around the world.
Ken Ludwig authored an adaptation entitled "" which premiered as a co-production at Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.) in January 2015 and McCarter Theatre Center in March 2015.
"The Hound of Baskervilles" serves as the primary inspiration for the final case in "" in which the protagonist teams up with Sherlock Holmes to investigate mysteries based on various entries in the Holmes chronology.
"Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles" is a casual game by Frogwares. It departs from the original plot by introducing clear supernatural elements. Despite its non-canonical plot, it received good reviews.
On November 5, 2019, the "BBC News" listed "The Hound of the Baskervilles" on its list of the 100 most influential novels. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30280 |
Tien Gow
Tien Gow or Tin Kau () is the name of Chinese gambling games played with either a pair of dice or a set of 32 Chinese dominoes. In these games, Heaven is the top rank of the civil suit, while Nine is the top rank of the military suit. The civil suit was originally called the Chinese (華) suit while the military was called the Barbarian (夷) suit (see Hua–Yi distinction) but this was changed during the Qing dynasty to avoid offending the ruling Manchus. The highly idiosyncratic and culture-specific suit-system of these games are likely the conceptual origin of suits found in playing cards. Play is counter-clockwise.
The ranks from highest to lowest are:
Throwing Heaven and Nine (掷天九), or "Kwat-P'ai" (骨牌) as reported by Ng Kwai-shang in 1886, is a game of chance where players try to beat each other with a higher combination from a pair of Chinese dice with red 1 and 4 pips. Of the 21 possible combinations, 11 are ranked in a "civil" suit and 10 are ranked in a "military" suit. After the wager is set, the banker throws the dice into a bowl which sets the suit. The banker automatically wins if he throws the highest rank (Heaven or Nine) but loses if he throws the lowest rank (Red Mallet Six or Final Three). For any other combination, the other players try to beat him by throwing a higher rank of the same suit. If they throw the wrong suit, then they get to throw again until they "follow suit". Those that throw lower than the banker will have to pay him. According to R.C. Bell, if there is a tie, no money is exchanged. The opponents keep throwing until one manages to beat the banker and gets paid by him. The player to the right of the banker becomes the next banker and starts the following round after new stakes are set.
In the domino games, there are two copies of each Civil tile. They have been available in playing card format since the beginning of the 17th century.
Turning Heaven and Nine (扭天九) is a simple two player trick-taking game of chance. The 32 dominoes are stacked in eight piles of four tiles each. The first player takes a domino from the top of a pile while the second player takes the one below it. The second player must draw a higher tile of the same suit or lose it to the first player. If she manages to do so, she will take both tiles and lead the next trick. Game continues until all tiles are exhausted. Players count the red pips in their captured tiles with the loser having to pay the difference to the winner.
Playing Heaven and Nine (打天九) is a multi-trick game for 4 players. All tiles are distributed by the banker so each player gets eight. The banker leads the first trick with a single, double, triple, or quadruple trick and the others must play out with an equal number of tiles. Players that are unable to beat the trick discard their tiles face down (this is characteristic of some trumpless trick-taking games like Madiao and Ganjifa). The winner leads the next trick. The player who takes the last trick or multi-trick becomes the next banker. Players who have not won any of the first seven tricks automatically lose the last trick regardless of the strength of their final tile.
In double tricks, there are two additional suits, mixed and supreme:
As the supreme suit consists of a single pair, it is unbeatable if led but considered a discard if not led.
In triple and quadruple tricks these are the only valid combinations: Heavens and Nines; Earths and Eights; Men and Sevens; Harmonies and Fives
Triple tricks have a rule that a triplet consisting of two civil and one military tiles can only be beaten by a triplet consisting of the same suit compositions. Likewise, a triplet consisting of two military and one civil tiles can only be beaten by the same.
There are complex rules to the game play and scoring. There is an accumulating multiplier to the winning and loss as the game proceeds. There are bonuses for winning the last trick with certain methods and for different types of slams. It can be adapted to be played with a standard 52-card deck.
The earliest surviving rules were written by Pan Zhiheng around 1610. In this version (鬥天九), triple and quadruple tricks were not allowed and Heavens can beat Nines and the Supreme pair. There were also versions for two or three players in which some of the tiles remain undistributed. His rules are more similar to the ones used in northern China during the early 20th century than the Cantonese rules that are dominant in the present. They are also very similar to another game simply called dominoes (骨牌) played in many parts of China.
Bagchen is a Tibetan variation played with a double set of dominoes.
In his article "Chinese Origin Of Playing Cards" published in 1895, Sir William Henry Wilkinson pointed out that the game of Tien Gow was invented long before Song dynasty, but was standardized in 1120:
[Quote from page 66. Note this publication predated the modern pinyin transliteration system]
It is perfectly clear, indeed, that all that was done or asked for in 1120 was an imperial decision as to which of several forms or interpretations of the game now known as T'ien-kiu ("Heavens and Nines") was to be considered orthodox. The game and the cards must have been in existence long before. The passage from the "Cheng-tzâ-t'ung" [《正字通》] runs thus (s.v. p'ai [牌]):
Also ya p'ai now the instruments of the game. A common legend states that in the second year of the Hsüan-ho [宣和二年], in the Sung dynasty [i.q. 1120 AD], a certain official memorialized the throne, praying that the ya p'ai (ivory cards [牙牌]) be fixed as a pack of 32, comprising 127 pips [sic, it should be 227, but Chinese printers are careless], in order to accord with the expanse of the stars and constellations. The combination 'heaven' [6/6, 6/6] consisted of two pieces, containing 24 pips, figures of the 24 solar periods; 'earth' [1/1, 1/1] also composed two pieces, but contained 4 pips, the 4 points of the compass - east, west, south, and north; 'man' [4/4, 4/4] two pieces, containing 16 pips, the virtues of humanity, benevolence, propriety, and wisdom, four-fold; 'harmony' [2/3, 1/3] two pieces of 8 pips, figuring the breath of harmony, which pervades the eight divisions of the year. The other combinations had each their names. There were four players having eight cards apiece for their hand, and the cards won or lost according as the number of the pips was less or in more the winner being rewarded with counters. In-the time of Kao-tsung [高宗 1127-1163] pattern packs were issued by imperial edict. They were known throughout the empire as Ku p'ai, 'bone p'ai;' [骨牌] but it does not follow that this class of games, po-sai [博塞], Ko-wu [格五], and the rest originated in the reign of Hsüan-ho.
Ming author Xie Zhaozhe (1567–1624) also records the legend of dominoes having been presented to Emperor Huizong but in the year 1112. The Ming sources may be off by half a century as Li Qingzhao (1084 – c. 1155) made no mention of dominoes in her compendium of games. The oldest confirmed written mention of dominoes in China comes from the "Former Events in Wulin" (i.e. the capital Hangzhou) as recorded by Zhou Mi (1232–1298), who listed dominoes as items sold by peddlers during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189).
The partition game of Pai Gow borrows most of its tile ranking from the pairings in Playing Heaven and Nine. However, the suits have been merged into a single sequence:
Below these are unlisted pairs that use modular arithmetic like in Tau Gnau or Baccarat. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30281 |
Time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value is equivalent to a beat.
In a music score, the time signature appears at the beginning as a time symbol or stacked numerals, such as or (read "common time" and "three-four time", respectively), immediately following the key signature (or immediately following the clef symbol if the key signature is empty). A mid-score time signature, usually immediately following a barline, indicates a change of meter.
There are various types of time signatures, depending on whether the music follows regular (or symmetrical) beat patterns, including simple (e.g., and ), and compound (e.g., and ); or involves shifting beat patterns, including complex (e.g., or ), mixed (e.g., & or & ), additive (e.g., ), fractional (e.g., ), and irrational meters (e.g., or ).
Simple time signatures consist of two numerals, one stacked above the other:
For instance, means two quarter-note (crotchet) beats per bar, while means three eighth-note (quaver) beats per bar. The most common simple time signatures are , , and .
By convention, two special symbols are sometimes used for and :
In compound meter, subdivisions (which are what the upper number represents in these meters) of the beat are in three equal parts, so that a dotted note (half again longer than a regular note) becomes the beat. The upper numeral of compound time signatures is commonly 6, 9, or 12 (multiples of 3 in each beat). The lower number is most commonly an 8 (an eighth-note or quaver): as in or .
In the examples below, bold denotes a more-stressed beat, and "italics" denotes a less-stressed beat.
"Simple": is a simple triple meter time signature that represents three quarter notes (crotchets). It is felt as
"Compound": In principle, comprises not three groups of two eighth notes (quavers) but two groups of three eighth-note (quaver) subdivisions. It is felt as
These examples assume, for simplicity, that continuous eighth notes are the prevailing note values. The rhythm of actual music is typically not as regular.
Time signatures indicating "two" beats per bar (whether in simple or compound meter) are called "duple meter", while those with "three" beats to the bar are "triple meter". Terms such as "quadruple" (4), "quintuple" (5), and so on, are also occasionally used.
To the ear, a bar may seem like one singular beat. For example, a fast waltz, notated in time, may be described as being "one in a bar". Correspondingly, at slow tempos, the beat indicated by the time signature could in actual performance be divided into smaller units.
On a formal mathematical level, the time signatures of, e.g., and are interchangeable. In a sense, "all" simple triple time signatures, such as , , , etc.—and all compound duple times, such as , and so on, are equivalent. A piece in can be easily rewritten in , simply by halving the length of the notes.
Other time signature rewritings are possible: most commonly a simple time signature with triplets translates into a compound meter.
Though formally interchangeable, for a composer or performing musician, by convention, different time signatures often have different connotations. First, a smaller note value in the beat unit implies a more complex notation, which can affect ease of performance. Second, beaming affects the choice of actual beat divisions. It is, for example, more natural to use the quarter note/crotchet as a beat unit in or than the eight/quaver in or . Third, time signatures are traditionally associated with different music styles—it might seem strange to notate a rock tune in or .
The table below shows the characteristics of the most frequently-used time signatures.
Signatures that do not fit the usual duple or triple categories are called "complex", "asymmetric", "irregular", "unusual", or "odd"—though these are broad terms, and usually a more specific description is appropriate. The term "odd meter", however, sometimes describes time signatures in which the upper number is simply odd rather than even, including and .
The irregular meters (not fitting duple or triple categories) are common in some non-Western music, but rarely appeared in formal written Western music until the 19th century. Early anomalous examples appeared in Spain between 1516 and 1520, but the Delphic Hymns to Apollo (one by Athenaeus is entirely in quintuple meter, the other by Limenius predominantly so), carved on the exterior walls of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi in 128 BC are in the relatively common cretic meter, with five beats to a foot.
The third movement of Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 1 (1828) is an early, but by no means the earliest, example of time in solo piano music. Anton Reicha's Fugue No. 20 from his "Thirty-six Fugues", published in 1803, is also for piano and is in . The waltz-like second movement of Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" Symphony (shown below), often described as a "limping waltz", is a notable example of time in orchestral music.
Examples from 20th-century classical music include:
In the Western popular music tradition, unusual time signatures occur as well, with progressive rock in particular making frequent use of them. The use of shifting meters in The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and the use of quintuple meter in their "Within You, Without You" are well-known examples, as is Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" (includes ).
Paul Desmond's jazz composition "Take Five", in time, was one of a number of irregular-meter compositions that The Dave Brubeck Quartet played. They played other compositions in ("Eleven Four"), ("Unsquare Dance"), and ("Blue Rondo à la Turk"), expressed as . This last is an example of a work in a signature that, despite appearing merely compound triple, is actually more complex. Brubeck's title refers to the characteristic "aksak" meter of the Turkish "karşılama" dance.
However, such time signatures are only unusual in most Western music. Traditional music of the Balkans uses such meters extensively. Bulgarian dances, for example, include forms with 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 22, 25 and other numbers of beats per measure. These rhythms are notated as "additive rhythms" based on simple units, usually 2, 3 and 4 beats, though the notation fails to describe the metric "time bending" taking place, or compound meters. See Additive meters below.
Some video samples are shown below.
While time signatures usually express a regular pattern of beat stresses continuing through a piece (or at least a section), sometimes composers place a different time signature at the beginning of each bar, resulting in music with an extremely irregular rhythmic feel. In this case, the time signatures are an aid to the performers and not "necessarily" an indication of meter. The Promenade from Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" (1874) is a good example. The opening measures are shown below:
Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" (1913) is famous for its "savage" rhythms. Five measures from "Sacrificial Dance" are shown below:
In such cases, a convention that some composers follow (e.g., Olivier Messiaen, in his "La Nativité du Seigneur" and "Quatuor pour la fin du temps") is to simply omit the time signature. Charles Ives's "Concord Sonata" has measure bars for select passages, but the majority of the work is unbarred.
Some pieces have no time signature, as there is no discernible meter. This is sometimes known as "free time". Sometimes one is provided (usually ) so that the performer finds the piece easier to read, and simply has "free time" written as a direction. Sometimes the word "FREE" is written downwards on the staff to indicate the piece is in free time. Erik Satie wrote many compositions that are ostensibly in free time but actually follow an unstated and unchanging simple time signature. Later composers used this device more effectively, writing music almost devoid of a discernibly regular pulse.
If two time signatures alternate repeatedly, sometimes the two signatures are placed together at the beginning of the piece or section, as shown below:
To indicate more complex patterns of stresses, such as additive rhythms, more complex time signatures can be used. Additive meters have a pattern of beats that subdivide into smaller, irregular groups. Such meters are sometimes called "imperfect", in contrast to "perfect meters", in which the bar is first divided into equal units.
For example, the time signature means that there are 8 quaver beats in the bar, divided as the first of a group of three eighth notes (quavers) that are stressed, then the first of a group of two, then first of a group of three again. The stress pattern is usually counted as
This kind of time signature is commonly used to notate folk and non-Western types of music. In classical music, Béla Bartók and Olivier Messiaen have used such time signatures in their works. The first movement of Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor is written in , in which the beats are likewise subdivided into to reflect Basque dance rhythms.
Romanian musicologist Constantin Brăiloiu had a special interest in compound time signatures, developed while studying the traditional music of certain regions in his country. While investigating the origins of such unusual meters, he learned that they were even more characteristic of the traditional music of neighboring peoples (e.g., the Bulgarians). He suggested that such timings can be regarded as compounds of simple two-beat and three-beat meters, where an accent falls on every first beat, even though, for example in Bulgarian music, beat lengths of 1, 2, 3, 4 are used in the metric description. In addition, when focused only on stressed beats, simple time signatures can count as beats in a slower, compound time. However, there are two different-length beats in this resulting compound time, a one half-again longer than the short beat (or conversely, the short beat is the value of the long). This type of meter is called "aksak" (the Turkish word for "limping"), "impeded", "jolting", or "shaking", and is described as an "irregular bichronic rhythm". A certain amount of confusion for Western musicians is inevitable, since a measure they would likely regard as , for example, is a three-beat measure in "aksak", with one long and two short beats (with subdivisions of , , or ).
Folk music may make use of metric time bends, so that the proportions of the performed metric beat time lengths differ from the exact proportions indicated by the metric. Depending on playing style of the same meter, the time bend can vary from non-existent to considerable; in the latter case, some musicologists may want to assign a different meter. For example, the Bulgarian tune "Eleno Mome" is written in one of three forms: (1) , (2) , or (3) , but an actual performance (e.g., Smithsonian Eleno Mome) may be closer to . The Macedonian meter is even more complicated, with heavier time bends, and use of quadruples on the threes. The metric beat time proportions may vary with the speed that the tune is played. The Swedish Boda Polska (Polska from the parish Boda) has a typical elongated second beat.
In Western classical music, metric time bend is used in the performance of the Viennese Waltz. Most Western music uses metric ratios of 2:1, 3:1, or 4:1 (two-, three- or four-beat time signatures)—in other words, integer ratios that make all beats equal in time length. So, relative to that, 3:2 and 4:3 ratios correspond to very distinctive metric rhythm profiles. Complex accentuation occurs in Western music, but as syncopation rather than as part of the metric accentuation.
Brăiloiu borrowed a term from Turkish medieval music theory: "aksak". Such compound time signatures fall under the "aksak rhythm" category that he introduced along with a couple more that should describe the rhythm figures in traditional music. The term Brăiloiu revived had moderate success worldwide, but in Eastern Europe it is still frequently used. However, aksak rhythm figures occur not only in a few European countries, but on all continents, featuring various combinations of the two and three sequences. The longest are in Bulgaria. The shortest aksak rhythm figures follow the five-beat timing, comprising a two and a three (or three and two).
Some video samples are shown below.
A method to create meters of lengths of any length has been published in the Journal of Anaphoria Music Theory and Xenharmonikon 16 using both those based on the Horograms of Erv Wilson and Viggo Brun's algorithm written by Kraig Grady.
Irrational time signatures (rarely, "non-dyadic time signatures") are used for so-called "irrational bar lengths", that have a denominator that is not a power of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.). These are based on beats expressed in terms of fractions of full beats in the prevailing tempo—for example or . For example, where implies a bar construction of four quarter-parts of a whole note (i.e., four quarter notes), implies a bar construction of four third-parts of it. These signatures are of utility only when juxtaposed with other signatures with varying denominators; a piece written entirely in , say, could be more legibly written out in .
According to Brian Ferneyhough, metric modulation is "a somewhat distant analogy" to his own use of "irrational time signatures" as a sort of rhythmic dissonance. It is arguable whether the use of these signatures makes metric relationships clearer or more obscure to the musician; it is always possible to write a passage using non-irrational signatures by specifying a relationship between some note length in the previous bar and some other in the succeeding one. Sometimes, successive metric relationships between bars are so convoluted that the pure use of irrational signatures would quickly render the notation extremely hard to penetrate. Good examples, written entirely in conventional signatures with the aid of between-bar specified metric relationships, occur a number of times in John Adams' opera "Nixon in China" (1987), where the sole use of irrational signatures would quickly produce massive numerators and denominators.
Historically, this device has been prefigured wherever composers wrote tuplets. For example, a bar of 3 triplet crotchets could arguably be written as a bar of . Henry Cowell's piano piece "Fabric" (1920) employs separate divisions of the bar (anything from 1 to 9) for the three contrapuntal parts, using a scheme of shaped noteheads to visually clarify the differences, but the pioneering of these signatures is largely due to Brian Ferneyhough, who says that he finds that "such 'irrational' measures serve as a useful buffer between local changes of event density and actual changes of base tempo". Thomas Adès has also used them extensively—for example in "Traced Overhead" (1996), the second movement of which contains, among more conventional meters, bars in such signatures as , and .
A gradual process of diffusion into less rarefied musical circles seems underway. For example, John Pickard's "Eden", commissioned for the 2005 finals of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain contains bars of and .
Notationally, rather than using Cowell's elaborate series of notehead shapes, the same convention has been invoked as when normal tuplets are written; for example, one beat in is written as a normal quarter note, four quarter notes complete the bar, but the whole bar lasts only of a reference whole note, and a beat of one (or of a normal quarter note). This is notated in exactly the same way that one would write if one were writing the first four quarter notes of five quintuplet quarter notes.
Some video samples are shown below.
These video samples show two time signatures combined to make a polymeter, since , say, in isolation, is identical to .
Some composers have used fractional beats: for example, the time signature appears in Carlos Chávez's Piano Sonata No. 3 (1928) IV, m. 1. Both and appear in the fifth movement of Percy Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy.
Music educator Carl Orff proposed replacing the lower number of the time signature with an actual note image, as shown at right. This system eliminates the need for compound time signatures, which are confusing to beginners. While this notation has not been adopted by music publishers generally (except in Orff's own compositions), it is used extensively in music education textbooks. Similarly, American composers George Crumb and Joseph Schwantner, among others, have used this system in many of their works.
Another possibility is to extend the barline where a time change is to take place above the top instrument's line in a score and to write the time signature there, and there only, saving the ink and effort that would have been spent writing it in each instrument's staff. Henryk Górecki's "Beatus Vir" is an example of this. Alternatively, music in a large score sometimes has time signatures written as very long, thin numbers covering the whole height of the score rather than replicating it on each staff; this is an aid to the conductor, who can see signature changes more easily.
In the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period in which mensural notation was used, four basic "mensuration signs" determined the proportion between the two main units of rhythm. There were no measure or bar lines in music of this period; these signs, the ancestors of modern time signatures, indicate the ratio of duration between different note values. The relation between the "breve" and the "semibreve" was called tempus, and the relation between the "semibreve" and the "minim" was called prolatio. The breve and the semibreve use roughly the same symbols as our modern double whole note (breve) and whole note (semibreve), but they were not limited to the same proportional values as are in use today. There are complicated rules concerning how a breve is sometimes three and sometimes two semibreves. Unlike modern notation, the duration ratios between these different values was not always 2:1; it could be either 2:1 or 3:1, and that is what, amongst other things, these mensuration signs indicated. A ratio of 3:1 was called "complete", perhaps a reference to the Trinity, and a ratio of 2:1 was called "incomplete".
A circle used as a mensuration sign indicated "tempus perfectum" (a circle being a symbol of completeness), while an incomplete circle, resembling a letter C, indicated "tempus imperfectum". Assuming the breve is a beat, this corresponds to the modern concepts of triple meter and duple meter, respectively. In either case, a dot in the center indicated "prolatio perfecta" (compound meter) while the absence of such a dot indicated "prolatio imperfecta" (simple meter).
A rough equivalence of these signs to modern meters would be:
N.B.: in modern compound meters the beat is a dotted note value, such as a dotted quarter, because the ratios of the modern note value hierarchy are always 2:1. Dotted notes were never used in this way in the mensural period; the main beat unit was always a simple (undotted) note value.
Another set of signs in mensural notation specified the metric proportions of one section to another, similar to a metric modulation. A few common signs are shown:
Often the ratio was expressed as two numbers, one above the other, looking similar to a modern time signature, though it could have values such as , which a conventional time signature could not.
Some proportional signs were not used consistently from one place or century to another. In addition, certain composers delighted in creating "puzzle" compositions that were intentionally difficult to decipher.
In particular, when the sign was encountered, the tactus (beat) changed from the usual whole note (semibreve) to the double whole note (breve), a circumstance called "alla breve". This term has been sustained to the present day, and though now it means the beat is a half note (minim), in contradiction to the literal meaning of the phrase, it still indicates that the beat has changed to a longer note value. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30282 |
Tristan Bernard
Tristan Bernard (7 September 1866 – 7 December 1947) was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer.
Born Paul Bernard into a Jewish family in Besançon, Doubs, Franche-Comté, France, he was the son of an architect. He left Besançon at the age of 14 years, relocating with his father to Paris, where he studied at the Lycée Condorcet, which was noted for its numerous literary alumni. In 1888 was born his son Jean-Jacques Bernard, also a dramatist.
He studied law, but after his military service he started his career as the manager of an aluminium smelter. In the 1890s he also managed the "Vélodrome de la Seine" at Levallois-Perret and the Vélodrome Buffalo, whose events were an integral part of Parisian life, being regularly attended by personalities such as Toulouse-Lautrec. He reputedly introduced the bell to signify the last lap of a race.
After his first publication in "La Revue Blanche" in 1891, he became increasingly a writer and adopted the pseudonym "Tristan". His first play, "Les Pieds Nickelés" ("Nickel-plated Feet"), was a great success and was representative of the style of his later work (generally humorous). He became known especially for his writing for vaudeville-type performances, which were very popular in France during that time. He also wrote several novels and some poetry. Bernard is remembered mainly for witticisms, particularly from his play "Les Jumeaux de Brighton" ("The Brighton Twins"). In 1932, he was a candidate for the Académie Française, but was not elected, receiving only 2 votes of a total of 39.
He was interned during World War II at the Drancy deportation camp. When Gestapo agents were at his door he turned to his wife, who was crying, and said "Don´t cry, we were living in fear, but from now on we will live in hope". Public protest of his imprisonment caused his release in 1943. He died in Paris four years later, allegedly of the results of his internment, and was buried in Passy cemetery.
A theater in Paris that he ran briefly as the "Théâtre Tristan-Bernard" in 1931 was later given the name permanently to honor him.
His descendants have achieved some fame. His son Raymond Bernard became an influential French filmmaker (using as scripts a number of works authored by his father) while his son Jean-Jacques Bernard published a memoir of his father in 1955 titled "Mon père Tristan Bernard" ("My Father, Tristan Bernard"). Tristan Bernard's grandson Christian Bernard is the current Imperator of the Rosicrucian organization AMORC. One of his grand-nephews is Francis Veber, a screenwriter, director and playwright whose films have been frequently remade or adapted in Hollywood. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30283 |
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes ( or ) is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including Scotland Yard.
First appearing in print in 1887's "A Study in Scarlet", the character's popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in "The Strand Magazine", beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia" in 1891; additional tales appeared from then until 1927, eventually totalling four novels and 56 short stories. All but one are set in the Victorian or Edwardian eras, between about 1880 and 1914. Most are narrated by the character of Holmes's friend and biographer Dr. John H. Watson, who usually accompanies Holmes during his investigations and often shares quarters with him at the address of 221B Baker Street, London, where many of the stories begin.
Though not the first fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes is arguably the best known. By the 1990s there were already over 25,000 stage adaptations, films, television productions and publications featuring the detective, and "Guinness World Records" lists him as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television history. Holmes's popularity and fame are such that many have believed him to be not a fictional character but a real individual; numerous literary and fan societies have been founded on this pretense. Avid readers of the Holmes stories helped create the modern practice of fandom. The character and stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture as a whole, with the original tales as well as thousands written by authors other than Conan Doyle being adapted into stage and radio plays, television, films, video games, and other media for over one hundred years.
Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin is generally acknowledged as the first detective in fiction and served as the prototype for many later characters, including Holmes. Conan Doyle once wrote, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?" Similarly, the stories of Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq were extremely popular at the time Conan Doyle began writing Holmes, and Holmes's speech and behaviour sometimes follow that of Lecoq. Holmes and Watson discuss Dupin and Lecoq near the beginning of "A Study in Scarlet".
Conan Doyle repeatedly said that Holmes was inspired by the real-life figure of Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, whom Conan Doyle met in 1877 and had worked for as a clerk. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing broad conclusions from minute observations. However, he later wrote to Conan Doyle: "You are yourself Sherlock Holmes and well you know it". Sir Henry Littlejohn, Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, is also cited as an inspiration for Holmes. Littlejohn, who was also Police Surgeon and Medical Officer of Health in Edinburgh, provided Conan Doyle with a link between medical investigation and the detection of crime.
Other possible inspirations have been proposed, though never acknowledged by Doyle, such as "Maximilien Heller", by French author Henry Cauvain. In this 1871 novel (sixteen years before the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes), Henry Cauvain imagined a depressed, anti-social, opium-smoking polymath detective, operating in Paris. It is not known if Conan Doyle read the novel, but he was fluent in French. Similarly, Michael Harrison suggested that a German self-styled "consulting detective" named Walter Scherer may have been the model for Holmes.
Details of Sherlock Holmes's life in Conan Doyle's stories are scarce and often vague. Nevertheless, mentions of his early life and extended family paint a loose biographical picture of the detective.
A statement of Holmes's age in "His Last Bow" places his year of birth at 1854; the story, set in August 1914, describes him as sixty years of age. His parents are not mentioned, although Holmes mentions that his "ancestors" were "country squires". In "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", he claims that his grandmother was sister to the French artist Vernet, without clarifying whether this was Claude Joseph, Carle, or Horace Vernet. Holmes's brother Mycroft, seven years his senior, is a government official. Mycroft has a unique civil service position as a kind of human database for all aspects of government policy. Sherlock describes his brother as the more intelligent of the two, but notes that Mycroft lacks any interest in physical investigation, preferring to spend his time at the Diogenes Club.
Holmes says that he first developed his methods of deduction as an undergraduate; his earliest cases, which he pursued as an amateur, came from fellow university students. A meeting with a classmate's father led him to adopt detection as a profession.
Financial difficulties lead Holmes and Dr. Watson to share rooms together at 221B Baker Street, London. Their residence is maintained by their landlady, Mrs. Hudson. Holmes works as a detective for twenty-three years, with Watson assisting him for seventeen of those years. Most of the stories are frame narratives written from Watson's point of view, as summaries of the detective's most interesting cases. Holmes frequently calls Watson's records of Holmes's cases sensational and populist, suggesting that they fail to accurately and objectively report the "science" of his craft:
Nevertheless, Holmes's friendship with Watson is his most significant relationship. When Watson is injured by a bullet, although the wound turns out to be "quite superficial", Watson is moved by Holmes's reaction:
Holmes's clients vary from the most powerful monarchs and governments of Europe, to wealthy aristocrats and industrialists, to impoverished pawnbrokers and governesses. He is known only in select professional circles at the beginning of the first story, but is already collaborating with Scotland Yard. However, his continued work and the publication of Watson's stories raises Holmes's profile, and he rapidly becomes well known as a detective; so many clients ask for his help instead of (or in addition to) that of the police that, Watson writes, by 1895 Holmes has "an immense practice". Police outside London ask Holmes for assistance if he is nearby. A Prime Minister and the King of Bohemia visit 221B Baker Street in person to request Holmes's assistance; the President of France awards him the Legion of Honour for capturing an assassin; the King of Scandinavia is a client; and he aids the Vatican at least twice. The detective acts on behalf of the British government in matters of national security several times, and declines a knighthood "for services which may perhaps some day be described". However, he does not actively seek fame and is usually content to let the police take public credit for his work.
The first set of Holmes stories was published between 1887 and 1893. Conan Doyle killed off Holmes in a final battle with the criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty in "The Final Problem" (published 1893, but set in 1891), as Conan Doyle felt that "my literary energies should not be directed too much into one channel." Legend has it that Londoners were so distraught upon hearing the news of Holmes's death that they wore black armbands in mourning, though there is no known contemporary source for this; the earliest known reference to such events comes from 1949. However, the recorded public reaction to Holmes's death was unlike anything previously seen for fictional events.
After resisting public pressure for eight years, Conan Doyle wrote "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (serialised in 1901–02, with an implicit setting before Holmes's death). In 1903, Conan Doyle wrote "The Adventure of the Empty House"; set in 1894, Holmes reappears, explaining to a stunned Watson that he had faked his death to fool his enemies. Following "The Adventure of the Empty House", Conan Doyle would sporadically write new Holmes stories until 1927. Holmes aficionados refer to the period from 1891 to 1894—between his disappearance and presumed death in "The Final Problem" and his reappearance in "The Adventure of the Empty House"—as the Great Hiatus. The earliest known use of this expression dates to 1946.
In "His Last Bow", the reader is told that Holmes has retired to a small farm on the Sussex Downs and taken up beekeeping as his primary occupation. The move is not dated precisely, but can be presumed to be no later than 1904 (since it is referred to retrospectively in "The Adventure of the Second Stain", first published that year). The story features Holmes and Watson coming out of retirement to aid the British war effort. Only one other adventure, "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", takes place during the detective's retirement.
Watson describes Holmes as "bohemian" in his habits and lifestyle. Said to have a "cat-like" love of personal cleanliness, at the same time Holmes is an eccentric with no regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order. Watson describes him as
While Holmes can be dispassionate and cold, during an investigation he is animated and excitable. He has a flair for showmanship, often keeping his methods and evidence hidden until the last possible moment so as to impress observers). His companion condones the detective's willingness to bend the truth (or break the law) on behalf of a client—lying to the police, concealing evidence or breaking into houses—when he feels it morally justifiable.
Except for that of Watson, Holmes avoids casual company. In "The "Gloria Scott"", he tells the doctor that during two years at college he made only one friend: "I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson ... I never mixed much with the men of my year".
The detective goes without food at times of intense intellectual activity, believing that "the faculties become refined when you starve them."
At times Holmes relaxes with music, either playing the violin, or enjoying the works of composers such as Wagner and Pablo de Sarasate.
Holmes occasionally uses addictive drugs, especially in the absence of stimulating cases. He sometimes used morphine and sometimes cocaine, the latter of which he injects in a seven-percent solution; both drugs were legal in 19th-century England. As a physician, Watson strongly disapproves of his friend's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's only vice, and concerned about its effect on Holmes's mental health and intellect. In "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter", Watson says that although he has "weaned" Holmes from drugs, the detective remains an addict whose habit is "not dead, but merely sleeping".
Watson and Holmes both use tobacco, smoking cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Although his chronicler does not consider Holmes's smoking a vice "per se", Watson—a physician—does criticise the detective for creating a "poisonous atmosphere" in their confined quarters.
Holmes is known to charge clients for his expenses and claim any reward offered for a problem's solution, such as in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", "The Red-Headed League", and "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet". The detective states at one point that "My professional charges are upon a fixed scale. I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether". In this context, a client is offering to double his fee, and it is implied that wealthy clients habitually pay Holmes more than his standard rate. In "The Adventure of the Priory School", Holmes earns a £6,000 fee (at a time where annual expenses for a rising young professional were in the area of £500). However, Watson notes that Holmes would refuse to help even the wealthy and powerful if their cases did not interest him.
As Conan Doyle wrote to Joseph Bell, "Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine and just about as likely to fall in love". Holmes says of himself that he is "not a whole-souled admirer of womankind", and that he finds "the motives of women ... inscrutable. ... How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial actions may mean volumes... In "The Sign of Four", he says, "Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them", a feeling Watson notes as an "atrocious sentiment". In "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", Holmes writes, "Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart". At the end of "The Sign of Four", Holmes states that "love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true, cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgement." Ultimately, Holmes claims outright that "I have never loved".
But while Watson says that the detective has an "aversion to women", he also notes Holmes as having "a peculiarly ingratiating way with [them]". Watson notes that their housekeeper Mrs. Hudson is fond of Holmes because of his "remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent". However, in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", the detective becomes engaged under false pretenses in order to obtain information about a case, abandoning the woman once he has the information he requires.
Irene Adler is a retired American opera singer and actress who appears in "A Scandal in Bohemia". Although this is her only appearance, she is one of only a handful of people who best Holmes in a battle of wits, and the only woman. For this reason, Adler is the frequent subject of pastiche writing. The beginning of the story describes the high regard in which Holmes holds her:
Five years before the story's events, Adler had a brief liaison with Crown Prince of Bohemia Wilhelm von Ormstein. As the story opens, the Prince is engaged to another. Fearful that the marriage would be called off if his fiancée's family learns of this past impropriety, Ormstein hires Holmes to regain a photograph of Adler and himself. Adler slips away before Holmes can succeed. Her memory is kept alive by the photograph of Adler that Holmes received for his part in the case.
Shortly after meeting Holmes in the first story, "A Study in Scarlet" (generally assumed to be 1881, though the exact date is not given), Watson assesses the detective's abilities:
Subsequent stories reveal that Watson's early assessment was incomplete in places and inaccurate in others, due to the passage of time if nothing else. Despite Holmes's supposed ignorance of politics, in "A Scandal in Bohemia" he immediately recognises the true identity of the disguised "Count von Kramm". At the end of "A Study in Scarlet", Holmes demonstrates a knowledge of Latin. The detective cites Hafez, Goethe, as well as a letter from Gustave Flaubert to George Sand in the original French. In "The Hound of the Baskervilles," the detective recognises works by Godfrey Kneller and Joshua Reynolds: "Watson won't allow that I know anything of art, but that is mere jealousy since our views upon the subject differ". In "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", Watson says that "Holmes lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus", considered "the last word" on the subject.
In "A Study in Scarlet", Holmes claims to be unaware that the earth revolves around the sun since such information is irrelevant to his work; after hearing that fact from Watson, he says he will immediately try to forget it. The detective believes that the mind has a finite capacity for information storage, and learning useless things reduces one's ability to learn useful things. The later stories move away from this notion: in "The Valley of Fear", he says, "All knowledge comes useful to the detective", and in "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane", the detective calls himself "an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles". Looking back on the development of the character in 1912, Conan Doyle wrote that "In the first one, the "Study in Scarlet", [Holmes] was a mere calculating machine, but I had to make him more of an educated human being as I went on with him."
Holmes is a cryptanalyst, telling Watson that "I am fairly familiar with all forms of secret writing, and am myself the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject, in which I analyse one hundred and sixty separate ciphers". Holmes also demonstrates a knowledge of psychology in "A Scandal in Bohemia", luring Irene Adler into betraying where she hid a photograph based on the premise that a woman will rush to save her most valued possession from a fire. Another example is in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", where Holmes obtains information from a salesman with a wager: "When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'Pink 'un' protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet ... I daresay that if I had put 100 pounds down in front of him, that man would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a wager".
Maria Konnikova points out in an interview with D. J. Grothe that Holmes practices what is now called mindfulness, concentrating on one thing at a time, and almost never "multitasks." She adds that in this he predates the science showing how helpful this is to the brain.
Holmes observes the dress and attitude of his clients and suspects, noting skin marks (such as tattoos), contamination (such as ink stains or clay on boots), emotional state, and physical condition in order to deduce their origins and recent history. The style and state of wear of a person's clothes and personal items are also commonly relied on; in the stories Holmes is seen applying his method to items such as walking sticks, pipes, and hats. For example, in "A Scandal in Bohemia", Holmes infers that Watson had got wet lately and had "a most clumsy and careless servant girl". When Watson asks how Holmes knows this, the detective answers:
In the first Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet", Dr. Watson compares Holmes to C. Auguste Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective, who employed a similar methodology. Alluding to an episode in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", where Dupin determines what his friend is thinking despite their having walked together in silence for a quarter of an hour, Holmes remarks: "That trick of his breaking in on his friend's thoughts with an apropos remark... is really very showy and superficial". Nevertheless, Holmes later performs the same 'trick' on Watson in "The Cardboard Box" and "The Adventure of the Dancing Men".
Though the stories always refer to Holmes's intellectual detection method as "deduction", he primarily relies on abduction: inferring an explanation for observed details. "From a drop of water", he writes, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other". However, Holmes does employ deductive reasoning as well. The detective's guiding principle, as he says in "The Sign of Four", is: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".
Despite Holmes's remarkable reasoning abilities, Conan Doyle still paints him as fallible in this regard (this being a central theme of "The Yellow Face").
Though Holmes is famed for his reasoning capabilities, his investigative technique relies heavily on the acquisition of hard evidence. Many of the techniques he employs in the stories were at the time in their infancy.
The detective is particularly skilled in the analysis of trace evidence and other physical evidence, including latent prints (such as footprints, hoof prints, and shoe and tire impressions) to identify actions at a crime scene; using tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals; handwriting analysis and graphology; comparing typewritten letters to expose a fraud; using gunpowder residue to expose two murderers; and analyzing small pieces of human remains to expose two murders.
Because of the small scale of much of his evidence, the detective often uses a magnifying glass at the scene and an optical microscope at his Baker Street lodgings. He uses analytical chemistry for blood residue analysis and toxicology to detect poisons; Holmes's home chemistry laboratory is mentioned in "The Naval Treaty". Ballistics feature in "The Adventure of the Empty House" when spent bullets are recovered to be matched with a suspected murder weapon, a practice which became regular police procedure only some fifteen years after the story was published.
Laura J. Snyder has examined Holmes's methods in the context of mid- to late-19th-century criminology, demonstrating that, while sometimes in advance of what official investigative departments were formally using at the time, they were based upon existing methods and techniques. For example, fingerprints were proposed to be distinct in Conan Doyle's day, and while Holmes used a thumbprint to solve a crime in "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" (generally held to be set in 1895), the story was published in 1903, two years after Scotland Yard's fingerprint bureau opened. Nonetheless, Holmes inspired future generations of forensic scientists to think scientifically and analytically.
Holmes displays a strong aptitude for acting and disguise. In several stories ("The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Adventure of the Empty House" and "A Scandal in Bohemia"), to gather evidence undercover he uses disguises so convincing that Watson fails to recognise him. In others ("The Adventure of the Dying Detective" and "A Scandal in Bohemia"), Holmes feigns injury or illness to incriminate the guilty. In the latter story, Watson says, "The stage lost a fine actor ... when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime".
Until Watson's arrival at Baker Street Holmes largely worked alone, only occasionally employing agents from the city's underclass; these agents included a variety of informants, such as Langdale Pike, a "human book of reference upon all matters of social scandal", and Shinwell Johnson, who acted as Holmes's "agent in the huge criminal underworld of London". The most well known of Holmes's agents are a group of street children he called "the Baker Street Irregulars".
Holmes and Watson often carry pistols with them to confront criminals—in Watson's case, his old service weapon (probably a Mark III Adams revolver, issued to British troops during the 1870s). Holmes and Watson shoot the eponymous hound in "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and in "The Adventure of the Empty House" Watson pistol-whips Colonel Sebastian Moran.
As a gentleman, Holmes often carries a stick or cane. He is described by Watson as an expert at singlestick and uses his cane twice as a weapon. In "A Study in Scarlet", Watson describes Holmes as an expert swordsman, and in "The "Gloria Scott"" the detective says he practised fencing while at university. In several stories ("A Case of Identity", "The Red-Headed League", "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons") Holmes wields a riding crop, described in the latter story as his "favourite weapon".
The detective is described (or demonstrated) as possessing above-average physical strength. In "The Yellow Face", Holmes's chronicler says, "Few men were capable of greater muscular effort." In "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", Dr. Roylott demonstrates his strength by bending a fire poker in half. Watson describes Holmes as laughing, "'if he had remained I might have shown him that my grip was not much more feeble than his own.' As he spoke he picked up the steel poker and, with a sudden effort, straightened it out again."
Holmes is an adept bare-knuckle fighter; "The "Gloria Scott"" mentions that Holmes boxed while at university. In "The Sign of Four", he introduces himself to McMurdo, a prize fighter, as "the amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your benefit four years back." McMurdo remembers: "Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high if you had joined the fancy." In "The Yellow Face", Watson says: "He was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen".
In "The Adventure of the Empty House", Holmes tells Watson that he used a Japanese martial art known as baritsu to fling Moriarty to his death in the Reichenbach Falls. "Baritsu" is Conan Doyle's version of bartitsu, which combines jujitsu with boxing and cane fencing.
The first two Sherlock Holmes stories, the novels "A Study in Scarlet" (1887) and "The Sign of the Four" (1890), were moderately well received, but Holmes first became widely popular early in 1891, when the first six short stories featuring the character were published in "The Strand Magazine". Holmes became very popular in Britain and America. The character was so popular that in 1893, when Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Holmes in the short story "The Final Problem", the strongly negative response from readers was unlike any previous public reaction to a fictional event. The "Strand" reportedly lost more than 20,000 subscribers as a result of Holmes's death. Public pressure eventually contributed to Conan Doyle writing another Holmes story in 1901 and resurrecting the character in a story published in 1903.
Many fans of Sherlock Holmes have written letters to Holmes's address, 221B Baker Street. Though the address 221B Baker Street did not exist when the stories were first published, letters began arriving to the large Abbey National building which first encompassed that address almost as soon as it was built in 1932. Fans continue to send letters to Sherlock Holmes; these letters are now delivered to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Some of the people who have sent letters to 221B Baker Street believe Holmes is real. Members of the general public have also believed Holmes actually existed. In a 2008 survey of British teenagers, 58 percent of respondents believed that Sherlock Holmes was a real individual.
The Sherlock Holmes stories continue to be widely read. Holmes's continuing popularity has led to many reimaginings of the character in adaptations. "Guinness World Records", which awarded Sherlock Holmes the title for "most portrayed literary human character in film & TV" in 2012, released a statement saying that the title "reflects his enduring appeal and demonstrates that his detective talents are as compelling today as they were 125 years ago."
The London Metropolitan Railway named one of its twenty electric locomotives deployed in the 1920s for Sherlock Holmes. He was the only fictional character so honoured, along with eminent Britons such as Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, and Florence Nightingale.
A number of London streets are associated with Holmes. York Mews South, off Crawford Street, was renamed Sherlock Mews, and Watson's Mews is near Crawford Place. The Sherlock Holmes is a public house in Northumberland Street in London which contains a large collection of memorabilia related to Holmes, the original collection having been put together for display in Baker Street during the Festival of Britain in 1951. In 1999, a statue of Sherlock Holmes by sculptor John Doubleday was unveiled outside Baker Street tube station, London, near the fictional detective's address, 221B Baker Street.
In 2002, the Royal Society of Chemistry bestowed an honorary fellowship on Holmes for his use of forensic science and analytical chemistry in popular literature, making him (as of 2019) the only fictional character thus honoured.
In 2019, a statue of Sherlock Holmes by the Popeye & Friends Character Trail coordinator Michael W. McClure was unveiled in Chester, Illinois, becoming the first permanent granite memorial to Holmes in the Americas.
In 1934, the Sherlock Holmes Society (in London) and the Baker Street Irregulars (in New York) were founded. Both are still active, although the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 and revived in 1951. These two societies were followed by many more, first in the U.S. (where they are known as "scion societies"—offshoots—of the Baker Street Irregulars) and then in England and Denmark. There are at least 250 societies worldwide, including Australia, Canada (The Bootmakers of Toronto), India, and Japan (whose society has 80,000 members). Fans tend to be called "Holmesians" in the U.K. and "Sherlockians" in the U.S., though recently "Sherlockian" has also come to refer to fans of the Benedict Cumberbatch-led BBC series regardless of location.
Although Holmes is not the original fictional detective, his name has become synonymous with the role. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories introduced multiple literary devices that have become major conventions in detective fiction, such as the companion character who is not as clever as the detective and has solutions explained to him (thus informing the reader as well), as with Dr. Watson in the Holmes stories. Other conventions introduced by Doyle include the arch-criminal who is too clever for the official police to defeat, like Holmes's adversary Professor Moriarty, and the use of forensic science to solve cases.
The Sherlock Holmes stories established crime fiction as a respectable genre popular with readers of all backgrounds, and Doyle's success inspired many contemporary detective stories. Holmes influenced the creation of other "eccentric gentleman detective" characters, like Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot, introduced in 1920. Holmes also inspired a number of anti-hero characters "almost as an antidote to the masterful detective", such as the gentleman thief characters A. J. Raffles (created by E. W. Hornung in 1898) and Arsène Lupin (created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905).
The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" has become one of the most quoted and iconic aspects of the character. However, although Holmes often observes that his conclusions are "elementary", and occasionally calls Watson "my dear Watson", the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" is never uttered in any of the sixty stories by Conan Doyle. One of the nearest approximations of the phrase appears in "The Adventure of the Crooked Man" when Holmes explains a deduction: Excellent!' I cried. 'Elementary,' said he."
William Gillette is widely considered to have originated the phrase with the formulation, "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow", allegedly in his 1899 play "Sherlock Holmes". However, the script was revised numerous times over the course of some three decades of revivals and publications, and the phrase is present in some versions of the script, but not others.
The exact phrase, as well as close variants, can be seen in newspaper and journal articles as early as 1909; there is some indication that it was clichéd even then. "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary" appears in P. G. Wodehouse's novel "Psmith, Journalist" (serialised 1909–10). The phrase became familiar with the American public in part due to its use in The Rathbone-Bruce series of films from 1939 to 1946.
Conan Doyle's 56 short stories and four novels are known as the "canon" by Holmes aficionados. The Great Game (also known as the Holmesian Game, the Sherlockian Game, or simply the Game) applies the methods of literary criticism to the canon, but also operates on the pretense that Holmes and Watson were real people (and that Conan Doyle was not the author of the stories but Watson's literary agent). From this basis, it attempts to resolve or explain away contradictions in the canon—such as the location of Watson's war wound, described as being in his shoulder in "A Study in Scarlet" and in his leg in "The Sign of Four"—and clarify details about Holmes, Watson and their world, combining historical research with references from the stories to construct scholarly analyses.
For example, one detail analyzed in the Game is Holmes's birth date. The chronology of the stories is notoriously difficult, with many stories lacking dates and many others containing contradictory ones. Christopher Morley and William Baring-Gould contend that the detective was born on 6 January 1854, the year being derived from the statement in "His Last Bow" that he was 60 years of age in 1914, while the precise day is derived from broader, non-canonical speculation. This is the date the Baker Street Irregulars work from, with their annual dinner being held each January. Laurie R. King instead argues that details in "The "Gloria Scott"" (a story with no precise internal date) indicate that Holmes finished his second (and final) year of university in 1880 or 1885. If he began university at age 17, his birth year could be as late as 1868.
For the 1951 Festival of Britain, Holmes's living room was reconstructed as part of a Sherlock Holmes exhibition, with a collection of original material. After the festival, items were transferred to The Sherlock Holmes (a London pub) and the Conan Doyle collection housed in Lucens, Switzerland by the author's son, Adrian. Both exhibitions, each with a Baker Street sitting-room reconstruction, are open to the public.
In 1969, the Toronto Reference Library began a collection of materials related to Conan Doyle. Stored today in Room 221B, this vast collection is accessible to the public. Similarly, in 1974 the University of Minnesota founded a collection that is now "the world’s largest gathering of material related to Sherlock Holmes and his creator". Access is closed to the general public, but is occasionally open to tours.
In 1990, the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened on Baker Street in London, followed the next year by a museum in Meiringen (near the Reichenbach Falls) dedicated to the detective. A private Conan Doyle collection is a permanent exhibit at the Portsmouth City Museum, where the author lived and worked as a physician.
The popularity of Sherlock Holmes has meant that many writers other than Arthur Conan Doyle have created tales of the detective in a wide variety of different media, with varying degrees of fidelity to the original characters, stories, and setting. The first known period pastiche dates from 1893. Titled "The Late Sherlock Holmes", it was written by Conan Doyle's close friend, J. M. Barrie.
Adaptations have seen the character taken in radically different directions or placed in different times or even universes. For example, Holmes falls in love and marries in Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series, is re-animated after his death to fight future crime in the animated series "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century", and is meshed with the setting of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos in Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald" (which won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Short Story). An especially influential pastiche was Nicholas Meyer's "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", a 1974 "New York Times" bestselling novel (made into the 1976 film of the same name) in which Holmes's cocaine addiction has progressed to the point of endangering his career. It served to popularize the trend of incorporating clearly identified and contemporaneous historical figures (such as Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, Sigmund Freud, or Jack the Ripper) into Holmesian pastiches, something Conan Doyle himself never did. Another common pastiche approach is to create a new story fully detailing an otherwise-passing canonical reference (such as an aside by Conan Doyle mentioning the "giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared" in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire").
In addition to the Holmes canon, Conan Doyle's 1898 "The Lost Special" features an unnamed "amateur reasoner" intended to be identified as Holmes by his readers. The author's explanation of a baffling disappearance argued in Holmesian style poked fun at his own creation. Similar Conan Doyle short stories are "The Field Bazaar", "The Man with the Watches", and 1924's "How Watson Learned the Trick", a parody of the Watson–Holmes breakfast-table scenes. The author wrote other material featuring Holmes, especially plays: 1899's "Sherlock Holmes" (with William Gillette), 1910's "The Speckled Band", and 1921's "The Crown Diamond" (the basis for "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone"). These non-canonical works have been collected in several works released since Conan Doyle's death.
In terms of writers other than Conan Doyle, authors as diverse as Anthony Burgess, Neil Gaiman, Dorothy B. Hughes, Stephen King, Tanith Lee, A. A. Milne, and P. G. Wodehouse have all written Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Contemporary with Conan Doyle, Maurice Leblanc directly featured Holmes in his popular series about the gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, though legal objections from Conan Doyle forced Leblanc to modify the name to "Herlock Sholmes" in reprints and later stories. Famed American mystery writer John Dickson Carr collaborated with Arthur Conan Doyle's son, Adrian Conan Doyle, on "The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes", a pastiche collection from 1954. In 2011, Anthony Horowitz published a Sherlock Holmes novel, "The House of Silk", presented as a continuation of Conan Doyle's work and with the approval of the Conan Doyle estate; a follow-up, "Moriarty", appeared in 2014. The "MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories" series of pastiches, edited by David Marcum and published by MX Publishing, has reached over a dozen volumes and features hundreds of stories echoing the original canon which were compiled for the restoration of Undershaw and the support of Stepping Stones School, now housed in it.
Some authors have written tales centred on characters from the canon other than Holmes. Anthologies edited by Michael Kurland and George Mann are entirely devoted to stories told from the perspective of characters other than Holmes and Watson. John Gardner, Michael Kurland, and Kim Newman, amongst many others, have all written tales in which Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty is the main character. Mycroft Holmes has been the subject of several efforts: "Enter the Lion" by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright (1979), a four-book series by Quinn Fawcett, and 2015's "Mycroft Holmes", by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. M. J. Trow has written a series of seventeen books using Inspector Lestrade as the central character, beginning with "The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade" in 1985. Carole Nelson Douglas' Irene Adler series is based on "the woman" from "A Scandal in Bohemia", with the first book (1990's "Good Night, Mr. Holmes") retelling that story from Adler's point of view. Martin Davies has written three novels where Baker Street housekeeper Mrs. Hudson is the protagonist.
Laurie R. King recreated Holmes in her Mary Russell series (beginning with 1994's "The Beekeeper's Apprentice"), set during the First World War and the 1920s. Her Holmes, semi-retired in Sussex, is stumbled upon by a teenaged American girl. Recognising a kindred spirit, he trains her as his apprentice and subsequently marries her. As of 2018, the series includes sixteen base novels and additional writings.
"The Final Solution", a 2004 novella by Michael Chabon, concerns an unnamed but long-retired detective interested in beekeeping who tackles the case of a missing parrot belonging to a Jewish refugee boy. Mitch Cullin's novel "A Slight Trick of the Mind" (2005) takes place two years after the end of the Second World War, and explores an old and frail Sherlock Holmes (now 93) as he comes to terms with a life spent in emotionless logic; this was also adapted into a film, 2015's "Mr. Holmes".
There have been a host of scholarly works dealing with Sherlock Holmes, some working within the bounds of the Great Game, and some written with the understanding that Holmes is a fictional character. In particular, there have been three major annotated editions of the complete series. The first was William Baring-Gould's 1967 "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes". This two-volume set was ordered to fit Baring-Gould's preferred chronology, and was written from a Great Game perspective. The second was 1993's "The Oxford Sherlock Holmes" (general editor: Owen Dudley Edwards), a nine-volume set written in a straight scholarly manner. The most recent is Leslie Klinger's "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes" (2004–05), a three-volume set that returns to a Great Game perspective.
"Guinness World Records" has listed Holmes as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television history, with more than 75 actors playing the part in over 250 productions.
The 1899 play "Sherlock Holmes", by Conan Doyle and William Gillette, was a synthesis of several Conan Doyle stories. In addition to its popularity, the play is significant because it, rather than the original stories, introduced one of the key visual qualities commonly associated with Holmes today: his calabash pipe; the play also formed the basis for Gillette's 1916 film, "Sherlock Holmes". Gillette performed as Holmes some 1,300 times. In the early 1900s, H. A. Saintsbury took over the role from Gillette for a tour of the play. Between this play and Conan Doyle's own stage adaptation of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", Saintsbury portrayed Holmes over 1,000 times.
Holmes's first screen appearance was in the 1900 Mutoscope film, "Sherlock Holmes Baffled". From 1921 to 1923, Eille Norwood played Holmes in forty-seven silent films (45 shorts and two features), in a series of performances that Conan Doyle spoke highly of. 1929's "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" was the first sound title to feature Holmes. From 1939 to 1946, Basil Rathbone played Holmes and Nigel Bruce played Watson in fourteen U.S. films (two for 20th Century Fox and a dozen for Universal Pictures) and in "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" radio show. While the Fox films were period pieces, the Universal films abandoned Victorian Britain and moved to a then-contemporary setting in which Holmes occasionally battled Nazis.
The 1984–85 Italian/Japanese anime series "Sherlock Hound" adapted the Holmes stories for children, with its characters being anthropomorphic dogs. The series was co-directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Between 1979 and 1986, the Soviet studio Lenfilm produced a series of five television films, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson". The series were split into eleven episodes and starred Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. For his performance, in 2006 Livanov was appointed an Honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire.
Jeremy Brett played the detective in "Sherlock Holmes" for Britain's Granada Television from 1984 to 1994. Watson was played by David Burke (in the first two series) and Edward Hardwicke (in the remainder). Brett and Hardwicke also appeared on stage in 1988–89 in "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes", directed by Patrick Garland.
Bert Coules penned "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams/Andrew Sachs as Watson, based on throwaway references in Conan Doyle's short stories and novels. Coules had previously dramatised the entire Holmes canon for BBC Radio Four.
The 2009 film "Sherlock Holmes" earned Robert Downey Jr. a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of Holmes and co-starred Jude Law as Watson. Downey and Law returned for a 2011 sequel, "". In March 2019 a release date of 21 December 2021 was set for the third film in the series.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modern version of the detective (with Martin Freeman as John Watson) in the BBC One TV series "Sherlock", which premiered in 2010. In the series, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, the stories' original Victorian setting is replaced by present-day London.
Similarly, "Elementary" premiered on CBS in 2012, and ran until for seven seasons, until 2019. Set in contemporary New York, the series featured Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as a female Dr. Joan Watson. With 24 episodes per season, by the end of season two Miller became the actor who had portrayed Sherlock Holmes the most in television and/or film.
The 2015 film "Mr. Holmes" starred Ian McKellen as a retired Sherlock Holmes living in Sussex, in 1947, who grapples with an unsolved case involving a beautiful woman. The film is based on Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel "A Slight Trick of the Mind".
The 2018 television adaptation, "Miss Sherlock", is a Japanese-language production, and the first adaptation with a woman (portrayed by Yūko Takeuchi) in the signature role. The episodes are based in modern-day Tokyo, with many references to Conan Doyle's stories.
Holmes has also appeared in video games, including the "Sherlock Holmes" series of eight main titles. According to the publisher, Frogwares, the series has sold over seven million copies.
The copyright for Conan Doyle's works expired in the United Kingdom and Canada at the end of 1980, was revived in 1996 and expired again at the end of 2000. The author's works are now in the public domain in those countries.
In the United States, for many years all works published before 1923 are in the public domain, but as ten Holmes stories were published after that date, the Conan Doyle estate maintained that the Holmes and Watson characters as a whole were still under copyright. On 14 February 2013, Leslie S. Klinger (lawyer and editor of "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes") filed a declaratory judgement suit against the Conan Doyle estate asking the court to acknowledge that the characters of Holmes and Watson were public domain in the U.S. The court ruled in Klinger's favour on 23 December, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed its decision on 16 June 2014. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case, letting the appeals court's ruling stand. This resulted in the characters from the Holmes stories, along with all but ten of the stories themselves, being in the public domain in the U.S. The stories still under copyright due to the ruling, as of that time, were those collected in "The" "Case-Book" "of Sherlock Holmes" other than "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" and "The Problem of Thor Bridge". The remaining ten Holmes stories were to enter the U.S. public domain between 1 January 2019 and 1 January 2023; since then, four of those ten have done so.
The short stories, originally published in magazines, were later collected in five anthologies: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27159 |
Slow fire
A slow fire is a term used in library and information science to describe paper embrittlement resulting from acid decay. The term is taken from the title of Terry Sanders' 1987 film "Slow Fires: On the preservation of the human record."
Solutions to this problem include the use of acid-free paper stocks, reformatting brittle books by microfilming, photocopying or digitization, and a variety of deacidification techniques. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27161 |
Sequential access
Sequential access is a term describing a group of elements (such as data in a memory array or a disk file or on magnetic tape data storage) being accessed in a predetermined, ordered sequence. It is the opposite of random access, the ability to access an arbitrary element of a sequence as easily and efficiently as any other at any time.
Sequential access is sometimes the only way of accessing the data, for example if it is on a tape. It may also be the access method of choice, for example if all that is wanted is to process a sequence of data elements in order.
There is no consistent definition in computer science of sequential access or sequentiality. In fact, different sequentiality definitions can lead to different sequentiality quantification results. In spatial dimension, request size, strided distance, backward accesses, re-accesses can affect sequentiality. For temporal sequentiality, characteristics such as multi-stream and inter-arrival time threshold has impact on the definition of sequentiality.
In data structures, a data structure is said to have sequential access if one can only visit the values it contains in one particular order. The canonical example is the linked list. Indexing into a list that has sequential access requires O("n") time, where "n" is the index. As a result, many algorithms such as quicksort and binary search degenerate into bad algorithms that are even less efficient than their naive alternatives; these algorithms are impractical without random access. On the other hand, some algorithms, typically those that do not have index, require only sequential access, such as mergesort, and face no penalty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27162 |
Sed
sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. sed was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs,
and is available today for most operating systems. sed was based on the scripting features of the interactive editor ed ("editor", 1971) and the earlier qed ("quick editor", 1965–66). sed was one of the earliest tools to support regular expressions, and remains in use for text processing, most notably with the substitution command. Popular alternative tools for plaintext string manipulation and "stream editing" include AWK and Perl.
First appearing in Version 7 Unix, sed is one of the early Unix commands built for command line processing of data files. It evolved as the natural successor to the popular grep command. The original motivation was an analogue of grep (g/re/p) for substitution, hence "g/re/s". Foreseeing that further special-purpose programs for each command would also arise, such as g/re/d, McMahon wrote a general-purpose line-oriented stream editor, which became sed. The syntax for sed, notably the use of codice_1 for pattern matching, and codice_2 for substitution, originated with ed, the precursor to sed, which was in common use at the time, and the regular expression syntax has influenced other languages, notably ECMAScript and Perl. Later, the more powerful language AWK developed, and these functioned as cousins, allowing powerful text processing to be done by shell scripts. sed and AWK are often cited as progenitors and inspiration for Perl, and influenced Perl's syntax and semantics, notably in the matching and substitution operators.
GNU sed added several new features, including in-place editing of files. "Super-sed" is an extended version of sed that includes regular expressions compatible with Perl. Another variant of sed is "minised", originally reverse-engineered from 4.1BSD sed by Eric S. Raymond and currently maintained by René Rebe. minised was used by the GNU Project until the GNU Project wrote a new version of sed based on the new GNU regular expression library. The current minised contains some extensions to BSD sed but is not as feature-rich as GNU sed. Its advantage is that it is very fast and uses little memory. It is used on embedded systems and is the version of sed provided with Minix.
sed is a line-oriented text processing utility: it reads text, line by line, from an input stream or file, into an internal buffer called the "pattern space". Each line read starts a "cycle". To the pattern space, sed applies one or more operations which have been specified via a "sed script". sed implements a programming language with about 25 "commands" that specify the operations on the text. For each input line, after running the script, sed ordinarily outputs the pattern space (the line as modified by the script) and begins the cycle again with the next line. Other end-of-script behaviors are available through sed options and script commands, e.g. codice_3 to delete the pattern space, codice_4 to quit, codice_5 to add the next line to the pattern space immediately, and so on. Thus a sed script corresponds to the body of a loop that iterates through the lines of a stream, where the loop itself and the loop variable (the current line number) are implicit and maintained by sed.
The sed script can either be specified on the command line (codice_6 option) or read from a separate file (codice_7 option). Commands in the sed script may take an optional "address," in terms of line numbers or regular expressions. The address determines when the command is run. For example, codice_8 would only run the codice_3 (delete) command on the second input line (printing all lines but the second), while codice_10 would delete all lines beginning with a space. A separate special buffer, the "hold space", may be used by a few sed commands to hold and accumulate text between cycles. sed's command language has only two variables (the "hold space" and the "pattern space") and GOTO-like branching functionality; nevertheless, the language is Turing-complete, and esoteric sed scripts exist for games such as sokoban, arkanoid, chess, and tetris.
A main loop executes for each line of the input stream, evaluating the sed script on each line of the input. Lines of a sed script are each a pattern-action pair, indicating what pattern to match and which action to perform, which can be recast as a conditional statement. Because the main loop, working variables (pattern space and hold space), input and output streams, and default actions (copy line to pattern space, print pattern space) are implicit, it is possible to write terse one-liner programs. For example, the sed program given by:
will print the first 10 lines of input, then stop.
The following example shows a typical, and the most common, use of sed: substitution. This usage was indeed the original motivation for sed:
sed 's/regexp/replacement/g' inputFileName > outputFileName
In some versions of sed, the expression must be preceded by codice_6 to indicate that an expression follows. The codice_12 stands for substitute, while the codice_13 stands for global, which means that all matching occurrences in the line would be replaced. The regular expression (i.e. pattern) to be searched is placed after the first delimiting symbol (slash here) and the replacement follows the second symbol. Slash (codice_1) is the conventional symbol, originating in the character for "search" in ed, but any other could be used to make syntax more readable if it does not occur in the pattern or replacement; this is useful to avoid "leaning toothpick syndrome".
The substitution command, which originates in search-and-replace in ed, implements simple parsing and templating. The codice_15 provides both pattern matching and saving text via sub-expressions, while the codice_16 can be either literal text, or a format string containing the characters codice_17 for "entire match" or the special escape sequences codice_18 through codice_19 for the "n"th saved sub-expression. For example, codice_20 replaces all occurrences of "cat" or "dog" with "cats" or "dogs", without duplicating an existing "s": codice_21 is the 1st (and only) saved sub-expression in the regexp, and codice_18 in the format string substitutes this into the output.
Besides substitution, other forms of simple processing are possible, using some 25 sed commands. For example, the following uses the "d" command to delete lines that are either blank or only contain spaces:
sed '/^ *$/d' inputFileName
This example uses some of the following regular expression metacharacters (sed supports the full range of regular expressions):
Complex sed constructs are possible, allowing it to serve as a simple, but highly specialised, programming language. Flow of control, for example, can be managed by the use of a label (a colon followed by a string) and the branch instruction codice_29. An instruction codice_29 followed by a valid label name will move processing to the block following that label.
Under Unix, sed is often used as a filter in a pipeline:
generateData | sed 's/x/y/g'
That is, a program such as "generateData" generates data, and then sed makes the small change of replacing "x" with "y". For example:
$ echo xyz xyz | sed 's/x/y/g'
yyz yyz
It is often useful to put several sed commands, one command per line, into a script file such as codice_36, and then use the codice_7 option to run the commands (such as codice_31) from the file:
sed -f subst.sed inputFileName > outputFileName
Any number of commands may be placed into the script file, and using a script file also avoids problems with shell escaping or substitutions.
Such a script file may be made directly executable from the command line by prepending it with a "shebang line" containing the sed command and assigning the executable permission to the file. For example, a file codice_36 can be created with contents:
s/x/y/g
The file may then be made executable by the current user with the codice_40 command:
chmod u+x subst.sed
The file may then be executed directly from the command line:
subst.sed inputFileName > outputFileName
The codice_41 option, introduced in GNU sed, allows in-place editing of files (actually, a temporary output file is created in the background, and then the original file is replaced by the temporary file). For example:
sed -i 's/abc/def/' fileName
s/.*/Hello, world!/
q
This "Hello, world!" script is in a file (e.g., script.txt) and invoked with codice_42, where "inputFileName" is the input text file. The script changes "inputFileName" line #1 to "Hello, world!" and then quits, printing the result before sed exits. Any input lines past line #1 are not read, and not printed. So the sole output is "Hello, world!".
The example emphasizes many key characteristics of sed:
Below follow various sed scripts; these can be executed by passing as an argument to sed, or put in a separate file and executed via codice_7 or by making the script itself executable.
To replace any instance of a certain word in a file with "REDACTED", such as an IRC password, and save the result:
sed -i s/yourpassword/REDACTED/ ./status.freenode.log
To delete any line containing the word "yourword" (the "address" is '/yourword/'):
/yourword/ d
To delete all instances of the word "yourword":
s/yourword//g
To delete two words from a file simultaneously:
s/firstword//g
s/secondword//g
To express the previous example on one line, such as when entering at the command line, one may join two commands via the semicolon:
sed "s/firstword//g; s/secondword//g" inputFileName
In the next example, sed, which usually only works on one line, removes newlines from sentences where the second line starts with one space.
Consider the following text:
The sed script below will turn the text above into the following text. Note that the script affects only the input lines that start with a space:
The script is:
This is explained as:
This can be expressed on a single line via semicolons:
While simple and limited, sed is sufficiently powerful for a large number of purposes. For more sophisticated processing, more powerful languages such as AWK or Perl are used instead. These are particularly used if transforming a line in a way more complicated than a regex extracting and template replacement, though arbitrarily complicated transforms are in principle possible by using the hold buffer.
Conversely, for simpler operations, specialized Unix utilities such as grep (print lines matching a pattern), head (print the first part of a file), tail (print the last part of a file), and tr (translate or delete characters) are often preferable. For the specific tasks they are designed to carry out, such specialized utilities are usually simpler, clearer, and faster than a more general solution such as sed.
The ed/sed commands and syntax continue to be used in descendent programs, such as the text editors vi and vim. An analog to ed/sed is sam/ssam, where sam is the Plan 9 editor, and ssam is a stream interface to it, yielding functionality similar to sed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27163 |
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs. The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery, Alabama. Bond served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979.
In 1980, the SPLC began a litigation strategy of filing civil suits for monetary damages on behalf of the victims of violence from the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC also became involved in other civil rights causes, including cases to challenge what it sees as institutional racial segregation and discrimination, inhumane and unconstitutional conditions in prisons and detention centers, discrimination based on sexual orientation, mistreatment of illegal immigrants, and the unconstitutional mixing of church and state. The SPLC has provided information about hate groups to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement agencies.
Since the 2000s, the SPLC's classification and listings of hate groups (organizations it has assessed either "attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics") and extremists have often been described as authoritative and are widely accepted and cited in academic and media coverage of such groups and related issues. The SPLC's listings have also been the subject of criticism from others, who argue that some of the SPLC's listings are overbroad, politically motivated, or unwarranted. There have also been accusations of misuse or unnecessarily extravagant use of funds by the organization, leading some employees to call the headquarters "Poverty Palace".
In 2019, founder Morris Dees was fired, which was followed by the resignation of president Richard Cohen. An outside consultant, Tina Tchen, was brought in to review workplace practices, particularly relating to accusations of racial and sexual harassment.
Margaret Huang, who was formerly the Chief Executive at Amnesty International USA, was named as president and CEO of the SPLC in early February 2020.
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. in August 1971 as a law firm originally focused on issues such as fighting poverty, racial discrimination and the death penalty in the United States. Dees asked civil rights leader Julian Bond to serve as president, a largely honorary position; he resigned in 1979 but remained on the board of directors until his death in 2015.
In 1979, Dees and the SPLC began filing civil lawsuits against Ku Klux Klan chapters and similar organizations for monetary damages on behalf of their victims. The favorable verdicts from these suits served to bankrupt the KKK and other targeted organizations. According a 1996 article in the "New York Times", Dees and the SPLC "have been credited with devising innovative legal ways to cripple hate groups, including seizing their assets." Some civil libertarians said that SPLC's tactics chill free speech and set legal precedents that could be applied against activist groups which are not hate groups.
In 1981, the Center began its "Klanwatch" project to monitor the activities of the KKK. That project, now called "Hatewatch," was later expanded to include seven other types of hate organizations.
In 1986, the entire legal staff of the SPLC, excluding Dees, resigned as the organization shifted from traditional civil rights work toward fighting right-wing extremism.
In 1989, the Center unveiled its Civil Rights Memorial, which was designed by Maya Lin.
In 1995, the "Montgomery Advertiser" won a Pulitzer Prize recognition for work that probed management self-interest, questionable practices, and employee racial discrimination allegations in the SPLC.
The Center's "Teaching Tolerance" project was initiated in 1991.
In 2008, the SPLC and Dees were featured on "National Geographic"s "Inside American Terror" explaining their litigation strategy against the Ku Klux Klan.
In 2011, the SPLC was "involved in high-profile state fights", including the battle over the Georgia House Bill 87 (HB 87). The SPLC joined with the ACLU, the Asian Law Caucus, and the National Immigration Law Center in June 2011, to file a lawsuit challenging HB 87. which resulted in a permanent injunction in 2013 blocking multiple provisions of the law.
In 2013 "Teaching Tolerance" was cited as "of the most widely read periodicals dedicated to diversity and social justice in education".
In 2016, the SPLC's "ranks swelled" and its "endowment surged" after President Donald Trump was elected, resulting in the hiring of 200 new employees.
In March 2019 founder Morris Dees was fired, and in April Karen Baynes-Dunning was named as interim president and CEO. After a "tumultuous year", in mid-December 2019, staff at the SPLC voted to unionize, with 142 in favor and 45 against. The CPLC had "long been dogged by accusations of internal discrimination against minority employees, particularly in the area of promotions."
A new president and CEO, Margaret Huang, was named in early February 2020, Margaret Huang.
More recently, the SPLC and the ACLU have been involved in "battles over the treatment of inmates in the state's prisons", including an emergency request in April 2020 for the "release of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody" if ICE cannot provide protection for vulnerable inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal court injunction was filed as part of an existing class-action lawsuit regarding conditions in ICE facilities. In 2018, The SPLC filed suits related to the conditions of incarceration for adults and juveniles.
In the spring of 2019, an assistant legal director resigned "over racial and gender equity concerns at the organization," according to the "Montgomery Advertiser".
In March 2019, the SPLC fired founder Morris Dees for undisclosed reasons and removed his bio from its website. In a statement regarding the firing, the SPLC announced it would be bringing in an "outside organization to conduct a comprehensive assessment of our internal climate and workplace practices."
Following the dismissal, a letter signed by two dozen SPLC employees was sent to management, expressing concern that "allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it." One former employee wrote that the "unchecked power of lavishly compensated white men at the top" of the SPLC contributed to a culture which made black and female employees the targets of harassment.
A week later, President Richard Cohen and legal director Rhonda Brownstein announced their resignations amid the internal upheaval. The associate legal director quit, alleging concerns regarding workplace culture. Cohen said, "Whatever problems exist at the SPLC happened on my watch, so I take responsibility for them."
In early February 2020, Margaret Huang, who was formerly the Chief Executive at Amnesty International USA, was named as president and CEO of the SPLC. Huang replaced Karen Baynes-Dunning, a "former juvenile court judge", who served as interim president and CEO since April 2019, after founder Morris Dees was fired in March 2019. The SPLC had appointed Tina Tchen, a former chief of staff for former first-lady Michelle Obama, to review and investigate any issues with the organization's workplace environment related to Dees' firing.
The SPLC's activities, including litigation, are supported by fundraising efforts, and it does not accept any fees or share in legal judgments awarded to clients it represents in court. Starting in 1974, the SPLC set aside money for its endowment stating that it was "convinced that the day [would] come when non-profit groups [would] no longer be able to rely on support through mail because of posting and printing costs".
The "Los Angeles Times" reported that by 2017, the SPLC’s financial resources "nearly totaled half a billion dollars in assets". For 2018, its endowment was approximately $471 million per its annual report and SPLC spent 49% of its revenue on programs. According to the "Montgomery Advertiser", the SPLC had received "significant financial support" with revenues almost "$122 million and total assets of $492.3 million", as of September 30, 2018, it reported .
Prior to his departure in 2019, Dee's "role at the Center was focused on 'donor relations' and "expanding the Center's financial resources.
In September 2019, based on 2018 figures, Charity Navigator rated the SPLC four out of four stars. The Center received an overall score of 90.96 (out of 100) up from its 2016 rating of 85.5, 87.58 on financial health matters up from 79.7 in 2016, and 97 on accountability and transparency, the same rating as in 2016. CharityNavigator included in their report that the SPLC had 1,165,240 followers on Facebook and 6 legal practice groups and were monitoring 1,020 hate groups.
SPLC also earned GuideStarPlatinum Seal of Transparency which is given to organizations that voluntarily share the "measures of progress and results they use to pursue their mission."
In March 2019, CharityWatch downgraded the SPLC from B to F because the SPLC has "6.6 years worth of available assets in reserve." The SPLC spent only 64 percent of its funds on its programs. It cost $15
to raise $100. According to Charity Watch, the SPLC's total expenses, as of March 2019, amounted to $74,000,000 and contributions totaled $111,000,000.
In July 1983, the SPLC headquarters was firebombed, destroying the building and records. As a result of the arson, Klansmen Joe M. Garner and Roy T. Downs Jr., along with Klan sympathizer Charles Bailey, pleaded guilty in February 1985 to conspiring to intimidate, oppress and threaten members of black organizations represented by SPLC. The SPLC built a new headquarters building from 1999 to 2001. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27164 |
Sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to stereotypes and gender roles, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Gender discrimination may encompass sexism, and is discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. Gender discrimination is especially defined in terms of workplace inequality. It may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.
According to Fred R. Shapiro, the term "sexism" was most likely coined on November 18, 1965, by Pauline M. Leet during a "Student-Faculty Forum" at Franklin and Marshall College. Specifically, the word sexism appears in Leet's forum contribution "Women and the Undergraduate", and she defines it by comparing it to racism, stating in part (on page 3): "When you argue ... that since fewer women write good poetry this justifies their total exclusion, you are taking a position analogous to that of the racist—I might call you in this case a 'sexist' ... Both the racist and the sexist are acting as if all that has happened had never happened, and both of them are making decisions and coming to conclusions about someone's value by referring to factors which are in both cases irrelevant."
Also, according to Shapiro, the first time the term "sexism" appeared in print was in Caroline Bird's speech "On Being Born Female", which was published on November 15, 1968, in "Vital Speeches of the Day" (p. 6). In this speech she said in part: "There is recognition abroad that we are in many ways a sexist country. Sexism is judging people by their sex when sex doesn't matter. Sexism is intended to rhyme with racism."
Sexism may be defined as an ideology based on the belief that one sex is superior to another. It is discrimination, prejudice, or stereotyping based on gender, and is most often expressed toward girls and women.
Sociology has examined sexism as manifesting at both the individual and the institutional level. According to Richard Schaefer, sexism is perpetuated by all major social institutions. Sociologists describe parallels among other ideological systems of oppression such as racism, which also operates at both the individual and institutional level. Early female sociologists Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ida B. Wells, and Harriet Martineau described systems of gender inequality, but did not use the term "sexism", which was coined later. Sociologists who adopted the functionalist paradigm, e.g. Talcott Parsons, understood gender inequality as the natural outcome of a dimorphic model of gender.
Psychologists Mary Crawford and Rhoda Unger define sexism as prejudice held by individuals that encompasses "negative attitudes and values about women as a group." Peter Glick and Susan Fiske coined the term "ambivalent sexism" to describe how stereotypes about women can be both positive and negative, and that individuals compartmentalize the stereotypes they hold into hostile sexism or benevolent sexism.
Feminist author bell hooks defines sexism as a system of oppression that results in disadvantages for women. Feminist philosopher Marilyn Frye defines sexism as an "attitudinal-conceptual-cognitive-orientational complex" of male supremacy, male chauvinism, and misogyny.
Philosopher Kate Manne defines sexism as one branch of a patriarchal order. In her definition, sexism rationalizes and justifies patriarchal norms, in contrast with misogyny, the branch which polices and enforces patriarchal norms. Manne says that sexism often attempts to make patriarchal social arrangements seem natural, good, or inevitable so that there appears to be no reason to resist them.
The status of women in ancient Egypt depended on their fathers or husbands, but they had property rights and could attend court, including as plaintiffs. Women of the Anglo-Saxon era were commonly afforded equal status. Evidence, however, is lacking to support the idea that many pre-agricultural societies afforded women a higher status than women today. After the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures, the concept that one gender was inferior to the other was established; most often this was imposed upon women and girls. Examples of sexism in the ancient world include written laws preventing women from participating in the political process; women in ancient Rome could not vote or hold political office. Another example is scholarly texts that indoctrinate children in female inferiority; women in ancient China were taught the Confucian principles that a woman should obey her father in childhood, husband in marriage, and son in widowhood.
Sexism may have been the impetus that fueled the witch trials between the 15th and 18th centuries. In early modern Europe, and in the European colonies in North America, claims were made that witches were a threat to Christendom. The misogyny of that period played a role in the persecution of these women.
In "Malleus Malificarum", the book which played a major role in the witch hunts and trials, the authors argue that women are more likely to practice witchcraft than men, and write that:
Witchcraft remains illegal in several countries, including Saudi Arabia, where it is punishable by death. In 2011, a woman was beheaded in that country for "witchcraft and sorcery". Murders of women after being accused of witchcraft remain common in some parts of the world; for example, in Tanzania, about 500 elderly women are murdered each year following such accusations.
When women are targeted with accusations of witchcraft and subsequent violence, it is often the case that several forms of discrimination interact—for example, discrimination based on gender with discrimination based on caste, as is the case in India and Nepal, where such crimes are relatively common.
Until the 20th century, U.S. and English law observed the system of coverture, where "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage". U.S. women were not legally defined as "persons" until 1875 ("Minor v. Happersett", 88 U.S. 162). A similar legal doctrine, called marital power, existed under Roman Dutch law (and is still partially in force in present-day Eswatini).
Restrictions on married women's rights were common in Western countries until a few decades ago: for instance, French married women obtained the right to work without their husband's permission in 1965, and in West Germany women obtained this right in 1977. During the Franco era, in Spain, a married woman required her husband's consent (called "permiso marital") for employment, ownership of property and traveling away from home; the "permiso marital" was abolished in 1975. In Australia, until 1983, a married woman's passport application had to be authorized by her husband.
Women in parts of the world continue to lose their legal rights in marriage. For example, Yemeni marriage regulations state that a wife must obey her husband and must not leave home without his permission. In Iraq, the law allows husbands to legally "punish" their wives. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Family Code states that the husband is the head of the household; the wife owes her obedience to her husband; a wife has to live with her husband wherever he chooses to live; and wives must have their husbands' authorization to bring a case in court or initiate other legal proceedings.
Abuses and discriminatory practices against women in marriage are often rooted in financial payments such as dowry, bride price, and dower. These transactions often serve as legitimizing coercive control of the wife by her husband and in giving him authority over her; for instance Article 13 of the Code of Personal Status (Tunisia) states that, "The husband shall not, in default of payment of the dower, force the woman to consummate the marriage", implying that, if the dower is paid, marital rape is permitted. In this regard, critics have questioned the alleged gains of women in Tunisia, and its image as a progressive country in the region, arguing that discrimination against women remains very strong there.
The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has recognized the "independence and ability to leave an abusive husband" as crucial in stopping mistreatment of women. However, in some parts of the world, once married, women have very little chance of leaving a violent husband: obtaining a divorce is very difficult in many jurisdictions because of the need to prove fault in court. While attempting a "de facto" separation (moving away from the marital home) is also impossible because of laws preventing this. For instance, in Afghanistan, a wife who leaves her marital home risks being imprisoned for "running away". In addition, many former British colonies, including India, maintain the concept of restitution of conjugal rights, under which a wife may be ordered by court to return to her husband; if she fails to do so, she may be held in contempt of court. Other problems have to do with the payment of the bride price: if the wife wants to leave, her husband may demand the return of the bride price that he had paid to the woman's family; and the woman's family often cannot or does not want to pay it back.
Laws, regulations, and traditions related to marriage continue to discriminate against women in many parts of the world, and to contribute to the mistreatment of women, in particular in areas related to sexual violence and to self-determination regarding sexuality, the violation of the latter now being acknowledged as a violation of women's rights. In 2012, Navi Pillay, then High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that:
Women are frequently treated as property, they are sold into marriage, into trafficking, into sexual slavery. Violence against women frequently takes the form of sexual violence. Victims of such violence are often accused of promiscuity and held responsible for their fate, while infertile women are rejected by husbands, families and communities. In many countries, married women may not refuse to have sexual relations with their husbands, and often have no say in whether they use contraception... Ensuring that women have full autonomy over their bodies is the first crucial step towards achieving substantive equality between women and men. Personal issues—such as when, how and with whom they choose to have sex, and when, how and with whom they choose to have children—are at the heart of living a life in dignity.
Gender has been used as a tool for discrimination against women in the political sphere. Women's suffrage was not achieved until 1893, when New Zealand was the first country to grant women the right to vote. Saudi Arabia is the most recent country, as of August 2015, to extend the right to vote to women in 2011. Some Western countries allowed women the right to vote only relatively recently. Swiss women gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1971, and Appenzell Innerrhoden became the last canton to grant women the right to vote on local issues in 1991, when it was forced to do so by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland. French women were granted the right to vote in 1944. In Greece, women obtained the right to vote in 1952. In Liechtenstein, women obtained the right to vote in 1984, through the women's suffrage referendum of 1984.
While almost every woman today has the right to vote, there is still progress to be made for women in politics. Studies have shown that in several democracies including Australia, Canada, and the United States, women are still represented using gender stereotypes in the press. Multiple authors have shown that gender differences in the media are less evident today than they used to be in the 1980s, but are still present. Certain issues (e.g., education) are likely to be linked with female candidates, while other issues (e.g., taxes) are likely to be linked with male candidates. In addition, there is more emphasis on female candidates' personal qualities, such as their appearance and their personality, as females are portrayed as emotional and dependent.
Sexism in politics can also be shown in the imbalance of lawmaking power between men and women. Lanyan Chen stated that men hold more political power than women, serving as the gatekeepers of policy making. It is possible that this leads to women's needs not being properly represented. In this sense, the inequality of lawmaking power also causes gender discrimination in politics. The ratio of women to men in legislatures is used as a measure of gender equality in the United Nations (UN) created Gender Empowerment Measure and its newer incarnation the Gender Inequality Index.
Until the early 1980s, some high-end restaurants had two menus: a regular menu with the prices listed for men and a second menu for women, which did not have the prices listed (it was called the "ladies' menu"), so that the female diner would not know the prices of the items. In 1980, Kathleen Bick took a male business partner out to dinner at L'Orangerie in West Hollywood. After she was given a women's menu without prices and her guest got one with prices, Bick hired lawyer Gloria Allred to file a discrimination lawsuit, on the grounds that the women's menu went against the California Civil Rights Act. Bick stated that getting a women's menu without prices left her feeling "humiliated and incensed". The owners of the restaurant defended the practice, saying it was done as a courtesy, like the way men would stand up when a woman enters the room. Even though the lawsuit was dropped, the restaurant ended its gender-based menu policy.
Gender stereotypes are widely held beliefs about the characteristics and behavior of women and men. Empirical studies have found widely shared cultural beliefs that men are more socially valued and more competent than women in a number of activities. Dustin B. Thoman and others (2008) hypothesize that "[t]he socio-cultural salience of ability versus other components of the gender-math stereotype may impact women pursuing math". Through the experiment comparing the math outcomes of women under two various gender-math stereotype components, which are the ability of math and the effort on math respectively, Thoman and others found that women's math performance is more likely to be affected by the negative ability stereotype, which is influenced by sociocultural beliefs in the United States, rather than the effort component. As a result of this experiment and the sociocultural beliefs in the United States, Thoman and others concluded that individuals' academic outcomes can be affected by the gender-math stereotype component that is influenced by the sociocultural beliefs.
Sexism in language exists when language devalues members of a certain gender. Sexist language, in many instances, promotes male superiority. Sexism in language affects consciousness, perceptions of reality, encoding and transmitting cultural meanings and socialization. Researchers have pointed to the semantic rule in operation in language of the male-as-norm. This results in sexism as the male becomes the standard and those who are not male are relegated to the inferior. Sexism in language is considered a form of indirect sexism because it is not always overt.
Examples include:
Various 20th century feminist movements, from liberal feminism and radical feminism to standpoint feminism, postmodern feminism and queer theory, have considered language in their theorizing. Most of these theories have maintained a critical stance on language that calls for a change in the way speakers use their language.
One of the most common calls is for gender-neutral language. Many have called attention, however, to the fact that the English language is not inherently sexist in its linguistic system, but the way it is used becomes sexist and gender-neutral language could thus be employed. Other opposed critiques of sexism in language maintain that language is descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and attempts to control it can be fruitless.
Romanic languages such as French and Spanish may be seen as reinforcing sexism, in that the masculine form is the default. The word "mademoiselle", meaning "miss", was declared banished from French administrative forms in 2012 by Prime Minister François Fillon. Current pressure calls for the use of the masculine plural pronoun as the default in a mixed-sex group to change. As for Spanish, Mexico's Ministry of the Interior published a guide on how to reduce the use of sexist language.
German speakers have also raised questions about how sexism intersects with grammar. The German language is heavily inflected for gender, number, and case; nearly all nouns denoting the occupations or statuses of human beings are gender-differentiated. For more gender-neutral constructions, gerund nouns are sometimes used instead, as this eliminates the grammatical gender distinction in the plural, and significantly reduces it in the singular. For example, instead of "die Studenten" ("the men students") or "die Studentinnen" ("the women students"), one writes "die Studierenden" ("the [people who are] studying"). However, this approach introduces an element of ambiguity, because gerund nouns more precisely denote one currently engaged in the activity, rather than one who routinely engages in it as their primary occupation.
In Chinese, some writers have pointed to sexism inherent in the structure of written characters. For example, the character for man is linked to those for positive qualities like courage and effect while the character for wife is composed of a female part and a broom, considered of low worth.
Gender-specific pejorative terms intimidate or harm another person because of their gender. Sexism can be expressed in language with negative gender-oriented implications, such as condescension. For example, one may refer to a female as a "girl" rather than a "woman", implying that they are subordinate or not fully mature. Other examples include obscene language. Some words are offensive to transgender people, including "tranny", "she-male", or "he-she". Intentional misgendering (assigning the wrong gender to someone) and the pronoun "it" are also considered pejorative.
Occupational sexism refers to discriminatory practices, statements or actions, based on a person's sex, occurring in the workplace. One form of occupational sexism is wage discrimination. In 2008, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that while female employment rates have expanded and gender employment and wage gaps have narrowed nearly everywhere, on average women still have 20% less chance to have a job and are paid 17% less than men. The report stated: [In] many countries, labour market discrimination—i.e. the unequal treatment of equally productive individuals only because they belong to a specific group—is still a crucial factor inflating disparities in employment and the quality of job opportunities [...] Evidence presented in this edition of the "Employment Outlook" suggests that about 8percent of the variation in gender employment gaps and 30 percent of the variation in gender wage gaps across OECD countries can be explained by discriminatory practices in the labor market.
It also found that although almost all OECD countries, including the U.S., have established anti-discrimination laws, these laws are difficult to enforce.
Women who enter predominantly male work groups can experience the negative consequences of tokenism: performance pressures, social isolation, and role encapsulation. Tokenism could be used to camouflage sexism, to preserve male workers' advantage in the workplace. No link exists between the proportion of women working in an organization/company and the improvement of their working conditions. Ignoring sexist issues may exacerbate women's occupational problems.
In the "World Values Survey" of 2005, responders were asked if they thought wage work should be restricted to men only. In Iceland, the percentage that agreed was 3.6%, whereas in Egypt it was 94.9%.
Research has repeatedly shown that mothers in the United States are less likely to be hired than equally qualified fathers and if hired, receive a lower salary than male applicants with children.
One study found that female applicants were favored; however, its results have been met with skepticism from other researchers, since it contradicts most other studies on the issue. Joan C. Williams, a distinguished professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law, raised issues with its methodology, pointing out that the fictional female candidates it used were unusually well-qualified. Studies using more moderately qualified graduate students have found that male students are much more likely to be hired, offered better salaries, and offered mentorship.
In Europe, studies based on field experiments in the labor market, provide evidence for no severe levels of discrimination based on female gender. However, unequal treatment is still measured in particular situations, for instance, when candidates apply for positions at a higher functional level in Belgium, when they apply at their fertile ages in France, and when they apply for male-dominated occupations in Austria.
Studies have concluded that on average women earn lower wages than men worldwide. Some people argue that this results from of widespread gender discrimination in the workplace. Others argue that the wage gap results from different choices by men and women, such as women placing more value than men on having children, and men being more likely than women to choose careers in high paying fields such as business, engineering, and technology.
Eurostat found a persistent, average gender pay gap of 27.5% in the 27 EU member states in 2008. Similarly, the OECD found that female full-time employees earned 27% less than their male counterparts in OECD countries in 2009.
In the United States, the female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.77 in 2009; female full-time, year-round (FTYR) workers earned 77% as much as male FTYR workers. Women's earnings relative to men's fell from 1960 to 1980 (56.7–54.2%), rose rapidly from 1980 to 1990 (54.2–67.6%), leveled off from 1990 to 2000 (67.6–71.2%) and rose from 2000 to 2009 (71.2–77.0%). When the first Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, female full-time workers earned 48.9% as much as male full-time workers.
Research conducted in the Czech and Slovak Republics shows that, even after the governments passed anti-discrimination legislation, two thirds of the gender gap in wages remained unexplained and segregation continued to "represent a major source of the gap".
The gender gap can also vary across-occupation and within occupation. In Taiwan, for example, studies show how the bulk of gender wage discrepancies occur within-occupation. In Russia, research shows that the gender wage gap is distributed unevenly across income levels, and that it mainly occurs at the lower end of income distribution. The research also found that "wage arrears and payment in-kind attenuated wage discrimination, particularly amongst the lowest paid workers, suggesting that Russian enterprise managers assigned lowest importance to equity considerations when allocating these forms of payment".
The gender pay gap has been attributed to differences in personal and workplace characteristics between men and women (such as education, hours worked and occupation), innate behavioral and biological differences between men and women and discrimination in the labor market (such as gender stereotypes and customer and employer bias). Women take significantly more time off to raise children than men. In certain countries such as South Korea, it has also been a long-established practice to lay-off female employees upon marriage. A study by Professor Linda C. Babcock in her book "Women Don't Ask" shows that men are eight times more likely to ask for a pay raise, suggesting that pay inequality may be partly a result of behavioral differences between the sexes. However, studies generally find that a portion of the gender pay gap remains unexplained after accounting for factors assumed to influence earnings; the unexplained portion of the wage gap is attributed to gender discrimination.
Estimates of the discriminatory component of the gender pay gap vary. The OECD estimated that approximately 30% of the gender pay gap across OECD countries is because of discrimination. Australian research shows that discrimination accounts for approximately 60% of the wage differential between men and women. Studies examining the gender pay gap in the United States show that a much of the wage differential remains unexplained, after controlling for factors affecting pay. One study of college graduates found that the portion of the pay gap unexplained after all other factors are taken into account is five percent one year after graduating and 12% a decade after graduation. A study by the American Association of University Women found that women graduates in the United States are paid less than men doing the same work and majoring in the same field.
Wage discrimination is theorized as contradicting the economic concept of supply and demand, which states that if a good or service (in this case, labor) is in demand and has value it will find its price in the market. If a worker offered equal value for less pay, supply and demand would indicate a greater demand for lower-paid workers. If a business hired lower-wage workers for the same work, it would lower its costs and enjoy a competitive advantage. According to supply and demand, if women offered equal value demand (and wages) should rise since they offer a better price (lower wages) for their service than men do.
Research at Cornell University and elsewhere indicates that mothers in the United States are less likely to be hired than equally qualified fathers and, if hired, receive a lower salary than male applicants with children. The OECD found that "a significant impact of children on women's pay is generally found in the United Kingdom and the United States". Fathers earn $7,500 more, on average, than men without children do.
There is research to suggest that the gender wage gap leads to big losses for the economy.
According to Denise Venable at the National Center for Policy Analysis, the "wage gap" in the United States is not the result of discrimination but of differences in lifestyle choices. Venable's report found that women are less likely than men to sacrifice personal happiness for increases in income or to choose full-time work. She found that among American adults working between one and thirty-five hours a week, and part-time workers who have never been married, women earn more than men. Venable also found that among people aged 27 to 33 who have never had a child, women's earnings approach 98% of men's and "women who hold positions and have skills and experience similar to those of men face wage disparities of less than 10 percent, and many are within a couple of points". Venable concluded that women and men with equal skills and opportunities in the same positions face little or no wage discrimination: "Claims of unequal pay almost always involve comparing apples and oranges".
There is considerable agreement that gender wage discrimination exists, however, when estimating its magnitude, significant discrepancies are visible. A meta-regression analysis concludes that "the estimated gender gap has been steadily declining" and that the wage rate calculation is proven to be crucial in estimating the wage gap. The analysis further notes that excluding experience and failing to correct for selection bias from analysis might also lead to incorrect conclusions.
"The popular notion of glass ceiling effects implies that gender (or other) disadvantages are stronger at the top of the hierarchy than at lower levels and that these disadvantages become worse later in a person's career."
In the United States, women account for 52% of the overall labor force, but make up only three percent of corporate CEOs and top executives. Some researchers see the root cause of this situation in the tacit discrimination based on gender, conducted by current top executives and corporate directors (primarily male), and "the historic absence of women in top positions", which "may lead to hysteresis, preventing women from accessing powerful, male-dominated professional networks, or same-sex mentors". The glass ceiling effect is noted as being especially persistent for women of color. According to a report, "women of colour perceive a 'concrete ceiling' and not simply a glass ceiling".
In the economics profession, it has been observed that women are more inclined than men to dedicate their time to teaching and service. Since continuous research work is crucial for promotion, "the cumulative effect of small, contemporaneous differences in research orientation could generate the observed significant gender difference in promotion". In the high-tech industry, research shows that, regardless of the intra-firm changes, "extra-organizational pressures will likely contribute to continued gender stratification as firms upgrade, leading to the potential masculinization of skilled high-tech work".
The United Nations asserts that "progress in bringing women into leadership and decision making positions around the world remains far too slow".
Research by David Matsa and Amalia Miller suggests that a remedy to the glass ceiling could be increasing the number of women on corporate boards, which could lead to increases in the number of women working in top management positions. The same research suggests that this could also result in a "feedback cycle in which the presence of more female managers increases the qualified pool of potential female board members (for the companies they manage, as well as other companies), leading to greater female board membership and then further increases in female executives".
A 2009 study found that being overweight harms women's career advancement, but presents no barrier for men. Overweight women were significantly underrepresented among company bosses, making up between five and 22% of female CEOs. However, the proportion of overweight male CEOs was between 45% and 61%, over-representing overweight men. On the other hand, approximately five percent of CEOs were obese among both genders. The author of the study stated that the results suggest that "the 'glass ceiling effect' on women's advancement may reflect not only general negative stereotypes about the competencies of women but also weight bias that results in the application of stricter appearance standards to women."
Transgender people also experience significant workplace discrimination and harassment. Unlike sex-based discrimination, refusing to hire (or firing) a worker for their gender identity or expression is not explicitly illegal in most U.S. states. In June 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that federal civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender workers. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote: "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."
In August 1995, Kimberly Nixon filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter. Nixon, a trans woman, had been interested in volunteering as a counsellor with the shelter. When the shelter learned that she was transsexual, they told Nixon that she would not be allowed to volunteer with the organization. Nixon argued that this constituted illegal discrimination under Section 41 of the British Columbia "Human Rights Code". Vancouver Rape Relief countered that individuals are shaped by the socialization and experiences of their formative years, and that Nixon had been socialized as a male growing up, and that, therefore, Nixon would not be able to provide sufficiently effective counselling to the female born women that the shelter served. Nixon took her case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to hear the case.
In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or thing. Objectification plays a central role in feminist theory, especially sexual objectification. Feminist writer and gender equality activist Joy Goh-Mah argues that by being objectified, a person is denied agency. According to the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, a person might be objectified if one or more of the following properties are applied to them:
Rae Helen Langton, in "Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification", proposed three more properties to be added to Nussbaum's list:
According to objectification theory, objectification can have important repercussions on women, particularly young women, as it can negatively impact their psychological health and lead to the development of mental disorders, such as unipolar depression, sexual dysfunction, and eating disorders.
While advertising used to portray women and men in obviously stereotypical roles (e.g., as a housewife, breadwinner), in modern advertisements, they are no longer solely confined to their traditional roles. However, advertising today still stereotypes men and women, albeit in more subtle ways, including by sexually objectifying them. Women are most often targets of sexism in advertising. When in advertisements with men they are often shorter and put in the background of images, shown in more "feminine" poses, and generally present a higher degree of "body display".
Today, some countries (for example Norway and Denmark) have laws against sexual objectification in advertising. Nudity is not banned, and nude people can be used to advertise a product if they are relevant to the product advertised. Sol Olving, head of Norway's Kreativt Forum (an association of the country's top advertising agencies) explained, "You could have a naked person advertising shower gel or a cream, but not a woman in a bikini draped across a car".
Other countries continue to ban nudity (on traditional obscenity grounds), but also make explicit reference to sexual objectification, such as Israel's ban of billboards that "depicts sexual humiliation or abasement, or presents a human being as an object available for sexual use".
Anti-pornography feminist Catharine MacKinnon argues that pornography contributes to sexism by objectifying women and portraying them in submissive roles. MacKinnon, along with Andrea Dworkin, argues that pornography reduces women to mere tools, and is a form of sex discrimination. The two scholars highlight the link between objectification and pornography by stating:
We define pornography as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and words that also includes (i) women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; or (ii) women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain; or (iii) women are presented as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape, incest or other sexual assault; or (iv) women are presented as sexual objects tied up, cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or (v) women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or (vi) women's body parts—including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks—are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or (vii) women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals; or (viii) women are presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual."
Robin Morgan and Catharine MacKinnon suggest that certain types of pornography also contribute to violence against women by eroticizing scenes in which women are dominated, coerced, humiliated or sexually assaulted.
Some people opposed to pornography, including MacKinnon, charge that the production of pornography entails physical, psychological, and economic coercion of the women who perform and model in it. Opponents of pornography charge that it presents a distorted image of sexual relations and reinforces sexual myths; it shows women as continually available and willing to engage in sex at any time, with any person, on their terms, responding positively to any requests.
MacKinnon writes:
Defenders of pornography and anti-censorship activists (including sex-positive feminists) argue that pornography does not seriously impact a mentally healthy individual, since the viewer can distinguish between fantasy and reality. They contend that men and women are objectified in pornography particularly sadistic or masochistic pornography, in which men are objectified and sexually used by women.
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual relations for payment. Sex workers are often objectified and are seen as existing only to serve clients, thus calling their sense of agency into question. There is a prevailing notion that because they sell sex professionally, prostitutes automatically consent to all sexual contact. As a result, sex workers face higher rates of violence and sexual assault. This is often dismissed, ignored and not taken seriously by authorities.
In many countries, prostitution is dominated by brothels or pimps, who often claim ownership over sex workers. This sense of ownership furthers the concept that sex workers are void of agency. This is literally the case in instances of sexual slavery.
Various authors have argued that female prostitution is based on male sexism that condones the idea that unwanted sex with a woman is acceptable, that men's desires must be satisfied, and that women are coerced into and exist to serve men sexually. The European Women's Lobby condemned prostitution as "an intolerable form of male violence".
Carole Pateman writes that:
Prostitution is the use of a woman's body by a man for his own satisfaction. There is no desire or satisfaction on the part of the prostitute. Prostitution is not mutual, pleasurable exchange of the use of bodies, but the unilateral use of a woman's body by a man in exchange for money.
Some scholars believe that media portrayals of demographic groups can both maintain and disrupt attitudes and behaviors toward those groups. According to Susan Douglas: "Since the early 1990s, much of the media have come to overrepresent women as having made it-completely-in the professions, as having gained sexual equality with men, and having achieved a level of financial success and comfort enjoyed primarily by Tiffany's-encrusted doyennes of Laguna Beach." These images may be harmful, particularly to women and racial and ethnic minority groups. For example, a study of African American women found they feel that media portrayals of themselves often reinforce stereotypes of this group as overly sexual and idealize images of lighter-skinned, thinner African American women (images African American women describe as objectifying). In a recent analysis of images of Haitian women in the Associated Press photo archive from 1994 to 2009, several themes emerged emphasizing the "otherness" of Haitian women and characterizing them as victims in need of rescue.
In an attempt to study the effect of media consumption on males, Samantha and Bridges found an effect on body shame, though not through self-objectification as it was found in comparable studies of women. The authors conclude that the current measures of objectification were designed for women and do not measure men accurately. Another study found a negative effect on eating attitudes and body satisfaction of consumption of beauty and fitness magazines for women and men respectively but again with different mechanisms, namely self-objectification for women and internalization for men.
Frederick Attenborough argues that sexist jokes can be a form of sexual objectification, which reduce the butt of the joke to an object. They not only objectify women, but can also condone violence or prejudice against women. "Sexist humor—the denigration of women through humor—for instance, trivializes sex discrimination under the veil of benign amusement, thus precluding challenges or opposition that nonhumorous sexist communication would likely incur." A study of 73 male undergraduate students by Ford found that "sexist humor can promote the behavioral expression of prejudice against women amongst sexist men". According to the study, when sexism is presented in a humorous manner it is viewed as tolerable and socially acceptable: "Disparagement of women through humor 'freed' sexist participants from having to conform to the more general and more restrictive norms regarding discrimination against women."
Gender discrimination is discrimination based on actual or perceived gender identity. Gender identity is "the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual's designated sex at birth". Gender discrimination is theoretically different from sexism. Whereas sexism is prejudice based on biological sex, gender discrimination specifically addresses discrimination towards gender identities, including third gender, genderqueer, and other non-binary identified people. It is especially attributed to how people are treated in the workplace, and banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression has emerged as a subject of contention in the American legal system.
According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, "although the majority of federal courts to consider the issue have concluded that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is not sex discrimination, there have been several courts that have reached the opposite conclusion". Hurst states that "[c]ourts often confuse sex, gender and sexual orientation, and confuse them in a way that results in denying the rights not only of gays and lesbians, but also of those who do not present themselves or act in a manner traditionally expected of their sex".
Oppositional sexism is a term coined by transfeminist author Julia Serano, who defined oppositional sexism as "the belief that male and female are rigid, mutually exclusive categories". Oppositional sexism plays a vital role in a number of social norms, such as cissexism, heteronormativity, and traditional sexism.
Oppositional sexism normalizes masculine expression in males and feminine expression in females while simultaneously demonizing femininity in males and masculinity in females. This concept plays a crucial role in supporting cissexism, the social norm that views cisgender people as both natural and privileged as opposed to transgender people.
The idea of having two, opposite genders is tied to sexuality through what gender theorist Judith Butler calls a "compulsory practice of heterosexuality". Because oppositional sexism is tied to heteronormativity in this way, non-heterosexuals are seen as breaking gender norms.
The concept of opposite genders sets a "dangerous precedent", according to Serano, where "if men are big then women must be small; and if men are strong then women must be weak". The gender binary and oppositional norms work together to support "traditional sexism", the belief that femininity is inferior to and serves masculinity.
Serano states that oppositional sexism works in tandem with "traditional sexism". This ensures that "those who are masculine have power over those who are feminine, and that only those that are born male will be seen as authentically masculine."
Transgender discrimination is discrimination towards peoples whose gender identity differs from the social expectations of the biological sex they were born with. Forms of discrimination include but are not limited to identity documents not reflecting one's gender, sex-segregated public restrooms and other facilities, dress codes according to binary gender codes, and lack of access to and existence of appropriate health care services. In a recent adjudication, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) concluded that discrimination against a transgender person is sex discrimination.
The 2008–09 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS)—a U.S. study by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in collaboration with the National Black Justice Coalition that was, at its time, the most extensive survey of transgender discrimination—showed that Black transgender people in the United States suffer "the combination of anti-transgender bias and persistent, structural and individual racism" and that "black transgender people live in extreme poverty that is more than twice the rate for transgender people of all races (15%), four times the general Black population rate (9%) and over eight times the general US population rate (4%)". Further discrimination is faced by gender nonconforming individuals, whether transitioning or not, because of displacement from societally acceptable gender binaries and visible stigmatization. According to the NTDS, transgender gender nonconforming (TGNC) individuals face between eight percent and 15% higher rates of self and social discrimination and violence than binary transgender individuals. Lisa R. Miller and Eric Anthony Grollman found in their 2015 study that "gender nonconformity may heighten trans people's exposure to discrimination and health-harming behaviors. Gender nonconforming trans adults reported more events of major and everyday transphobic discrimination than their gender conforming counterparts."
In another study conducted in collaboration with the League of United Latin American Citizens, Latino/a transgender people who were non-citizens were most vulnerable to harassment, abuse and violence.
An updated version of the NTDS survey, called the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, was published in December 2016.
Although the exact rates are widely disputed, there is a large body of cross-cultural evidence that women are subjected to domestic violence mostly committed by men. In addition, there is a broad consensus that women are more often subjected to severe forms of abuse and are more likely to be injured by an abusive partner. The United Nations recognizes domestic violence as a form of gender-based violence, which it describes as a human rights violation, and the result of sexism.
Domestic violence is tolerated and even legally accepted in many parts of the world. For instance, in 2010, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s Supreme Court ruled that a man has the right to discipline his wife and children physically if he does not leave visible marks. In 2015, Equality Now drew attention to a section of the Penal Code of Northern Nigeria, titled "Correction of Child, Pupil, Servant or Wife" which reads: "(1) Nothing is an offence which does not amount to the infliction of grievous hurt upon any persons which is done: (...) (d) by a husband for the purpose of correcting his wife, such husband and wife being subject to any native law or custom in which such correction is recognized as lawful."
Honor killings are another form of domestic violence practiced in several parts of the world, and their victims are predominantly women. Honor killings can occur because of refusal to enter into an arranged marriage, maintaining a relationship relatives disapprove of, extramarital sex, becoming the victim of rape, dress seen as inappropriate, or homosexuality. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime states that, "[h]onour crimes, including killing, are one of history's oldest forms of gender-based violence".
According to a report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights concerning cultural practices in the family that reflect violence against women:
The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honour defense in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defense in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Peru, Syria, Venezuela, and the Palestinian National Authority.
Practices such as honor killings and stoning continue to be supported by mainstream politicians and other officials in some countries. In Pakistan, after the 2008 Balochistan honour killings in which five women were killed by tribesmen of the Umrani Tribe of Balochistan, Pakistani federal minister for Postal Services Israr Ullah Zehri defended the practice: "These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them. Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid." Following the 2006 case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (which has placed Iran under international pressure for its stoning sentences), Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a senior envoy and chief of Iran's Human Rights Council, defended the practice of stoning; he claimed it was a "lesser punishment" than execution, because it allowed those convicted a chance at survival.
Dowry deaths result from the killing of women who are unable to pay the high dowry price for their marriage. According to Amnesty International, "the ongoing reality of dowry-related violence is an example of what can happen when women are treated as property".
Female infanticide is the killing of newborn female children, while female selective abortion is the terminating of a pregnancy based upon the female sex of the fetus. Gendercide is the systematic killing of members of a specific gender and it is an extreme form of gender-based violence. Female infanticide is more common than male infanticide, and is especially prevalent in South Asia, in countries such as China, India and Pakistan. Recent studies suggest that over 90 million girls and women are missing in China and India as a result of infanticide.
Sex-selective abortion involves terminating a pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of the baby. The abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where a culture values male children over females, such as parts of East Asia and South Asia (China, India, Korea), the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia), and Western Balkans (Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo). One reason for this preference is that males are seen as generating more income than females. The trend has grown steadily over the previous decade, and may result in a future shortage of women.
Forced sterilization and forced abortion are also forms of gender-based violence. Forced sterilization was practiced during the first half of the 20th century by many Western countries and there are reports of this practice being currently employed in some countries, such as Uzbekistan and China.
In China, the one child policy interacting with the low status of women has been deemed responsible for many abuses, such as female infanticide, sex-selective abortion, abandonment of baby girls, forced abortion, and forced sterilization.
In India the custom of dowry is strongly related to female infanticide, sex-selective abortion, abandonment and mistreatment of girls. Such practices are especially present in the northwestern part of the country: Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Delhi. (See Female foeticide in India and Female infanticide in India).
Female genital mutilation is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons". The WHO further states that, "the procedure has no health benefits for girls and women" and "can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections, infertility as well as complications in childbirth increased risk of newborn death". It "is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women" and "constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women". The European Parliament stated in a resolution that the practice "clearly goes against the European founding value of equality between women and men and maintains traditional values according to which women are seen as the objects and properties of men".
Research by Lisak and Roth into factors motivating perpetrators of sexual assault, including rape, against women revealed a pattern of hatred towards women and pleasure in inflicting psychological and physical trauma, rather than sexual interest. Mary Odem and Peggy Reeves Sanday posit that rape is the result not of pathology but of systems of male dominance, cultural practices and beliefs.
Odem, Jody Clay-Warner, and Susan Brownmiller argue that sexist attitudes are propagated by a series of myths about rape and rapists. They state that in contrast to those myths, rapists often plan a rape before they choose a victim and acquaintance rape (not assault by a stranger) is the most common form of rape. Odem also asserts that these rape myths propagate sexist attitudes about men, by perpetuating the belief that men cannot control their sexuality.
Sexism can promote the stigmatization of women and girls who have been raped and inhibit recovery. In many parts of the world, women who have been raped are ostracized, rejected by their families, subjected to violence, and—in extreme cases—may become victims of honor killings because they are deemed to have brought shame upon their families.
The criminalization of marital rape is very recent, having occurred during the past few decades; in many countries it is still legal. Several countries in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia made spousal rape illegal before 1970; other European countries and some English-speaking countries outside Europe outlawed it later, mostly in the 1980s and 1990s; some countries outlawed it in the 2000s. The WHO wrote that: "Marriage is often used to legitimize a range of forms of sexual violence against women. The custom of marrying off young children, particularly girls, is found in many parts of the world. This practice—legal in many countries—is a form of sexual violence, since the children involved are unable to give or withhold their consent".
In countries where fornication or adultery are illegal, victims of rape can be charged criminally.
Sexism is manifested by the crime of rape targeting women civilians and soldiers, committed by soldiers, combatants or civilians during armed conflict, war or military occupation. This arises from the long tradition of women being seen as sexual booty and from the misogynistic culture of military training.
The United Nations Population Fund writes that, "Family planning is central to gender equality and women's empowerment". Women in many countries around the world are denied medical and informational services related to reproductive health, including access to pregnancy care, family planning, and contraception. In countries with very strict abortion laws (particularly in Latin America) women who suffer miscarriages are often investigated by the police under suspicion of having deliberately provoked the miscarriage and are sometimes jailed, a practice which Amnesty International called a "ruthless campaign against women's rights". Doctors may be reluctant to treat pregnant women who are very ill, because they are afraid the treatment may result in fetal loss. According to Amnesty Intentional, "Discriminatory attitudes towards women and girls also means access to sex education and contraceptives are near impossible [in El Salvador]". The organization has also criticized laws and policies which require the husband's consent for a woman to use reproductive health services as being discriminatory and dangerous to women's health and life: "[F]or the woman who needs her husband's consent to get contraception, the consequences of discrimination can be serious—even fatal".
A child marriage is a marriage where one or both spouses are under 18, a practice that disproportionately affects women. Child marriages are most common in South Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, but occur in other parts of the world, too. The practice of marrying young girls is rooted in patriarchal ideologies of control of female behavior and is also sustained by traditional practices such as dowry and bride price. Child marriage is strongly connected with protecting female virginity. UNICEF states that:
Marrying girls under 18 years old is rooted in gender discrimination, encouraging premature and continuous child bearing and giving preference to boys' education. Child marriage is also a strategy for economic survival as families marry off their daughters at an early age to reduce their economic burden.
Consequences of child marriage include restricted education and employment prospects, increased risk of domestic violence, child sexual abuse, pregnancy and birth complications, and social isolation. Early and forced marriage are defined as forms of modern-day slavery by the International Labour Organization. In some cases, a woman or girl who has been raped may be forced to marry her rapist to restore the honor of her family; marriage by abduction, a practice in which a man abducts the woman or girl whom he wishes to marry and rapes her to force the marriage is common in Ethiopia.
In several Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries the legal testimony of a woman is worth legally half of that of a man (see Status of women's testimony in Islam). Such countries include: Algeria (in criminal cases), Bahrain (in Sharia courts), Egypt (in family courts), Iran (in most cases), Iraq (in some cases), Jordan (in Sharia courts), Kuwait (in family courts), Libya (in some cases), Morocco (in family cases), Palestine (in cases related to marriage, divorce and child custody), Qatar (in family law matters), Syria (in Sharia courts), United Arab Emirates (in some civil matters), Yemen (not allowed to testify at all in cases of adultery and retribution), and Saudi Arabia. Such laws have been criticized by Human Rights Watch and Equality Now as being discriminatory towards women.
The criminal justice system in many common law countries has also been accused of discriminating against women. Provocation is, in many common law countries, a partial defense to murder, which converts what would have been murder into manslaughter. It is meant to be applied when a person kills in the "heat of passion" upon being "provoked" by the behavior of the victim. This defense has been criticized as being gendered, favoring men, because of it being used disproportionately in cases of adultery, and other domestic disputes when women are killed by their partners. As a result of the defense exhibiting a strong gender bias, and being a form of legitimization of male violence against women and minimization of the harm caused by violence against women, it has been abolished or restricted in several jurisdictions.
The traditional leniency towards crimes of passion in Latin American countries has been deemed to have its origin in the view that women are property. In 2002, Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, stated that, "[S]o-called crimes of passion have a similar dynamic [to honor killings] in that the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable." The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has called for "the elimination of discriminatory provisions in the legislation, including mitigating factors for 'crimes of passion."
In the United States, some studies have shown that for identical crimes, men are given harsher sentences than women. Controlling for arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge variables, sentences are over 60% heavier for men. Women are more likely to avoid charges entirely, and to avoid imprisonment if convicted. The gender disparity varies according to the nature of the case. For example, the gender gap is less pronounced in fraud cases than in drug trafficking and firearms. This disparity occurs in US federal courts, despite guidelines designed to avoid differential sentencing. The death penalty may also suffer from gender bias. According to Shatz and Shatz, "[t]he present study confirms what earlier studies have shown: that the death penalty is imposed on women relatively infrequently and that it is disproportionately imposed for the killing of women".
There have been several reasons postulated for the gender criminal justice disparity in the United States. One of the most common is the expectation that women are predominantly care-givers. Other possible reasons include the "girlfriend theory" (whereby women are seen as tools of their boyfriends), the theory that female defendants are more likely to cooperate with authorities, and that women are often successful at turning their violent crime into victimhood by citing defenses such as postpartum depression or battered wife syndrome. However, none of these theories account for the total disparity, and sexism has also been suggested as an underlying cause.
Gender discrimination also helps explain the differences between trial outcomes in which some female defendants are sentenced to death and other female defendants are sentenced to lesser punishments. Phillip Barron argues that female defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death for crimes that violate gender norms, such as killing children or killing strangers.
Transgender people face widespread discrimination while incarcerated. They are generally housed according to their legal birth sex, rather than their gender identity. Studies have shown that transgender people are at an increased risk for harassment and sexual assault in this environment. They may also be denied access to medical procedures related to their reassignment.
Some countries use stoning as a form of capital punishment. According to Amnesty International, the majority of those stoned are women and women are disproportionately affected by stoning because of sexism in the legal system.
One study found that: [O]n average, women receive lighter sentences in comparison with men... roughly 30% of the gender differences in incarceration cannot be explained by the observed criminal characteristics of offense and offender. We also find evidence of considerable heterogeneity across judges in their treatment of female and male offenders. There is little evidence, however, that tastes for gender discrimination are driving the mean gender disparity or the variance in treatment between judges.,
A 2017 study by Knepper found that "female plaintiffs filing workplace sex discrimination claims are substantially more likely to settle and win compensation whenever a female judge is assigned to the case. Additionally, female judges are 15 percentage points less likely than male judges to grant motions filed by defendants, which suggests that final negotiations are shaped by the emergence of the bias."
Women have traditionally had limited access to higher education. In the past, when women were admitted to higher education, they were encouraged to major in less-scientific subjects; the study of English literature in American and British colleges and universities was instituted as a field considered suitable to women's "lesser intellects".
Educational specialties in higher education produce and perpetuate inequality between men and women. Disparity persists particularly in computer and information science, where in the US women received only 21% of the undergraduate degrees, and in engineering, where women obtained only 19% of the degrees in 2008. Only one out of five of physics doctorates in the US are awarded to women, and only about half those women are American. Of all the physics professors in the country, only 14% are women.
World literacy is lower for females than for males. Data from "The World Factbook" shows that 79.7% of women are literate, compared to 88.6% of men (aged 15 and over). In some parts of the world, girls continue to be excluded from proper public or private education. In parts of Afghanistan, girls who go to school face serious violence from some local community members and religious groups.
According to 2010 UN estimates, only Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen had less than 90 girls per 100 boys at school. Jayachandran and Lleras-Muney's study of Sri Lankan economic development has suggested that increases in the life expectancy for women encourages educational investment because a longer time horizon increases the value of investments that pay out over time.
Educational opportunities and outcomes for women have greatly improved in the West. Since 1991, the proportion of women enrolled in college in the United States has exceeded the enrollment rate for men, and the gap has widened over time. , women made up the majority—54%—of the 10.8 million college students enrolled in the United States. However, research by Diane Halpern has indicated that boys receive more attention, praise, blame and punishment in the grammar-school classroom, and "this pattern of more active teacher attention directed at male students continues at the postsecondary level". Over time, female students speak less in a classroom setting.
Writer Gerry Garibaldi has argued that the educational system has become "feminized", allowing girls more of a chance at success with a more "girl-friendly" environment in the classroom; this is seen to hinder boys by punishing "masculine" behavior and diagnosing boys with behavioral disorders. A recent study by the OECD in over 60 countries found that teachers give boys lower grades for the same work. The researchers attribute this to stereotypical ideas about boys and recommend teachers to be aware of this gender bias. One study found that students give female professors worse evaluation scores than male professors, even though the students appear to do as well under female professors as male professors.
Gender bias and gender-based discrimination still permeate the education process in many settings. For example, in the teaching and learning process, including differential engagement, expectations and interactions by teachers with their male and female students, as well as gender stereotypes in textbooks and learning materials. There has been a lack in adequate resources and infrastructure to ensure safe and enabling learning environments, and insufficient policy, legal and planning frameworks, that respect, protect and fulfil the right to education.
Feminists argue that clothing and footwear fashion have been oppressive to women, restricting their movements, increasing their vulnerability, and endangering their health. Using thin models in the fashion industry has encouraged the development of bulimia and anorexia nervosa, as well as locking female consumers into false feminine identities.
The assignment of gender-specific baby clothes can instill in children a belief in negative gender stereotypes. One example is the assignment in some countries of the color pink to girls and blue to boys. The fashion is recent one. At the beginning of the 20th century the trend was the opposite: blue for girls and pink for boys. In the early 1900s, "The Women's Journal" wrote that "pink being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl". "DressMaker" magazine also explained that "[t]he preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is considered paler, and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger (akin to red)". Today, in many countries, it is considered inappropriate for boys to wear dresses and skirts, but this is also a relatively recent view. From the mid-16th century until the late 19th or early 20th century, young boys in the Western world were unbreeched and wore gowns or dresses until an age that varied between two and eight.
Laws that dictate how women must dress are seen by many international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, as gender discrimination. In many countries, women face violence for failing to adhere to certain dress codes, whether by the authorities (such as the religious police), family members, or the community. Amnesty International states:
The production process also faces criticism for sexist practices. In the garment industry, approximately 80 percent of workers are female. Much garment production is located in Asia because of low labor costs. Women who work in these factories are sexually harassed by managers and male workers, paid low wages, and discriminated against when pregnant.
Conscription, or compulsory military service, has been criticized as sexist. Prior to the late 20th century, only men were subjected to conscription, and most countries still require only men to serve in the military.
In his book "The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys" (2012), philosopher David Benatar states that "[t]he prevailing assumption is that where conscription is necessary, it is only men who should be conscripted and, similarly, that only males should be forced into combat". This, he believes, "is a sexist assumption". Anthropologist Ayse Gül Altinay has commented that "given equal suffrage rights, there is no other citizenship practice that differentiates as radically between men and women as compulsory male conscription".
Only nine countries conscript women into their armed forces: China, Eritrea, Israel, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Norway, Peru, and Taiwan. Other countries—such as Finland, Turkey, and Singapore—still use a system of conscription which requires military service from men only, although women may serve voluntarily. In 2014, Norway became the first NATO country to introduce obligatory military service for women as an act of gender equality and in 2015, the Dutch government started preparing a gender-neutral draft law. The gender selective draft has been challenged in the United States. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27165 |
Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena (IAST: Śiva Sēnā) (translation; "Army of Shivaji"), is a right-wing Marathi regional and Hindu nationalist political party founded in 1966 by cartoonist Bal Thackeray. Originally emerging from nativist movements in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), the party agitates for preferential treatment for Maharashtrians over migrants from other parts of India. Its election symbol for Maharashtra is "Bow and Arrow". Uddhav Thackeray, Bal Thackeray's son, is party leader and serves as the current Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
Although the party's primary base is still in Maharashtra, it has tried to expand to a pan-Indian base. In the 1970s, it gradually moved from advocating a pro-Marathi ideology to one supporting a broader Hindu nationalist agenda, and aligned itself with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The party started taking part in Mumbai (BMC) Municipal elections since its inception. In 1989, it entered into an alliance with the BJP for Lok Sabha as well as Maharashtra assembly elections, the latter of which was temporarily broken in October 2014 Assembly elections. The alliance was quickly reformed and Shiv Sena became part of the BJP government in Maharashtra in December 2014. It was a coalition partner in the National Democratic Alliance during 1998–2019, including the Vajpayee Government during 1998–2004 and the Narendra Modi Government during 2014-2019. After the Maharashtra elections in October 2019, Shiv Sena claimed that promises were not kept by their alliance partner BJP and broke ties. The party later joined hands with the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party in a bid to form the government in Maharashtra.
The party has a powerful hold over the Bollywood film industry. It has been referred to as an "extremist", "chauvinist", as well as a "fascist party". Shiv Sena has been blamed for the 1970 communal violence in Bhiwandi, the 1984 Bhiwandi riot, and violence in the 1992–1993 Bombay riots.
The party draws its strength from the support of the Maratha and Kunbi communities of Maharashtra which the Sena drew away from the Congress party.
After the Independence of India in 1947, regional administrative divisions from the colonial era were gradually changed and states following linguistic borders were created. Within the Bombay Presidency, a massive popular struggle was launched for the creation of a state for the Marathi-speaking people. In 1960, the presidency was divided into two linguistic states - Gujarat and Maharashtra. Moreover, Marathi-speaking areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad state were joined with Maharashtra. Bombay, in many ways the economic capital of India, became the state capital of Maharashtra. On one hand, people belonging to the Gujarati community owned the majority of the industry and trade enterprises in the city.
On the other hand, there was a steady flow of South Indian migrants to the city who came to take many white-collar jobs.
In 1960 Bal Thackeray, a Bombay-based cartoonist, began publishing the satirical cartoon weekly "Marmik". Through this publication, he started disseminating anti-migrant sentiments. On 19 June 1966, Thackeray founded the Shiv Sena as a political organisation.
The Shiv Sena attracted many unemployed Marathi youth, who were attracted by Thackeray's charged anti-migrant oratory. Shiv Sena cadres became involved in various attacks against the South Indian communities, vandalizing South Indian restaurants and pressuring employers to hire Marathis.
The Sena started placing more weight on the Hindutva ideology in the 1970s as the 'sons of the soil' cause was weakening.
The party began a coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for seats in the Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra Assembly from 1989. The two formed a government in Maharashtra between 1995-1999. The Sena was the opposition party in the state along with the BJP from 1999 to 2014. However, the 25 year alliance with the BJP was threatened in 2014 Maharashtra Assembly elections over seat sharing and both contested the election independently. With the BJP becoming the largest party following the 2014 election, Sena declared opposition. However, after negotiations, Sena agreed to join the government in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena-BJP combine governs the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Traditionally the main strongholds of Shiv Sena have been Mumbai and the Konkan coastal areas. However, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections the result was reversed. The Shiv Sena made inroads in the interior parts of the state, while suffering losses in Mumbai.
In January 2018, Shiv Sena officially cut ties with the BJP and their NDA coalition ahead of the 2019 Indian general election after nearly 30 years of campaigning alongside the BJP. But in February 2019, BJP and Shiv Sena again announced alliance for the general elections as well as the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election. The election saw Shiv Sena lose votes and subsequently declined to support the BJP in forming a government over the BJP's refusal to engage in power-sharing. Shiv Sena withdrew from National Democratic Alliance, precipitating a political crisis in late October-early November 2019, which ultimately led to party leader Uddhav Thackeray becoming Chief Minister through support from the Indian National Congress, and the Nationalist Congress Party.
In July 2005, Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Sena leader Narayan Rane was expelled from the party, which sparked internal conflict in the party. In December the same year Raj Thackeray, Bal Thackeray's nephew, left the party.
Raj Thackeray later founded a new party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). After the split, clashes have occurred between followers of the two Senas.
Although the MNS is a break-away group from the Shiv Sena, the party is still based in Bhumiputra ideology. When unveiling the party in an assembly at Shivaji Park he said, everyone is anxious to see what will happen to Hindutva and, "I shall elaborate on the party's stance on issues like Hindutva, its agenda for development of Maharashtra and the significance of the party flag colours at the 19 March public meeting."
Bal Thackeray's son Uddhav Thackeray became the party's leader in 2004, although Bal Thackeray continued to be an important figurehead. After the death of Bal Thackeray on 17 November 2012, Uddhav became the leader of the party but refused to take the title "Shiv Sena Pramukh" (Shiv Sena Supremo).
As the "Pramukh" (Chief) of the party, Bal Thackeray took all major decisions while the activists and members of the Shiv Sena "Shiv Sainiks" carried out most of the party's grassroots work. During his last days, the day-to-day activities of the party were handled by his youngest son Uddhav Thackeray. Aditya Thackeray, son of Uddhav Thackeray, became the leader of the Yuva Sena, the Youth Wing of the party. After Bal Thackerey's death in 2012, the party was de facto led by Uddhav Thackeray.
The Sena Bhavan located in the Dadar locality in Mumbai has served as the Headquarters of the Sena since 1976. The Sena's "shakhas" (Branches) spread throughout the state of Maharashtra as well as in selected locations in other states, which decide on most of the local issues in their localities.
The Sthaniya Lokadhikar Samiti is affiliated with the Shiv Sena. It advocates the preservation of rights of employment for Maharashtrians in Maharashtra.
People of various Maharashtrian castes worked together in the Sena. The party's leaders mostly came from the so-called "high castes" i.e. Brahmins, CKPs and Pathare Prabhus - Thackerey, Manohar Joshi, Sudhir Joshi, Balwant Mantri, Dr Hemchandra Gupte, Shyam Deshmukh, Madhav Deshpande, Datta Pradhan, Vijay Parvatkar, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Pramod Navalkar.
One of the above-mentioned leaders, Dr.Hemchandra Gupte, Mayor of Bombay in the early 70s and the former family physician and confidante of Thackeray, quit Shivsena in "disgust" citing importance given to money, violence committed by the Shivsainiks and Thackeray's support for Mrs.Gandhi during the 1975 emergency.
There were also leaders from other castes such as Dattaji Salvi, Dattaji Nalawade and Wamanrao Mahadik, and those from the so-called lower castes such as Chaggan Bhujbal, Leeladhar Dake, Bhai Shingre and Vijay Gaonkar.
Over the years, other than the Sena Chief, there have been twelve senior leaders in the party, called 'Netas'. Out of these, eight have been
upper caste (four Brahmins, two CKPs and two Pathare Prabhus). Others have been either Maratha (Dattaji Salvi), Shimpi (Wamanrao Mahadik), Agri (Leeladhar Dake) or Mali (Chaggan Bhujbal). In fact, Bhujbal quit the party accusing the Sena of upper-caste bias in the leadership.
The number of dalits were also not insignificant. And even after the Sena opposed the reservations proposed by the Mandal commission, there was no dent in the percentage of OBCs in the Sena. In this way, the Sena was successful in uniting all Maharashtrians irrespective of caste under the common "Marathi umbrella". The agenda of preferential treatment for the "sons of the soil" i.e. Maharashtrians brought them all together.
Shiv Sena's strength in the late 1980s and early '90s mainly came from the support of the Maratha caste - which it drew away from the Congress. Citing the large percentage of MLAs elected from Shiv Sena belonging to the Maratha caste, Vora from the University of Pune concludes that the Shiv Sena has been emerging as a "Maratha Party".
The Sena says it has played a central role in the emancipation of 500,000 slum dwellers in the Dharavi area of Mumbai, the largest slum in Asia. However, the policy of giving free houses to slum dwellers has been controversial since it was introduced by the then Shiv Sena-BJP government.
In 1970s, Shiv Sena was opposed to the Namantar Andolan, a Dalit-led movement to change the name of Marathwada University in Aurangabad to "Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar University", and supported views of conservative Marathas.
In 1996, Shiv Sena organised the first and only live concert of American pop icon Michael Jackson in India to raise the funds for its business wing and to help create over two-hundred seventy thousand jobs for people of Maharashtra.
In December 2003, Shiv Sena activists damaged the cricket pitch of the Agra Sport Stadium which was supposed to host the cricket match between Pakistan and India. In April 2005, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student wing of Shiv Sena, attempted to prevent the India-Pakistan One-day international match being held in New Delhi. The protester's spokesman demanded:
On 20 November 2009, Shiv Sena activists attacked and vandalised the offices of Hindi and Marathi TV news channels IBN7 and IBN-Lokmat, located in Mumbai and Pune respectively. The Shivsainik slapped IBN7's senior editor Ravindra Ambekar and then attacked IBN-Lokmat's editor Nikhil Wagle. Shiv Sena attributed the attacks to the criticisms of Bal Thackeray by the news channel over his remarks on Sachin Tendulkar. Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut described the attacks as "spontaneous". Shiv Sena spokespersons tried to justify the attacks and refused to apologize for their acts of violence.
Shiv Sena got an entry in Guinness Book of World Records in 2010 for "collecting maximum blood in a day". Shiv Sena organized a blood donation camp which collected over 24,000 bottles of blood in a single day. Later this world record was broken by a blood donation camp of HDFC Bank in 2014.
In October 2015, Shiv Sena issued threats which enforced a ban on a scheduled concert by Pakistani classic singer Ghulam Ali. The move was adopted to appease anti-Pakistan constituents to vote for Sena in coming elections. However, in 2015 Pakistan urged the international community to take note of the activities of Shiv Sena, while Shiv Sena claimed that criticism of Shiv Sena by Pakistan vindicates "our patriotism".
On 19 October 2015, Shiv Sena activists attacked and vandalised the office of BCCI to stop a meeting between PCB and BCCI officials. The activists shouted anti-Pakistan slogans and held posters that read 'Shahryar Khan go back', determined to stop Manohar from meeting his Pakistani counterpart. Shiv Sena has also threatened to stop Pakistan's Aleem Dar from officiating in the fifth and final ODI between India and South Africa.
In 2015 Shiv Sena announced 10,000 rupees help to each drought-affected farmer of Marathwada region, while they also announced 2 lakh rupees "reward" to Hindus family who had 5 children between 2010 and 2015 in Uttar Pradesh. As per Shiv Sena, the reason behind the "reward" was "decline in growth rate of Hindu population compared to Muslim population as per recent census".
In April 2019, party member Sanjay Raut called for the burka to be banned.
During the 2018 Maharashtra Council election and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, many candidates fielded by Shiv Sena had criminal records or had criminal charges pending against them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168 |
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team plays its home games at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, located southeast of San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley. Since 1988, the 49ers have been headquartered in Santa Clara.
The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and joined the NFL in 1949 when the leagues merged. The 49ers were the first major league professional sports franchise based in San Francisco and is the 10th oldest franchise in the NFL. The name "49ers" comes from the prospectors who arrived in Northern California in the 1849 Gold Rush. The team is legally and corporately registered as San Francisco Forty Niners. The team began play at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco before moving across town to Candlestick Park in 1970 and then to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara in 2014.
The 49ers won five Super Bowl championships between 1981 and 1994. 4 of those came in the 1980s and were led by Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, Steve Young, Charles Haley, Fred Dean and coaches Bill Walsh and George Seifert. They’ve played in 7 Super Bowls total which is ranked 3rd all time in the NFL. They have been division champions 20 times between 1970 and 2019, making them one of the most successful teams in NFL history. The 49ers rank 4th all time in playoff wins (32) and have been in the league playoffs 27 times: 26 times in the NFL and one time in the AAFC. They’ve also played in the most NFC Championship games (16) hosting 10 of them, also an NFC record.
The team has set numerous notable NFL records, including most consecutive road games won (18), most points scored in a single postseason (126), most consecutive seasons leading league scoring (1992–95), most consecutive games scored (1979–2004), most field goals in a season (44), most games won in a season (18) along with most touchdowns (8) and points scored (55) in a Super Bowl. According to "Forbes Magazine", the team is the sixth most-valuable team in the NFL, valued at $3.05 billion in September 2019. In 2019, the 49ers were ranked the 16th most valuable sports team in the world, behind baseball's Chicago Cubs and above soccer's Bayern Munich.
The San Francisco 49ers, an original member of the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC), were the first major league professional sports franchise based in San Francisco, and one of the first major league professional sports teams based on the Pacific Coast. In 1946, the team joined the Los Angeles Dons of the AAFC and the Los Angeles Rams of the rival National Football League as the first three teams playing a "big four"-sport in the Western United States, eventually becoming part of the NFL themselves in 1950.
In 1957, the 49ers enjoyed their first sustained success as members of the NFL. After losing the opening game of the season, the 49ers won their next three against the Rams, Bears, and Packers before returning home to Kezar Stadium for a game against the Chicago Bears on October 27, 1957. The 49ers fell behind the Bears 17–7. Tragically, 49ers owner Tony Morabito (1910–1957) collapsed of a heart attack and died during the game. The 49ers players learned of his death at halftime when coach Frankie Albert was handed a note with two words: "Tony's gone." With tears running down their faces, and motivated to win for their departed owner, the 49ers scored 14 unanswered points to win the game, 21–17. Dicky Moegle's late-game interception in the endzone sealed the victory. After Tony's death 49er ownership went to Victor Morabito (1919–1964) and Tony's widow, Josephine V. Morabito (1910–1995). The 49ers special assistant to the Morabitos, Louis G. Spadia (1921–2013) was named general manager.
During the decade of the 1950s the 49ers were known for their so-called "Million Dollar Backfield", consisting of four future Hall of Fame members: quarterback Y. A. Tittle and running backs John Henry Johnson, Hugh McElhenny, and Joe Perry. They became the only full-house backfield inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
For most of the next 13 years, the 49ers hovered around .490, except for 1963 and 1964 when they went 2–12 and 4–10 respectively. Key players for these 49ers included running back Ken Willard, quarterback John Brodie, and offensive lineman Bruce Bosley. During this time the 49ers became the first NFL team to use the shotgun formation. It was named by the man who actually devised the formation, San Francisco 49ers' coach Red Hickey, in 1960. The formation, where the quarterback lines up seven yards behind the center, was designed to allow the quarterback extra time to throw. The formation was used for the first time in 1960 and enabled the 49ers to beat the Baltimore Colts, who were not familiar with the formation.
In 1961, primarily using the shotgun, the 49ers got off to a fast 4–1 start, including two shutouts in back-to-back weeks. In their sixth game they faced the Chicago Bears, who by moving players closer to the line of scrimmage and rushing the quarterback, were able to defeat the shotgun and in fact shut out the 49ers, 31–0. Though the 49ers went only 3–5–1 the rest of the way, the shotgun eventually became a component of most team's offenses and is a formation used by football teams at all levels. In 1962, the 49ers had a frustrating season as they won only 6 games that year. They won only one game at Kezar Stadium while on the road they won five of seven games. After posting a losing record in 1963. Victor Morabito died May 10, 1964, at age 45. The 1964 season was another lost campaign. According to the 1965 49ers Year Book the co-owners of the team were: Mrs. Josephine V. Morabito Fox, Mrs. Jane Morabito, Mrs. O.H. Heintzelman, Lawrence J. Purcell, Mrs. William O'Grady, Albert J. Ruffo, Franklin Mieuli, Frankie Albert, Louis G. Spadia and James Ginella. The 1965 49ers rebounded nicely to finish with a 7–6–1 record. They were led that year by John Brodie, who after being plagued by injuries came back to become one of the NFL's best passers by throwing for 3,112 yards and 30 touchdowns. In 1966, the Morabito widows named Lou Spadia, team president. For the 1968 season, the 49ers hired as their head coach Dick Nolan, who had been Tom Landry's defensive coordinator with the Dallas Cowboys. Nolan's first two seasons with the 49ers had gone much the same as the previous decade, with the 49ers going 7–6–1 and 4–8–2.
The 49ers started out the 1970 season 7–1–1, their only loss a one-point defeat to Atlanta. After losses to Detroit and Los Angeles, the 49ers won their next two games before the season finale against the Oakland Raiders. Going into the game the 49ers had a half-game lead on the Rams and needed either a win or the Giants to defeat the Rams in their finale to give the 49ers their first ever divisional title.
In the early game the Giants were crushed by the Rams 31–3, thus forcing the 49ers to win their game to clinch the division. In wet, rainy conditions in Oakland, the 49ers dominated the Raiders, 38–7, giving the 49ers their first divisional title, making them champions of the NFC West. The 49ers won their divisional playoff game 17–14 against the defending conference champion Minnesota Vikings, thus setting up a matchup against the Dallas Cowboys for the NFC championship. In the final home game for the 49ers at Kezar Stadium the 49ers kept up with the Cowboys before losing, 17–10, thus giving the Cowboys their first conference championship. The 49ers sent five players to the Pro Bowl that season, including MVP veteran quarterback John Brodie, wide receiver Gene Washington, and linebacker Dave Wilcox. Nolan was also named NFL Coach of the Year for 1970. Following the 1970 season the 49ers moved from Kezar Stadium to Candlestick Park. Despite being located on the outskirts of the city, Candlestick Park gave the 49ers a much more modern facility with more amenities that was easier for fans to access by highway.
The 49ers won their second straight divisional title in 1971 with a 9–5 record. The 49ers again won their divisional playoff game, this time against the Washington Redskins by a 24–20 final score. This set up a rematch against the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC championship game, this time played in Dallas. Though the defense again held the Cowboys in check, the 49ers offense was ineffective and the eventual Super Bowl champion Cowboys beat the 49ers again, 14–3. In 1971, eight 49ers made the Pro Bowl, including defensive back Jimmy Johnson and Gene Washington, both for the second year in a row, as well as defensive end Cedric Hardman, running back Vic Washington, and offensive lineman Forrest Blue.
The 49ers won their third consecutive NFC West title in 1972 with five wins in their last six games, making them the only franchise to win their first three divisional titles after the 1970 AFL–NFL merger. Their opponents this time in the divisional playoffs were the Dallas Cowboys, making it the third consecutive year the teams faced each other in the playoffs. Vic Washington took the opening kickoff 97 yards for a score, and the 49ers took a 21–6 lead in the second quarter. After the 49ers took a 28–13 lead in the 4th quarter, Tom Landry sent quarterback Roger Staubach, who was backing up Craig Morton, into the game. Staubach quickly led the Cowboys on a drive to a field goal, bringing the score to within 28–16, and as the game wound down it appeared that this would be the last points the Cowboys would get. However, Dallas completed the comeback in the last two minutes. Just after the two-minute warning Staubach took just four plays to drive 55 yards in only 32 seconds, hitting Billy Parks on a 20-yard touchdown pass to bring the score to 28–23. Cowboys kicker Toni Fritsch then executed a successful onside kick that was recovered by Mel Renfro, giving the Cowboys the ball at midfield with 1:20 left on the clock. With the 49ers on the ropes, Staubach scrambled for 21 yards, then completed a 19-yard sideline pass to Billy Parks who went out of bounds at the 10-yard line to stop the clock. Staubach then completed the comeback with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Ron Sellers with only 52 seconds left, giving the Cowboys a dramatic 30–28 victory and sending the 49ers to yet another crushing playoff defeat.
The 49ers run at the top of the NFC West ended in 1973 with the 49ers falling to a 5–9 record, their worst since 1969. The team lost six of its last eight games, including games to the also-ran New Orleans Saints and Detroit Lions. In the final season of his career, longtime 49ers quarterback John Brodie split playing time with two other quarterbacks, most notably longtime backup Steve Spurrier. The team also suffered from not having a dominant running back, with Vic Washington leading the team with only 534 yards rushing.
In 1974, the 49ers drafted Wilbur Jackson from the University of Alabama to be the team's primary back. Jackson enjoyed a fine rookie year, leading the 49ers with 705 yards rushing. He and fellow running back Larry Schreiber combined for over 1,300 yards rushing. With Steve Spurrier injured and missing nearly the entire year, the 49ers did not have a regular quarterback but did put together a respectable 6–8 record. Following the season, longtime tight end Ted Kwalick left the 49ers to join the World Football League, then the Oakland Raiders upon the WFL's dissolution.
The 49ers dropped to 5–9 in what would be Dick Nolan's final season as coach in 1975, losing their final four games of the season. Wilbur Jackson was hurt much of the year and Delvin Williams led the 49ers in rushing with 631 yards rushing. Following the 1975 season the 49ers traded for New England Patriots quarterback Jim Plunkett, former Heisman Trophy winner from nearby Stanford University (which was also the alma mater of John Brodie). Though Plunkett had shown promise with the Patriots, he had not won there and it was thought that he needed a change of scenery. Monte Clark was also brought on as 49ers head coach.
The 49ers featured one of the best running games in the NFL in 1976. Delvin Williams emerged as an elite back, gaining over 1,200 yards rushing and made the Pro Bowl. Wilbur Jackson also enjoyed a resurgence, rushing for 792 yards. Once again Gene Washington was the team's leading receiver with 457 yards receiving and six scores. The 49ers started the season 6–1 for their best start since 1970. Most of the wins were against second-tier teams, although the 49ers did shut out the Rams 16–0, in Los Angeles on "Monday Night Football". In that game the 49ers recorded 10 sacks, including 6 by Tommy Hart. However, the 49ers lost four games in a row, including two against divisional rivals Los Angeles and Atlanta that proved fatal to their playoff hopes. Louis G. Spadia retired from the 49ers in 1977 upon the team's sale to the DeBartolo Family. The team was sold to Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. in March 1977, and despite finishing the season with a winning record of 8–6, Clark was fired after just one season by newly hired general manager Joe Thomas, who oversaw the worst stretch of football in the team's history.
Under coach Ken Meyer the 49ers lost their first five games of the 1977 season, including being shut out twice. Though they won five of their next six, they lost their last three games to finish the season 5–9. Playing in San Francisco did not revive Plunkett's career as he had another disappointing season, throwing only 9 touchdown passes. Bright spots for the 49ers included defensive linemen Tommy Hart and Cleveland Elam, who made the Pro Bowl, and running backs Wilbur Jackson and Delvin Williams, who combined for over 1,600 yards rushing. Gene Washington again led the team in receiving in 1977, his final year with the 49ers. The 1977 offseason was marked by a number of questionable moves by Joe Thomas that backfired badly. Thomas's big offseason acquisition was running back O. J. Simpson from the Buffalo Bills. As with Plunkett two years previously, it was thought that rescuing Simpson from a bad situation and bringing him to the west coast where he had been raised would rejuvenate his career. To create playing time for Simpson, Thomas traded Delvin Williams to the Miami Dolphins for wide receiver Freddie Solomon. Thomas also released Jim Plunkett, giving up on him after two seasons. Finally, Thomas fired Meyer after only one season, and replaced him with Pete McCulley, his third coach in three seasons.
The 1978 season was a disaster for the 49ers, as they finished 2–14, their only wins coming against the Cincinnati Bengals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Simpson indeed led the team in rushing, but with less than 600 yards. It became apparent that Simpson's knees and body were worn out, and he was near the end of his career. Wilbur Jackson also missed the entire season due to injury. Even worse for the franchise was that their first pick of the 1979 draft was traded to the Bills as part of the O. J. Simpson deal. Joe Thomas was fired following the season. Some of the key players that became part of the 49ers stunning rise began their 49ers career in 1978. Rookie quarterback Steve DeBerg, Joe Montana's first mentor, was the 49ers starting quarterback. Running back Paul Hofer and center/guard Randy Cross also started with the 49ers in 1978.
The team was led in its turnaround from late 1970s doormat by new owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. and head coach Bill Walsh. The former head coach of Stanford University was known for stockpiling draft picks, making excellent draft selections, and patching roster holes by acquiring key free agents.
Bill Walsh was hired to be the 49ers head coach in the 1978 off-season. Walsh was a disciple of Paul Brown, and served as Brown's offensive coordinator with the Cincinnati Bengals from 1968 to 1975. However, Brown did not appoint him as his successor upon his retirement, choosing another assistant, former 49ers center Bill "Tiger" Johnson. Desiring head coach experience, Walsh looked to Stanford University in 1977. He had had some success there before the 49ers tapped him to be their replacement.
Walsh is given credit for popularizing the 'West Coast offense'. The Bill Walsh offense was actually created and refined while he was an assistant coach with the Bengals. The offense utilizes a short, precise, timed passing game as a replacement/augmentation of the running game. The offense is extremely difficult to defend against as it is content to consistently make 6–8-yard gains all the way down the field. (The other West Coast offense—more focused on the vertical, or downfield, passing game—was actually created by 1960s L.A. / San Diego coach Sid Gillman, and San Diego State coach Don Coryell, who also employed a version of it as head coach of the St. Louis (football) Cardinals and San Diego Chargers during a period where it garnered the nickname "Air Coryell".)
In Walsh's first draft, the 49ers had targeted Notre Dame quarterback Joe Montana as an early round pick. Montana had enjoyed a storied college career, leading the Fighting Irish to the 1977 national title and a number of dramatic comeback victories, the most stunning of all being his final game, at the 1979 Cotton Bowl Classic. Playing the University of Houston in an ice storm, and with Montana suffering from a bad flu, Notre Dame was down 34–10 in the third quarter. However, Montana led a magnificent rally that culminated with him throwing a touchdown pass on the game's final play to give Notre Dame the 35–34 win.
Despite this, most scouts did not peg Montana as a top prospect. Although 6'2" and 190–200 lbs., Montana's arm strength was considered suspect as was the consistency of his play. Although he did get his share of the credit, most thought of him as a system player surrounded by a great team.
In the 1979 draft, the Dallas Cowboys were placed just ahead of the 49ers. The Cowboys' draft strategy through that time was to take the highest-ranked player on their draft board at the time of their selection, regardless of position. When the Cowboys' turn came up in the third round, the highest rated player on their board was Montana. However, feeling that the quarterback position was in excellent long-term shape with Roger Staubach and Danny White, and desperately needing a tight end, the Cowboys went off their strategy and drafted Doug Cosbie. The 49ers took Montana. The 49ers other notable draft choice of the 1979 draft was wide receiver Dwight Clark in the 10th round. Walsh discovered the unheralded Clark while scouting quarterback Steve Fuller of Clemson University as Clark ran routes for Fuller during Walsh's evaluation of the quarterback. Walsh's serendipitous discovery of Clark proved to be an early glimpse into the coach's keen eye for talent.
As Walsh implemented his strategies and game plan, the 49ers had another year of losing, finishing 2–14 like the previous season. There were, however, a number of bright spots. Despite throwing more interceptions (21) than touchdowns (17), Steve DeBerg blossomed under Walsh, throwing for over 3,600 yards and completing 60% of his passes. Freddie Solomon also had a good year, with over 800 yards receiving. The running game was patchwork, with Paul Hofer leading the team with 615 yards and O.J. Simpson, in his final season, rushing for only 460 yards and being sidelined with injuries. The 49ers got off to a strong start in 1980, winning their first three games of the season. However, the team, still maturing, lost their next eight games in a row. Many of those games though were close, and the 49ers acquitted themselves well. During the season Walsh alternated DeBerg and Montana at quarterback. Though DeBerg had played well for the 49ers, Walsh felt the team's best chance to win in the long run was with Montana. He alternated the two quarterbacks, giving Montana some experience while keeping opponents off guard. This strategy of alternating quarterbacks from game to game and during games is rare in football, although it had been employed by other successful teams in the past, specifically the Dallas Cowboys of the early 1970s who alternated Roger Staubach and Craig Morton, and the Los Angeles Rams of the late 1940s alternating Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield.
In all DeBerg started nine games, going 4–5 with 1,998 yards, 12 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. Montana started seven games, going 2–5 with 1,795 yards, 15 touchdowns, and nine picks; Montana also had a better completion percentage at 64.5 to DeBerg's 57.9.
The highlight of the 1980 season, and a sign of good things to come, came in Week 14. The 49ers trailed the New Orleans Saints, who at the time were winless at 0–13, 35–7 at halftime. However, led by Joe Montana, the 49ers made (what was then) the greatest comeback in NFL history, coming back to tie the score in regulation and winning the game in overtime with a field goal by Ray Wersching to give the 49ers an incredible 38–35 victory. It was this game, which marked Montana's first big NFL comeback win, that won Montana the quarterback job full-time. A number of key players emerged for the 49ers in 1980. Among them were Dwight Clark, who led the 49ers with 82 receptions and just under 1,000 yards receiving, and running back Earl Cooper, who ran for over 700 yards.
With the offense playing well consistently, Walsh and the 49ers focused on overhauling the defense in 1981. Walsh took the highly unusual step of overhauling his entire secondary with rookies and untested players, bringing on board Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright and Carlton Williamson and giving Dwight Hicks a prominent role. He also acquired veteran linebacker Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds and veteran defensive lineman and sack specialist Fred Dean. These new additions, when added to existing defensive mainstays like Keena Turner, turned the 49ers into an offensively and defensively balanced, dominant team. After a 1–2 start, the 49ers won all but one of their remaining games to finish with a 13–3 record; up to this point in time it was the team's best regular season win-loss record in its history. Dean made the Pro Bowl, as did Lott, and Hicks. Led by Montana, the unusual offense was centered on the short passing game, which Walsh used as ball control. Both Dwight Clark and Freddie Solomon had excellent years receiving; Clark as the possession receiver, and Solomon as more of a deep threat. The 49ers running game, however, was among the weakest in the league. Ricky Patton led the 49ers with only 543 yards rushing. The 49ers' most valuable running back, however, might have been Earl Cooper, whose strength was as a pass-catching back. The 49ers faced the New York Giants in the divisional playoffs and won, 38–24. This set up an NFC championship game match-up with the Dallas Cowboys, whom the 49ers historically could not beat during their playoff runs in the early 1970s. The 49ers played the Cowboys tough, but the Cowboys forced six turnovers and held the lead late. The 49ers were down 27–21 and on their own 11-yard line with 4:54 remaining. As Montana had done for Notre Dame and the 49ers so many times before, he led the 49ers on a sustained final 89-yard drive to the Cowboys' 6-yard line. On a 3rd-and-3 play, with his primary receiver covered, Montana rolled right and threw the ball off balance to Dwight Clark in the end zone, who leaped up and caught the ball to tie the game at 27 (now known as "The Catch"), with the extra point giving the 49ers the lead. Despite this, the Cowboys had one last chance to win. On the first play of the next possession, Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson caught a pass from Danny White and got to midfield before he was pulled down by the jersey at the 49ers 44-yard line by Cornerback Eric Wright saving a potential late-touchdown. On the next play, White was sacked by Lawrence Pillers and fumbled the ball, which was recovered by Jim Stuckey, giving the 49ers the win and a trip to their first ever Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals, who were also in their first Super Bowl. In Super Bowl XVI The 49ers took a 20–0 halftime lead and held on to win 26–21 behind kicker Ray Wersching's four field goals and a key defensive stand. Throughout the '81 season, the defense had been a significant reason for the team's success, despite residing in the shadow of the then-innovative offense. Montana won MVP honors mostly on the strength of leading the 49ers on a 92-yard, 12 play drive culminating in a touchdown pass to Earl Cooper. Thus did the 49ers complete one of the most dramatic and complete turnarounds in NFL history, going from a 2–14 season followed by a 6–10 season to a Super Bowl championship.
The 1982 season was a bad one for the 49ers, as they lost all five games at Candlestick Park en route to a 3–6 record in a strike-shortened season. This was the 49ers last losing season for the next 17 years. Joe Montana was the one highlight, passing for 2,613 yards in just nine games, highlighted by five straight games in which he broke the 300-yard barrier.
In 1983, the 49ers won their final three games of the season, finishing with a 10–6 record and winning their 2nd NFC Western Divisional Title in three years. Leading the rebound was Joe Montana with another stellar season, passing for 3,910 yards and connecting on 26 touchdowns. In the NFC Divisional Playoffs, they hosted the Detroit Lions. The 49ers jumped out in front early and led 17–9 entering the 4th quarter, but the Lions roared back, scoring two touchdowns to take a 23–17 lead. However, Montana led a comeback, hitting wide receiver Freddie Solomon on a game-winning 14-yard touchdown pass with 2:00 left on the clock to put the 49ers ahead 24–23. The game ended when a potential game-winning FG attempt by Lions kicker Eddie Murray missed. The next week, the 49ers came back from a 21–0 deficit against the Washington Redskins in the NFC championship game to tie the game, only to lose, after a questionable defensive holding call, 24–21 on a Mark Moseley field goal that sent the Redskins to Super Bowl XVIII.
In 1984, the 49ers had one of the greatest seasons in team history by finishing the regular season 15–1, setting the record for most regular season wins that was later equaled by the 1985 Chicago Bears, the 1998 Minnesota Vikings, the 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers, the 2011 Green Bay Packers and finally broken by the 2007 New England Patriots (with 16 regular season victories). Their 18 wins overall is also still a record, tied by the 1985 Bears and the 2007 New England Patriots (they won 18 straight, but lost Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants). The 49ers' only defeat in the 1984 season was a 20–17 loss to the Steelers; a late field goal attempt in that game by San Francisco kicker Ray Wersching went off the uprights and was no good. In the playoffs, they beat the New York Giants 21–10, shut out the Chicago Bears 23–0 in the NFC championship, and in Super Bowl XIX the 49ers shut down a record-setting year by NFL MVP Dan Marino (and his speedy receivers Mark Clayton and Mark Duper), beating the Miami Dolphins 38–16. Their entire defensive backfield (Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright, Dwight Hicks, and Carlton Williamson) was elected to the Pro Bowl—an NFL first.
In the 1985 NFL Draft, the team received the 28th overall pick after winning the Super bowl the previous year. On draft day, the 49ers traded its first two picks for New England's first-round choice, the 16th selection overall (the teams also swapped third-round picks as part of the deal), and selected Jerry Rice from Mississippi Valley State. It was reported that the Dallas Cowboys, who had the 17th selection overall, were intending to pick him. In the 1985 season, the 49ers were not as dominant as in 1984, finishing the regular season with a 10–6 record and a wild card berth. Jerry Rice struggled at times (dropping numerous passes), but he still impressed the NFL in his rookie season for the 49ers in 1985, especially after a 10-catch, 241-yard game against the Los Angeles Rams in December. Rice was named NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year after recording 49 catches for 927 yards, and averaging 19.9 yards per catch, Roger Craig became the first NFL player to gain 1,000 yards rushing and 1,000 yards receiving in the same season. In the 1985 playoffs the 49ers were quickly eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Giants 17–3.
In the 1986 NFL season the 49ers got off to a quick start after a 31–7 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on opening day. But the win was costly; Joe Montana injured his back and was out for two months, the injury was to a spinal disc in Montana's lower back and required immediate surgery. The injury was so severe that Montana's doctors suggested that Montana retire. On September 15, 1986, the 49ers placed Montana on the injured reserve list, Jeff Kemp became the starting quarterback, and the 49ers went 4–3–1 in September and October.
Montana returned to the team on November 6 of that year. In his first game back from injury, Montana passed for 270 yards and three touchdown passes in a 43–17 49er victory against the St. Louis Cardinals. The 49ers caught fire, winning the next 5 of the final 7 games, including a 24–14 win over the Los Angeles Rams, to clinch the NFC West title. Jerry Rice continued to show improvement from the previous season catching 86 passes for a league-leading 1,570 yards and 15 touchdowns. Montana was co-recipient of the 1986 NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, which he shared with Vikings quarterback Tommy Kramer. However, the New York Giants would defeat the 49ers again in the playoffs, 49–3 in the team's worst post-season loss to date. Montana was again injured in the first half by a hit from the Giants' Jim Burt.
In the off-season, Bill Walsh was concerned about Montana's health going forward, and with no reliable back-up at quarterback he completed a trade for Steve Young, then a quarterback with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. During the strike-shortened 1987 season, the 49ers became one of the NFL's elite teams once again with a league-best 13–2 record. Joe Montana had a bounce-back year after his injuries the previous year and being questioned by the media if he could still produce at a high level, by throwing 31 touchdown passes, a career-high. He also set the NFL record for most consecutive pass attempts without an incomplete pass (22), passed for 3,054 yards, and had a passer rating of 102.1. Rice had established himself as an elite receiver, he caught 65 passes for 1,078 yards and a then NFL-record 22 touchdowns in just 12 games. 1987 was the second of six seasons in which Rice would lead the NFL in receiving and/or touchdown receptions, he was named Offensive Player of the Year. By the end of the regular season the 49ers were ranked No. 1 on both offense and defense and were heavy favorites to win the Super Bowl. However, they were stunned in the , losing 36–24 to what was believed to be an inferior Minnesota Vikings team, their third straight playoff loss in a row. Joe Montana had one of his worst post-season games of his career, and was eventually benched during the game in favor of Steve Young, who scored a rushing touchdown and threw another. After the game, owner Eddie DeBartolo stripped Walsh of the team president title. Dwight Clark retired that off-season.
During the off-season, a quarterback controversy between Joe Montana and Steve Young had begun after Montana's poor performance in the playoffs the previous year. Many speculated that the 1988 season would be his last year with the team. In the 1988 NFL season, the 49ers struggled to start the season; Walsh would constantly switch QBs between Montana (who suffered an elbow injury week 1 that would linger for most of the season) and Young. At one point, they were 6–5 and the team was in danger of missing the playoffs. Before week 11, Ronnie Lott called a players-only meeting; after the meeting the team came together and defeated the defending Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins in a Monday night game, Montana had fully recovered from his injury and retook the starting quarterback job as the team eventually finished the season at 10–6. They gained a measure of revenge by routing the Minnesota Vikings 34–9 in the divisional playoffs. The 49ers then traveled to Chicago's Soldier Field for the NFC championship against the Chicago Bears, where the wind chill factor at game time was -26°. However, despite the weather, Joe Montana picked apart the Bears' top-rated defense by scoring three touchdowns as the 49ers dominated the Bears with a 28–3 victory, earning the team's third trip to the Super Bowl, to go against the Cincinnati Bengals. In Super Bowl XXIII, despite numerous trips deep into Cincinnati territory by the 49ers, the game was tied 3–3 at halftime. Early in the fourth quarter, Montana tied the score at 13; however, Cincinnati regained the lead on a Jim Breech field goal to put the Bengals ahead 16–13 with just over three minutes left on the clock. Following the kickoff, and a holding penalty, the 49ers took over on their 8-yard line with 3:08 left on the clock. Joe Montana began the final drive by stepping into the huddle and remarking to offensive tackle Harris Barton, during a television timeout, "hey, there's John Candy", as he pointed to the stands on the other side of the field. His calm demeanor reassured the 49ers, and he then engineered what some consider the greatest drive in Super Bowl history, as he drove the team 92 yards for the winning touchdown on a pass to John Taylor with only 34 seconds left, as they captured their third Super bowl championship with a score of 20–16. Jerry Rice was named Super Bowl MVP.
After Super Bowl XXIII, Bill Walsh retired as head coach; his defensive coordinator and handpicked successor, George Seifert, took over as head coach. In the 1989 NFL season, Joe Montana threw for 3,521 yards and 26 touchdowns, with only 8 interceptions, giving him a 112.4 quarterback rating, which was then the highest single-season passer rating in NFL history, and was named NFL Most Valuable Player. Jerry Rice, in his fifth year in the league, continued to dominate; he led the league with almost 1490 receiving yards, and 17 touchdowns. The 49ers clinched their fourth straight division title, beating the Los Angeles Rams 30–27 after a dramatic second-half comeback; they finished 14–2, gaining home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Their two losses were by a combined five points.
In the divisional playoffs, they easily defeated the Vikings, 41–13. In the , they played against the Rams for a third time; the previous two games had been decided by a total of 4 points, but they were able to blow out the Rams 30–3, earning another trip to the Super Bowl, where they defeated the Denver Broncos in relatively easy fashion by a score of 55–10 in Super Bowl XXIV – setting a record for points scored and widest margin of victory in a Super Bowl. Montana himself set many Super Bowl records (some since tied or surpassed) en route to his third Super Bowl MVP. In winning the Super Bowl, the 49ers became the only team to win back-to-back Super Bowls under different head coaches. This 1989 championship team is often regarded as one of the most dominant teams in NFL history, winning three playoff games by a combined 100 points.
In 1990, the 49ers won their first 10 games, and they eventually finished 14–2. They ripped through the season, and the coveted third consecutive Super Bowl victory seemed within reach. In the playoffs, the 49ers dispatched the Washington Redskins 28–10, setting up a conference championship game with the New York Giants. Despite not scoring a touchdown in the game, the Giants took advantage of a fourth-quarter injury to Montana and converted a faked punt attempt to thwart the 49ers attempt at a "three-peat." The Giants kicked a last-second field goal after recovering a Roger Craig fumble in the final minutes of the game, winning 15–13 and going on to win Super Bowl XXV.
During their quest for a "three-peat" between 1988 and 1990, the 49ers set a league record with 18 consecutive road victories. Joe Montana missed almost all of the following two seasons with a recurring elbow injury. Following the 1990 season, the 49ers left team stalwarts Roger Craig and Ronnie Lott unprotected and let them go to the Los Angeles Raiders via Plan B free agency.
In 1991, Steve Young injured the thumb on his throwing hand and later was sidelined with an injured knee. After 10 games, the 49ers had a record of 4–6. Backup quarterback Steve Bono helped the team win its next five games with Young sidelined. In the final game of the season, Monday night versus the NFC's number two seed, Young returned and the 49ers beat the Chicago Bears 52–14, finishing 10–6. However, the team missed qualifying for the playoffs by virtue of losing the head-to-head tiebreaker to the Atlanta Falcons, which had beaten the 49ers on a last-second Hail Mary pass earlier in the season. The 1992 and 1993 seasons saw a resurgent 49er team under the leadership of Steve Young, but a subpar and aging defense could only take them to the NFC championship game before falling to the Dallas Cowboys each time.
In 1992, Joe Montana came back after missing almost two full seasons due to an elbow injury in his throwing arm, and started the second half of a Monday night game versus Detroit on December 28, 1992. With the 49ers clinging to a 7–6 lead, Montana entered the game and looked as though he had not missed a single snap, completing 15–21 for 126 yards and 2 touchdowns, as the 49ers defeated the Lions 24–6. The 49ers finished the 1992 season with a 14–2 record and home field advantage in the playoffs. San Francisco defeated the Washington Redskins 20–13 in the divisional playoff game, but lost to the Dallas Cowboys 30–20 in the NFC championship at Candlestick Park.
At the end of the 1992 season, partly fueled by media hype, the biggest quarterback controversy in football history was in full swing. After discussions with the owner and the coach, Montana asked for, and was granted, a trade to the Kansas City Chiefs prior to the 1993 season. Despite Eddie DeBartolo wanting Montana to stay and start, Montana realized that he and Young could not stay with the 49ers without a controversy. Montana was later quoted as saying, "If I had stayed and started, there would have been problems. If I had stayed and Steve Young had started, there would have been problems."
The 49ers finished the 1993 season, the team's first without Joe Montana on the roster, with a 10–6 record and no. 2 seed in the playoffs. San Francisco defeated the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional playoff game, but lost to the Dallas Cowboys 38–21 in the NFC championship at Texas Stadium.
In 1994, the team spent large amounts of money on the addition of several star free agents from other teams, including Ken Norton Jr., Gary Plummer, Rickey Jackson, Bart Oates, Richard Dent, Charles Mann and Deion Sanders. Additionally, several rookie players made key contributions to the team, some becoming season-long starters such as defensive tackle Bryant Young, fullback William Floyd, and linebacker Lee Woodall. Due to injuries to the offensive line, the 49ers had some tough times early in the season, including a 40–8 home loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, and a 24–17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, led by former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana. Following the Eagles game, a poll conducted on local sports radio station KNBR showed that an overwhelming majority of 49er fans wanted head coach George Seifert fired. The game against the Eagles was a turning point for the 49ers despite the lopsided score. Quarterback Steve Young was benched in the 3rd quarter and was later seen livid on the sidelines, shouting profanities at Seifert. The following week in Detroit, the 49ers trailed the Lions 14–0. After throwing a pass, Young was hit, picked up, and driven into the ground by three Lions defenders. After the hit, Young was screaming with his face dark red in color. He crawled most of the way off of the field before refusing help from the trainers as he limped the remaining way off the field. He miraculously returned to the field one play later (NFL rules state that after trainers attend to an injured player, that player must leave the field for at least one play) to lead the 49ers to a 27–21 victory. The team rallied around Young to win 10 straight games, including a 21–14 victory over the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. During that span the 49ers' average margin of victory was nearly 20 points per game, a sustained dominance not seen since the 1985 Chicago Bears. Despite scoring only 8 points in one game and 14 in another, the 49ers set a new record for total regular season and post season combined points scored. That record was later broken by the New England Patriots in 2007 (the 1998 Minnesota Vikings scored 556 regular season points, but only 68 post season points, for a total of 624 points, while the 1994 49ers scored 495 regular season points and 131 post season points for a total of 626, the second highest mark in NFL history). Even after those initial rough spots early in the season, the 49ers finished the season 13–3 and with home field advantage throughout the playoffs. In their first game, they easily defeated the Chicago Bears, 44–15, setting up the third straight . The 49ers took advantage of three early Cowboys turnovers, taking a 21–0 lead in the first quarter. Taking a 31–14 lead into halftime after a perfect 29-yard pass from Young to Rice in the closing seconds, the game appeared to be far out of reach for the Cowboys. But a 49er fumble on the opening kick of the 3rd quarter led to a Cowboy score, cutting the lead to 31–21. Later, the 49ers responded with a Young touchdown run, making it 38–21, before the Cowboys scored another touchdown in the final minutes for a final score of 38–28. The convincing win qualified the 49ers for their fifth Super Bowl appearance, and the first to be played by two teams from California. The 49ers steamrolled the San Diego Chargers 49–26 behind Young's record-setting 6 touchdown passes in Super Bowl XXIX, at the time becoming the first team to win a record five Super Bowls. Finally establishing himself as a worthy successor to Joe Montana, Young was named the game's MVP. The 49er's run of five Super Bowl wins in 14 seasons (1981–1994) solidified them alongside the 1960s Vince Lombardi Green Bay Packers and 1970s Chuck Knoll Pittsburgh Steelers as one of the modern NFL's great dynasties.
The 49ers made the playoffs in 1995 and again in 1996, being eliminated by the Green Bay Packers both times in the Divisional Round. On January 17, 1997, George Seifert retired as 49ers head coach. On the same day as Seifert's retirement, the 49ers hired Cal head coach Steve Mariucci as his replacement. At the time, Mariucci only had one year of head-coaching experience at any level. The first game of the 1997 season against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a disaster, as both quarterback Steve Young and receiver Jerry Rice went down with injuries. Rice appeared to be out for the season with a serious knee injury, while Young left the game with one of the many concussions he suffered throughout his career. However, the team overcame adversity: Young returned two weeks later, and with the league's number one defense, the 49ers finished the season with a 13–3 record which included an 11-game winning streak which was the longest by a rookie head coach at the time, and the 49ers became the quickest team in NFL history to clinch their division at the time. Rice returned for one and a half quarters in week 16 against the Denver Broncos, before getting another injury to his knee (unrelated to the first one). In the playoffs the 49ers defeated the Minnesota Vikings 38–22, advancing to the for the first time since 1994, where they again met the Green Bay Packers at Candlestick Park, but lost 23–10.
During that season Eddie DeBartolo Jr. was involved in a corruption investigation regarding Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards and one of his Mississippi riverboat casinos. DeBartolo later pleaded guilty to a failure to report a felony charge in 1998. He was suspended from active control of the 49ers for one year. His sister, Denise, and her husband, Dr. John York, took over operations of the team.
In 1998, Jerry Rice finally returned from his knee injury week 1 against the New York Jets, a game best remembered for running back Garrison Hearst's 96-yard touchdown run in overtime to win the game. The 49ers had the 2nd most productive offense in league history. Young, who was questioned if his concussion history would put an end to his career, had his best season, throwing for 4,170 yards, 36 touchdowns and only 12 interceptions. A healthy Jerry Rice, 3rd-year player Terrell Owens, and 4th-year player J.J. Stokes became the first WR-trio in team history to catch at least 60 passes in the same season, Hearst ran for 1,570 yards and 7 touchdowns while averaging 5.1 yards per carry. The 49ers finished 12–4, their 16th straight winning season (all with 10 wins or more), earning a wildcard berth.
Once again, the 49ers faced the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. Things looked bleak when the 49ers trailed 27–23 in the waning seconds. However, in the game's final moment, Young hit Terrell Owens (who was having a terrible game up to that point) on a dramatic, game-winning 25-yard touchdown pass, dubbed by many as "The Catch II". That put the 49ers ahead 30–27 with just three seconds left on the game clock, sealing the win. After finally beating the Packers, the 49ers went on to lose to the eventual NFC champion Atlanta Falcons in the 20–18, in a game that was marked by Hearst suffering a gruesome broken ankle on the first play from scrimmage.
DeBartolo returned from his suspension in 1999, but a series of lawsuits over control of the family's vast holdings led him to surrender controlling interest to the Yorks as part of a 2000 settlement. Denise York became chairwoman of the board, while John York became CEO. On the field, the 1999 49ers got off to a 3–1 start, then in a nationally televised "Monday Night Football" game against the Arizona Cardinals, Steve Young suffered a blindside hit from cornerback Aeneas Williams that knocked him out of the game and eventually convinced him to retire. At the time it was believed the severe hit ended his career but Young later said in interviews he could have come back to play another season or two. After meeting with then-general manager Bill Walsh and being told about how the salary cap troubles would make the team non-competitive, Young chose to retire rather than risk his long-term health further for a likely losing club. Without their future Hall of Famer, 29-year-old rookie Jeff Garcia took over as starting quarterback, but he would be benched for poor performances in favor of Steve Stenstrom. Garcia would be reinstated as the starting quarterback and in the final 5 games of the regular season. The 49ers lost 11 of their last 12 games, and suffered their first losing season in a non-strike year since 1980, which was also the last time that the 49ers did not win at least ten or more games in a season. Bobb McKittrick, 49ers offensive line coach since 1979, also died of cancer following the 1999 season.
Before the 2000 season Jeff Garcia was named the starting quarterback despite the 49ers drafting two quarterbacks (Giovanni Carmazzi in the third round and Tim Rattay in the seventh). Garcia kept the starting job throughout the season and showed drastic improvement from the previous year. He broke a franchise record for most passing yards in one season, with 4,278 passing yards and 31 touchdowns and only 10 interceptions. Garcia and Terrell Owens, who established himself as the team's number-one receiver, both earned their first Pro Bowl selections. However, the 49ers finished 6–10, missing the playoffs for the second straight season for the first time since 1979 and 1980, due to a defense that gave up 26.4 points per game and a total of 422 points. The 2000 season was Jerry Rice's final year with the 49ers; he played 16 seasons with the team. In the 2001 season the 49ers established themselves as a playoff team once again after two down years. They finished with a 12–4 record and a wildcard berth. A quarter of their wins came in 4th-quarter comebacks. Their defense also had a bounce-back year, going from the 28th-ranked defense in 2000, to the 9th-ranked. Terrell Owens had become Jeff Garcia's favorite target. Garrison Hearst, who had been forced to retire from football after breaking his ankle in the 1998 divisional playoffs, finally returned to the line-up after over two years of rehabilitation. He became the first player in NFL history to come back to football after suffering avascular necrosis. He had an excellent season, rushing for 1,206 yards on a 4.8 average. His comeback earned him the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award. In the final 6 weeks of the season the 49ers defense shut out 3 teams (the Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, and New Orleans Saints), and had one of the most stupendous goal-line stands against the Philadelphia Eagles. In the team's first playoff game in 2 years, they played against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in the , but lost 25–15.
The 2002 NFL season began with the divisional realignment. The 49ers gained two new divisional rivals, the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals, while former divisional foes Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints, and Carolina Panthers moved to the newly formed NFC South. The team's production dropped from the previous year. Jeff Garcia went from having 31 and 32 touchdowns in the previous 2 seasons, to only 21 in 2002. The 49ers defense struggled at times, dropping from the 9th-ranked defense in the previous season to the 19th-ranked. Even though the team did not have the same success as they did in the 2001 regular season, the 49ers won the NFC West for the first time since 1997, with the division-clinching game coming on a last-second touchdown pass to Terrell Owens against the Dallas Cowboys. The 49ers finished 10–6. In the 2002–03 NFL playoffs they hosted the New York Giants in the . The Giants had a 38–14 lead late in the third quarter; however, the Giants defense, which had been highly ranked all year, began to collapse, and by the final minute in the 4th quarter Jeff Garcia had led the team back from the 24-point deficit to take a 1-point lead. Giants quarterback Kerry Collins then led a drive in the game's final minute to put the Giants at the 49ers' 23-yard line with six seconds left for a shot at a game-winning field goal. Long snapper Trey Junkin, who had been signed by the Giants that week, made a bad snap, so holder Matt Allen attempted a desperate pass down the field, which fell incomplete, but there was a flag on the play. The initial thought by spectators and the Giants was that pass interference had clearly been committed by the 49ers defense, but the flag was against the Giants for an ineligible receiver, so the game was over. The next day, the NFL admitted that the referee had blown the call, that the 49ers had indeed committed pass interference, and that the down should have been replayed. A press conference was held and a reporter asked 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci about his thoughts on the NFL saying they blew the call, and he replied: "Bummer." It was the second-biggest comeback victory in NFL playoff history, with the 49ers winning 39–38. The 49ers lost the next week to the eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the , 31–6. This was the last postseason appearance for the 49ers until the 2011–12 playoffs. Steve Mariucci, whose published statements about his degree of power in the organization had frayed already-strained relations with management, was fired by John York, despite a winning record.
Then-Oregon State head coach Dennis Erickson was signed to a five-year contract to replace Mariucci. The hiring of Erickson was highly criticized by the fans and the media, as Erickson's offensive philosophy was very different from the West Coast offense. The 2003 season was one of turmoil for the 49ers. While the Niners started the season with a 49–7 demolishing of Chicago, the team quickly began to unravel afterwards, as the relationship between Garcia and Owens turned sour upon Garcia taking issue with Owens's public praise for the play of backup quarterback Tim Rattay. Garcia responded with a cryptic remark of "we cannot let the sickness spread"; in response, Owens wore a surgeon's mask at the following practice. The team was also ravaged by injuries to key players on both sides of the ball; the often reckless play of Jeff Garcia started to take a toll on him, as he was forced to miss 3 games during the season. The 49ers finished 7–9 and missed the playoffs. Despite this disappointing result, Erickson was retained as coach for the 2004 season. Owens' on- and off-field antics led to the 49ers trading him to the Philadelphia Eagles during the offseason. Several other key 49er players were released due to salary cap concerns, including Garcia and Hearst. The team finished the 2004 season with a 2–14 record, tying a franchise worst and finishing last in the NFC West for the first time since 1979, ending what had been the NFL's longest active streak for not finishing last in a division. With the worst record in the NFL the team secured the rights to the first pick in the NFL Draft. Dennis Erickson and general manager Terry Donahue were fired.
After an extensive coaching search, the 49ers hired the defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens Mike Nolan as their head coach. Nolan was the son of Dick Nolan, who had led the team to three consecutive playoff appearances from 1970 to 1972. The 49ers did not hire a general manager. In Mike Nolan's first draft as head coach, he selected quarterback Alex Smith from the University of Utah with the first overall pick of the 2005 NFL Draft. It was a pick predicted by most, though many thought the 49ers might select local product Aaron Rodgers of the University of California. Alex Smith's rookie season was a disaster, producing only one touchdown against eleven interceptions. The team finished 4th in the NFC West for the second consecutive year, with a 4–12 record. This earned the 49ers the 6th pick in the 2006 NFL Draft which they used to draft tight end Vernon Davis. Alex Smith and the team improved greatly in 2006, led by second year player Frank Gore from the University of Miami. Gore ran for a franchise record of 1,695 rushing yards, which led the NFC, along with 8 touchdowns. He was awarded his first Pro Bowl appearance. They also swept division rival and defending NFC Champion, Seattle Seahawks, and kept the Denver Broncos from a playoff berth in the last game of the season. However, the team finished 7–9, their fourth consecutive losing season.
In the off-season, the 49ers signed cornerback Nate Clements and safety Michael Lewis to improve their secondary. Clement's contract was worth $80 million for eight years, the largest contract given to a defensive player in NFL history at the time. In the NFL Draft, the 49ers made another key addition to their defense, selecting middle linebacker Patrick Willis with the 11th overall pick. Willis would eventually be named the 2007 AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. Before the beginning of the 2007 season, Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh died of complications from leukemia. The 49ers started the season 2–0, for the first time since 1998. In the fourth game of the season, against the Seattle Seahawks, Alex Smith suffered a separated shoulder on the third play of the game, an injury that severely hampered his play and ultimately led to an early end to his 2008 campaign after having shoulder surgery. Chiefly due to back up quarterback Trent Dilfer's struggles and Alex Smith's injury, the 49ers lost eight straight consecutive games from week three through week twelve, ending the year with a disappointing 5–11 record. Questions were raised about the future of Alex Smith, whose first three seasons had been plagued by inconsistent play, injuries, and never having had the same offensive coordinator from one year to the next. Head coach Mike Nolan and new offensive coordinator Mike Martz stated that a competition between Smith, Shaun Hill, and NFL journeyman J. T. O'Sullivan would run through the first two preseason games of 2008. O'Sullivan was named the 49ers starter because of his familiarity with the Martz offense and after performing better than Smith or Hill in the first three preseason games. On October 20, 2008, after a 2–5 start, Mike Nolan was fired. Assistant head coach Mike Singletary, a Hall of Fame linebacker with the Chicago Bears, was named as the interim head coach. Singletary proved to be a fan favorite when after his first game as head coach he delivered a memorable post game interview. Singletary said of their loss: "... right now, we've got to figure out the formula. Our formula. Our formula is this: We go out, we hit people in the mouth." The team went 5–4 overall under Singletary, winning five of its final seven games and ending the season with a 7–9 record. After the last game of the season, Singletary was named permanent head coach by Jed York, who had been appointed as team president just days before. Jed York is the oldest son of John York and Denise DeBartolo York.
On April 25, 2009, the 49ers selected Texas Tech WR Michael Crabtree, a player many people thought would go in the top five, with the 10th pick in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft. The 2009 training camp became the first since 2005 that the 49ers failed to have all drafted rookies signed and in training camp on time, as Crabtree held out trying to reach a contract. He finally reached a contract agreement on October 7, 2009, having missed the first four games of the regular season. The 49ers posted an 8–8 record after a frustrating season, losing only 2 games by more than a touchdown. Nevertheless, it was the team's first non-losing season since 2002. Despite missing the playoffs for the seventh straight season, several key players showed signs of improvement. Alex Smith regained his role as the 49ers' starting quarterback (after Shaun Hill had won the starting job in training camp), passing for more than 2,000 yards with 19 touchdowns, while Frank Gore collected his fourth consecutive 1,000-yard season, a 49ers record. Safety Dashon Goldson showed signs of potential in his first year as full-time starter, as he tallied 94 tackles, four interceptions, three forced fumbles, and two sacks. Vernon Davis in particular had a breakthrough year at tight end, earning Pro Bowl honors with 965 yards and 13 touchdowns (tying the NFL record for his position). 2010 saw five 49ers go to the Pro Bowl: Patrick Willis, Vernon Davis, Frank Gore, Justin Smith, and punter Andy Lee.
The 2010 season started with the 49ers heavy favorites to win the NFC West after Cardinals QB Kurt Warner retired early in the offseason, but the season was a disaster. They started 0–5, their worst start since the dark days of 1979. In week 3, the 49ers fired offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye, who had been hand-picked by Singletary in the 2009 offseason. Starting safety Michael Lewis demanded to be released after he was demoted in favor of rookie safety Taylor Mays. By mid-season, Singletary was switching QBs between Alex Smith and Troy Smith, who had been picked up in free agency after the preseason, but with little effect. On December 27, 2010, the 49ers fired Mike Singletary as head coach, naming defensive line coach Jim Tomsula as interim head coach for the last game of the season, where despite crushing the Cardinals 38–7, they finished a sad and disappointing 6–10 and missed the playoffs yet again.
On January 4, 2011, Jed York promoted interim General Manager Trent Baalke to be the permanent general manager. Baalke had taken over the role after former general manager Scot McCloughan was relieved of his duties the year before. Two days later, on January 7, 2011, former head coach of Stanford University Jim Harbaugh was named the 49ers new head coach. In the 2011 NFL Draft, the 49ers selected defensive end/linebacker Aldon Smith from the University of Missouri with the seventh pick of the first round. The 49ers also selected quarterback Colin Kaepernick from the University of Nevada, Reno with the 36th overall pick in the second round.
After the end of a labor dispute that nearly threatened to postpone or cancel the 2011 season the 49ers made a controversial decision to re-sign Alex Smith to a one-year $4.8 million contract. Because of the decision to retain Smith, and a shortened offseason with an entirely new coaching staff being hired, the team was expected to be among the league's worst by NFL prognosticators. Despite this, Harbaugh's first season was a huge success. After 10 weeks the 49ers were 9–1, highlighted by road wins against the Philadelphia Eagles, where the team came back from a 20-point deficit in the second half, and the previously unbeaten Detroit Lions. The 49ers defense became one of the most intimidating in the league, particularly against the run – not allowing a 100-yard rusher or a single rushing touchdown until week 16 of the regular season. Alex Smith blossomed in the new system, reviving his career while playing for yet another new offensive coordinator – his sixth in six years. In week 13 the 49ers won the NFC West with a victory against the St. Louis Rams, finally ending their nine-year playoff drought. The 49ers finished the season with a 13–3 record, earning the second overall seed in the NFC Playoffs. In the Divisional Playoffs they defeated the New Orleans Saints 36–32 after a touchdown pass from Alex Smith to Vernon Davis in the closing seconds of the game. The team reached the NFC championship for the first time since 1997, and faced the New York Giants. They lost to the Giants with a 20–17 score in overtime after two critical fumbles by backup return man Kyle Williams.
In 2012, the 49ers were predicted to be the NFC West champions and possibly make a run for the Super Bowl. Starting the season 6–2, the 49ers went on to face the rival St. Louis Rams in Week 10. Alex Smith suffered a concussion in the second quarter and exited the game. He was replaced by 2011 second-round pick Colin Kaepernick, who led the 49ers back to tie the game. The next week, Kaepernick and the 49ers blew out the Chicago Bears 32–7, and Harbaugh chose Kaepernick as the starter next week against the New Orleans Saints, despite Smith being cleared to play. A quarterback controversy began. Despite Smith leading the NFL in completion percentage (70%) and passer rating (104.1), Kaepernick was considered more dynamic with his scrambling ability and arm strength. Kaepernick eventually started the rest of the season, going 5–2. Kaepernick set the record for rushing yards for a quarterback in the playoffs with 181 rushing yds against the Green Bay Packers. The 49ers defeated the Packers and Atlanta Falcons in the playoffs and advanced to Super Bowl XLVII, but were denied their sixth Super Bowl win against the Baltimore Ravens, who were coached by John Harbaugh, 34–31.
Another storyline towards the end of the 2012 season was the reliability of kicker David Akers. Towards the end of the season, he began to show signs of decline, missing one field goal of 20–30 yards, two field goals of 30–40 yards, and six field goals of 40–50 yards for a below-average conversion percentage of 69%. Akers was released on March 6, 2013. Shortly afterwards, the 49ers signed veteran kicker Phil Dawson. The 49ers would also trade a sixth round draft pick for wide receiver Anquan Boldin from the Baltimore Ravens, the team that had beaten them in the Super Bowl.
The 49ers finished 12–4 in the 2013 regular season and enter the playoffs as a wildcard, with their first game at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers. On January 5, 2014, San Francisco 49ers defeated Green Bay Packers 23–20. On January 12, 2014, the 49ers defeated the Carolina Panthers 23–10, thus advancing to their third straight NFC championship game. However, the 49ers' season ended at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, when a pass intended for Michael Crabtree was tipped by cornerback Richard Sherman and intercepted by linebacker Malcolm Smith, losing to the Seattle Seahawks, . After the Niners had their first 8–8 season in 4 years, which included losses to the Bay Area rival Oakland Raiders, Chicago Bears, and St. Louis Rams, the collapse of a once-dominant offensive line, failing to reach the playoffs, Harbaugh and the 49ers decided to part ways on December 28, 2014, after the season's final game, against the Arizona Cardinals, which the 49ers won 20–17.
On November 8, 2006, reports surfaced that the 49ers ended negotiations with the city of San Francisco about building a new stadium and plan to do so in Santa Clara, a suburb of San Jose; Santa Clara already hosts the team's administrative headquarters and training facility. The Yorks and then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom had been talking over the last few months about building a privately financed stadium at Candlestick Point that was intended to be part of the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The 49ers' final decision to move the stadium ended the San Francisco bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago were the three cities competing to be the U.S. Olympic Committee's choice to bid on the 2016 games, with Chicago emerging as the eventual victor.
The 49ers sponsored "Measure J", which appeared on the June 8, 2010 Santa Clara ballot, to build a new stadium as the future home of the San Francisco 49ers in that city. The measure passed with 58.2% of the total vote. This was seen as the first step for the 49ers stadium relocation to a new venue to be built in Santa Clara.
The 68,490-seat venue, Levi's Stadium, landed rights for its first event. The stadium will be home to the Fight Hunger Bowl.
On the 49ers website, the team's owner, businessman John York had a letter stating that after a stadium is constructed in Santa Clara, the team would retain its name "San Francisco" even though the team would no longer be located within Metro San Francisco.
United States Senator Dianne Feinstein and other leaders threatened an attempt to prevent the team from using "San Francisco" or the "49ers" in the team name, but probably would not have succeeded without changes to state or federal law.
York later confirmed in a press conference on November 9, 2011, that the team would build a new state of the art stadium in Santa Clara in time for the 2014 season. Groundbreaking for the new stadium took place on April 19, 2012.
On May 8, 2013, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers announced that San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. had purchased the naming rights to their new stadium in Santa Clara. The naming rights deal calls for Levi's to pay $220.3 million to the city of Santa Clara and the 49ers over 20 years, with an option to extend the deal for another five years for around $75 million.
Jim Tomsula was hired on January 14, 2015 to replace Jim Harbaugh. Subsequently, Geep Chryst was promoted to offensive coordinator and Eric Mangini was hired as defensive coordinator. On March 10, 2015, All-Pro linebacker Patrick Willis announced his retirement from the NFL due to repeated injuries to both feet. A week later on March 17, linebacker Chris Borland, Patrick Willis' presumed replacement, announced his retirement from the NFL due to fears of the effects of head trauma. These two retirements left the 49ers linebackers position group weakened as they headed into an offseason under first year head coach Jim Tomsula. Two other developments during the 49ers off season, the retirements of starters DE Justin Smith, and RT Anthony Davis, and the uncertainty of LB Aldon Smith's availability due to his legal issues.
The 49ers signed running back Reggie Bush, wide receiver Torrey Smith, and defensive tackle Darnell Dockett.
Tomsula employed new coaching practices, which included giving his players breaks to check social media during meetings, shorter, easier practices, and more days off. The result was one of the worst offenses in team history. Scoring only 238 points, the 49ers struggled to a 5–11 season, with Colin Kaepernick ending the season on injured reserve after being benched. The 49ers would ultimately be eliminated from postseason contention in Week 14 of the 2015 regular season. On January 4, 2016, the 49ers fired Tomsula after he led them to a 5–11 record.
On January 14, 2016, Chip Kelly was hired as head coach. Kelly's tenure began with an emphatic 28–0 victory over the Los Angeles Rams on "Monday Night Football". However, the team went on to lose a franchise-record 13 straight games until they narrowly defeated the Rams 22–21 on December 24, 2016. On October 21, 2016, in an ESPN ranking of professional sports franchises, the 49ers were ranked the worst franchise in North America. The 49ers ended up firing Kelly and Baalke following the conclusion of the regular season, finishing with a 2–14 record.
In 2016, Kaepernick started a trend of kneeling during the playing of the national anthem. Intended to protest the treatment of minorities in the United States, the trend spread throughout the NFL and stirred political controversy. President Donald Trump spoke out against the protests a number of times, and Vice President Mike Pence walked out of a 49ers game in October 2017 upon seeing players kneel.
After hiring John Lynch as general manager and Kyle Shanahan as head coach, the 49ers started the 2017 season with nine consecutive losses. During this time, they traded for New England Patriots backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. After a win over the New York Giants and a loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Garoppolo was named the starter after rookie C. J. Beathard suffered an injury. The 49ers won their last five games with Garoppolo at the helm and finished the season 6–10. After the season, the 49ers signed Garoppolo to a five-year, $137.5 million contract extension. This made him the highest-paid player in NFL history on a per-year basis at the time. During the third-week matchup between the 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, Jimmy Garoppolo tore his ACL, and was ruled out for the rest of the 2018 season.
The 49ers started the 2019 season with an 8–0 record. This was the first time they had gone 8–0 since 1990, where they started the season 10–0 and eventually lost in the . In Week 7, the 49ers defeated the Washington Redskins at FedExField in a game referred to as a Mud Bowl with a final score of 9–0. This was the first time the 49ers shut out an opponent since Week 1 of the 2016 season, versus the Los Angeles Rams. In Week 8, the 49ers defeated the Carolina Panthers, 51–13, making it the 12th time the team has scored 50 points or more against opponents in the regular season. The 49ers' undefeated record was broken in Week 10 with an overtime loss against the Seattle Seahawks, giving them an 8–1 record. They went on to beat the Arizona Cardinals, the Green Bay Packers, and the New Orleans Saints, while losing to the Baltimore Ravens by a last-second field goal. This gave them an 11–2 record. The 49ers then fell in the final seconds to the Atlanta Falcons to drop to 11–3. The 49ers defeated the Los Angeles Rams 34-31 and advanced to 12-3, eliminating the Rams from playoff contention in the process.
On December 29, 2019, the 49ers defeated the Seahawks 26-21 in the Week 17 regular season finale thereby clinching the NFC West in addition to the number one seed for the first time since 1997. In their first playoff game since 2013, against the Minnesota Vikings, they dominated the Vikings, defeating them 27-10. This victory ensured them a spot in the NFC Championship game, in Levis Stadium, where they played the Green Bay Packers. On January 19, 2020, they beat the Packers 37-20, advancing to their first Super Bowl since 2012. The 49ers also became the first team ever to reach the Super Bowl following four straight seasons with 10+ losses. In Super Bowl LIV, the 49ers led the Kansas City Chiefs 20–10 with seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, but lost the game by the final score of 31–20, resulting in the Chiefs' first championship victory since 1969. The loss deprived San Francisco from a championship parade, which may have played a factor in the San Francisco area having an initial lower amount of deaths in the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 49ers have won five Super Bowls, their first three under Bill Walsh. Walsh retired after winning his third in 1988, but first-year head coach George Seifert did not miss a beat, winning the Super Bowl in his first year in 1989. He would also win one more in 1994.
The original 49ers logo was a mustached 49er gold miner from the 1849 California Gold Rush, dressed in plaid pants and a red shirt, jumping in midair with his hat falling off, and firing pistols in each hand: one nearly shooting his foot, and the other pistol forming the word "Forty-Niners" from its smoke. An alternate logo with a shield-shaped crest formed from the number "49", with a football in the upper right quadrant and "SF" in the lower left quadrant was created in 1965 and used for marketing purposes until 1972. From 1962, the 49ers' logo has been the iconic "SF" within the center of a red oval; throughout the years the logo has had minor modifications, such as a black outlining on the intertwined "SF" that was added in 1989 and a gold trimming inside the oval that was added in 1996.
The San Francisco 49ers have two different uniforms: red and gold home uniforms and white, red, and gold road uniforms. However, the 49ers have changed uniform designs and color combinations quite often throughout their history. From the team's inception in 1946, they wore dark or cardinal red, switching to scarlet red jerseys and gold pants for the 1948 season, with a gold helmet with one red stripe, with solid red socks and pants with no stripes. Entering the 1949 season, the first in the NFL, the 49ers adopted three stripes to their red jerseys, wearing gold helmets and pants, with no stripes and red socks with three white stripes. In the 1953, '54, and '55 seasons, the 49ers wore red helmets with a gold stripe in the middle, with silver pants with one single stripe of red. The socks also added the three stripes similar to the jersey's. 1955 was also unique in that the 49ers wore white pants with a black stripe bounded by two red stripes, and shadow drop numbers on their red jerseys, with black shadow drop borders on the white numerals. The following season, 1956, the team wore white helmets with no stripes, and white pants with a red stripe. In 1957 the 49ers wore red jerseys, a gold helmet with no stripes, and gold pants with no stripes; for the first time the 49ers wore white on the road, as dictated by the NFL for all teams, to have at least one team wearing a light colored jersey during games. The first white jersey had two red stripes with a gold in the middle, as was their road socks: white, with two red stripes and gold in the middle. San Francisco wore red and gold in 1958 as well, with their white jersey having a single shoulder loop stripe, as well as adding TV numbers to the sleeves of their home and away jerseys. And in contrast to the socks at home, red with three red stripes, the away socks were solid red. In 1959 the team switched to red and platinum gold (looking more like silver), and for the next several years afterwards, with their white jerseys having double shoulder loop stripes (mimicking UCLA's), but continuing with the three white stripes on the sleeves above the elbow and below the TV numbers, with the red home jerseys. In 1960, the team added "Northwestern" red stripes to their helmets (a thicker middle stripe bordered by two thinner stripes), and that changed in 1962, with the addition of the helmet design the team has mostly worn since: white stripe bounded by two red, with the red oval and SF logo on the sides of the helmet. In 1964 the team's colors then changed again. All silver elements were changed to what was called "49er Gold;" helmets were gold. New beige-gold pants with a red-white-red tri-stripe in the same style as the helmet were introduced. Uniform's basic design would be worn for practically the next 30 seasons with only some minor changes and adjustments, such as a gradual change over from sans-serif to serifed block numerals from 1970 to 1974 and a switch from thin stripes to a very thick pant striping in 1976 (during which white jerseys were also worn at home for most of that season). The uniform ensemble of red and white jerseys, and beige-gold pants with thick striping were worn until 1995 with a few minor changes. During the 1994 season, many NFL teams wore "throwback uniforms" on occasional games to celebrate the NFL's 75th anniversary (a corresponding diamond-shaped 75th Anniversary patch was also worn by all teams) . The 49ers chose to wear a version of their 1955 uniforms as their throwbacks, with simpler sans-serif block numerals that were outlined and shadowed in black with White pants with thinner red-black-red striping were also worn, along with the old striped red socks. The regular 1989–95 design gold helmet was worn with this uniform, as there was no logo on the 1955 helmet.
In 1996, the 49ers celebrated their 49th anniversary by designing a commemorative jersey patch based on the earlier shield-crest logo. The team also debuted a substantially new uniform design, most notably changing the shade of red used in their jerseys from bright scarlet to a deeper, cardinal red a black dropshadow effect (along with gold trim) was added to the jersey numerals (which remained in the blocked serif style). As in 1994, the Niners donned white pants full-time for the 1996 season (also wearing them for the 1997 season and 1998 preseason,) though this time the pant stripes were marginally thicker and the colors were reversed to black-cardinal red-black (matching the striping on the helmets). For the 1998 regular season opener, the team switched back to gold pants, with a more metallic gold rather than the previous beige-matte gold of the past. The striping along the side of the pants remained black-cardinal red-black, though a thin gold trimming was added, along with further oval "SF" logos placed on both sides of the hip.
The 1996 helmet and jersey design with the 1998 gold pants was worn as the team's regular uniforms until the end of the 2008 season. The 49ers once again changed uniforms in 2009, which are very similar to the classic design, albeit with several significant changes. The sleeve stripes are now set at an angle to accommodate the even shorter sleeves of modern jerseys, (though the stripes appear straight and parallel to the ground when worn by the players themselves). An updated 49ers uniform with improved fit, and more breathable and moisture-resistant fabrics was debuted (alongside the rest of the NFL teams) by new league uniform manufacturer Nike on April 3, 2012.
On April 30, 2015 at their NFL Draft rally, the team unveiled their first ever alternate uniform (as opposed to a throwback design). The uniform consists of black jerseys and pants with red numerals and striping. Nike logos are in gold, while the standard solid red socks will be worn. These uniforms will be worn a maximum of two games a year, per league rules.
In 2018, the 49ers unveiled a new alternate uniform, discarding their all black alternates in favor of an all white alternate. It was made in the style of 1994, with the letters and numerals larger and more pronounced shadows. The helmets were the solid gold, but were used with the old 49ers logo (no striping and shadows). They wear the uniforms once every season, normally on Alumni Day.
However, the 49ers wore the uniform once on the road, in their week 17 finale at Seattle in 2019. They also lobbied the NFL to wear them in Super Bowl LIV, but the request was denied. The NFL cited that the teams’ uniforms with the patch were already being sold.
The 49ers official cheerleading squad is called the Gold Rush.
Started in the early 1980s, the first squad consisted of 14 dancers.
In November 2018, shortly before the start of a game against the Oakland Raiders, a cheerleader for the San Francisco 49ers appeared to kneel during the US national anthem, becoming the first NFL cheerleader to do so. The act of kneeling during the national anthem began with the quarterback Colin Kaepernick to raise awareness about racism and police brutality.
The 49ers official mascot is Sourdough Sam. He wears jersey number 49.
The San Francisco 49ers have three rivals within their division: the Los Angeles Rams, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Seattle Seahawks. They also have rivalries with other teams that arose from post-season games in the past, most notably the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, and Green Bay Packers. They also share an intrastate rivalry with the Los Angeles Chargers (the two teams have played each other nearly every preseason, and every four years in the regular season, and also met in Super Bowl XXIX).
The rivalry between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers is considered by many to be one of the greatest NFL rivalries ever, placing No. 8 on "Sports Illustrated"'s "Top 10 NFL Rivalries of All Time" list, compiled in 2008. After the Rams moved to St. Louis, Roger Craig stated in "Tales from the San Francisco 49ers Sideline" that "the Rams will always be the 49ers' biggest rival. It doesn't matter if they no longer play in Los Angeles. If the Rams played their home games on Mars, it would still be a rivalry." In fact, the Rams are the only team to have played the 49ers twice every season for the last 58 seasons to combine for more than 100 regular season games; the all-time regular season lead is held by the 49ers 70–66–3. They have only met once in a playoff game, when the 49ers beat the Rams 30–3 in 1989.
The Seattle Seahawks have become a new rival of the 49ers, following the NFL's realignment in 2002 that put both teams in the same division (Seattle had been a brief former rival during their inaugural 1976 season, when the team was in the old pre-realignment NFC West). Prior to 2002, the teams played each other almost every season during the pre-season, but only every three years during the regular season when the AFC West and NFC West teams faced each other. So far, their rivalry has not been as intense as other division foes because for the most part both teams have not been good at the same time. In the middle to late part of the decade, the Seahawks lost the division and their favorable record against the 49ers reflected this. However, games at CenturyLink Field, one of the toughest stadiums to play at as a visiting team, have still been difficult to win. The 49ers have a 3–7 record all-time at that stadium, with their largest margin of victory there being ten points, and failed to score a touchdown in four of those losses. The rivalry has intensified after the 49ers hired Jim Harbaugh out of Stanford in 2011, as he and Seahawks and former USC head coach Pete Carroll had an intense rivalry in college. Seattle leads the all-time series 20–15 after winning both regular season games in 2014 and taking a week 7 win at Levi's Stadium in 2015.
The Arizona Cardinals are a recent growing rival of the 49ers. Unlike most rivalries of this team, the Arizona Cardinals are in the same division as the 49ers (since 2002, when the Cardinals transferred from the NFC East). Recently, there has been much bad blood between these two teams' players; an example of this is a Twitter "battle" between Darnell Dockett of the Arizona Cardinals and Vernon Davis of the San Francisco 49ers. Another clash was when Early Doucet of the Cardinals and Dashon Goldson of the Niners threw punches at each other. The clash of words between players of both teams, added with the decline of the other major rivalries of the 49ers, either from the rarity of meeting the rival teams (49ers rarely meet the Cowboys) or the move to different cities (Los Angeles Rams moving to St. Louis), has led to the rivalry between the 49ers and the Cardinals becoming heated and intense. The 49ers hold the edge over the Cardinals all-time by 28–18.
The Green Bay Packers rivalry emerged in the mid-1990s when the Packers upset the 49ers in the 1995 NFC Divisional game at Candlestick Park, ending any chance of a Super Bowl repeat. From that point, the Packers beat the 49ers four more times including two post-season games. San Francisco was finally able to exact revenge in the 1998 NFC Wild Card round, a game that is remembered for a 25-yard game-winning touchdown reception by Terrell Owens off a Steve Young pass (referred to by some as "The Catch II"), lifting the 49ers over the Packers 30–27. Since that game, the Packers had beaten the 49ers eight straight times including once in the 2001 post-season, a streak that came to an end in the 2012 season when the 49ers beat the Packers in Lambeau Field week 1 for the first time since 1990, and again in the NFC Divisional game that same season. The 49ers trail the all-time series with a record of 32–36–1, including a 4–4 postseason split.
The rivalry between the Dallas Cowboys and the 49ers has lasted since the 1970s. The NFL Top 10 ranked this rivalry to be the tenth best in NFL history. San Francisco has played Dallas in seven postseason games. The Cowboys defeated the 49ers in the 1970 and 1971 NFC championship games, and again in the 1972 Divisional Playoff Game. The 1981 NFC championship game in San Francisco, which saw the 49ers' Joe Montana complete a game-winning pass to Dwight Clark in the final minute (now known as The Catch), is one of the most famous games in NFL history. The rivalry became even more intense during the 1992–1994 seasons. San Francisco and Dallas faced each other in the NFC championship game three separate times. Dallas won the first two match-ups, and San Francisco won the third. In each of these pivotal match-ups, the game's victor went on to win the Super Bowl. Both the Cowboys and the 49ers are second all time in Super Bowl victories to the Pittsburgh Steelers with five each. The 49ers–Cowboys rivalry is also part of the larger cultural rivalry between California and Texas. In recent years, this once-great rivalry has greatly softened, with the struggles of both the Cowboys and 49ers. However, in its prime especially in the 1990s, this rivalry was a very bitter one as both teams were the class of the NFL during this time.
The New York Giants have the most playoff meetings versus the 49ers (eight). This rivalry is rooted in the 1980s when both teams were on the rise. In the first two playoff meetings between these two teams, the Joe Montana-led 49ers won both meetings, 38–24 in 1981 and 21–10 in 1984 both in the divisional round at Candlestick Park; the 49ers went on to win their first two Super Bowl championships both seasons. The Giants won the next three playoff meetings, which included a 49–3 rout at Giants Stadium in 1986, and the 1990 NFC championship, where they upset the 49ers 15–13, ruining the 49ers hopes of a Super Bowl three-peat after Roger Craig lost a fumble late in the fourth quarter and let the Giants score on a last-second field goal. Giants also went on to win their first two Super Bowl championships both seasons. The 49ers defeated the Giants 44–3 in 1993 in the divisional round. In the 2002 NFC Wildcard game, the Giants were ahead 38–14 late in the third quarter; however, the 49ers came back from the 24-point deficit to beat the Giants with a 39–38 victory. The teams met again in the 2011 NFC championship at Candlestick Park, and just like the 1990 NFC championship, it was a low-scoring game; the Giants won the game on a Lawrence Tynes 31-yard field goal in overtime, 20–17. In an eerie similarity to Roger Craig's fumble 21 years earlier, Kyle Williams fumbled a punt in the crucial minutes of the game, and just like the last two times the Giants beat the 49ers in the playoffs, they went on to win the Super Bowl.
All-time record: 49–26–2 (including 1–0 postseason)
The New Orleans Saints were division rivals with the 49ers up until realignment in 2002 when the Saints were placed in the newly formed NFC South. The 49ers dominated the rivalry when the Saints played in the NFC West, but the Saints have held the upper hand since realignment, winning the first six-game since moving to the NFC South. They met most recently in the divisional round of the 2011 playoffs at Candlestick Park. There were four lead changes in the final four minutes of the game, culminating with Alex Smith throwing the game-winning touchdown to Vernon Davis with nine seconds left (referred by many as Vernon Post or The Catch III). Three months after that game, it was revealed that then-Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams ordered his players to target certain players in certain areas in a profanity-laced speech as part of the bounty scandal prior to that game.
All-time record: 47–32–1 (including 1–1 postseason)
The Atlanta Falcons were also division rivals with the 49ers until the Falcons moved to the NFC South in 2002 after the realignment. Just like the Saints, the 49ers had dominated the Falcons when they played in the NFC West, but the Falcons won their first four games (spanning nine seasons) against the 49ers since moving to the NFC South. Both teams met in the divisional round of the 1998 playoffs, when Garrison Hearst suffered an ankle break when his foot was caught in the Georgia Dome turf and twisted severely as he tried to spin away from Falcons' defensive end Chuck Smith on the first play from scrimmage; 49ers lost that game 20–18. They met in the 2012 NFC championship, in which the 49ers, led by quarterback Colin Kaepernick, defeated the top-seeded Falcons in Atlanta by a score of 28–24. The next year, the Falcons played against the 49ers in the last home game at Candlestick Park. The game ended in a dramatic interception return for a touchdown also known as "The Pick at the 'Stick".
The Las Vegas Raiders were the 49ers' geographic rivals prior to the Raiders relocation to Las Vegas. As a result, games between the two were referred to as the "Battle of the Bay." The first exhibition game played in 1967, ended with the NFL 49ers defeating the AFL Raiders 13–10. After the 1970 merger, the 49ers won in Oakland 38–7. The rivalry still remained heated when the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, leaving many Raider fans in Northern California bitter over the move, and some of them becoming 49er fans, added with the antagonism between Northern and Southern California. The Raiders notably upset the defending Super Bowl champion 49ers in San Francisco in 1982, winning 23-17. Since the two teams play in different conferences, regular season matchups are at least every four years. In addition, both teams have shared a number of players, most notably Jim Plunkett, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, Michael Crabtree, Tom Rathman, and Charlie Garner.
The Battle of the Bay ended tied 7 to 7. San Francisco won the last matchup 34-3 on November 1, 2018 in Week 9
On August 20, 2011, in the third week of the pre-season, the pre-season game between the rivals was marked by fights in restrooms and stands at Candlestick Park including a shooting outside the stadium in which several were injured. The NFL decided to cancel all future pre-season games between the Raiders and 49ers.
This is a partial list of the 49ers' last five completed seasons. For the full season-by-season franchise results, see List of San Francisco 49ers seasons.
* During his tenure with the 49ers from 2006 to 2007, quarterback Trent Dilfer, a long-time friend of Brodie, wore No. 12 with his permission, unofficially unretiring the number as a tribute.
The Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. 49ers Hall of Fame is the team's official hall of honor for the franchise's greatest players and contributors.
The 10-year club is a shrine that honors members of the San Francisco 49ers who played 10 or more seasons with the organization, and was started by Bill Walsh to recognize players that have shown longevity, success and consistency. Each member is shown in a black-and-white photo on a scarlet and gold plaque with their name under the photo and the years in which they played. A plaque placed in the center of the photos of club members reads:
The 49ers' flagship radio stations are KSAN 107.7 FM ("The Bone"), KNBR 680 AM, and KTCT 1050 AM. KSAN airs all 49ers games on FM. On AM, they are simulcast on KTCT in August, September, and October and on KNBR from October to the end of the season. All three stations are owned by Cumulus Media. Joe Starkey, best known as the voice of the University of California and The Play, was previously the color commentator on the broadcasts next to legendary announcer Lon Simmons in 1987 and 1988 and took over as lead commentator in 1989. Lon Simmons and Gordy Soltau did the broadcasts on KSFO in the 1949s and 1960s. For a brief period in the late 1970s and early 1980s Don Kline, the "Voice of Stanford" did the 49ers' games. Starkey first teamed with former Detroit Lions' and KPIX Sports Director, Wayne Walker and then former 49ers' linebacker Gary Plummer formed the broadcast team from 1998 to 2008, with Starkey retiring after the 2008 season. Ted Robinson replaced Starkey and teamed up with Plummer for the 2009 and 2010 seasons. Plummer was relieved of his color commentating duties for the 2011 season and replaced by former teammate Eric Davis. Tim Ryan replaced Davis in 2014. Greg Papa replaced Robinson on play-by-play in 2019.
Pre-season games not shown on national television are shown on ABC affiliate, KGO-TV (Channel 7). When playing in the regular season, those games can be televised on Fox-owned KTVU. If they challenge an AFC team, KPIX-TV (the CBS Owned and operated station) will broadcast the games. In addition to regular season matches, NBC affiliate, KNTV airs them under the Sunday Night Football label.
Source: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27169 |
Los Angeles Chargers
The Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Chargers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. Starting in 2020, the Chargers will play their home games at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which they will share with the Los Angeles Rams.
The Los Angeles Chargers was founded on August 14, 1959, and began play on September 10, 1960, as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). They spent their first season in Los Angeles before relocating to San Diego in 1961 to become the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers joined the NFL as result of the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. The return of the Chargers to Los Angeles was announced for the 2017 season, just one year after the Rams had moved back to the city from St. Louis. They have previously played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during their first stint in Los Angeles, Balboa Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium while in San Diego and Dignity Health Sports Park, formerly named StubHub Center, from 2017 to 2019 while SoFi Stadium was under construction.
The Chargers won one AFL title in 1963 and reached the AFL playoffs five times and the AFL Championship four times before joining the NFL () as part of the AFL–NFL merger. In the 43 years since then, the Chargers have made 13 trips to the playoffs and four appearances in the AFC Championship game. In 1994, the Chargers won their lone AFC championship and faced the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX, losing 49–26. The Chargers have eight players and one coach enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio: wide receiver Lance Alworth (1962–1970), defensive end Fred Dean (1975–1981), quarterback Dan Fouts (1973–1987), head coach–general manager Sid Gillman (1960–1969, 1971), wide receiver Charlie Joiner (1976–1986), offensive lineman Ron Mix (1960–1969), tight end Kellen Winslow (1979–1987), linebacker Junior Seau (1990–2002), and running back LaDainian Tomlinson (2001–2009).
The Chargers were established with seven other American Football League teams in 1959. They began AFL play in Los Angeles the following year in 1960. The Chargers' original owner was hotel heir Barron Hilton, son of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. According to the official website of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Barron Hilton agreed after his general manager, Frank Leahy, picked the Chargers name when he purchased an AFL franchise for Los Angeles: "I liked it because they were yelling ‘charge’ and sounding the bugle at Dodger Stadium and at USC games." The Chargers played their first year in Los Angeles, but moved to San Diego the following year, where they would be based for the next 56 seasons.
They played for the whole ten-season existence in the AFL before the upstart league merged with the older NFL. Their only coach for the ten-year life of the AFL was Sid Gillman, a Hall of Famer who was widely recognized as a great offensive innovator. The early AFL years of the San Diego Chargers were highlighted by the outstanding play of wide receiver Lance "Bambi" Alworth with 543 receptions for 10,266 yards in his 11-AFL/NFL-season career. In addition he set the pro football record of consecutive games with a reception (96) during his career.
With players such as Alworth, Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln and John Hadl, the high-scoring Chargers won divisional crowns five of the league's first six seasons and the AFL title in 1963 with a 51–10 victory over the Boston Patriots. They also played great defense, as indicated by their professional football record 49 pass interceptions in 1961, and featured AFL Rookie of the Year defensive end Earl Faison. The Chargers were the originators of the term "Fearsome Foursome" to describe their all-star defensive line, anchored by Faison and Ernie Ladd.
In 1970, the Chargers were placed into the AFC West division after the completion of the AFL/NFL merger. But by then, the Chargers fell on hard times; Gillman, who had returned as general manager, stepped down in 1971, and many of the Chargers players from the 1960s had already either retired or had been traded. The Chargers acquired veteran players like Deacon Jones and Johnny Unitas; however, it was at the later stages of their careers and the team struggled, placing third or fourth in the AFC West each year from 1970 to 1978. During the 1973 season, the Chargers were involved in the first major drug scandal in the NFL. That same year, however, a rookie quarterback from Oregon named Dan Fouts would serve as the catalyst to the Chargers' return to prominence as the 1970s wore on.
San Diego hired head coach Don Coryell in 1978, who would remain coaching the team until 1986. Coryell developed an offensive scheme and philosophy known as Air Coryell, also known as the "Coryell offense" or the "vertical offense". With Dan Fouts as quarterback, the San Diego Chargers' offense was among the greatest and most exciting passing offenses in NFL history, setting league and individual offensive records. The Chargers led the league in passing yards an NFL record six consecutive years from 1978 to 1983 and again in 1985. They also led the league in total yards in offense 1978–83 and 1985. Under the tutelage of Coryell, Dan Fouts, wide receiver Charlie Joiner, and tight end Kellen Winslow blossomed on the field and would all be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Chargers earned four consecutive playoff appearances (1979–82) during the Air Coryell era, including three AFC West division championships (1979–81). However, they came short of making it to the Super Bowl, including two straight losses in the AFC Championship game in 1980 and 1981.
Despite making the playoffs again during the strike-shortened 1982 season, the Chargers missed the playoffs every season from to . In 1984, Klein cut salary in preparation of selling the team, sending defensive linemen Johnson and Kelcher to San Francisco, where they would join Dean and offensive tackle Billy Shields for another 49ers championship in Super Bowl XIX. Alex Spanos purchased a majority interest in San Diego from Klein on August 1. Spanos's family still owns 97% of the team and until his death in 2016, George Pernicano owned the other 3%. Al Saunders was named the seventh head coach in Chargers history in 1986 following the resignation of Coryell during the middle of that season. In , Fouts retired after a 15-year career in which he set seven NFL records and 42 club records, and became the NFL's second most prolific passer of all-time with 43,040 yards. Fouts's jersey number (14) was retired at halftime of "Dan Fouts Day" game in San Diego.
In 1989, Dan Henning, a former Chargers quarterback, Washington Redskins assistant, and Atlanta Falcons head coach, was named the eighth head coach in Chargers history. First-year running back Marion Butts set a club record with 39 carries and a team rookie record with 176 yards in Chargers' 20–13 win in Kansas City. After a three-year stint as Director of Football Operations, Steve Ortmayer was released after the season and replaced by Bobby Beathard.
Following Henning's three-season stint with the Chargers, Bobby Ross was hired as the ninth head coach in 1992. Additionally, the Chargers acquired quarterback Stan Humphries in a trade with the Washington Redskins. The Chargers would lose their first four games of the season and come back to become the first 0–4 team to make the playoffs as they won 11 of the last 12 games and clinched the AFC West title. Ross was named NFL Coach of the Year for the Chargers' dramatic turnaround by Pro Football Weekly. In the first round of the playoffs, the Chargers shut out the Chiefs 17–0, but the Dolphins shut out the Chargers in the divisional playoffs to eliminate the Chargers. In 1993, the Chargers finished 8–8 (fourth in their division).
In the 1994 season, the Chargers made their first and, so far, only Super Bowl appearance, against the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX. They got to the Super Bowl by winning their first six regular season games, the only NFL team to do so in 1994, and finished the season 11–5. Quarterback Stan Humphries and wide receiver Tony Martin combined on a 99-yard touchdown completion to tie an NFL record during a defeat of the Seattle Seahawks, 27–10. They would become the 1994 AFC West Division champions behind a defense led by linebacker Junior Seau, defensive tackles Reuben Davis and Shawn Lee, defensive end Leslie O'Neal and an offense keyed by running back Natrone Means, Humphries and Martin. The Chargers had upset victories over the Dolphins and Steelers in the AFC playoffs. Despite those two close triumphs (22–21 against the Dolphins in the Divisional Round, and 17–13 against the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game), the Chargers lost Super Bowl XXIX to the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 49–26, who were led by quarterback Steve Young (Super Bowl MVP) and wide receiver Jerry Rice.
Despite the lopsided loss in the Super Bowl, Beathard, who traded for or drafted the bulk of the Chargers roster, and who hired coach Ross, was named the NFL's smartest man by Sports Illustrated, and became the only general manager to lead three different teams to the Super Bowl (Chargers, Dolphins, Redskins).
The Chargers' follow-up year in 1995 did not bring the same success of the previous season, but the team still managed to get into the playoffs with a five-game winning streak to end the season at 9–7. However, in the first round, the Chargers were eliminated by the Indianapolis Colts in a 35–20 defeat.
In 1996, running back Rodney Culver and his wife, Karen, were killed in the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades. Culver was the second player in team history to die while on the active roster after David Griggs was killed in a one-car accident in Davie, Florida, 11 months earlier. In 1997, Ross and Beathard were at odds with one another, resulting in Ross and his staff being released. The Chargers selected Kevin Gilbride to become their new head coach. Gilbride, whose coaching background with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Oilers featured a more open passing attack, would mark a major change in offensive style from the ball control ground game of Ross. However, the Chargers struggled in pass protection that year, resulting in Humphries suffering several concussions and his retirement from the game. To replace Humphries, Beathard drafted quarterback Ryan Leaf after the Indianapolis Colts selected Peyton Manning with the first pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. The Chargers traded several players and draft choices to the Arizona Cardinals in order to move up to the second pick and select Leaf. In 1998, the Chargers went 5–11. Said safety Rodney Harrison, "If I had to go through another year like that, I'd probably quit playing."
Gilbride was replaced by interim head coach June Jones, who was on the Chargers' staff before the hire. Jones left the team at the end of the season to coach at the University of Hawaii and the Chargers named former Oregon State University head coach Mike Riley as their new head coach. Leaf wound up having a disappointing career with the Chargers due to poor play and frequent conflict with both Chargers management as well as the press and his teammates, causing his release after the 2000 season. He has been arguably the biggest draft bust in NFL history, and his failure to be the player the team envisioned was seen as a black mark on the franchise. Quarterback Jim Harbaugh, who was acquired in a trade with the Baltimore Ravens for a conditional draft choice in 2000, became the Chargers starting quarterback. Beathard retired in April 2000 and was replaced in January 2001 by John Butler, former general manager of the Bills. From to , the Chargers had eight straight seasons where they were .500 or worse.
In 2001, Norv Turner, the former head coach of the Redskins, was named offensive coordinator by Riley. Turner installed the offense that he coached with the Dallas Cowboys under Jimmy Johnson. Turner learned the offense from Ernie Zampese, former offensive coordinator during the Coryell era, while the two were on the Los Angeles Rams coaching staff. The Chargers signed Heisman Trophy winner free agent quarterback Doug Flutie, formerly with the Bills, and traded the team's first overall selection in the 2001 NFL Draft to the Atlanta Falcons for their first-round selection (5th overall) and third-round selection in the same draft. In addition the Chargers obtained wide receiver-kick returner Tim Dwight and the Falcons' second-round draft selection in the 2002 NFL Draft. The Chargers used that selection in the 2001 draft to select Texas Christian University running back LaDainian Tomlinson and their own first pick in the second round to select Purdue University quarterback Drew Brees.
Hired as a replacement to Riley, Marty Schottenheimer's Chargers squad opened the 2002 season with four-straight victories, making him the only coach in team history to win his first four games.
Butler would succumb to cancer after a nine-month struggle in April 2003. Replacing Butler was A. J. Smith, who was named Executive Vice President-General Manager, replacing his close friend. Smith and Butler had worked together with the Bills, playing key roles with Buffalo's Super Bowl teams. In 2003, the Chargers traded Seau to the Dolphins for a draft pick in 2004 NFL Draft. Seau was selected to 2003 Pro Bowl, his 12th Pro Bowl selection of his career, and in his final season with the Chargers, he was chosen by teammates as the recipient of the Emil Karas Award as the team's Most Inspirational Player. Also in 2003, Tomlinson accumulated 195 total yards from scrimmage in a late-season game against the Packers to raise his season total to 2,011 and became the first player in team history and the eighth player in NFL history to record consecutive 2,000-yard seasons. Tomlinson also became the first player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards and catch 100 passes in the same season.
The Chargers coveted Eli Manning and wanted to select him with their first round pick, which was also the first overall pick of the draft. However, after Eli Manning indicated before the draft that he would not sign with the San Diego Chargers, they were forced to adjust their plans. Philip Rivers was their first alternative to Manning because the Chargers head coach at the time, Marty Schottenheimer, had coached Rivers at the Senior Bowl and he liked what he saw from Rivers. The Chargers agreed to a trade on draft day with the New York Giants. Manning was selected by the San Diego Chargers then later in the draft traded for Rivers, selected with the fourth pick by the Giants. The Chargers also received draft picks from the Giants that were used to select future Pro Bowlers Shawne Merriman and Nate Kaeding. Rivers was one of 17 quarterbacks taken in the 2004 NFL Draft along with Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, and Matt Schaub. Rivers, Roethlisberger, Schaub and Manning have been voted to the Pro Bowl since becoming starters, none had produced a season with a losing record until Schaub in 2010, but Roethlisberger and Manning both have won two Super Bowls. They have been compared favorably to the Quarterback class of 1983, which included Hall of Fame quarterbacks John Elway (1st pick), Jim Kelly (14th), and Dan Marino (27th).
In August 2004, Rivers signed a six-year, $40.5 million contract that included $14.5 million in signing bonuses. However, due to a protracted contract negotiation, Rivers only reported to the team during the last week of training camp, and incumbent Drew Brees retained his starting job. After the starting quarterback switch, it was almost certain Brees' days as the Chargers' starting QB were over. However, Rivers held out nearly all of training camp, and Brees remained the starter throughout the 2004 season, where he started 15 games and led the team to a 12-4 regular season record. Brees posted spectacular numbers, completing 65.5% of his passes for 3,159 yards, with 27 touchdowns to only 7 interceptions, giving him a 104.8 passer rating. The Chargers won the AFC West and Brees was selected to the 2004 Pro Bowl. He was named 2004 NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
Marty Schottenheimer was named NFL Coach of the Year for the 2004 NFL season. He led the team to a playoff appearance, his 12th as a head coach. However, it resulted in a disappointing loss to the underdog New York Jets in overtime in 2005.
During the 2005 NFL Draft, the Chargers tried to get some key rookies that would help carry the momentum from their mostly successful 2004–05 run. They used their first pick on LB Shawne "Lights Out" Merriman from the University of Maryland. Then, they used their next pick on DT Luis Castillo from Northwestern University. Their other choices were WR Vincent Jackson from Northern Colorado, RB Darren Sproles from Kansas State, OT Wesley Britt from University of Alabama, OT Wes Sims from Oklahoma University, and Center Scott Mruczkowski from Bowling Green State.
The Chargers got off to a rough start in their 2005 campaign, losing a close one to the Dallas Cowboys in their Week 1 home-opener (28–24) and then they lost on the road to their AFC West rival, the Denver Broncos (20–17). It wasn't until a Week 3 home game on Sunday night that they got their first win of the season, when Eli Manning and the New York Giants got "shocked to the system" as LaDainian Tomlinson had one of the greatest games of his career. He got 220 total yards, had 3 rushing touchdowns, and threw for a touchdown as he helped the Chargers win 45–23.
A week later, they were able to build off their win by not only beating the two-time defending champion New England Patriots 41–17, but also ending the Pats' 21-game winning streak at home. In their Week 5 Monday Night home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Chargers wore their throw-back uniforms during this season (they had also worn them during the 1994 season). The Steelers held on to win with a 40-yard field goal by Jeff Reed (24–22). The Chargers rebounded on the road against their division rival Oakland Raiders (27–14). In their Week 7 road trip to Philadelphia, they hoped to build off their win against the Eagles. Late in the game, with the Chargers leading 17–13, the Chargers tried to go for a field goal to put their lead well out of reach, but it got blocked and Eagles DB Matt Ware returned it 65 yards for the game-winning touchdown and the Chargers fourth loss of the season.
After going 3–4, the Chargers turned things around as they began a five-game winning streak. They won at home against division-rival Kansas City Chiefs (28–20) and on the road against the New York Jets (31–26). Coming off their Week 10 bye, they went home and wore their throw-back uniforms again. This time, it was a dominating performance as the Chargers man-handled the Buffalo Bills, 48–10. Then, they went on the road and won a close match against the Washington Redskins (23–17 in OT) and then they swept the Oakland Raiders at home by a score of 34–10.
The Chargers were 8–5, coming off a 23–21 loss to the Miami Dolphins. On December 18, the Chargers beat the undefeated Indianapolis Colts 26–17, snapping a 13–0 winning streak. However, despite a record of 9–6, they were officially eliminated from AFC playoff contention in 2005 after a 20–7 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs the following Saturday. The Chargers lost their final game of the season by a score of 23–7 to the AFC West champion Denver Broncos to finish with a record of 9–7.
The Chargers delivered an impressive performance in 2006, losing only to the Ravens and Chiefs; they finished 14–2 which secured them the #1 AFC seed in the playoffs. However, they lost 24–21 to the New England Patriots in the divisional round. Following the 2006 season, they replaced Schottenheimer with new head coach Norv Turner. In 2007, they went 11–5, beating the Tennessee Titans and the defending champion Indianapolis Colts to reach the AFC title game. However, they fell to the Patriots for the second year in a row. In 2008, the Chargers dropped to 8–8, but as the AFC West was unusually weak that year, they still managed to win the division title. Defeating the Colts in the wild card round, they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round.
San Diego began the 2009 season 2–3. After losing to the Broncos on Monday night, they began an unbroken winning streak for the rest of the season, which included defeating the entire NFC East. In Week 11, they avenged their earlier loss against the Broncos by inflicting a 32–3 rout on them. The next game saw them beat a 1–11 Cleveland Browns squad 30–23, in which LaDainian Tomlinson broke Hall of Famer Jim Brown's rushing record and was congratulated by him afterwards. The Chargers secured another division title, the #2 AFC seed, and looked to be a near shoo-in for the Super Bowl. However, the team's postseason futility continued. Hosting the New York Jets on January 17, 2010, they endured an upset defeat, where, despite an early lead, were unable to overcome the strong Jets' defense. Kicker Nate Kaeding also missed three field goal and PAT attempts, which resulted in the Chargers losing 17–14.
The 2010 season was the 1st season without LaDainian Tomlinson since 2000 (Tomlinson was let go by management due to an oversized contract relative to production and other issues; he went on to lead the Jets in rushing with 914 yards & tied for 3rd in receptions with 52). The 2010 campaign started off slowly again, this time 2–5 (including losses to some of the worst teams in football at the time – the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oakland Raiders, the Seattle Seahawks and the St. Louis Rams). The losses were due to turnovers & mental mistakes by young players on special teams allowing blocked punts & kick/punt return touchdowns. The loss to Oakland ended their 13-game winning streak against the Raiders since their last loss on September 28, 2003. The Chargers then went on another second half run with four straight wins but this time instead of keeping the streak going the entire second half they had a big let down losing at home to the Raiders again, this time 28–13 (ending their shared NFL record, with the Dolphins, of 18 straight wins in December). Despite the loss, they still had a chance to win their 5th straight AFC West title, tying the Raiders, but they had another bad loss at the Bengals 34–20 ending their chances. The Chargers beat Denver to end the season with a 9–7 record & out of the playoffs for the first time since 2005. They finished the season as the 8th team in NFL history to rank #1 in overall offense (395.6 yards/game), and overall defense (271.6 yards/game), and became only the 2nd of those teams to not make the playoffs (1953 Eagles 7–4–1). They were second to the Colts in passing yards per game (282.4), second to the Patriots in points scored per game (27.6), 1st in passing yards allowed per game (177.8), 4th in rushing yards allowed per game (93.8), and tied for 2nd in sacks (47). On the negative stat sheet, they gave up the most punt return yards per game (18.9) & had 29 turnovers. Philip Rivers had another great season with a career-high 4,710 yards (#1 in the NFL), 294 yards passing per game (tied for 1st with Manning), 66% completion pct. (third to Brees & Manning), 30 TD's, only 13 INT's & a 101.8 passer rating (second to Brady). Mike Tolbert 11 rushing TD's & Antonio Gates 10 receiving TD's were among the league leaders in TD's scored. On defense, Shaun Phillips' 11 sacks were in the top 10.
With the special teams failure of the 2010 season campaign, the Chargers hoped to rebound with a strong performance to start the season, and a way to overcome slow starts.
The Chargers started off the 2011 season with a 4–1 campaign, with their only loss to the New England Patriots. From that point on, however, the Chargers began a six-game skid with losses to the Jets, Chiefs, Packers, Raiders, Bears, and Broncos, with the first four by only a score and against Denver in overtime. Injuries to both the offensive and the defensive line hit the Chargers hard. But finally on December 5, 2011, the Chargers got their first win in over a month against the Jacksonville Jaguars, beating the also-struggling team.
The Chargers then began a three-game winning streak most notably beating the Ravens by more than any team has beat them that season.
However, the Chargers were beaten, 38–10, by the Detroit Lions to drop their record to 7–8 and eliminate the possibility of being in the playoffs. After a 38–26 victory over the Raiders in week 17, the Chargers finished at 8–8 and in a numerical tie for first place in the AFC West along with Oakland and Denver. However, the Chargers were beaten out by Denver for the Division Title via tie-breaker. After missing the playoffs for the third straight season in 2012, the Chargers fired general manager Smith and head coach Turner.
The Chargers made off-season changes including a new General Manager, Tom Telesco, and head coach, Mike McCoy, the former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos. On January 9, 2013, the Chargers announced that Tom Telesco, former Vice President of Football Operations with the Indianapolis Colts, would take over as General Manager following the firing of A. J. Smith. On January 15, 2013, Broncos offensive coordinator, Mike McCoy, was hired as the new head coach and Ken Whisenhunt as offensive coordinator.
The Chargers finished the 2013 season 9-7 and made the playoffs for the first time since 2009. They entered the playoffs as the sixth seed. On January 5, 2014, the Chargers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium (27-10) to advance to the AFC Divisional Playoff Round. The Chargers then lost to the Denver Broncos at Sports Authority Field at Mile High the following Sunday, January 12, 2014 (24-17).
After starting the season strongly, including a five-win run in September and October, the Chargers were beset by a string of injuries to key players, and eventually finished the season at 9–7. In contrast to 2013, the record was not enough to make the playoffs. The Chargers began the season 5–1, winning five straight after losing their season opener. It was followed by a three-game losing streak, and they finished 4–4 in the second half. They won just two of their final five games, coming back from double-digit fourth quarter deficits twice to remain in playoff contention. They lost the final game of the season when a win would have secured a playoff berth. In three of their last four games, and five of their last eight, the Chargers did not score more than one touchdown. Compared to 2013, the offense dropped in points (from 12th in the league to 17th), yards (5th to 18th), first downs (3rd to 15th), net yards per pass (2nd to 8th), rushing yards (13th to 30) and yards per rush (21st to 31st). It was the second time in three years the team finished second-to-last in yards per carry. San Diego was just 2–4 against teams in their division in the AFC West, and were swept by both the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs. It was their worst intradivision record since they were 1–5 in 2003. The Chargers were only 3–6 against teams with winning records. They matched their 9–7 record from 2013, but missed the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.
During the season, the Chargers, the St. Louis Rams, and the Oakland Raiders all intimated they might apply for relocation to Los Angeles at the end of the season. The Chargers announced in December 2014 that they would not be seeking to relocate for the 2015 season, followed by an announcement from the NFL that no team would relocate to L.A. until the 2016 season at the earliest.
Controversy filled the 2015 off-season, as attorney and team spokesperson Mark Fabiani continually bashed the local San Diego city government's efforts to negotiate a replacement for Qualcomm Stadium. When then-St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke announced in January 2015 his intention to build a new stadium in Inglewood, the Chargers felt pressured to announce their own Los Angeles plan to preserve what they claimed was "25 percent of their fan base" in the affluent Los Angeles and Orange County areas. In February 2015, the team announced a stadium proposal in Carson, in partnership with the Oakland Raiders, their AFC West divisional rivals.
The 2015 season started off with a win against the Detroit Lions at home. The Chargers lost to the Cincinnati Bengals and Minnesota Vikings on the road before defeating the Cleveland Browns on a last second field goal. Following their 2–2 start, the Chargers lost their next six games, dropping to 2–8. In their six straight losses, they lost heartbreakers to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Ravens and the Chicago Bears, as well as sound defeats by both, division rivals, the Oakland Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs. They finally broke their losing streak by defeating the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road, bringing their record to 3–8, in last place in the AFC West and 3rd worst in the American Football Conference (one game ahead of both the Browns and the Tennessee Titans). They are also tied for the third worst record in the National Football League. They then proceeded to beat the Miami Dolphins in Week 14 winning 30–14. They finished the season 4–12.
The day following the conclusion of the regular season, the Chargers, Rams, and Raiders all filed to relocate to Los Angeles. On January 12, 2016, the NFL owners voted 30–2 to allow the Rams to return to Los Angeles and approved the Inglewood stadium project over the Carson project. The Chargers were given a one-year approval to relocate, conditioned on negotiating a lease agreement with the Rams or an agreement to partner with the Rams on the new stadium construction.
On January 14, 2016, the team filed paperwork for official trademark protection of the term "Los Angeles Chargers" for the purposes of running and marketing a professional football franchise. After two weeks of negotiation, the Chargers and Rams on January 29, 2016 reached an agreement in principle on sharing the planned SoFi Stadium. The Chargers would contribute a $200 million stadium loan from the NFL and personal seat license fees to the construction costs and would pay $1 per year in rent to the Rams. The Chargers had continued preliminary work on a ballot initiative for public approval on a new facility. On November 8, 2016, Measure C was voted down (57% opposed over 43% in support). On December 14, 2016, at an owners' meeting, the terms of the Chargers and Rams lease agreement, as well as the team's debt ceiling were approved thus taking the first steps for a possible relocation to Los Angeles in 2017. Around this time, the Raiders announced that they would move to Las Vegas instead, effective in 2020.
Spanos announced the relocation in a controversial letter to San Diego Chargers fans posted to the team's official site on January 12, 2017. The team announced it would be returning to their birthplace and play as the Los Angeles Chargers starting in the 2017 season at Dignity Health Sports Park (then known as StubHub Center) in Carson, although the stadium at seating for 30,000 sat well below the 50,000 minimum that the NFL set even for temporary homes following the 1970 merger. The home of Major League Soccer's LA Galaxy served as the Chargers' temporary home field until they joined the Rams at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood starting with the 2020 NFL season. The Chargers became the second former San Diego professional sports franchise to relocate to Los Angeles, after the Clippers in 1984.
Reaction to the relocation itself was not without controversy. "Los Angeles Times" columnist Bill Plaschke welcomed the team to town by writing ""We. Don't. Want. You."", noting that "The Chargers aren't even the second team in town behind the Rams. The Chargers aren't even the third team of interest here behind the Rams and Raiders. The Chargers might not even be in the top-five favorite NFL teams in Los Angeles." At a game at the Staples Center between the Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers, the Chargers' logo was shown on a scoreboard and was "booed heartily". Chargers tight end Jeff Cumberland was also "jeered" by the crowd when featured on the big screen.
One week after the move from San Diego to Los Angeles was announced, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that the other NFL owners were "angered" by the decision, and that "the NFL wants the Chargers to move back, though nobody believes that possibility is realistic."
On January 13, the Chargers fired defensive coordinator John Pagano. It took the team one week to find a replacement for Pagano, as they hired Gus Bradley on January 20. Bradley was formerly the head coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and before landing that head coaching job was the defensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks. The Chargers also announced they had hired Anthony Lynn to be their next head coach.
In their first game back in Los Angeles at StubHub Center included an announced attendance was just over 25,000, divided "around 50/50" between fans of the Chargers and the visiting Miami Dolphins. After the poor response, the NFL was reportedly considering ways to move the Chargers back to San Diego, although that possibility is considered unlikely. The league officially denied that such discussions were happening, as San Diego was stated not to have a usable stadium and that the Spanos family refuses to consider going back to the city; the league did acknowledge that a vote of the owners could change the situation.
The Chargers' attendance problems continued into their second season. For instance, there were so many fans of the visiting Kansas City Chiefs at the Chargers' 2018 home opener that "USA Today" remarked it "was essentially a Chiefs home game". In December 2018, a "Los Angeles Times" columnist asked if the Chargers would receive a parade in the city if they were to win the Super Bowl. In the same piece, however, the columnist, Dylan Hernandez, did make note that their two most recent home games against the Cardinals and Bengals felt like home games for the Chargers.
The team's struggles to draw fans have reportedly led them to lower their initial revenue goal when they move into the new stadium from $400 million to $150 million, and are causing some owners to doubt the Chargers' viability in Los Angeles.
Except for color changes along the way, the Chargers have essentially used the logo of an arc-shaped lightning bolt since the team debuted in 1960. During its period in the AFL, the club also used a shield logo that featured a horsehead, a lightning bolt, and the word "Chargers". The team brought the logo back for on-field design in the 2018 season.
From 1960 to 1973, the colors consisted of various shades of Electric blue ("powder" blue, but technically called Collegiate blue) or white jerseys, both with gold lightning bolts on the shoulders. The helmets were white and had both the arc-shaped lightning bolt logo, in gold or navy depending on the year, and the player's number. At first, the team wore white pants before switching to gold in 1966. In 1973, the numerals on the blue jerseys changed from white to gold.
In 1974, the sky blue was changed to dark royal blue. The helmet was also changed to dark blue and the players' numbers were removed. Additionally, the face masks became yellow, thus making them one of the first teams in the NFL (with the Kansas City Chiefs) to use a facemask color other than the then-predominant grey. From 1978 through 1983, the Chargers wore their white jerseys at home, coinciding with the hiring of coach Don Coryell – when Joe Gibbs, a Coryell assistant in 1979–80, became head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1981, he did the same, and white at home became a Redskins staple through 2007 – but Coryell switched the Chargers to their blue jerseys at home starting in 1984. With the exception of the 1991 season and other sporadic home games since, San Diego wears its blue jerseys at home.
In 1985, the Chargers started using navy blue jerseys and returned to wearing white pants. The team's uniform design was next revamped in 1988. It featured an even darker shade of navy blue. The lightning bolts on the jerseys and helmets were white, with navy interior trim and gold outlining; the facemasks became navy blue. In 1990, the team started to wear navy pants with their white jerseys. From 1988 to 1991, the team displayed stripes down the pants rather than lightning bolts. The Chargers went with all-white combinations in 1997 and 2001, only to have the blue pants make a comeback. On October 27, 2003, the Chargers wore their navy pants with their navy jersey for a "Monday Night Football" game versus the Miami Dolphins that was played at Sun Devil Stadium, then the home of the Arizona Cardinals, due to wildfires in southern California. This remains the only game in which the Chargers have worn the all-dark combination.|
From the late 1980s to 2000, the Chargers wore white at home during some preseason games and dark for regular season games. In 2001, the Chargers started wearing their dark uniforms for preseason games and white uniforms in September home games due to the heat before switching back to dark in October.
In March 2007, the Chargers unveiled their first uniform redesign since 1988, on the team's official website. The team formally unveiled this new uniform set, which mixes old and new styles, in a private team-only event. Navy blue remains the primary color on the home jersey, but the familiar lightning bolt was reverted to gold, and now has navy outlining and powder blue interior trim. The latter color is a nod to the 1960s uniforms. The redesigned lightning bolt was moved to the sides of the shoulders from the top, and includes a new numbering font and word mark in white, with gold outlining and powder blue interior trim. The pants also have a redesigned lightning bolt in gold, with powder blue trim on a navy stripe. Additionally, the team pays tribute to other uniform features from their history by wearing a metallic white helmet, with a navy face mask, the newly revamped bolt in gold with navy and powder blue trim, and white pants. The road white jerseys with navy pants, as well as the alternate powder blue jerseys with white pants, were also redesigned with the new scheme.
From 2002 to 2006, the Chargers used the early-1960s powder blue uniforms as alternate jerseys, which many football fans (both of the Chargers and of other teams) clamored for the team to bring back full-time.
Since 2007, the Chargers have worn the alternate powder blue jerseys twice per season. The alternate powder blue jerseys have also been worn in a playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2008.
In 2009, in honor of their 50th anniversary as one of the eight original AFL teams, the Chargers wore their 1963 throwback uniforms for three games.
For the 2013 season, the Chargers made minor tweaks to their current uniforms. These include a two-tone nameplate (gold with powder blue trim on home jersey, navy with gold trim on away jersey, and white with navy trim on alternate jersey), collars matching the color of the jersey, and the addition of a gold stripe on the socks.
On January 12, 2017, with the announcement that the Chargers were moving to Los Angeles, the team unveiled a new alternate logo incorporating the letters "LA" with a lightning bolt. The logo was immediately and widely ridiculed by fans, the media, and even other professional sports franchises, in part for its resemblance to the Los Angeles Dodgers logo. The team tried to diffuse the controversy by changing the color scheme of the new logo before scrapping it altogether after two days.
The team officially announced on April 16, 2019 that it would wear its powder blue jerseys, the same uniforms they wore during their inaugural season in 1960 while in Los Angeles, as its primary home uniform beginning with the 2019 NFL season. The club also announced that the facemask color would change from navy blue to gold, which was previously worn when the team wore its royal blue NFL Color Rush uniforms.
On March 24, 2020, the team announced new logos and upcoming new uniforms for the team. The new logos removed the navy blue completely, altered the double bolt lessening the curve, and debuted a new script logo featuring powder blue and gold and lightning bolt shooting from the A in Chargers. On April 21, 2020, the team unveiled their new uniforms. This uniform set has numbers on the helmet and includes two color-rush uniforms, a royal blue set similar to one the one used in their previous look, and an all-navy set, which has color of the logo on the helmet changed to navy as well. Gold pants were also included in the rebrand. Powder blue also returned as the primary color.
The Chargers currently have four retired numbers: #14 (Dan Fouts), #19 (Lance Alworth), #21 (LaDainian Tomlinson) and #55 (Junior Seau). As of 2010, the Chargers' policy was to have the Chargers Hall of Fame committee evaluate candidates for a player's number to retire after the player has retired from the league after five years, Seau was the only exception to this policy. The committee consists of Chargers Executive Vice President Alex Spanos, Chargers public relations director Bill Johnston, San Diego Hall of Champions founder Bob Breitbard, and the presidents of the San Diego Sports Commission and the Chargers Backers Fan Club. There are few recognized guidelines in sports regarding retiring numbers, and the NFL has no specific league policy. "You have to have enough numbers for players to wear", said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. The Chargers have rarely retired numbers. The "San Diego Union-Tribune" wrote, "The [Chargers] tend to honor their heritage haphazardly."
The Chargers created their Hall of Fame in 1976. The members of the Hall of Fame are honored at the Chargers Ring of Honor, founded in 2000 and viewable above the visiting team's sideline of Qualcomm Stadium on the press level. Eligible candidates must have been retired for at least four seasons. Selections are made by a five-member committee chaired by Dean Spanos, Chargers vice-chairman. As of 1992, other committee members included Bob Breitbard, founder of the San Diego Hall of Champions; Ron Fowler, president of the Greater San Diego Sports Association; Jane Rappoport, president of the Charger Backers; and Bill Johnston, the team's director of public relations. The Chargers in 2012 allowed fans to vote for the newest member.
The Chargers announced their 50th Anniversary Team in 2009 to honor the top players and coaches in the team's history. The Chargers were founded in 1959. The team included 53 players and coaches selected from 103 nominees. The Chargers originally stated that only 50 members would be selected. Online voting by fans accounted for 50% of the voting results; votes from Chargers Hall of Famers and five members of the local media made up for the other 50%. Over 400,000 votes were cast online. Dan Fouts and LaDainian Tomlinson received the first and second most votes, respectively. The team features 7 Pro Football Hall of Fame members and 11 players that were active on the 2009 Chargers team.
Alworth, Mix, Hadl, Joiner, Coryell, Gillman, Garrison, Fouts, White, Winslow, Faison, Benirschke, Lincoln, Washington, Humphries, Ladd and Wilkerson are also members of the San Diego Hall of Champions, which is open to athletes from the San Diego area as well as those who played for San Diego-based professional and collegiate teams.
The Chargers' flagship radio station is KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles, commonly known as "KFI AM 640" with daily coverage and special programming on KLAC/570. Play-by-play voice Matt "Money" Smith and former Chargers former offensive lineman Nick Hardwick comprise the broadcast team, with KLSD afternoon co-host Mike Costa serving as sideline reporter. Past Chargers radio broadcasters have included Josh Lewin, Ralph Lawler, Stu Nahan, Tom Kelly, Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton, Dan Rowe, Ted Leitner, and Hank Bauer. Bauer served seventeen seasons (1998–2014) as the radio color analyst; however, the Chargers and then-flagship KIOZ decided not to renew his contract, and was replaced by Conway starting with the 2015 season. As of 2014, the Chargers also stream their radio broadcasts on their official mobile application (through iOS and Android devices) as well as on their website.
As of the 2020 season, Chargers preseason games will be broadcast by KCBS-TV; likewise, in the former San Diego market, KFMB is the local affiliate. As per the NFL's television deals, KCBS also broadcasts CBS coverage of most Chargers regular-season games against AFC teams.
Dennis Packer, the public address announcer of all USC football games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, serves as the public address announcer of all Chargers home games at SoFi Stadium. Packer replaced legendary P.A. announcer Bruce Binkowski, who went on to become the executive director of the Holiday and Poinsettia Bowl games, which are played at their former home, SDCCU Stadium.
With the Chargers' return to Los Angeles in 2017, the team became a beneficiary of league scheduling policies. Both the Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams share the Los Angeles market, which is on the West Coast of the United States. This means that the Chargers cannot play home games, road division games against the Denver Broncos or Las Vegas Raiders, or interconference road games against the NFC West (in seasons that the AFC West and NFC West meet in interconference play) in the early 10:00 a.m. Pacific time slot. In addition, they cannot play interconference home games at the same time or network as the Rams. As a result, both teams generally will have more limited scheduling options, and will also benefit by receiving more prime-time games than usual (click here for further information). Thus, regardless of the previous season's record, the Chargers will receive a disproportionate number of "Sunday Night", "Monday Night" and/or "Thursday Night" games, compared to the rest of the league. Additionally, if the Chargers and Rams are both playing at the same time on Sunday afternoons on a certain network (for instance, a Rams road game against an AFC opponent at the same time as a Charger home game with an NFC opponent with both on Fox, or the reverse where the Rams are on the road against an AFC opponent and the Chargers are at home against an AFC opponent on CBS), in the Los Angeles market, Fox and CBS have authorization to carry the extra game on their secondary sister stations; Fox games air on KCOP-TV, while CBS games are aired on KCAL-TV. In 2020, the Chargers signed a multi-year preseason TV deal with KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV and will have a weekly show with the latest team news, replacing KABC-TV after three seasons (2017, 2018 and 2019) of televising Chargers preseason football.
Chargers Radio Network
Chargers Finalize 2017 Broadcast Team and Station Affiliates
The Chargers' fight song, "San Diego Super Chargers", was recorded in 1979 at the height of the team's success with Air Coryell, and has a distinctly disco sound. The team under then-new owner Alex Spanos replaced the song in 1989 with a non-disco cover version, but the original version was revived in 2002. The team played this song at home games after Chargers scores and victories until it departed San Diego. From time to time during highlights of NFL PrimeTime, ESPN's Chris Berman and Tom Jackson would briefly sing the first line of the song's chorus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27170 |
S
S or s is the 19th letter in the Modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is "ess" (pronounced ), plural "esses".
Northwest Semitic šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative (as in '"sh"ip'). It originated most likely as a pictogram of a tooth () and represented the phoneme via the acrophonic principle.
Ancient Greek did not have a phoneme, so the derived Greek letter sigma (Σ) came to represent the voiceless alveolar sibilant .
While the letter shape Σ continues Phoenician "šîn", its name "sigma" is taken from the letter "samekh", while the shape and position of "samekh" but name of "šîn" is continued in the "xi".
Within Greek, the name of "sigma" was influenced by its association with the Greek word σίζω (earlier "*sigj-") "to hiss". The original name of the letter "sigma" may have been "san", but due to the complicated early history of the Greek epichoric alphabets, "san" came to be identified as a separate letter, Ϻ. Herodotus reports that "San" was the name given by the Dorians to the same letter called "Sigma" by the Ionians.
The Western Greek alphabet used in Cumae was adopted by the Etruscans and Latins in the 7th century BC, over the following centuries developing into a range of Old Italic alphabets including the Etruscan alphabet and the early Latin alphabet.
In Etruscan, the value of Greek sigma (𐌔) was maintained, while san (𐌑)
represented a separate phoneme, most likely (transliterated as "ś").
The early Latin alphabet adopted sigma, but not san, as Old Latin did not have a phoneme.
The shape of Latin S arises from Greek Σ by dropping one out of the four strokes of that letter.
The (angular) S-shape composed of three strokes existed as a variant of the four-stroke letter Σ already in the epigraphy in Western Greek alphabets, and the three and four strokes variants existed alongside one another in the classical Etruscan alphabet. In other Italic alphabets (Venetic, Lepontic), the letter could be represented as a zig-zagging line of any number between three and six strokes.
The Italic letter was also adopted into Elder Futhark, as "Sowilō" (), and appears with four to eight strokes in the earliest runic inscriptions, but is occasionally reduced to three strokes () from the later 5th century, and appears regularly with three strokes in Younger Futhark.
The minuscule form ſ, called the long "s", developed in the early medieval period, within the Visigothic and Carolingian hands, with predecessors in the half-uncial and cursive scripts of Late Antiquity. It remained standard in western writing throughout the medieval period and was adopted in early printing with movable types.
It existed alongside minuscule "round" or "short" "s", which was at the time only used at the end of words.
In most western orthographies, the ſ gradually fell out of use during the second half of the 18th century, although it remained in occasional use into the 19th century.
In Spain, the change was mainly accomplished between the years 1760 and 1766. In France, the change occurred between 1782 and 1793. Printers in the United States stopped using the long "s" between 1795 and 1810. In English orthography, the London printer John Bell (1745–1831) pioneered the change. His edition of Shakespeare, in 1785, was advertised with the claim that he "ventured to depart from the common mode by rejecting the long 'ſ' in favor of the round one, as being less liable to error..." "The Times" of London made the switch from the long to the short "s" with its issue of 10 September 1803.
"Encyclopædia Britannica"'s 5th edition, completed in 1817, was the last edition to use the long "s".
In German orthography, long "s" was retained in Fraktur (Schwabacher) type as well as in standard cursive (Sütterlin) well into the 20th century, and was officially abolished in 1941.
The ligature of "ſs" (or "ſz") was retained, however, giving rise to the "Eszett", "ß" in contemporary German orthography.
The letter is the seventh most common letter in English and the third-most common consonant after and . It is the most common letter in starting and ending position.
In English and several other languages, primarily Western Romance ones like Spanish and French, final is the usual mark of plural nouns. It is the regular ending of English third person present tense verbs.
The digraph for English arises in Middle English (alongside ), replacing the Old English digraph. Similarly, Old High German was replaced by in Early Modern High German orthography.
The letter S is used: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27173 |
Ska
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods. Later it became popular with many skinheads.
Music historians typically divide the history of ska into three periods: the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s; the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain, which fused Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of punk rock forming ska-punk; and third wave ska, which involved bands from a wide range of countries around the world, in the late 1980s and 1990s.
There are multiple theories about the origins of the word "ska". Ernest Ranglin claimed that the term was coined by musicians to refer to the "skat! skat! skat!" scratching guitar strum. Another explanation is that at a recording session in 1959 produced by Coxsone Dodd, double bassist Cluett Johnson instructed guitarist Ranglin to "play like ska, ska, ska", although Ranglin has denied this, stating "Clue couldn't tell me what to play!" A further theory is that it derives from Johnson's word "skavoovie", with which he was known to greet his friends. Jackie Mittoo insisted that the musicians called the rhythm "Staya Staya", and that it was Byron Lee who introduced the term "ska". Derrick Morgan said: "Guitar and piano making a ska sound, like 'ska, ska,"
After World War II, Jamaicans purchased radios in increasing numbers and were able to hear rhythm and blues music from the Southern United States in cities such as New Orleans by artists such as Fats Domino, Barbie Gaye, Rosco Gordon and Louis Jordan whose early recordings all contain the seeds of the "behind-the-beat" feel of ska and reggae. The stationing of American military forces during and after the war meant that Jamaicans could listen to military broadcasts of American music, and there was a constant influx of records from the United States. To meet the demand for that music, entrepreneurs such as Prince Buster, Coxsone Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems.
As the supply of previously unheard tunes in the jump blues and more traditional R&B genres began to dry up in the late 1950s, Jamaican producers began recording their own version of the genres with local artists. These recordings were initially made to be played on "soft wax" (a lacquer on metal disc acetate later to become known as a "dub plate"), but as demand for them grew eventually some time in the second half of 1959 (believed by most to be in the last quarter) producers such as Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid began to issue these recording on 45rpm 7-inch discs. At this point the style was a direct copy of the American "shuffle blues" style, but within two or three years it had morphed into the more familiar ska style with the off-beat guitar chop that could be heard in some of the more uptempo late-1950s American rhythm and blues recordings such as Domino's "Be My Guest" and Barbie Gaye's "My Boy Lollypop", both of which were popular on Jamaican sound systems of the late 1950s. Domino's rhythm, accentuating the offbeat, was a particular influence.
This "classic" ska style was of bars made up of four triplets but was characterized by a guitar chop on the off beat—known as an upstroke or 'skank'—with horns taking the lead and often following the off-beat skank and piano emphasizing the bass line and, again, playing the skank. Drums kept time and the bass drum was accented on the third beat of each four-triplet phrase. The snare would play side stick and accent the third beat of each 4-triplet phrase. The upstroke sound can also be found in other Caribbean forms of music, such as mento and calypso. Ernest Ranglin asserted that the difference between R&B and ska beats is that the former goes ""chink"-ka" and the latter goes "ka-"chink"".
One theory about the origin of ska is that Prince Buster created it during the inaugural recording session for his new record label Wild Bells. The session was financed by Duke Reid, who was supposed to get half of the songs to release. The guitar began emphasizing the second and fourth beats in the bar, giving rise to the new sound. The drums were taken from traditional Jamaican drumming and marching styles. To create the ska beat, Prince Buster essentially flipped the R&B shuffle beat, stressing the offbeats with the help of the guitar. Prince Buster has explicitly cited American rhythm and blues as the origin of ska: specifically, Willis Jackson's song "Later for the Gator" (which was Coxsone Dodd's number one selection).
The first ska recordings were created at facilities such as Federal Records, Studio One, and WIRL Records in Kingston, Jamaica with producers such as Dodd, Reid, Prince Buster, and Edward Seaga. The ska sound coincided with the celebratory feelings surrounding Jamaica's independence from the UK in 1962; an event commemorated by songs such as Derrick Morgan's "Forward March" and The Skatalites' "Freedom Sound".
Until Jamaica ratified the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the country did not honor international music copyright protection. This created many cover songs and reinterpretations. One such cover was Millie Small's version of the R&B/shuffle tune, "My Boy Lollypop", first recorded in New York in 1956 by 14-year-old Barbie Gaye. Smalls' rhythmically similar version, released in 1964, was Jamaica's first commercially successful international hit. With over seven million copies sold, it remains one of the best selling reggae/ska songs of all time. Many other Jamaican artists would have success recording instrumental ska versions of popular American and British music, such as Beatles songs, Motown and Atlantic soul hits, movie theme songs and instrumentals (007, Guns of Navarone). The Wailers covered the Beatles' "And I Love Her", and radically reinterpreted Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". They also created their own versions of Latin-influenced music from artists such as Mongo Santamaría. The Skatalites , Lord Creater, Laurel Atcken, Roland Alphonso, Tommy Macook, Jackie Mitto, Desmond Dekker, and Don Drummond also recorded ska.
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires performed ska with Prince Buster, Eric "Monty" Morris, and Jimmy Cliff at the 1964 New York World's Fair. As music changed in the United States, so did ska. In 1965 and 1966, when American soul music became slower and smoother, ska changed its sound accordingly and evolved into rocksteady. However, rocksteady's heyday was brief, peaking in 1967. By 1968, ska evolved again into reggae.
The 2 Tone genre, which began in the late 1970s in the Coventry area of UK, was a fusion of Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with punk rock's more aggressive guitar chords and lyrics. Compared to 1960s ska, 2 Tone music had faster tempos, fuller instrumentation, and a harder edge. The genre was named after 2 Tone Records, a record label founded by Jerry Dammers of The Specials. In many cases, the reworking of classic ska songs turned the originals into hits again in the United Kingdom.
The 2 Tone movement promoted racial unity at a time when racial tensions were high in England. There were many Specials songs that raised awareness of the issues of racism, fighting and friendship issues. Riots in English cities were a feature during the summer that The Specials song "Ghost Town" was a hit, although this work was in a slower, reggae beat. Most of the 2 Tone bands had multiracial lineups, such as The Beat (known as The English Beat in North America and the British Beat in Australia), The Specials, and The Selecter. Although only on the 2 Tone label for one single, Madness was one of the most effective bands at bringing the 2 Tone genre into the mainstream. The music of this era resonated with white working class youth and West Indian immigrants who experienced the struggles addressed in the lyrics.
Third-wave ska originated in the punk scene in the late 1980s and became commercially successful in the 1990s. Although some third-wave ska has a traditional 1960s sound, most third-wave ska is characterized by dominating guitar riffs and large horn sections. Examples of third-wave ska bands include The Toasters, Fishbone, No Doubt, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Hotknives, Hepcat, The Slackers, Suicide Machines, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, Bim Skala Bim, Mad Caddies, The Aquabats, Mustard Plug, Five Iron Frenzy, Buck-o-Nine, Suburban Legends, The Pietasters, Save Ferris, Goldfinger, Dance Hall Crashers, Mephiskapheles, Blue Meanies, and The O.C. Supertones. New York City bands such as The Second Step, the Connotations, The Third Degree, and The Boilers had a steady presence at CBGB throughout the mid-to-late 1980s.
By the late 1980s, ska had experienced a minor resurgence of popularity in the United Kingdom, due to bands such as The Burial and The Hotknives, ska-friendly record labels such as Unicorn Records, ska festivals, and a re-emergence of the traditional skinhead subculture.
The early 1980s saw a massive surge in ska's popularity in Germany, which led to the founding of many ska bands like The Busters, record labels and festivals.
In Spain, ska became relevant in the 1980s in the Basque Country due to the influence of Basque Radical Rock, with Kortatu and Potato being the most representatives bands. (Skalariak and Betagarri followed their footsteps in the early 1990s and their influence is visible outside the Basque Country in punk-rock bands like Ska-P, Boikot and many others that have gained importance in the Spanish rock and punk rock scene and festivals.
The Australian ska scene flourished in the mid-1980s, following the musical precedents set by 2 Tone, and spearheaded by bands such as Strange Tenants, No Nonsense and The Porkers. Some of the Australian ska revival bands found success on the national music charts, most notably The Allniters, who had a #10 hit with a ska cover of "Montego Bay" in 1983. The 30 piece Melbourne Ska Orchestra has enjoyed success in recent years, touring internationally, including sets at Glastonbury and Montreux Jazz Festival.
Russian (then-Soviet) ska scene established in the mid-1980s in Saint Petersburg as the anglophone opposition to more traditional Russian rock music. AVIA and N.O.M. were among the first bands of genre. Then the bands like Spitfire, Distemper, Leningrad and Markscheider Kunst began popular and commercially successful in Russia and abroad in the late 1990s.
Japan established its own ska scene, colloquially referred to as "J-ska", in the mid-1980s. The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, formed in 1985, have been one of the most commercially successful progenitors of Japanese ska.
Latin America's ska scene started developing in the mid-1980s. Latin American ska bands typically play traditional ska rhythms blended with strong influences from Latin music and rock en Español. The most prominent of these bands is Los Fabulosos Cadillacs from Argentina. Formed in 1985, the band has sold millions of records worldwide, scoring an international hit single with "El Matador" in 1994 and winning the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative album.
By the early 1980s, 2 Tone-influenced ska bands began forming throughout the United States. The Uptones from Berkeley, California and The Toasters from New York City—both formed in 1981 — were among the first active ska bands in North America. They are both credited with laying the groundwork for American ska and establishing scenes in their respective regions. In Los Angeles around the same time, The Untouchables also formed. While many of the early American ska bands continued in the musical traditions set by 2 Tone and the mod revival, bands such as Fishbone, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Operation Ivy pioneered the American ska punk subgenre, a fusion of ska and punk rock that typically downplayed ska's R&B influence in favor of faster tempos and guitar distortion.
Two hotspots for the United States' burgeoning ska scenes were New York City and Orange County, California. In New York, Toasters frontman Robert "Bucket" Hingley formed independent record label Moon Ska Records in 1983. The label quickly became the largest independent ska label in the United States. The Orange County ska scene was a major breeding ground for ska punk and more contemporary pop-influenced ska music, personified by bands such as Reel Big Fish and Sublime. It was here that the term "third wave ska" was coined and popularized by Albino Brown and Tazy Phyllipz (hosts of the "Ska Parade" radio show) to describe the new wave of ska-influenced bands which were steadily gaining notoriety; and Brown wrote the first treatise on ska's third wave in 1994. The San Francisco Bay Area also contributed to ska's growing popularity, with Skankin' Pickle, Let's Go Bowling and the Dance Hall Crashers becoming known on the touring circuit.
The mid-1990s saw a considerable rise in ska music's underground popularity, marked by the formation of many ska-based record labels, booking organizations and indie zines. While Moon Ska was still the largest of the United States' ska labels, other notable labels included Jump Up Records of Chicago, which covered the thriving midwest scene, and Steady Beat Recordings of Los Angeles, which covered Southern California's traditional ska revival. Stomp Records of Montreal was Canada's primary producer and distributor of ska music. Additionally, many punk and indie rock labels, such as Hellcat Records and Fueled by Ramen, broadened their scope to include both ska and ska punk bands. Asian Man Records (formerly Dill Records), founded in 1996, started out primarily releasing ska punk albums before branching out to other music styles.
In 1993, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones signed with Mercury Records, becoming the first American ska punk band to find mainstream commercial success, with their 1994 album "Question the Answers" achieving gold record status and peaking at #138 on the "Billboard" 200. In 1995, punk band Rancid, featuring former members of Operation Ivy, released the ska punk single "Time Bomb", which reached #8 on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks, becoming the first major ska punk hit of the 1990s and launching the genre into the public eye. Over the next few years, a string of notable ska and ska-influenced singles became hits on mainstream radio, including "Sell Out" by Reel Big Fish and "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, all of whom would reach platinum status with each of their respective albums. By 1996, third wave ska was one of the most popular forms of alternative music in the United States. A sign of mainstream knowledge of third wave ska was the inclusion of the parody song "Your Horoscope for Today" on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1999 album "Running with Scissors".
By the late 1990s, mainstream interest in third wave ska bands waned as other music genres gained momentum. Moon Ska Records folded in 2000, but Moon Ska Europe, a licensed affiliate based in Europe, continued operating in the 2000s and was later relaunched as Moon Ska World. In 2003, Hingley launched a new ska record label, Megalith Records. Jump Up Records, a label in Chicago, IL, also releases new ska music. Jump Up Records has been in business for 25 years.
In the early 21st century, ska was mostly absent from the radio, though there were exceptions. In 2017, Captain SKA reached #4 on the UK charts with "Liar Liar GE2017." In 2018, The Interrupters broke into the U.S. charts with their single "She's Kerosene." By 2019, several publications started wondering aloud whether a "fourth wave" of ska was about to emerge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27176 |
Shoe
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function. Additionally, fashion has often dictated many design elements, such as whether shoes have very high heels or flat ones. Contemporary footwear in the 2010s varies widely in style, complexity and cost. Basic sandals may consist of only a thin sole and simple strap and be sold for a low cost. High fashion shoes made by famous designers may be made of expensive materials, use complex construction and sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars a pair. Some shoes are designed for specific purposes, such as boots designed specifically for mountaineering or skiing.
Traditionally, shoes have been made from leather, wood or canvas, but in the 2010s, they are increasingly made from rubber, plastics, and other petrochemical-derived materials. Though the human foot is adapted to varied terrain and climate conditions, it is still vulnerable to environmental hazards such as sharp rocks and temperature extremes, which shoes protect against. Some shoes are worn as safety equipment, such as steel-soled boots which are required on construction sites.
The earliest known shoes are sagebrush bark sandals dating from approximately 7000 or 8000 BC, found in the Fort Rock Cave in the US state of Oregon in 1938. The world's oldest leather shoe, made from a single piece of cowhide laced with a leather cord along seams at the front and back, was found in the Areni-1 cave complex in Armenia in 2008 and is believed to date to 3500 BC. Ötzi the Iceman's shoes, dating to 3300 BC, featured brown bearskin bases, deerskin side panels, and a bark-string net, which pulled tight around the foot. The Jotunheimen shoe was discovered in August 2006: archaeologists estimate that this leather shoe was made between 1800 and 1100 BC, making it the oldest article of clothing discovered in Scandinavia.
It is thought that shoes may have been used long before this, but because the materials used were highly perishable, it is difficult to find evidence of the earliest footwear. By studying the bones of the smaller toes (as opposed to the big toe), it was observed that their thickness decreased approximately 40,000 to 26,000 years ago. This led archaeologists to deduce that wearing shoes resulted in less bone growth, resulting in shorter, thinner toes. These earliest designs were very simple in design, often mere "foot bags" of leather to protect the feet from rocks, debris, and cold.
Many early natives in North America wore a similar type of footwear, known as the moccasin. These are tight-fitting, soft-soled shoes typically made out of leather or bison hides. Many moccasins were also decorated with various beads and other adornments. Moccasins were not designed to be waterproof, and in wet weather and warm summer months, most Native Americans went barefoot.
As civilizations began to develop, thong sandals (the precursors of the modern flip-flop) were worn. This practice dates back to pictures of them in ancient Egyptian murals from 4000 BC. One pair found in Europe was made of papyrus leaves and dated to be approximately 1,500 years old. They were also worn in Jerusalem during the first century of the Common Era. Thong sandals were worn by many civilizations and made from a wide variety of materials. Ancient Egyptian sandals were made from papyrus and palm leaves. The Masai of Africa made them out of rawhide. In India they were made from wood. In China and Japan, rice straw was used. The leaves of the sisal plant were used to make twine for sandals in South America while the natives of Mexico used the Yucca plant.
While thong sandals were commonly worn, many people in ancient times, such as the Egyptians, Hindus and Greeks, saw little need for footwear, and most of the time, preferred being barefoot. The Egyptians and Hindus made some use of ornamental footwear, such as a soleless sandal known as a "Cleopatra", which did not provide any practical protection for the foot. The ancient Greeks largely viewed footwear as self-indulgent, unaesthetic and unnecessary. Shoes were primarily worn in the theater, as a means of increasing stature, and many preferred to go barefoot. Athletes in the Ancient Olympic Games participated barefoot—and naked. Even the gods and heroes were primarily depicted barefoot, the hoplite warriors fought battles in bare feet and Alexander the Great conquered his vast empire with barefoot armies. The runners of Ancient Greece are also believed to have run barefoot.
The Romans, who eventually conquered the Greeks and adopted many aspects of their culture, did not adopt the Greek perception of footwear and clothing. Roman clothing was seen as a sign of power, and footwear was seen as a necessity of living in a civilized world, although the slaves and paupers usually went barefoot. Roman soldiers were issued with chiral (left and right shoe different) footwear. Shoes for soldiers had riveted insoles to extend the life of the leather, increase comfortability, and provide better traction. The design of these shoes also designated the rank of the officers. The more intricate the insignia and the higher up the boot went on the leg, the higher the rank of the soldier. There are references to shoes being worn in the Bible.
Starting around 4 BC, the Greeks began wearing symbolic footwear. These were heavily decorated to clearly indicate the status of the wearer. Courtesans wore leather shoes colored with white, green, lemon or yellow dyes, and young woman betrothed or newly married wore pure white shoes. Because of the cost to lighten leather, shoes of a paler shade were a symbol of wealth in the upper class. Often, the soles would be carved with a message so it would imprint on the ground. Cobblers became a notable profession around this time, with Greek shoemakers becoming famed in the Roman empire.
A common casual shoe in the Pyrenees during the Middle Ages was the espadrille. This is a sandal with braided jute soles and a fabric upper portion, and often includes fabric laces that tie around the ankle. The term is French and comes from the esparto grass. The shoe originated in the Catalonian region of Spain as early as the 13th century, and was commonly worn by peasants in the farming communities in the area.
Many medieval shoes were made using the turnshoe method of construction, in which the upper was turned flesh side out, and was lasted onto the sole and joined to the edge by a seam. The shoe was then turned inside-out so that the grain was outside. Some shoes were developed with toggled flaps or drawstrings to tighten the leather around the foot for a better fit. Surviving medieval turnshoes often fit the foot closely, with the right and left shoe being mirror images. Around 1500, the turnshoe method was largely replaced by the welted rand method (where the uppers are sewn to a much stiffer sole and the shoe cannot be turned inside-out). The turnshoe method is still used for some dance and specialty shoes.
By the 15th century, pattens became popular by both men and women in Europe. These are commonly seen as the predecessor of the modern high-heeled shoe, while the poor and lower classes in Europe, as well as slaves in the New World, were barefoot. In the 15th century, the Crakow was fashionable in Europe. This style of shoe is named because it is thought to have originated in Kraków, the capital of Poland. The style is characterized by the point of the shoe, known as the "polaine", which often was supported by a whalebone tied to the knee to prevent the point getting in the way while walking. Also during the 15th century, chopines were created in Turkey, and were usually 7–8 inches (17.7–20.3 cm) high. These shoes became popular in Venice and throughout Europe, as a status symbol revealing wealth and social standing. During the 16th century, royalty, such as Catherine de Medici or Mary I of England, started wearing high-heeled shoes to make them look taller or larger than life. By 1580, even men wore them, and a person with authority or wealth was often referred to as, "well-heeled". In 17th century France, heels were exclusively worn by aristocrats. Louis XIV of France outlawed anybody from wearing red high heels except for himself and his royal court.
Eventually the modern shoe, with a sewn-on sole, was devised. Since the 17th century, most leather shoes have used a sewn-on sole. This remains the standard for finer-quality dress shoes today. Until around 1800, welted rand shoes were commonly made without differentiation for the left or right foot. Such shoes are now referred to as "straights". Only gradually did the modern foot-specific shoe become standard.
Shoemaking became more commercialized in the mid-18th century, as it expanded as a cottage industry. Large warehouses began to stock footwear, made by many small manufacturers from the area.
Until the 19th century, shoemaking was a traditional handicraft, but by the century's end, the process had been almost completely mechanized, with production occurring in large factories. Despite the obvious economic gains of mass production, the factory system produced shoes without the individual differentiation that the traditional shoemaker was able to provide.
The first steps towards mechanisation were taken during the Napoleonic Wars by the engineer, Marc Brunel. He developed machinery for the mass-production of boots for the soldiers of the British Army. In 1812, he devised a scheme for making nailed-boot-making machinery that automatically fastened soles to uppers by means of metallic pins or nails. With the support of the Duke of York, the shoes were manufactured, and, due to their strength, cheapness, and durability, were introduced for the use of the army. In the same year, the use of screws and staples was patented by Richard Woodman. Brunel's system was described by Sir Richard Phillips as a visitor to his factory in Battersea as follows:
In another building I was shown his manufactory of shoes, which, like the other, is full of ingenuity, and, in regard to subdivision of labour, brings this fabric on a level with the oft-admired manufactory of pins. Every step in it is effected by the most elegant and precise machinery; while, as each operation is performed by one hand, so each shoe passes through twenty-five hands, who complete from the hide, as supplied by the currier, a hundred pairs of strong and well-finished shoes per day. All the details are performed by the ingenious application of the mechanic powers; and all the parts are characterised by precision, uniformity, and accuracy. As each man performs but one step in the process, which implies no knowledge of what is done by those who go before or follow him, so the persons employed are not shoemakers, but wounded soldiers, who are able to learn their respective duties in a few hours. The contract at which these shoes are delivered to Government is 6s. 6d. per pair, being at least 2s. less than what was paid previously for an unequal and cobbled article.
However, when the war ended in 1815, manual labour became much cheaper, and the demand for military equipment subsided. As a consequence, Brunel's system was no longer profitable and it soon ceased business.
Similar exigencies at the time of the Crimean War stimulated a renewed interest in methods of mechanization and mass-production, which proved longer lasting. A shoemaker in Leicester, Tomas Crick, patented the design for a riveting machine in 1853. His machine used an iron plate to push iron rivets into the sole. The process greatly increased the speed and efficiency of production. He also introduced the use of steam-powered rolling-machines for hardening leather and cutting-machines, in the mid-1850s.
The sewing machine was introduced in 1846, and provided an alternative method for the mechanization of shoemaking. By the late 1850s, the industry was beginning to shift towards the modern factory, mainly in the US and areas of England. A shoe stitching machine was invented by the American Lyman Blake in 1856 and perfected by 1864. Entering into partnership with McKay, his device became known as the McKay stitching machine and was quickly adopted by manufacturers throughout New England. As bottlenecks opened up in the production line due to these innovations, more and more of the manufacturing stages, such as pegging and finishing, became automated. By the 1890s, the process of mechanisation was largely complete.
On January 24, 1899, Humphrey O'Sullivan of Lowell, Massachusetts, was awarded a patent for a rubber heel for boots and shoes.
A process for manufacturing stitchless, that is, glued, shoes—AGO—was developed in 1910. Since the mid-20th century, advances in rubber, plastics, synthetic cloth, and industrial adhesives have allowed manufacturers to create shoes that stray considerably from traditional crafting techniques. Leather, which had been the primary material in earlier styles, has remained standard in expensive dress shoes, but athletic shoes often have little or no real leather. Soles, which were once laboriously hand-stitched on, are now more often machine stitched or simply glued on. Many of these newer materials, such as rubber and plastics, have made shoes less biodegradable. It is estimated that most mass-produced shoes require 1000 years to degrade in a landfill. In the late 2000s, some shoemakers picked up on the issue and began to produce shoes made entirely from degradable materials, such as the Nike Considered.
In 2007, the global shoe industry had an overall market of $107.4 billion, in terms of revenue, and is expected to grow to $122.9 billion by the end of 2012. Shoe manufacturers in the People's Republic of China account for 63% of production, 40.5% of global exports and 55% of industry revenue. However, many manufacturers in Europe dominate the higher-priced, higher value-added end of the market.
As an integral part of human culture and civilization, shoes have found their way into our culture, folklore, and art. A popular 18th-century nursery rhyme is "There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe". This story tells about an old woman living in a shoe with a lot of children. In 1948, Mahlon Haines, a shoe salesman in Hallam, Pennsylvania, built an actual house shaped like a work boot as a form of advertisement. The Haines Shoe House was rented to newlyweds and the elderly until his death in 1962. Since then, it has served as an ice cream parlor, a bed and breakfast, and a museum. It still stands today and is a popular roadside attraction.
Shoes also play an important role in the fairy tales "Cinderella" and "The Red Shoes". In the movie adaption of the children's book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", a pair of red ruby slippers play a key role in the plot. The 1985 comedy "The Man with One Red Shoe" features an eccentric man wearing one normal business shoe and one red shoe that becomes central to the plot.
Athletic sneaker collection has also existed as a part of urban subculture in the United States for several decades. Recent decades have seen this trend spread to European nations such as the Czech Republic. A Sneakerhead is a person who owns multiple pairs of shoes as a form of collection and fashion. A contributor to the growth of sneaker collecting is the continued worldwide popularity of the Air Jordan line of sneakers designed by Nike for Basketball star Michael Jordan.
In the Bible's Old Testament, the shoe is used to symbolize something that is worthless or of little value. In the New Testament, the act of removing one's shoes symbolizes servitude. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples regarded the act of removing their shoes as a mark of reverence when approaching a sacred person or place. In the Book of Exodus, Moses was instructed to remove his shoes before approaching the burning bush:
The removal of the shoe also symbolizes the act of giving up a legal right. In Hebrew custom, the widow removed the shoe of her late husband's brother to symbolize that he had abandoned his duty. In Arab custom, the removal of one's shoe also symbolized the dissolution of marriage.
In Arab culture, showing the sole of one's shoe is considered an insult, and to throw a shoe and hit someone with it is considered an even greater insult. Shoes are considered to be dirty as they frequently touch the ground, and are associated with the lowest part of the body—the foot. As such, shoes are forbidden in mosques, and it is also considered unmannerly to cross the legs and display the soles of one's shoes to someone when talking to them. This insult was demonstrated in Iraq, first when Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in 2003, Iraqis gathered around it and struck the statue with their shoes. Secondly, in 2008, United States President George W. Bush had a shoe thrown at him by a journalist as a statement against the war that was brought to Iraq and the lives that it has cost. More generally, shoe-throwing or shoeing, showing the sole of one's shoe or using shoes to insult are forms of protest in many parts of the world. Incidents where shoes were thrown at political figures have taken place in Australia, India, Ireland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and most notably the Arab world.
Empty shoes may also symbolize death. In Greek culture, empty shoes are the equivalent of the American funeral wreath. For example, empty shoes placed outside of a Greek home would tell others that the family's son has died in battle. At an observation memorializing the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, 3,000 pairs of empty shoes were used to recognize those killed. The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial in Budapest, Hungary. Conceived by film director Can Togay, he created it on the east bank of the Danube River with sculptor Gyula Pauer to honor the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. The memorial represents their shoes left behind on the bank.
The basic anatomy of a shoe is recognizable, regardless of the specific style of footwear.
All shoes have a , which is the bottom of a shoe, in contact with the ground. Soles can be made from a variety of materials, although most modern shoes have soles made from natural rubber, polyurethane, or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) compounds. Soles can be simple—a single material in a single layer—or they can be complex, with multiple structures or layers and materials. When various layers are used, soles may consist of an insole, midsole, and an outsole.
The is the interior bottom of a shoe, which sits directly beneath the foot under the footbed (also known as sock liner). The purpose of insole is to attach to the lasting margin of the upper, which is wrapped around the last during the closing of the shoe during the lasting operation. Insoles are usually made of cellulosic paper board or synthetic non woven insole board. Many shoes have removable and replaceable footbeds. Extra cushioning is often added for comfort (to control the shape, moisture, or smell of the shoe) or health reasons (to help deal with differences in the natural shape of the foot or positioning of the foot during standing or walking).
The is the layer in direct contact with the ground. Dress shoes often have leather or resin rubber outsoles; casual or work-oriented shoes have outsoles made of natural rubber or a synthetic material like polyurethane. The outsole may comprise a single piece, or may be an assembly of separate pieces, often of different materials. On some shoes, the heel of the sole has a rubber plate for durability and traction, while the front is leather for style. Specialized shoes will often have modifications on this design: athletic or so called cleated shoes like soccer, rugby, baseball and golf shoes have spikes embedded in the outsole to improve traction.
The is the layer in between the outsole and the insole, typically there for shock absorption. Some types of shoes, like running shoes, have additional material for shock absorption, usually beneath the heel of the foot, where one puts the most pressure down. Some shoes may not have a midsole at all.
The heel is the bottom rear part of a shoe. Its function is to support the heel of the foot. They are often made of the same material as the sole of the shoe. This part can be high for fashion or to make the person look taller, or flat for a more practical and comfortable use. On some shoes the inner forward point of the heel is chiselled off, a feature known as a "gentleman's corner". This piece of design is intended to alleviate the problem of the points catching the bottom of trousers and was first observed in the 1930s. A heel is the projection at the back of a shoe which rests below the heel bone. The shoe heel is used to improve the balance of the shoe, increase the height of the wearer, alter posture or other decorative purposes. Sometimes raised, the high heel is common to a form of shoe often worn by women, but sometimes by men too. See also stiletto heel.
The helps hold the shoe onto the foot. In the simplest cases, such as sandals or flip-flops, this may be nothing more than a few straps for holding the sole in place. Closed footwear, such as boots, trainers and most men's shoes, will have a more complex upper. This part is often decorated or is made in a certain style to look attractive. The upper is connected to the sole by a strip of leather, rubber, or plastic that is stitched between it and the sole, known as a welt.
Most uppers have a mechanism, such as laces, straps with buckles, zippers, elastic, velcro straps, buttons, or snaps, for tightening the upper on the foot. Uppers with laces usually have a tongue that helps seal the laced opening and protect the foot from abrasion by the laces. Uppers with laces also have eyelets or hooks to make it easier to tighten and loosen the laces and to prevent the lace from tearing through the upper material. An aglet is the protective wrapping on the end of the lace.
The is the front part of the shoe, starting behind the toe, extending around the eyelets and tongue and towards back part of the shoe.
The is the part of the shoe closest to a person's center of symmetry, and the lateral is on the opposite side, away from their center of symmetry. This can be in reference to either the outsole or the vamp. Most shoes have shoelaces on the upper, connecting the medial and lateral parts after one puts their shoes on and aiding in keeping their shoes on their feet. In 1968, Puma SE introduced the first pair of sneakers with Velcro straps in lieu of shoelaces, and these became popular by the 1980s, especially among children and the elderly.
The is the part that covers and protects the toes. People with toe deformities, or individuals who experience toe swelling (such as long-distance runners) usually require a larger toe box.
There are a wide variety of different types of shoes. Most types of shoes are designed for specific activities. For example, boots are typically designed for work or heavy outdoor use. Athletic shoes are designed for particular sports such as running, walking, or other sports. Some shoes are designed to be worn at more formal occasions, and others are designed for casual wear. There are also a wide variety of shoes designed for different types of dancing. Orthopedic shoes are special types of footwear designed for individuals with particular foot problems or special needs. Other animals, such as dogs and horses, may also wear special shoes to protect their feet as well.
Depending on the activity for which they are designed, some types of footwear may fit into multiple categories. For example, Cowboy boots are considered boots, but may also be worn in more formal occasions and used as dress shoes. Hiking boots incorporate many of the protective features of boots, but also provide the extra flexibility and comfort of many athletic shoes. Flip-flops are considered casual footwear, but have also been worn in formal occasions, such as visits to the White House.
Athletic shoes are specifically designed to be worn for participating in various sports. Since friction between the foot and the ground is an important force in most sports, modern athletic shoes are designed to maximize this force, and materials, such as rubber, are used. Although, for some activities such as dancing or bowling, sliding is desirable, so shoes designed for these activities often have lower coefficients of friction. The earliest athletic shoes date back to the mid 19th century were track spikes—leather shoes with metal cleats on the soles to provide increased friction during running. They were developed by J.W. Foster & Sons, which later become known as Reebok. By the end of the 19th century, Spalding also manufactured these shoes as well. Adidas started selling shoes with track spikes in them for running and soccer in 1925. Spikes were eventually added to shoes for baseball and American football in the 20th century. Golfers also use shoes with small metal spikes on their soles to prevent slipping during their swing.
The earliest rubber-soled athletic shoes date back to 1876 in the United Kingdom, when the New Liverpool Rubber Company made plimsolls, or sandshoes, designed for the sport of croquet. Similar rubber-soled shoes were made in 1892 in the United States by Humphrey O'Sullivan, based on Charles Goodyear's technology. The United States Rubber Company was founded the same year and produced rubber-soled and heeled shoes under a variety of brand names, which were later consolidated in 1916 under the name, Keds. These shoes became known as, "sneakers", because the rubber sole allowed the wearer to sneak up on another person. In 1964, the founding of Nike by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman of the University of Oregon introduced many new improvements common in modern running shoes, such as rubber waffle soles, breathable nylon uppers, and cushioning in the mid-sole and heel. During the 1970s, the expertise of podiatrists also became important in athletic shoe design, to implement new design features based on how feet reacted to specific actions, such as running, jumping, or side-to-side movement. Athletic shoes for women were also designed for their specific physiological differences.
Shoes specific to the sport of basketball were developed by Chuck Taylor, and are popularly known as Chuck Taylor All-Stars. These shoes, first sold in 1917, are double-layer canvas shoes with rubber soles and toe caps, and a high heel (known as a "high top") for added support. In 1969, Taylor was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in recognition of this development, and in the 1970s, other shoe manufacturers, such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and others began imitating this style of athletic shoe. In April 1985, Nike introduced its own brand of basketball shoe which would become popular in its own right, the Air Jordan, named after the then-rookie Chicago Bulls basketball player, Michael Jordan. The Air Jordan line of shoes sold $100 million in their first year.
As barefoot running became popular by the late 20th and early 21st century, many modern shoe manufacturers have recently designed footwear that mimic this experience, maintaining optimum flexibility and natural walking while also providing some degree of protection. Termed as Minimalist shoes, their purpose is to allow one's feet and legs to feel more subtly the impacts and forces involved in running, allowing finer adjustments in running style. Some of these shoes include the Vibram FiveFingers, Nike Free, and Saucony's Kinvara and Hattori. Mexican huaraches are also very simple running shoes, similar to the shoes worn by the Tarahumara people of northern Mexico, who are known for their distance running abilities. Wrestling shoes are also very light and flexible shoes that are designed to mimic bare feet while providing additional traction and protection.
Many athletic shoes are designed with specific features for specific activities. One of these includes roller skates, which have metal or plastic wheels on the bottom specific for the sport of roller skating. Similarly, ice skates have a metal blade attached to the bottom for locomotion across ice. Skate shoes have also been designed to provide a comfortable, flexible and durable shoe for the sport of skateboarding. Climbing shoes are rubber-soled, tight-fitting shoes designed to fit in the small cracks and crevices for rock climbing. Cycling shoes are similarly designed with rubber soles and a tight fit, but also are equipped with a metal or plastic cleat to interface with clipless pedals, as well as a stiff sole to maximize power transfer and support the foot. Some shoes are made specifically to improve a person's ability to weight train.
A boot is a special type of shoe which covers the foot and the ankle and extends up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece. They are typically made of leather or rubber, although they may be made from a variety of different materials. Boots are worn both for their functionality—protecting the foot and leg from water, snow, mud or hazards or providing additional ankle support for strenuous activities—as well as for reasons of style and fashion.
Cowboy boots are a specific style of riding boot which combines function with fashion. They became popular among cowboys in the western United States during the 19th century. Traditional cowboy boots have a Cuban heel, rounded to pointed toe, high shaft, and, traditionally, no lacing. They are normally made from cowhide leather but may be made from more exotic skins such as ostrich, anaconda, or elephant skins.
Hiking boots are designed to provide extra ankle and arch support, as well as extra padding for comfort during hiking. They are constructed to provide comfort for miles of walking over rough terrains, and protect the hiker's feet against water, mud, rocks, and other wilderness obstacles. These boots support the ankle to avoid twisting but do not restrict the ankle's movement too much. They are fairly stiff to support the foot. A properly fitted boot and/or friction-reducing patches applied to troublesome areas ensures protection against blisters and other discomforts associated with long hikes on rugged terrain.
During wet or snowy weather, snow boots are worn to keep the foot warm and dry. They are typically made of rubber or other water-resistant material, have multiple layers of insulation, and a high heel to keep snow out. Boots may also be attached to snowshoes to increase the distribution of weight over a larger surface area for walking in snow. Ski boots are a specialized snow boot which are used in alpine or cross-country skiing and designed to provide a way to attach the skier to his/her skis using ski bindings. The ski/boot/binding combination is used to effectively transmit control inputs from the skier's legs to the snow. Ice skates are another specialized boot with a metal blade attached to the bottom which is used to propel the wearer across a sheet of ice. Inline skates are similar to ice skates but with a set of three to four wheels in lieu of the blade, which are designed to mimic ice skating on solid surfaces such as wood or concrete.
Boots are designed to withstand heavy wear to protect the wearer and provide good traction. They are generally made from sturdy leather uppers and non-leather outsoles. They may be used for uniforms of the police or military, as well as for protection in industrial settings such as mining and construction. Protective features may include steel-tipped toes and soles or ankle guards.
Dress shoes are characterized by smooth and supple leather uppers, leather soles, and narrow sleek figure. Casual shoes are characterized by sturdy leather uppers, non-leather outsoles, and wide profile.
Some designs of dress shoes can be worn by either gender. The majority of dress shoes have an upper covering, commonly made of leather, enclosing most of the lower foot, but not covering the ankles. This upper part of the shoe is often made without apertures or openings, but may also be made with openings or even itself consist of a series of straps, e.g. an open toe featured in women's shoes. Shoes with uppers made high to cover the ankles are also available; a shoe with the upper rising above the ankle is usually considered a boot but certain styles may be referred to as high-topped shoes or high-tops. Usually, a high-topped shoe is secured by laces or zippers, although some styles have elastic inserts to ease slipping the shoe on.
Men's shoes can be categorized by how they are closed:
Men's shoes can also be decorated in various ways:
Formal high-end men's shoes are manufactured by several companies around the world, amongst others in Great Britain, France, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Italy, and to a lesser extent in the United States. Notable British brands include: Church's English Shoes (est. 1873), John Lobb Bootmaker (est. 1849), Edward Green Shoes (est. 1890), and Crockett & Jones (est. 1879). Both John Lobb and Edward Green offer bespoke products. In between the world wars, men's footwear received significant innovation and design, led by cobblers and cordwainers in London's West End. A well-known French maker is J.M. Weston. Armani of Italy was a major influence on men's shoe design in the 1960s–1980s until they returned to the larger proportions of its forebears, the welt-constructed Anglo-American dress shoe originally created in Edwardian England. Another well-known Italian company is Salvatore Ferragamo Italia S.p.A.. Higher end companies in the United States are Allen Edmonds and Alden Shoe Company. Alden, located in New England, specializes in genuine shell cordovan leather from the only remaining horse tannery in the US, in Chicago and is completely manufactured domestically, whereas Allen Edmonds, of Wisconsin, is a larger company that outsources some of its production.
There is a large variety of shoes available for women, in addition to most of the men's styles being more accepted as unisex. Some broad categories are:
A wide variety of footwear is used by dancers. The choice of dance shoe type depends on the style of dance that is to be performed and, in many cases, the characteristics of the surface that will be danced on.
Orthopedic shoes are specially-designed footwear to relieve discomfort associated with many foot and ankle disorders, such as blisters, bunions, calluses and corns, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, or heel spurs. They may also be worn by individuals with diabetes or people with unequal leg length. These shoes typically have a low heel, tend to be wide with a particularly wide toe box, and have a firm heel to provide extra support. Some may also have a removable insole, or orthotic, to provide extra arch support.
The measure of a foot for a shoe is from the heel to the longest toe. Shoe size is an alphanumerical indication of the fitting size of a shoe for a person. Often it just consists of a number indicating the length because many shoemakers only provide a standard width for economic reasons. There are several different shoe-size systems that are used worldwide. These systems differ in what they measure, what unit of measurement they use, and where the size 0 (or 1) is positioned. Only a few systems also take the width of the feet into account. Some regions use different shoe-size systems for different types of shoes (e.g., men's, women's, children's, sport, or safety shoes).
Units for shoe sizes vary widely around the world. European sizes are measured in "Paris Points", which are worth two-thirds of a centimeter. The UK and American units are approximately one-quarter of an inch, starting at 8¼ inches. Men's and women's shoe sizes often have different scales. Shoes size is often measured using a Brannock Device, which can determine both the width and length size values of the foot.
In many places in the world shoes are removed when moving from exteriors to interiors, particularly in homes and religious buildings. In many asian countries outdoor shoes are exchanged for indoor shoes or slippers. Some fitness centres require that shoes be exchanged for indoor shoes to prevent dirt and grime from being transferred to the equipment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27178 |
Slang
Slang is language (words, phrases, and usages) of an informal register that members of particular in-groups favor (over the common vocabulary of a standard language) in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both.
In its earliest attested use (1756), the word "slang" referred to the vocabulary of "low" or "disreputable" people. By the early nineteenth century, it was no longer exclusively associated with disreputable people, but continued to be applied to usages below the level of standard educated speech. The origin of the word is uncertain, although it appears to be connected with thieves' cant. A Scandinavian origin has been proposed (compare, for example, Norwegian , which means "nickname"), but based on "date and early associations" is discounted by the Oxford English Dictionary. Jonathon Green, however, agrees with the possibility of a Scandinavian origin, suggesting the same root as that of "sling", which means "to throw", and noting that slang is thrown language – a quick, honest way to make your point.
Linguists have no simple and clear definition of slang, but agree that it is a constantly changing linguistic phenomenon present in every subculture worldwide. Some argue that slang exists because we must come up with ways to define new experiences that have surfaced with time and modernity. Attempting to remedy the lack of a clear definition, however, Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter argue that an expression should be considered "true slang" if it meets at least two of the following criteria:
Michael Adams remarks that, "[Slang] is language... it is often impossible to tell, even in context, which interests and motives it serves... slang is on the edge." Slang dictionaries, collecting thousands of slang entries, offer a broad, empirical window into the motivating forces behind slang".
While many forms of lexicon may be considered low-register or "sub-standard", slang remains distinct from colloquial and jargon terms because of its specific social contexts. While viewed as inappropriate in formal usage, colloquial terms are typically considered acceptable in speech across a wide range of contexts, while slang tends to be perceived as infelicitous in many common communicative situations. Jargon refers to language used by personnel in a particular field, or language used to represent specific terms within a field to those with a particular interest. Although jargon and slang can both be used to exclude non-group members from the conversation, the purpose of jargon is said to be optimizing conversation using terms that imply technical understanding. On the other hand, slang tends to emphasize social and contextual understanding.
While colloquialisms and jargon may seem like slang because they reference a particular group, they do not necessarily fit the same definition, because they do not represent a particular effort to replace the general lexicon of a standard language. Colloquialisms are considered more acceptable and more expected in standard usage than slang is, and jargon is often created to talk about aspects of a particular field that are not accounted for in the general lexicon. However, this differentiation is not consistently applied by linguists; the terms "slang" and "jargon" are sometimes treated as synonymous, and the scope of "jargon" is at times extended to mean all forms of socially-restricted language.
It is often difficult to differentiate slang from colloquialisms and even high-register lexicon, because slang generally becomes accepted into common vocabulary over time. Words such as "spurious" and "strenuous" were once perceived as slang, though they are now considered general, even high-register words. The literature on slang even discusses mainstream acknowledgment of a slang term as changing its status as true slang, because it has been accepted by the media and is thus no longer the special insider speech of a particular group. Nevertheless, a general test for whether a word is a slang word or not is whether it would be acceptable in an academic or legal setting, as both are arenas in which standard lexicon is considered necessary and/or whether the term has been entered in the Oxford English Dictionary, which some scholars claim changes its status as slang.
It is often difficult to collect etymologies for slang terms, largely because slang is a phenomenon of speech, rather than written language and etymologies which are typically traced via corpus.
Eric Partridge, cited as the first to report on the phenomenon of slang in a systematic and linguistic way, postulated that a term would likely be in circulation for a decade before it would be written down. Nevertheless, it seems that slang generally forms via deviation from a standard form. This "spawning" of slang occurs in much the same way that any general semantic change might occur. The difference here is that the slang term's new meaning takes on a specific social significance having to do with the group the term indexes.
Coleman also suggests that slang is differentiated within more general semantic change in that it typically has to do with a certain degree of “playfulness". The development of slang is considered to be a largely “spontaneous, lively, and creative” speech process.
Still, while a great deal of slang takes off, even becoming accepted into the standard lexicon, much slang dies out, sometimes only referencing a group. An example of this is the term "groovy" which is a relic of 1960's and 70's American "hippy" slang. Nevertheless, for a slang term to become a slang term, people must use it, at some point in time, as a way to flout standard language. Additionally, slang terms may be borrowed between groups, such as the term "gig" which was originally coined by jazz musicians in the 1930s and then borrowed into the same hippy slang of the 1960s. 'The word "groovy" has remained a part of subculture lexicon since its popularization. It is still in common use today by a significant population. The word "gig" to refer to a performance very likely originated well before the 1930s, and remained a common term throughout the 1940s and 1950s before becoming a vaguely associated with the "hippy slang of the 1960s". The word "gig" is now a widely accepted synonym for a concert, recital, or performance of any type. "Hippy" is more commonly spelled "hippie".
Generally, slang terms undergo the same processes of semantic change that words in the regular lexicon do.
Slang often will form from words with previously differing meanings, one example is the often used and popular slang word "lit", which was created by a generation labeled "Generation Z". The word itself used to be associated with something being on fire or being "lit" up until 1988 when it was first used in writing to indicate a person who was drunk in the book "Warbirds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator". Since this time "lit" has gained popularity through Rap songs such as ASAP Rocky's "Get Lit" in 2011. As the popularity of the word has increased so too has the number of different meanings associated with the word. Now "lit" describes a person who is drunk and/or high, as well as an event that is especially awesome and "hype".
Words and phrases from popular Hollywood films and television series frequently become slang.
Slang is usually associated with a particular group and plays a role in constructing our identities. While slang outlines social space, attitudes about slang partly construct group identity and identify individuals as members of groups. Therefore, using the slang of a particular group will associate an individual with that group. Using Silverstein's notion of different orders of indexicality, it can be said that a slang term can be a second-order index to this particular group. Employing a slang term, however, can also give an individual the qualities associated with the term's group of origin, whether or not the individual is actually trying to identify as a member of the group. This allocation of qualities based on abstract group association is known as third-order indexicality.
As outlined by Elisa Mattiello in her book, a slang term can take on various levels of identification. Giving the examples of the terms "foxy" and "shagadelic", Mattiello explains that neither term makes sense given a standard interpretation of English:
Nevertheless, Matiello concludes that those agents who identify themselves as "young men" have "genuinely coined" these terms and choose to use them over "canonical" terms —like beautiful or sexy—because of the indexicalized social identifications the former convey.
In terms of first and second order indexicality, the usage of speaker-oriented terms by male adolescents indicated their membership to their age group, to reinforce connection to their peer group, and to exclude outsiders.
In terms of higher order indexicality, anyone using these terms may desire to appear fresher, undoubtedly more playful, faddish, and colourful than someone who employs the standard English term "beautiful". This appearance relies heavily on the hearer's third-order understanding of the term's associated social nuances and presupposed use-cases.
Often, distinct subcultures will create slang that members will use in order to associate themselves with the group, or to delineate outsiders.
Slang terms are often known only within a clique or ingroup. For example, Leet ("Leetspeak" or "1337") was originally popular only among certain Internet subcultures, such as software crackers and online video gamers. During the 1990s, and into the early 21st century, however, Leet became increasingly more commonplace on the Internet, and it has spread outside Internet-based communication and into spoken languages. Other types of slang include SMS language used on mobile phones, and "chatspeak", (e.g., "LOL", an acronym meaning "laughing out loud" or "laugh out loud" or ROFL, "rolling on the floor laughing"), which are widely used in instant messaging on the Internet.
As subcultures are also often forms of counterculture and counterculture itself can be defined as going against a standard, it follows that slang has come to be associated with counterculture.
Slang is often taken from social media as a sign of social awareness and shared knowledge of popular culture. This particular branch of slang has become more prevalent since the early 2000s as a result of the rise in popularity of social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This has created new vocabularies associated with each new social media venue, such as the use of the term "friending" on Facebook, which is a verbification of "friend" used to describe the process of adding a new person to one's list of friends on the website, despite the existence of an analogous term "befriend". This term is much older than Facebook, but has only recently entered the popular lexicon. Other examples of the slang found in social media include a general trend toward shortened words or acronyms. These are especially associated with services such as Twitter, which now has a 280 character limit for each message and therefore requires a briefer, more condensed manner of communication. This includes the use of hashtags which explicitly state the main content of a message or image, such as #food or #photography.
Some critics believe that when slang becomes more commonplace it effectively eradicates the "proper" use of a certain language. However, academic (descriptive) linguists believe that language is not static but ever-changing and that slang terms are valid words within a language's lexicon. While prescriptivists study and promote the socially preferable or "correct" ways to speak, according to a language's normative grammar and syntactical words, descriptivists focus on studying language to further understand the subconscious rules of how individuals speak, which makes slang important in understanding such rules. Noam Chomsky, a founder of anthropological linguistic thought, challenged structural and prescriptive grammar and began to study sounds and morphemes functionally, as well as their changes within a language over time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27181 |
Skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture originated among working class youths in London, England, in the 1960s and soon spread to other parts of the United Kingdom, with a second working class skinhead movement emerging worldwide in the 1980s. Motivated by social alienation and working class solidarity, skinheads (often shortened to "skins") are defined by their close-cropped or shaven heads and working-class clothing such as Dr. Martens and steel toe work boots, braces, high rise and varying length straight-leg jeans, and button-down collar shirts, usually slim fitting in check or plain. The movement reached a peak during the 1960s, experienced a revival in the 1980s, and, since then, has endured in multiple contexts worldwide.
The rise to prominence of skinheads came in two waves, with the first wave taking place in the late 1960s and the second wave originating in the mid 1970s to early 1980s. The first skinheads were working class youths motivated by an expression of alternative values and working class pride, rejecting both the austerity and conservatism of the 1950s-early 1960s and the more middle class or bourgeois hippie movement and peace and love ethos of the mid to late 1960s. Skinheads were instead drawn towards more working class outsider subcultures, incorporating elements of early working class mod fashion and Jamaican music and fashion, especially from Jamaican rude boys. In the earlier stages of the movement, a considerable overlap existed between early skinhead subculture, mod subculture, and the rude boy subculture found among Jamaican British and Jamaican immigrant youth, as these three groups interacted and fraternized with each other within the same working class and poor neighbourhoods in Britain. As skinheads adopted elements of mod subculture and Jamaican British and Jamaican immigrant rude boy subculture, both first and second generation skins were influenced by the heavy, repetitive rhythms of dub and ska, as well as rocksteady, reggae, and African-American soul, rhythm and blues and funk music.
Members of the second generation in the 1980s were often ex-punks or influenced by the punk subculture. Many of these second generation ex-punk and punk-influenced skinheads, though fans of ska and reggae like the previous generation of skinheads, continued to listen to and create punk music and were heavily involved in the punk movement. Skinhead subculture has remained closely connected with and has overlapped with punk subculture ever since. 1980s skins were closely aligned with first wave punk, working class Oi! and street punk, ska, reggae, 2 Tone ska, ska punk, dub, dancehall, ragga, anarcho-punk, hardcore punk, post-punk, heavy metal and grunge. Contemporary skinhead fashions range from clean-cut 1960s mod- and rude boy-influenced styles to less-strict grunge, metal and punk-influenced styles.
During the early 1980s, political affiliations grew in significance and split the subculture, distancing the far right and far left strands, although many skins describe themselves as apolitical. As a pro-working class movement that was initially highly regionalised and excluded by society's moral norms, skinhead culture sometimes attracted hard-line far-right radicals, and was eventually tainted in the mid-1980s by violent fringe elements espousing extreme racism. From the 1990s, disaffected, Neo-Fascist or Neo-Nazi youths in the former nation of East Germany, Spain, Finland, Central and Eastern European countries such as Russia adopted the style. Many skinheads remain influenced by dissident, left-wing, syndicalist or center-left politics or otherwise independent pro-working class politics that have been part of the movement since the beginning, particularly in the U.K. and the U.S., while others continue to embrace the subculture as a largely apolitical working class movement.
In the late 1950s the post-war economic boom led to an increase in disposable income among many young people. Some of those youths spent that income on new fashions popularised by American soul groups, British R&B bands, certain film actors, and Carnaby Street clothing merchants. These youths became known as mods, a youth subculture noted for its consumerism and devotion to fashion, music and scooters.
Working class mods chose practical clothing styles that suited their lifestyle and employment circumstances: work boots or army boots, straight-leg jeans or Sta-Prest trousers, button-down shirts and braces. When possible, these working class mods spent their money on suits and other sharp outfits to wear at dancehalls, where they enjoyed soul, ska, and rocksteady music.
Around 1966, a schism developed between the "peacock mods" (also known as "smooth mods"), who were less violent and always wore the latest expensive clothes, and the "hard mods" (also known as "gang mods", "lemonheads" or "peanuts"), who were identified by their shorter hair and more working class image. "Hard mods" became commonly known as skinheads by about 1968. Their short hair may have come about for practical reasons, since long hair could be a liability in industrial jobs and streetfights. Skinheads may also have cut their hair short in defiance of the more middle class hippie culture.
In addition to retaining many mod influences, early skinheads were very interested in Jamaican rude boy styles and culture, especially the music: ska, rocksteady, and early reggae (before the tempo slowed down and lyrics became focused on topics like black nationalism and the Rastafari movement).
Skinhead culture became so popular by 1969 that even the rock band Slade temporarily adopted the look as a marketing strategy. The subculture gained wider notice because of a series of violent and sexually explicit novels by Richard Allen, notably "Skinhead" and "Skinhead Escapes". Due to largescale British migration to Perth, Western Australia, many British youths in that city joined skinhead/sharpies gangs in the late 1960s and developed their own Australian style.
By the early 1970s, the skinhead subculture started to fade from popular culture, and some of the original skins dropped into new categories, such as the "suedeheads" (defined by the ability to manipulate one's hair with a comb), "smoothies" (often with shoulder-length hairstyles), and "bootboys" (with mod-length hair; associated with gangs and football hooliganism). Some fashion trends returned to the mod roots, with brogues, loafers, suits, and the slacks-and-sweater look making a comeback.
In the late 1970s, the skinhead subculture was revived to a notable extent after the introduction of punk rock. Most of these revivalist skinheads reacted to the commercialism of punk by adopting a look that was in line with the original 1969 skinhead style. This revival included Gary Hodges and Hoxton Tom McCourt (both later of the band the 4-Skins) and Suggs, later of the band Madness. Around this time, some skinheads became affiliated with far right groups such as the National Front and the British Movement. From 1979 onwards, punk-influenced skinheads with shorter hair, higher boots and less emphasis on traditional styles grew in numbers and grabbed media attention, mostly due to football hooliganism. There still remained, however, skinheads who preferred the original mod-inspired styles. In 2011 Symond Lawes created The Great Skinhead Reunion in Brighton to celebrate the subculture, which brings Skinheads together from all over the world. Bands and DJ's play Ska and Oi!. The event is strictly apolitical.
Eventually different interpretations of the skinhead subculture expanded beyond Britain and continental Europe. In the United States, certain segments of the hardcore punk scene embraced skinhead styles and developed their own version of the subculture.
Bill Osgerby has argued that skinhead culture more broadly grows strength from specific economic circumstances. He has remarked to the BBC, "In the late 70s and early 80s, working class culture was disintegrating through unemployment and inner city decay and there was an attempt to recapture a sense of working class solidarity and identity in the face of a tide of social change."
By the 1980s street fights regularly broke out in West Germany between skinheads and members of the anti-fascist, left wing youth movement called Antifa. German neo-nazis, led by Michael Kühnen, sought to expand their ranks with new young members from the burgeoning skinhead scene. On the other side of the Berlin Wall, in East Germany, the skinhead youth movement had developed two different styles: one was more focused on rebellious youth fashion styles while the other camp often dressed in regular clothes and focused more heavily on political activity. These groups were infiltrated by agents of the Stasi and did not last long in East Germany. After a group of skinheads attacked a punk concert at Zion's Church in 1987, many skinhead leaders fled to West Germany to avoid arrest.
Most first wave skinheads used a No. 2 or No. 3 grade clip guard cuts (short, but not bald). From the late 1970s, male skinheads typically shaved their heads with a No. 2 grade clip or shorter. During that period, side partings were sometimes shaved into the hair. Since the 1980s, some skinheads have clipped their hair with no guard, or even shaved it with a razor. Some skinheads sport sideburns of various styles, usually neatly trimmed, but most skinheads do not have moustaches or beards.
By the 1970s, most female skins had mod-style haircuts. During the 1980s skinhead revival, many female skinheads had feathercuts ("Chelsea" in North America). A feathercut is short on the crown, with fringes at the front, back and sides.
Skinheads wear long-sleeve or short-sleeve button-down shirts or polo shirts by brands such as Ben Sherman, Fred Perry, Brutus, Warrior or Jaytex; Lonsdale or Everlast shirts or sweatshirts; Grandfather shirts; V-neck sweaters; sleeveless sweaters (known in the UK as a "tank top"); cardigan sweaters or T-shirts (plain or with text or designs related to the skinhead subculture). They may wear fitted blazers, Harrington jackets, bomber jackets, denim jackets (usually blue, sometimes splattered with bleach), donkey jackets, Crombie-style overcoats, sheepskin ¾-length coats, short macs, monkey jackets or parkas. Traditional skinheads sometimes wear suits, often of two-tone tonic fabric (shiny mohair-like material that changes colour in different light and angles), or in a Prince of Wales or houndstooth check pattern.
Many skinheads wear Sta-Prest flat-fronted slacks or other dress trousers; jeans (normally Levi's, Lee or Wrangler); or combat trousers (plain or camouflage). Jeans and slacks are worn deliberately short (either hemmed, rolled or tucked) to show off boots, or to show off socks when wearing loafers or brogues. Jeans are often blue, with a parallel leg design, hemmed or with clean and thin rolled cuffs (turn-ups), and are sometimes splattered with bleach to resemble camouflage trousers (a style popular among Oi! skinheads).
Many traditionalist skinheads wear braces, in various colours, usually no more than 1" in width, clipped to the trouser waistband. In some areas, braces much wider than that may identify a skinhead as either unfashionable or as a white power skinhead. Traditionally, braces are worn up in an X shape at the back, but some Oi!-oriented skinheads wear their braces hanging down. Patterned braces – often black and white check, or vertical stripes – are sometimes worn by traditional skinheads. In a few cases, the colour of braces or flight jackets have been used to signify affiliations. The particular colours chosen have varied regionally, and have had totally different meanings in different areas and time periods. Only skinheads from the same area and time period are likely to interpret the colour significations accurately. The practice of using the colour clothing items to indicate affiliations has become less common, particularly among traditionalist skinheads, who are more likely to choose their colours simply for fashion.
Hats common among skinheads include: Trilby hats; pork pie hats; flat caps ("Scally caps" or "driver caps"), winter woollen hats (without a bobble). Less common have been bowler hats (mostly among suedeheads and those influenced by the film "A Clockwork Orange").
Traditionalist skinheads sometimes wear a silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of a Crombie-style overcoat or tonic suit jacket, in some cases fastened with an ornate stud. Some wear pocket flashes instead. These are pieces of silk in contrasting colours, mounted on a piece of cardboard and designed to look like an elaborately folded handkerchief. It was common to choose the colours based on one's favourite football club. Some skinheads wear button badges or sewn-on fabric patches with designs related to affiliations, interests or beliefs. Also popular are woollen or printed rayon scarves in football club colours, worn knotted at the neck, wrist, or hanging from a belt loop at the waist. Silk or faux-silk scarves (especially Tootal brand) with paisley patterns are also sometimes worn. Some suedeheads carried closed umbrellas with sharpened tips, or a handle with a pull-out blade. This led to the nickname "brollie boys".
Female skinheads generally wear the same clothing items as men, with addition of skirts, stockings, or dress suits composed of a ¾-length jacket and matching short skirt. Some skingirls wear fishnet stockings and mini-skirts, a style introduced during the punk-influenced skinhead revival.
Most skinheads wear boots; in the 1960s army surplus or generic workboots, later Dr. Martens boots and shoes. In 1960s Britain, steel-toe boots worn by skinheads and hooligans were called bovver boots; whence skinheads have themselves sometimes been called "bovver boys". Skinheads have also been known to wear brogues, loafers or Dr. Martens (or similarly styled) low shoes.
In recent years, other brands of boots, such as Solovair, Tredair and Grinders, have become popular among skinheads, partly because most Dr. Martens are no longer made in England. Football-style athletic shoes, by brands such as Adidas or Gola, have become popular with many skinheads. Female or child skinheads generally wear the same footwear as men, with the addition of monkey boots. The traditional brand for monkey boots was Grafters, but nowadays they are also made by Dr. Martens and Solovair.
In the early days of the skinhead subculture, some skinheads chose boot lace colours based on the football team they supported. Later, some skinheads (particularly highly political ones) began to use lace colour to indicate beliefs or affiliations. The particular colours chosen have varied regionally, and have had totally different meanings in different areas and time periods. Only skinheads from the same area and time period are likely to interpret the colour significations accurately. This practice has become less common, particularly among traditionalist skinheads, who are more likely to choose their colours simply for fashion purposes.
Suedeheads sometimes wore coloured socks.
The skinhead subculture was originally associated with black music genres such as soul, ska, R&B, rocksteady, and early reggae. The link between skinheads and Jamaican music led to the UK popularity of groups such as Desmond Dekker, Derrick Morgan, Laurel Aitken, Symarip and The Pioneers. In the early 1970s, some reggae songs began to feature themes of black nationalism, which many white skinheads could not relate to. This shift in reggae's lyrical themes created some tension between black and white skinheads, who otherwise got along fairly well. Around this time, some suedeheads (an offshoot of the skinhead subculture) started listening to British glam rock bands such as Sweet, Slade and Mott the Hoople.
The most popular music style for late-1970s skinheads was 2 Tone, a fusion of ska, rocksteady, reggae, pop and punk rock. The 2 Tone genre was named after 2 Tone Records, a Coventry record label that featured bands such as The Specials, Madness and The Selecter. Some late-1970s skinheads also liked certain punk rock bands, such as Sham 69 and Menace.
In the late 1970s, after the first wave of punk rock, many skinheads embraced Oi!, a working class punk subgenre. Musically, Oi! combines standard punk with elements of football chants, pub rock and British glam rock. The Oi! scene was partly a response to a sense that many participants in the early punk scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic ... and losing touch". The term Oi! as a musical genre is said to come from the band Cockney Rejects and journalist Garry Bushell, who championed the genre in "Sounds" magazine. Not exclusively a skinhead genre, many Oi! bands included skins, punks and people who fit into neither category (sometimes called herberts). Notable Oi! bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s include Angelic Upstarts, Blitz, the Business, Last Resort, The Burial, Combat 84 and the 4-Skins.
American Oi! began in the 1980s, with bands such as U.S. Chaos, The Press, Iron Cross, The Bruisers and Anti-Heros. American skinheads created a link between their subculture and hardcore punk music, with bands such as Warzone, Agnostic Front, and Cro-Mags. The Oi! style has also spread to other parts of the world, and remains popular with many skinheads. Many later Oi! bands have combined influences from early American hardcore and 1970s British streetpunk.
Among some skinheads, heavy metal is popular. Bands such as the Canadian act Blasphemy, whose guitarist is black, has been known to popularise and merchandise the phrase "black metal skinheads". As the group's vocalist recounts, "a lot of black metal skinheads from the other side of Canada" would join in on the British Columbian black metal underground. "I remember one guy... who had 'Black Metal Skins' tattooed on his forehead. We didn't hang out with white power skinheads, but there were some Oi skinheads who wanted to hang out with us." National Socialist black metal has an audience among white power skinheads. There was a record label called "Satanic Skinhead Propaganda" that was known to specialize in neo-Nazi black metal and death metal bands. Black metal pioneer and right-wing extremist Varg Vikernes was known to adopt a skinhead look and wear a belt with the SS insignia while serving time in prison for the arson of several stave churches and the murder of Øystein Aarseth.
Although many white power skinheads listened to Oi! music, they developed a separate genre more in line with their politics: Rock Against Communism (RAC). The most notable RAC band was Skrewdriver, which started out as a non-political punk band but evolved into a neo-Nazi band after the first lineup broke up and a new lineup was formed. RAC started out musically similar to Oi! and punk, but has since adopted elements from other genres. White power music that draws inspiration from hardcore punk is sometimes called hatecore.
The early skinheads were not necessarily part of any political movement, but as the 1970s progressed, the skinheads became more politically active and acts of racially-motivated skinhead violence began to occur in the United Kingdom. As a result of this change within the skinheads, far right groups such as the National Front and the British Movement saw a rise in the number of white power skinheads among their ranks. By the late 1970s, the mass media, and subsequently the general public, had largely come to view the skinhead subculture as one that promotes racism and neo-Nazism. The white power and neo-Nazi skinhead subculture eventually spread to North America, Europe and other areas of the world. The mainstream media started using the term "skinhead" in reports of racist violence (regardless of whether the perpetrator was actually a skinhead); this has played a large role in skewing public perceptions about the subculture. Three notable groups that formed in the 1980s and which later became associated with white power skinheads are White Aryan Resistance, Blood and Honour and Hammerskins.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, many skinheads and suedeheads in the United Kingdom rejected both the far left and the far right. This anti-extremist attitude was musically typified by Oi! bands such as Cockney Rejects, The 4-Skins, Toy Dolls, and The Business. Two notable groups of skinheads that spoke out against neo-Nazism and political extremism—and instead spoke out in support of traditional skinhead culture—were the Glasgow Spy Kids in Scotland (who coined the phrase "Spirit of '69"), and the publishers of the "Hard As Nails" zine in England.
In the late 1960s, some skinheads in the United Kingdom (including black skinheads) had engaged in violence against South Asian immigrants (an act known as "Paki bashing" in common slang). There had, however, also been anti-racist skinheads since the beginning of the subculture, especially in Scotland and Northern England.
On the far left of the skinhead subculture, redskins and anarchist skinheads take a militant anti-fascist and pro-working class stance. In the United Kingdom, two groups with significant numbers of leftist skinhead members were Red Action, which started in 1981, and Anti-Fascist Action, which started in 1985. Internationally, the most notable left-wing skinhead organisation is Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, which formed in the New York City area in 1987 and then spread to other countries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27182 |
Swiss German
Swiss German (Standard German: "Schweizerdeutsch", , and others) is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy bordering Switzerland. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg, which are closely associated to Switzerland's.
Linguistically, Alemannic is divided into Low, High and Highest Alemannic, varieties all of which are spoken both inside and outside Switzerland. The only exception within German-speaking Switzerland is the municipality of Samnaun where a Bavarian dialect is spoken. The reason "Swiss German" dialects constitute a special group is their almost unrestricted use as a spoken language in practically all situations of daily life, whereas the use of the Alemannic dialects in other countries is restricted or even endangered.
The dialects of Swiss German must not be confused with Swiss Standard German, the variety of Standard German used in Switzerland. Most people in Germany do not understand Swiss German. Therefore, when an interview with a Swiss German speaker is shown on German television, subtitles are required. Although Swiss German is the native language, from age 6, Swiss school students additionally learn Swiss Standard German at school and are thus capable of understanding, writing and speaking Standard German with varying abilities mainly based on the level of education.
Unlike most regional languages in modern Europe, Swiss German is the spoken everyday language for the majority of all social levels in industrial cities, as well as in the countryside. Using the dialect conveys neither social nor educational inferiority and is done with pride. There are a few settings where speaking Standard German is demanded or polite, e.g., in education (but not during breaks in school lessons, where the teachers will speak in the dialect with students), in multilingual parliaments (the federal parliaments and a few cantonal and municipal ones), in the main news broadcast or in the presence of non-Alemannic speakers. This situation has been called a "medial diglossia", since the spoken language is mainly the dialect, whereas the written language is mainly (the Swiss variety of) Standard German.
In 2014, about 87% of the people living in the German-speaking portion of Switzerland were using Swiss German in their everyday lives.
Swiss German is intelligible to speakers of other Alemannic dialects, but largely unintelligible to speakers of Standard German without adequate prior exposure, including for French- or Italian-speaking Swiss who learn Standard German at school. Swiss German speakers on TV or in films are thus usually dubbed or subtitled if shown in Germany.
Dialect rock is a music genre using the language; many Swiss rock bands, however, alternatively rather sing in English.
The Swiss Amish of Adams County, Indiana, and their daughter settlements also use a form of Swiss German.
Swiss German is a regional or political umbrella term, not a linguistic unity. For all Swiss-German dialects, there are idioms spoken outside Switzerland that are more closely related to them than to some other Swiss-German dialects. The main linguistic divisions within Swiss German are those of Low, High and Highest Alemannic, and mutual intelligibility across those groups is almost fully seamless, though with some minor exceptions, mainly regarding vocabulary. Low Alemannic is only spoken in the northernmost parts of Switzerland, in Basel and around Lake Constance. High Alemannic is spoken in most of the Swiss Plateau, and is divided in an eastern and a western group. Highest Alemannic is spoken in the Alps.
One can separate each dialect into numerous local subdialects, sometimes down to a resolution of individual villages. Speaking the dialect is an important part of regional, cantonal and national identities. In the more urban areas of the Swiss plateau, regional differences are fading due to increasing mobility and to a growing population of non-Alemannic background. Despite the varied dialects, the Swiss can still understand one another, but may particularly have trouble understanding Walliser dialects.
Most Swiss German dialects, being "High German" dialects, have completed the High German consonant shift (synonyms: Second Germanic consonant shift, High German sound shift), that is, they have not only changed "t" to or and "p" to or , but also "k" to or . There are, however, exceptions, namely the idioms of Chur and Basel. Basel German is a "Low Alemannic" dialect (mostly spoken in Germany near the Swiss border), and Chur German is basically "High Alemannic" without initial or .
Examples:
The High German consonant shift happened between the fourth and 9th centuries south of the Benrath line, separating "High" German from Low German, where "high" refers to the geographically higher regions of the German-speaking area of those days (combining Upper German and Central German varieties - also referring to their geographical locations).
North of the Benrath line up to the North Sea, this consonant shift did not happen.
The Walser migration, which took place between the 12th and 13th centuries, spread upper Wallis varieties towards the east and south, into Grisons and even further to western Austria and northern Italy. Informally, a distinction is made between the German-speaking people living in the canton of Valais, the "Walliser", and the migrated ones, the "Walsers" (to be found mainly in Graubünden, Vorarlberg in Western Austria, Ticino in South Switzerland, south of the Monte Rosa mountain chain in Italy (e.g. in Issime in the Aosta valley), Tirol in North Italy, and Allgäu in Bavaria).
Generally, the Walser communities were situated on higher alpine regions, so were able to stay independent of the reigning forces of those days, who did not or were not able to follow and monitor them all the time necessary at these hostile and hard to survive areas. So, the Walser were pioneers of the liberalization from serfdom and feudalism. And, Walser villages are easily distinguishable from Grisonian ones, since Walser houses are made of wood instead of stone.
Like all other Southern German dialects, Swiss German dialects have no voiced obstruents. However, they have an opposition of consonant pairs such as and or and . Traditionally, that distinction is said to be a distinction of fortis and lenis, but it has been claimed to be a distinction of quantity.
Swiss German keeps the fortis–lenis opposition at the end of words. There can be minimal pairs such as "graad" 'straight' and "Graat" 'arête' or "bis" 'be (imp.)' and "Biss" 'bite'. That distinguishes Swiss German and Swiss Standard German from German Standard German, which neutralizes the fortis–lenis opposition at the ends of words. The phenomenon is usually called final-obstruent devoicing even though, in the case of German, phonetic voice may not be involved.
Swiss German are not aspirated. Aspirated have (in most dialects) secondarily developed by combinations of prefixes with word-initial or by borrowings from other languages (mainly Standard German): 'keep' (standard German "behalten" ); 'tea' (standard German "Tee" ); 'salary' (standard German "Gehalt" ). In the dialects of Basel and Chur, aspirated is also present in native words. All typically-voiced consonant sounds are voiceless. Stop sounds being , and fricatives as .
Unlike Standard German, Swiss German does not have the allophone but is typically , with allophones . The typical Swiss shibboleth features this sound: "Chuchichäschtli" ('kitchen cupboard'), pronounced .
Most Swiss German dialects have gone through the Alemannic "n"-apocope, which has led to the loss of final "-n" in words such as "Garte" 'garden' (standard German "Garten") or "mache" 'to make' (standard German "machen"). In some Highest Alemannic dialects, the "n"-apocope has also been effective in consonant clusters, for instance in "Hore" 'horn' (High Alemannic "Horn") or "däiche" 'to think' (High Alemannic "dänke"). Only the Highest Alemannic dialects of the Lötschental and of the Haslital have preserved the -"n".
The phoneme is pronounced as an alveolar trill in many dialects, but some dialects, especially in the Northeast or in the Basel region, have a uvular trill , and other allophones resulting in fricatives and an approximant as [] like in many German varieties of Germany.
In Bernese German, an [] can be pronounced as a []. It may also be pronounced this way when occurring towards the end of a syllable.
A labiodental approximant is used in Bernese German, as the sound is present in Standard German. In Walser German, it is realized as a labiodental fricative [].
Most Swiss German dialects have rounded front vowels, unlike other High German dialects. Only in Low Alemannic dialects of northwestern Switzerland (mainly Basel) and in Walliser dialects have rounded front vowels been unrounded. In Basel, rounding is being reintroduced because of the influence of other Swiss German dialects.
Like Bavarian dialects, Swiss German dialects have preserved the opening diphthongs of Middle High German: : in 'lovely' (standard German "lieb" but pronounced ); 'hat' (standard German "Hut" ); 'cool' (Standard German "kühl" ). Some diphthongs have become unrounded in several dialects. In the Zürich dialect, short pronunciations of // are realized as []. Sounds like the monophthong can frequently become unrounded to among many speakers of the Zürich dialect. Vowels such as a centralized [] and an open-mid [] only occur in the Bernese dialect.
Like in Low German, most Swiss German dialects have preserved the old West-Germanic monophthongs : 'arrow' (Standard German "Pfeil" ); 'belly' (Standard German "Bauch" ); 'pillar' (Standard German "Säule" ). A few Alpine dialects show diphthongization, like in Standard German, especially some dialects of Unterwalden and Schanfigg (Graubünden) and the dialect of Issime (Piedmont).
Some Western Swiss German dialects like Bernese German have preserved the old diphthongs , but the other dialects have like Standard German or . Zürich German, and some other dialects distinguish primary diphthongs from secondary ones that arose in hiatus: Zürich German from Middle High German versus Zürich German from Middle High German ; Zürich German 'leg, woman' from Middle High German "bein, vrouwe" versus Zürich German 'free, building' from Middle High German "frī, būw".
In many Swiss German dialects, consonant length and vowel length are independent from each other, unlike other modern Germanic languages. Here are examples from Bernese German:
Lexical stress is more often on the first syllable than in Standard German, even in French loans like or "thanks". However, there are many different stress patterns, even within dialects. Bernese German has many words that are stressed on the first syllable: 'casino' while Standard German has . However, no Swiss German dialect is as consistent as Icelandic in that respect.
The grammar of Swiss dialects has some specialties compared to Standard German:
The vocabulary is varied, especially in rural areas: many specialized terms have been retained, e.g., regarding cattle or weather. In the cities, much of the rural vocabulary has been lost. A Swiss German greeting is "Grüezi", from "Gott grüez-i" (Standard German "Gott grüsse Euch") or "God bless you".
Most word adoptions come from Standard German. Many of these are now so common that they have totally replaced the original Swiss German words, e.g. the words "Hügel" 'hill' (instead of "Egg, Bühl"), "Lippe" 'lip' (instead of "Lefzge"). Others have replaced the original words only in parts of Switzerland, e.g., "Butter" 'butter' (originally called "Anken" in most of Switzerland). Virtually any Swiss Standard German word can be borrowed into Swiss German, always adapted to Swiss German phonology. However, certain Standard German words are never used in Swiss German, for instance "Frühstück" 'breakfast', "niedlich" 'cute' or "zu hause" 'at home'; instead, the native words "Zmorge", "härzig" and "dehei" are used.
Swiss dialects have quite a few words from French and Italian, which are perfectly assimilated. "Glace" (ice cream) for example is pronounced in French but or in many Swiss German dialects. The French word for 'thank you', "merci", is also used as in "merci vilmal", literally "thanks many times". Possibly, these words are not direct adoptions from French but survivors of the once more numerous French loanwords in Standard German, many of which have fallen out of use in Germany.
In recent years, Swiss dialects have also taken some English words which already sound very Swiss, e.g., ('to eat', from "food"), ('to play computer games', from "game") or or – ('to snowboard', from "snowboard"). These words are probably not direct loanwords from English but have been adopted through standard German intermediation. While most of those loanwords are of recent origin, some have been in use for decades, e.g. (to play football, from "shoot").
There are also a few English words which are modern adoptions from Swiss German. The dishes müesli, and rösti have become English words, as did loess (fine grain), flysch (sandstone formation), kepi, landammann, kilch, schiffli, and putsch in a political sense. The term bivouac is sometimes explained as originating from Swiss German, while printed etymological dictionaries (e.g. the German "Kluge" or "Knaurs Etymological Dictionary") derive it from Low German instead.
Written forms that were mostly based on the local Alemannic varieties, thus similar to Middle High German, were only gradually replaced by the forms of New High German. This replacement took from the 15th to 18th centuries to complete. In the 16th century, the Alemannic forms of writing were considered the original, truly Swiss forms, whereas the New High German forms were perceived as foreign innovations. The innovations were brought about by the printing press and were also associated with Lutheranism. An example of the language shift is the Froschauer Bible: Its first impressions after 1524 were largely written in an Alemannic language, but since 1527, the New High German forms were gradually adopted. The Alemannic forms were longest preserved in the chancelleries, with the chancellery of Bern being the last to adopt New High German in the second half of the 18th century.
Today all formal writing, newspapers, books and much informal writing is done in Swiss Standard German, which is usually called "Schriftdeutsch" (written German). Certain dialectal words are accepted regionalisms in Swiss Standard German and are also sanctioned by the Duden, e.g., "Zvieri" (afternoon snack). Swiss Standard German is virtually identical to Standard German as used in Germany, with most differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and orthography. For example, Swiss Standard German always uses a double s ("ss") instead of the eszett ("ß").
There are no official rules of Swiss German orthography. The orthographies used in the Swiss-German literature can be roughly divided into two systems: Those that try to stay as close to standard German spelling as possible and those that try to represent the sounds as well as possible. The so-called "Schwyzertütschi Dialäktschrift" was developed by Eugen Dieth, but knowledge of these guidelines is limited mostly to language experts. Furthermore, the spellings originally proposed by Dieth included some special signs not found on a normal keyboard, such as instead of for or instead of for . In 1986, a revised version of the "Dieth-Schreibung" was published, designed to be written "on a normal typewriter".
A few letters are used differently from the Standard German rules:
Since the 19th century, a considerable body of Swiss German literature has accumulated. The earliest works were in Lucerne German (Jost Bernhard Häfliger, Josef Felix Ineichen), in Bernese German (Gottlieb Jakob Kuhn), in Glarus German (Cosimus Freuler) and in Zürich German (Johann Martin Usteri, Jakob Stutz); the works of Jeremias Gotthelf which were published at the same time are in Swiss Standard German, but use many expressions of Bernese German. Some of the more important dialect writing authors and their works are:
Parts of the Bible were translated in different Swiss German dialects, e.g.: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27184 |
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used in orchestras, concert bands, marching bands, parades, drumlines, drum corps, and more. It is one of the central pieces in a drum set, a collection of percussion instruments designed to be played by a seated drummer and used in many genres of music.
Snare drums are usually played with drum sticks, but other beaters such as the brush or the rute can be used to achieve different tones. The snare drum is a versatile and expressive percussion instrument due to its sensitivity and responsiveness. The sensitivity of the snare drum allows it to respond audibly to the softest strokes, even with a wire brush; as well, it can be used for complex rhythmic patterns and engaging solos at moderate volumes. Its high dynamic range allows the player to produce powerful accents with vigorous strokes and a thundering crack (120+ dB) when rimshot strokes are used.
The snare drum originates from the tabor, a drum first used to accompany the flute. The tabor evolved into more modern versions, such as the kit snare, marching snare, tarol snare, and piccolo snare. Each type presents a different style of percussion and size. The snare drum that one might see in a popular music concert is usually used in a backbeat style to create rhythm. In marching bands, it can do the same but is used mostly for a front beat. In comparison with the marching snare, the kit snare is generally smaller in length, while the piccolo is the smallest of the three. The snare drum is easily recognizable by its loud cracking sound when struck firmly with a drumstick or mallet. The depth of the sound varies from snare to snare because of the different techniques and construction qualities of the drum. Some of these qualities are head material and tension, dimensions, and rim and drum shell materials and construction.
The snare drum is constructed of two heads—both usually made of plastic—along with a rattle of metal wires on the bottom head called the snares. The wires can also be placed on the top, as in the tarol snare, or both heads as in the case of the Highland snare drum. The top head is typically called the batter head because that is where the drummer strikes it, while the bottom head is called the snare head because that is where the snares are located. The tension of each head is held constant by tension rods. Tension rod adjustment allows the pitch and tonal character of the drum to be customized by the player. The strainer is a lever that engages or disengages contact between the snares and the head, and allows snare tension adjustment. If the strainer is disengaged, the sound of the drum resembles a tom because the snares are inactive. The rim is the metal ring around the batter head, which can be used for a variety of things, although it is notably used to sound a piercing rimshot with the drumstick.
The drum can be played by striking it with a drum stick or any other form of beater, including brushes, rute and hands, all of which produce a softer-sounding vibration from the snare wires. When using a stick, the drummer may strike the head of the drum, the rim (counterhoop), or the shell. When the top head is struck, the bottom (resonant) head vibrates in tandem, which in turn stimulates the snares and produces a cracking sound. The snares can be thrown off (disengaged) with a lever on the strainer so that the drum produces a sound reminiscent of a tom-tom. Rimshots are a technique associated with snare drums in which the head and rim are struck simultaneously with one stick (or in orchestral concert playing, a stick placed on the head and the rim struck by the opposite stick). In contemporary and/or pop and rock music, where the snare drum is used as a part of a drum kit, many of the backbeats and accented notes on the snare drum are played as rimshots, due to the ever-increasing demand for their typical sharp and high-volume sound.
A commonly used alternative way to play the snare drum is known as "cross-stick" or "side-stick". This is done by holding the tip of the drumstick against the drum head and striking the stick's other end (the butt) against the rim, using the hand to mute the head. This produces a dry high-pitched click, similar to a set of claves, and is especially common in Latin and jazz music. So-called "ghost notes" are very light "filler notes" played in between the backbeats in genres such as funk and rhythm and blues. The iconic drum roll is produced by alternately bouncing the sticks on the drum head, striving for a controlled rebound. A similar effect can be obtained by playing alternating double strokes on the drum, creating a double stroke roll, or very fast single strokes, creating a single stroke roll. The snares are a fundamental ingredient in the pressed (buzz) drum roll, as they help to blend together distinct strokes that are then perceived as a single, sustained sound. The snare drum is the first instrument to learn in preparing to play a full drum kit. Rudiments are sets of basic patterns often played on a snare drum.
Snare drums may be made from various wood, metal, acrylic, or composite, e.g., fiberglass materials. A typical diameter for snare drums is 14 in (36 cm). Marching snare drums are deeper (taller) in size than snare drums normally used for orchestral or drum kit purposes, often measuring 12 in deep (tall). Orchestral and drum kit snare drum shells are about 6 in (15 cm) deep. Piccolo snare drums are even shallower at about 3 in (7.6 cm) deep. Soprano, popcorn, and firecracker snare drums have diameters as small as 8 in (20 cm) and are often used for higher-pitched special effects.
Most wooden snare drum shells are constructed in plies (layers) that are heat- and compression-moulded into a cylinder. Steam-bent shells consist of one ply of wood that is gradually rounded into a cylinder and glued at one seam. Reinforcement rings, so-called "re-rings", are often incorporated on the inside surface of the drum shell to keep it perfectly round. Segment shells are made of multiple stacks of segmented wood rings. The segments are glued together and rounded out by a lathe. Similarly, stave shells are constructed of vertically glued pieces of wood into a cylinder (much like a barrel) that is also rounded out by a lathe. Solid shells are constructed of one solid piece of hollowed wood.
The heads or skins used are a batter head (the playing surface on the top of the drum) and a resonant (bottom) head. The resonant head is usually much thinner than the batter head and is not beaten while playing. Rather than calfskin, most modern drums use plastic (Mylar) skins of around 10 mils thickness, sometimes with multiple plies (usually two) of around 7 mils for the batter head. In addition, tone control rings or dots can be applied, either on the outer or inner surface of the head, to control overtones and ringing, and can be found positioned in the centre or close to the edge hoops or both. Resonant heads are usually only a few mils thick, to enable them to respond to the movement of the batter head as it is played. Pipe band requirements have led to the development of a Kevlar-based head, enabling very high tuning, thus producing a very high-pitched cracking snare sound.
A new technique used to improve the sound quality during snare drum construction is symmetrical venting. In contrast to a standard single vent hole, air can easily travel through and around the instrument without getting caught. This rapid movement creates a smoother, stronger sound.
The snare drum seems to have descended from a medieval drum called the tabor, which was a drum with a single-gut snare strung across the bottom. It is a little bigger than a medium tom and was first used in war, often played with a fife (pipe); the player would play both the fife and drum (see also Pipe and tabor). Tabors were not always double-headed and not all may have had snares. By the 15th century, the size of the snare drum had increased and had a cylindrical shape. This simple drum with a simple snare became popular with the Swiss mercenary troops who used the fife and drum from the 15th to 16th centuries. The drum was made deeper and carried along the side of the body. Further developments appeared in the 17th century, with the use of screws to hold down the snares, giving a brighter sound than the rattle of a loose snare. During the 18th century, the snare drum underwent changes which improved its characteristic sound. Metal snares appeared in the 20th century. Today the snare drum is used in jazz, pop music and modern orchestral music.
Much of the development of the snare drum and its rudiments is closely tied to the use of the snare drum in the military. In his book, "The Art of Snare Drumming", Sanford A. Moeller (of the "Moeller Method" of drumming) states, "To acquire a knowledge of the true nature of the [snare] drum, it is absolutely necessary to study military drumming, for it is essentially a military instrument and its true character cannot be brought out with an incorrect method. When a composer wants a martial effect, he instinctively turns to the drums."
Before the advent of radio and electronic communications, the snare drum was often used to communicate orders to soldiers. American troops were woken up by drum and fife playing about five minutes of music, for example, the well-known "Three Camps". Troops were called for meals by certain drum pieces, such as "Peas on a Trencher" or "Roast Beef". A piece called the "Tattoo" was used to signal that all soldiers should be in their tent, and the "Fatigue Call" was used to police the quarters or drum unruly women out of the camp.
Many of these military pieces required a thorough grounding in rudimental drumming; indeed Moeller states that: "They [the rudimental drummers] were the only ones who could do it [play the military camp duty pieces]". Moeller furthermore states that "No matter how well a drummer can read, if he does not know the rudimental system of drumming, it is impossible for him to play 'The Three Camps,' 'Breakfast Call,' or in fact any of the Duty except the simple beats such as 'The Troop'."
During the late 18th and 19th century, the military bugle largely supplanted the snare and fife for signals. Most modern militaries and scouting groups use the bugle alone to make bugle calls that announce scheduled and unscheduled events of the organization (from First Call to Taps). While most modern military signals use only the bugle, the snare is still retained for some signals, for example, the Adjutant's Call.
Snare drumheads were originally made from calfskin. The invention of the plastic (Mylar) drumhead is credited to a drummer named Marion "Chick" Evans, who made the first plastic drumhead in 1956.
Drum rudiments seem to have developed with the snare drum; the Swiss fife and drum groups are sometimes credited with their invention. The first written rudiment was drawn up in Basel, Switzerland in 1610. Rudiments with familiar names—such as the single paradiddle, flam, drag, ratamacue, and double stroke roll, also called the "ma-ma da-da" roll—are listed in Charles Ashworth's book in 1812.
There are many types of snare drums, for example:
Marching snares are typically deep and wide. The larger design allows for a deeper-sounding tone, one that is effective for marching bands. Many marching snares are built to withstand high amounts of tension, tightened by a drum key. They are played with most of the time with a heavier and thicker stick, more commonly referred to as "marching sticks". Snares are often nylon or gut.
Similar to a marching snare, pipe band snares are deep and tuned quite tightly. The major difference is that they feature a second set of snare wires beneath the batter head, along with the normal set on the resonant head. This gives them an even more crisp and snappy sound.
Snare drummers form an integral part of pipe bands, accompanying the bagpipes, and playing music written to fit the pipe tunes. A bass drummer and several tenor drummers, who also perform visual representations of the music, known as flourishing, add to the percussion section of a pipe band. The music played by pipe band snare drummers can be technically difficult, and requires a high degree of rudimental ability, similar to that of marching bands. Pipe Band snare drummers exclusively use the traditional grip.
Drum kit snares are usually about a third to half the depth of a marching snare. They are typically in diameter and , with depths also available. Typically uses coiled metal snare wires.
The piccolo snare is a type of snare used by drummers seeking a higher-pitched sound from their snare. Because the piccolo snare has a smaller diameter than that of the marching snare or set snare, a higher-pitched "pop" is more widely associated with it. Although the piccolo snare has a more distinctive, unique sound, it has some downsides. Because of the "sharper" sound of the piccolo, its sound travels further and is picked up by microphones further away during recording, making it difficult to record effectively. There are many kinds of piccolo snare, including the popcorn, soprano and standard snares. Popcorn snares typically have a diameter of , sopranos , and standard piccolos . A well-known user of the piccolo snare is Neil Peart, the drummer of Rush, who has used a X Shell Series Piccolo.
Orchestral snare drums usually conform to the dimensions of drum kit snares, but often have a calf skin head or a synthetic approximation of a natural head material. They also typically use snares made of metal cable, gut, synthetic cord, or nylon, with some orchestral snare strainers supporting 3 different materials simultaneously and the ability to tune each bundle of snare material independently.
The tabor snare dates back to around the 14th century, and was used for marching beats in wars. It is a double-headed drum with a single snare strand, and was often played along with the three-holed pipe flute. The dimensions vary with the different types of tabor. It is typically wide and around in diameter.
The tarol snare has similar dimensions to the kit snare. The major distinction is that the snares in this type are on the top head rather than the bottom one.
Meaning "box". This is a simple diameter, deep snare typical of Samba played in Southern Brasil. Made from aluminum or steel with the snare wires on top, it can be played from a sling or "encima" – on the shoulder to project the sound. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27188 |
History of Saint Helena
Saint Helena has a known history of over 500 years since its recorded discovery by the Portuguese in 1502. Claiming to be Britain's second oldest colony, after Bermuda, this is one of the most remote settlements in the world and was for several centuries of vital strategic importance to ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa. Since the early 19th century, the British occasionally used the island as a place of exile, most notably for Napoleon Bonaparte, Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo and over 5,000 Boer prisoners.
Most historical accounts state the island was discovered on 21 May 1502 by the Galician navigator João da Nova sailing at the service of the Portuguese Crown, on his voyage home from India, and that he named it "Santa Helena" after Helena of Constantinople. Given this is the feast day used by the Greek Orthodox Church, it has been argued that the discovery was probably made on 18 August, the feast day used by the Roman Catholic Church. However, a paper published in 2015 reviewed the discovery date and dismissed 18 August as too late for da Nova to return to Lisbon by 11 September 1502. It suggests Jan Huyghen van Linschoten was probably the first (in 1596) to state that the island was so named because it was found on 21 May. Given that Linschoten correctly stated Whitsunday fell on the Western Christian date of 21 May 1589 (rather than the Orthodox Church date of 28 May), the paper suggests that Linschoten was referring to the Protestant feast-day for Saint Helena on 21 May, not the Orthodox Church version on the same date. It is then argued the Portuguese found the island two decades before the start of the Reformation and the establishment of Protestantism, and it is therefore not possible that the island was so named because it was found on the Protestant feast day. An alternative discovery date of 3 May on the Catholic feast-day celebrating the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena in Jerusalem, as quoted by Odoardo Duarte Lopes in 1591 and by Sir Thomas Herbert in 1638, is suggested as historically more credible than the Protestant date of 21 May. The paper observes that if da Nova made the discovery on 3 May 1502, he may have been inhibited from naming the island Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross) because Pedro Álvares Cabral had already assigned that same name to the Brazilian coastline, which he thought to be a large island, on 3 May 1500. News of Cabral's discovery reached Lisbon directly from South America before da Nova's fleet set off on the voyage to India in 1501. If da Nova knew the True Cross name had already been assigned, the most obvious and plausible alternative name for him to give the island was "Santa Helena".
It has also been suggested that all the early Portuguese accounts describing the discovery of St Helena by João da Nova after rounding the Cape of Good Hope were wrong and that he actually discovered Tristan da Cunha on the feast day of St Helena, the island not being discovered until 30 July 1503 by a squadron under the command of Estêvão da Gama, da Nova having discovered Tristan da Cunha on the feast day of St Helena. However, this last theory seems improbable because if da Nova indeed found Tristan on the Catholic feast-day for Saint Helena on 18 August, he had insufficient time to arrive back at Lisbon by 11 September. The long tradition that João da Nova built a chapel from one of his wrecked carracks has been shown to be based on a misreading of the records.
The Portuguese found it uninhabited, with an abundance of trees and fresh water. They imported livestock (mainly goats), fruit trees, and vegetables, built a chapel and one or two houses, and left their sick, suffering from scurvy and other ailments, to be taken home, if they recovered, by the next ship, but they formed no permanent settlement. The island thereby became crucially important for the collection of food and as a rendezvous point for homebound voyages from Asia. The island was directly in line with the Trade Winds which took ships rounding the Cape of Good Hope into the South Atlantic. St Helena was much less frequently visited by Asia-bound ships, the northern trade winds taking ships towards the South American continent rather than the island. An analysis has been published of the Portuguese ships arriving at St Helena in the period 1502–1613.
It is a popular belief that the Portuguese managed to keep the location of this remote island a secret until almost the end of the 16th century. However, both the location of the island and its name were quoted in a Dutch book in 1508, which described a 1505 Portuguese expedition led by Francisco de Almeida from the East Indies: ""[o]n the twenty-first day of July we saw land, and it was an island lyng six hundred and fifty miles from the Cape, and called Saint Helena, howbeit we could not land there. [...] And after we left the island of Saint Helena, we saw another island two hundred miles from there, which is called Ascension"."
Also, Lopo Homem-Reineis published the "Atlas Universal" about 1519 which clearly showed the locations of St Helena and Ascension. The first residents all arrived on Portuguese vessels. Its first known permanent resident was Portuguese, Fernão Lopes (also "Fernando Lopes") who had turned traitor in India and had been mutilated by order of Alphonso d'Albuquerque, the Governor of Goa. Fernão Lopes preferred being marooned to returning to Portugal in his maimed condition, and lived on Saint Helena from about 1516. By royal command, Lopes returned to Portugal about 1526 and then travelled to Rome, where Pope Clement VII granted him an audience. Lopes returned to Saint Helena, where he died in 1545.
When the island was discovered, it was covered with unique indigenous vegetation. Claims that on discovery the island "was entirely covered with forests, the trees drooping over the tremendous precipices that overhang the sea" have been questioned. It is argued that the presence of an endemic plover and several endemic insects adapted to the barren and arid coastal portions of the island are strong indications that these conditions existed before the island was discovered. Also, the earliest description of the island by Thome Lopez, who sighted the island on 3 July 1503, specifically states that coastal trees were absent: ". . . nor did we see any kind of trees, but it was completely green . . ." Rather than trees, this eyewitness account suggests the presence of low-height scrub adapted to the coastal desert conditions. Nevertheless, St Helena certainly once had a rich and dense inland forest. The loss of endemic vegetation, birds and other fauna, much of it within the first 50 years of discovery, can be attributed to the impact of humans and their introduction of goats, pigs, dogs, cats, rats as well as the introduction of non-endemic birds and vegetation into the island.
Sometime before 1557 five people (two male slaves from Mozambique, one from Java and two women) escaped from a ship and remained hidden on the island for many years, long enough for their numbers to rise to twenty. Bermudez, the Patriarch of Abyssinia landed at St Helena in 1557 on a voyage to Portugal, remaining on the island for a year. Three Japanese ambassadors on an embassy to the Pope also visited St Helena in 1583.
Strong circumstantial evidence supports the idea that Sir Francis Drake located the island on the final lap of his circumnavigation of the world (1577–1580). It is suspected this explains how the location of the island was certainly known to the English only a few years later, for example, William Barrett (who died in 1584 as English consul at Aleppo, Syria) stated the island was "sixteen degrees to the South", which is precisely the correct latitude. Again, it is also clear that the Elizabethan adventurer Edward Fenton at the very least knew the approximate location of the island in 1582.
It therefore seems unlikely that when Thomas Cavendish arrived in 1588 during his first attempt to circumnavigate the world, he was the first Englishman to land at the island. He stayed for 12 days and described the valley (initially called Chapel Valley) where Jamestown is situated as ""a marvellous fair and pleasant valley, wherein divers handsome buildings and houses were set up, and especially one which was a church, which was tiled, and whitened on the outside very fair, and made with a porch, and within the church at the upper end was set an alter... This valley is the fairest and largest low plot in all the island, and it is marvellous sweet and pleasant, and planted in every place with fruit trees or with herbs... There are on this island thousands of goats, which the Spaniards call cabritos, which are very wild: you shall sometimes see one or two hundred of them together, and sometimes you may behold them going in a flock almost a mile long.""
Another English seaman, Captain Abraham Kendall, visited Saint Helena in 1591, and in 1593 Sir James Lancaster stopped at the island on his way home from the East. Once St Helena's location was more widely known, English ships of war began to lie in wait in the area to attack Portuguese India carracks on their way home. As a result, in 1592 Philip II of Spain and I of Portugal (1581–1598) ordered the annual fleet returning from Goa on no account to touch at St Helena. In developing their Far East trade, the Dutch also began to frequent the island. One of their first visits was in 1598 when an expedition of two vessels piloted by John Davis (English explorer) attacked a large Spanish Caravel, only to be beaten off and forced to retreat to Ascension Island for repairs. The Italian merchant Francesco Carletti, claimed in his autobiography he was robbed by the Dutch when sailing on a Portuguese ship in 1602.
The Portuguese and Spanish soon gave up regularly calling at the island, partly because they used ports along the West African coast, but also because of attacks on their shipping, desecration to their chapel and images, destruction of their livestock and destruction of plantations by Dutch and English sailors. In 1603 Lancaster again visited Saint Helena on his return from the first voyage equipped by the British East India Company. In 1610, by which time most Dutch and English ships visited the island on their home voyage, François Pyrard de Laval deplored the deterioration since his last visit in 1601, describing damage to the chapel and destruction of fruit trees by cutting down trees to pick the fruit. Whilst Thomas Best, commander of the tenth British East India Company expedition reported plentiful supplies of lemons in 1614, only 40 lemon trees were observed by the traveller Peter Mundy in 1634.
The Dutch Republic formally made claim to St Helena in 1633, although there is no evidence that they ever occupied, colonised or fortified it. A Dutch territorial stone, undated but certainly later than 1633, is presently kept in the island's archive office. By 1651, the Dutch had mainly abandoned the island in favour of their colony founded at the Cape of Good Hope.
The idea for the English to make claim to the island was first made in a 1644 pamphlet by Richard Boothby. By 1649, the East India Company (EIC) ordered all homeward-bound vessels to wait for one another at St Helena and in 1656 onward the Company petitioned the government to send a man-of-war to convoy the fleet home from there. Having been granted a charter to govern the island by the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth Oliver Cromwell in 1657, the following year the Company decided to fortify and colonise St Helena with planters. A fleet commanded by Captain John Dutton (first governor, 1659–1661) in the "Marmaduke" arrived at St Helena in 1659. It is from this date that St Helena claims to be Britain's second oldest colony (after Bermuda). A fort, originally named the Castle of St John, was completed within a month and further houses were built further up the valley. It soon became obvious that the island could not be made self-sufficient and in early 1658, the East India Company ordered all homecoming ships to provide one ton of rice on their arrival at the island.
With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the fort was renamed James Fort, the town Jamestown and the valley James Valley, all in honour of the Duke of York, later James II of England. The East India Company immediately sought a Royal Charter, possibly to give their occupation of St Helena legitimacy. This was issued in 1661 and gave the Company the sole right to fortify and colonise the island ""in such legal and reasonable manner the said Governor and Company should see fit"". Each planter was allocated one of 130 pieces of land, but the Company had great difficulty attracting new immigrants, the population falling to only 66, including 18 slaves, by 1670. The long tradition that the early settlers included many who had lost their home in the 1666 Great Fire of London has been shown to be a myth. John Dutton's successors as governor, Robert Stringer (1661–1670) and Richard Coney (1671–1672), repeatedly warned the Company of unrest amongst the inhabitants, Coney complaining the inhabitants were drunks and ne’er-do-wells. In 1672 Coney was seized by rebellious members of the island's council and shipped back to England. Coincidentally, the Company had already sent a replacement governor, Anthony Beale (1672–1673).
Finding that the cape was not the ideal harbour they originally envisaged, the Dutch East India Company launched an armed invasion of St Helena from the Cape colony over Christmas 1672. Governor Beale was forced to abandon the island in a Company ship, sailing to Brazil where he hired a fast ship. This he used to locate an East India Company flotilla sent to reinforce St Helena with fresh troops. The Company retook the island in May 1673 without loss of life and reinforced it with 250 troops. The same year the Company petitioned a new Charter from Charles II of England and this granted the island free title as though it was a part of England ""in the same manner as East Greenwich in the County of Kent"". Acknowledging that St Helena was a place where there was no trade, the Company was permitted to send from England any provisions free of Customs and to convey as many settlers as required.
In 1674 discontented settlers and troops seized Richard Keigwin (1673–1674), the next acting governor; it was only the lucky arrival of an East India Company fleet under the command of Captain William Basse that freed Keigwin. By 1675, the part-time recruitment of settlers in a Militia enabled the permanent garrison to be reduced to 50 troops. On leaving the University of Oxford, in 1676, Edmond Halley visited Saint Helena and set up an observatory with a aerial telescope and observed the positions of 341 stars in the Southern hemisphere. His observation site is near St Mathew's Church in Hutt's Gate, in the Longwood district. The 680m high hill there is named for him and is called Halley's Mount. Amongst the most significant taxes levied on imports was a requirement for all ships trading with Madagascar to deliver one slave. Slaves were also brought from Asia by incoming shipping. Thus, most slaves came from Madagascar and Asia rather than the African mainland. By 1679, the number of slaves had risen to about 80. An uprising by soldiers and planters in 1684 during the governorship of John Blackmore (1678–1689) led to the death of three mutineers in an attack on Fort James and the later execution of four others. The formation of the Grand Alliance and outbreak of war against France in 1689 meant that for several years ships from Asia avoided the island for fear of being attacked by French men-of-war. Soldiers at the end of their service thereby had restricted opportunities to obtain a passage back to Britain. Governor Joshua Johnson (1690–1693) also prevented soldiers smuggling themselves aboard ships by ordering all outgoing ships to leave only during daylight hours. This led to a mutiny in 1693 in which a group of mutineer soldiers seized a ship and made their escape, during the course of which Governor Johnson was killed. Meanwhile, savage punishment was meted out to slaves during this period, some being burnt alive and others starved to death. Rumours of an uprising by slaves in 1694 led to the gruesome execution of three slaves and cruel punishment of many others.
The clearance of the indigenous forest for the distillation of spirits, tanning and agricultural development began to lead to shortage of wood by the 1680s. The numbers of rats and goats had reached plague proportions by the 1690s, leading to the destruction of food crops and young tree shoots. Neither an increase on duty on the locally produced arrack nor a duty on all firewood helped reduce the deforestation whilst attempts to reforest the island by governor John Roberts (1708–1711) were not followed up by his immediate successors. The Great Wood, which once extended from Deadwood Plain to Prosperous Bay Plain, was reported in 1710 as not having a single tree left standing. An early mention of the problems of soil erosion was made in 1718 when a waterspout broke over Sandy Bay, on the southern coast. Against the background of this erosion, several years of drought and the general dependency of St Helena, in 1715 governor Isaac Pyke (1714–1719) made the serious suggestion to the Company that appreciable savings could be made by moving the population to Mauritius, evacuated by the French in 1710. However, with the outbreak of war with other European countries, the Company continued to subsidise the island because of its strategic location. An ordinance was passed in 1731 to preserve the woodlands through the reduction in the goat population. Despite the clear connection between deforestation and the increasing number of floods (in 1732, 1734, 1736, 1747, 1756 and 1787) the East India Company's Court of Directors gave little support to efforts by governors to eradicate the goat problem. Rats were observed in 1731 building nests in trees two feet across, a visitor in 1717 commenting that the vast number of wild cats preferred to live off young partridges than the rats. An outbreak of plague in 1743 was attributed to the release of infected rats from ships arriving from India. By 1757, soldiers were employed in killing the wild cats.
William Dampier called into St Helena in 1691 at the end of his first of three circumnavigations of the world and stated Jamestown comprised 20–30 small houses built with rough stones furnished with mean furniture. These houses were only occupied when ships called at the island because their owners were all employed on their plantations further in the island. He described how women born on the island ""very earnestly desired to be released from that Prison, having no other way to compass this but by marrying Seamen of Passengers that touch here"". Dampier described the island, which he called 'Santa Hellena', in his book "A New Voyage Round The World", published in 1697.
Following commercial rivalries between the original English East India Company and a New East India Company created in 1698, a new Company was formed in 1708 by amalgamation, and entitled the "United Company of Merchants of England, trading to the East Indies". St Helena was then transferred to this new United East India Company. The same year, extensive work began to build the present Castle. Because of a lack of cement, mud was used as the mortar for many buildings, most of which had deteriorated into a state of ruin. In a search for lime on the island, a soldier in 1709 claimed to have discovered gold and silver deposits in Breakneck Valley. For a short period, it is believed that almost every able-bodied man was employed in prospecting for these precious metals. The short-lived Breakneck Valley Gold Rush ended with the results of an assay of the deposits in London, showing that they were iron pyrites.
A census in 1723 showed that out of a total population 1,110, some 610 were slaves. In 1731, a majority of tenant planters successfully petitioned governor Edward Byfield (1727–1731) for the reduction of the goat population. The next governor, Isaac Pyke (1731–1738), had a tyrannical reputation but successfully extended tree plantations, improved fortifications and transformed the garrison and militia into a reliable force for the first time. In 1733 Green Tipped Bourbon Coffee seeds were brought from the coffee port of Mocha in Yemen, on a Company ship "The Houghton" and were planted at various locations around the Island where the plants flourished, despite general neglect.
Robert Jenkins, of "Jenkins' Ear" fame (governor 1740–1742) embarked on a programme of eliminating corruption and improving the defences. The island's first hospital was built on its present site in 1742. Governor Charles Hutchinson (1747–1764) tackled the neglect of crops and livestock and also brought the laws of the island closer to those in England. Nevertheless, racial discrimination continued and it was not until 1787 that the black population were allowed to give evidence against whites. In 1758 three French warships were seen lying off the island in wait for the Company's India fleet. In an inconclusive battle, these were engaged by warships from the Company's China fleet. Nevil Maskelyne and Robert Waddington set up an observatory in 1761 to observe the transit of Venus, following a suggestion first made by Halley. In the event, observations were obscured by cloud. Most of the cattle were destroyed this year through an unidentified sickness.
Attempts by governor John Skottowe (1764–1782) to regularise the sale of arrack and punch led to some hostility and desertions by a number of troops who stole boats and were probably mostly lost at sea — however, at least one group of seven soldiers and a slave succeeded in escaping to Brazil in 1770. It was from about this date that the island began, for the first time, to enjoy a prolonged period of prosperity. The first Parish Church in Jamestown had been showing signs of decay for many years, and finally a new building was erected in 1774. St James' is now the oldest Anglican church south of the Equator. Captain James Cook visited the island in 1775 on the final leg of his second circumnavigation of the world.
An order by governor Daniel Corneille (1782–1787) banning garrison troops and sailors from punch-taverns, only allowing them to drink at army canteens, led to a mutiny over Christmas 1787 when some 200 troops skirmished with loyal troops over a three-day period. Courts martial condemned 99 mutineers to death. These mutineers were then decimated; lots were drawn, with one in every ten being shot and executed.
Saul Solomon is believed to have arrived at the island about 1790, where he eventually formed the Solomon's company, initially based at an emporium. Today the Rose and Crown shop occupies the building. Captain Bligh arrived at St Helena in 1792 during his second attempt to ship a cargo of breadfruit trees to Jamaica. That same year saw the importation of slaves made illegal.
In 1795 governor Robert Brooke (1787–1801) was alerted that the French had overrun the Netherlands, forcing the Dutch to become their allies. Some 411 troops were sent from the garrison to support General Sir James Craig in his successful capture of the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Fortifications were improved and a new system of visual signalling introduced. Brooke had a battery built at Ladder Hill, and a tower to protect its rearward approaches, known as High Knoll Fort.
As a result of a policy of recruiting time-expired soldiers calling at the island on their voyage home from India, the St Helena Regiment was built up to 1,000 men by 1800. At the same time, every able-bodied man joined the island's militia.
The arrival of a fleet of ships in January 1807 caused an outbreak of measles. The outbreak led to the death of 102 "Blacks" (probably under-reported in church records), and 58 "whites" in the two months to May. With the importation of slaves no longer being legal, Governor Robert Patton (1802–1807) recommended that Company import Chinese labour to grow the rural workforce. The first Chinese labourers arrived in 1810, and the total number rose to about 600 by 1818. After 1836, many were allowed to stay on and their descendants became integrated into the population.
Governor Alexander Beatson (1808–1813) took action to reduce drunkenness by prohibiting the public sale of spirits and the importation of cheap Indian spirits. As in 1787, these actions resulted in a mutiny by about 250 troops in December 1811. After the mutineers surrendered to loyal troops, nine of the mutineers' leaders were executed. Under the aegis of the next governor, Mark Wilks (1813–1816) farming methods were improved, a rebuilding programme initiated, and the first public library opened. A census in 1814 showed the number of inhabitants was 3,507.
In 1815 the British government selected Saint Helena as the place of detention of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was brought to the island in October 1815 and lodged at Longwood, where he died on 5 May 1821.
During this period the island was strongly garrisoned by regular British regimental troops and by the local St Helena Regiment, with Royal Navy ships circling the island. Agreement was reached that St Helena would be placed in the hands of a general officer of His Majesty's service during Napoleon's confinement. The British government would meet all expenses relating to the prisoner and would be responsible for both his and the island's security. Sir Hudson Lowe (1816–1821), was duly appointed reporting to Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies through the EIC's Secret Committee in London. Brisk business was enjoyed catering for the additional 2,000 troops and personnel on the island over the six-year period, although restrictions placed against ships landing during this period posed a challenge for local traders to import the necessary goods.
The 1817 census recorded 821 white inhabitants, a garrison of 820 men, 618 Chinese indentured labourers, 500 free blacks and 1,540 slaves. In 1818, whilst admitting that nowhere in the world did slavery exist in a milder form than on St Helena, Lowe initiated the first step in emancipating the slaves by persuading slave owners to give all slave children born after Christmas of that year their freedom once they had reached their late teens. Solomon Dickson & Taylor issued £147-worth of copper halfpenny tokens sometime before 1821 to enhance local trade.
After Napoleon's death the large number of temporary residents, such as military personnel, were soon withdrawn. The East India Company resumed full control of Saint Helena and life returned to the pre-1815 standards, the fall in population causing a sharp change in the economy. The next governors, Thomas Brooke (temporary governor, 1821–1823) and Alexander Walker (1823–1828), successfully brought the island through this post-Napoleonic period with the opening of a new farmer's market in Jamestown, the foundation of an Agricultural and Horticultural Society and improvements in education. The importation of slaves was banned in 1792, but the phased emancipation of over 800 resident slaves did not take place until 1827, some six years before legislation to ban slavery in the colonies was passed by the British Parliament. An abortive attempt was made to set up a whaling industry in 1830 (also in 1875). Following praise of St Helena's coffee given by Napoleon during his exile on the island, the product enjoyed a brief popularity in Paris during the years after his death.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the India Act in 1833, a provision of which transferred control of St Helena from the East India Company to the Crown with effect from 2 April 1834. In practice, the transfer did not take effect until 24 February 1836 when Major-General George Middlemore (1836–1842), the first governor appointed by the British government, arrived with 91st Regiment troops. He summarily dismissed St Helena Regiment and, following orders from London, embarked on a savage drive to cut administrative costs, dismissing most officers previously in the Company employ. This triggered the start of a long-term pattern whereby those who could afford to do so tended to leave the island for better fortunes and opportunities elsewhere. The population was to fall gradually from 6,150 in 1817 to less than 4,000 by 1890. Charles Darwin spent six days of observation on the island in 1836 during his return journey on HMS "Beagle". Controversial figure, Dr. James Barry, also arrived that year as principal medical officer (1836–1837). In addition to reorganising the hospital, Barry highlighted the heavy incidence of venereal diseases in the civilian population, blaming the government for the removal of the St Helena Regiment, which resulted in destitute females resorting to prostitution.
Following the conquest of Aden in January 1839 and the establishment of a coal station there, the journey time to the Far East (via the Mediterranean, the Alexandria to Cairo overland crossing and the Red Sea) was roughly halved compared with the traditional South Atlantic route. This precursor to the effects of the Suez Canal (1869), coupled with the advent of steam shipping that was not dependent on trade winds led to a gradual reduction in the number of ships calling at St Helena and to a decline in its strategic importance to Britain and economic fortunes. The number of ships calling at the island fell from 1,100 in 1855; to 853 in 1869; to 603 in 1879 and to only 288 in 1889.
In 1839, London coffee merchants Wm Burnie & Co described St Helena coffee as being of ""very superior quality and flavour"". In 1840 the British Government deployed a naval station to suppress the African slave trade. The squadron was based at St Helena and a Vice Admiralty Court was based at Jamestown to try the crews of the slave ships. Most of these were broken up and used for salvage. Between 1840 and 1849, 15,076 freed slaves, known as "Liberated Africans" were landed at Rupert's Bay on the island, of which number over 5,000 were dead or died there. The final number up to the 1870s when the depot was finally closed has not yet been accurately determined, but would be over 20,000. Surviving freed slaves lived at Lemon Valley – originally the quarantine area, later for women and children, Rupert's and High Knoll, and only when numbers became too great were they sent to Cape Town and the British West Indies as labourers. About 500 remained on St Helena, where they were employed. In later years, some were sent to Sierra Leone.
It was also in 1840 that the British government acceded to a French request for Napoleon's body to be returned to France in what became known as the retour des cendres. The body, in excellent state of preservation, was exhumed on 15 October 1840 and ceremonially handed over to the Prince de Joinville in the French ship "La Belle Poule".
A European Regiment, called the St Helena Regiment, comprising five companies was formed in 1842 for the purpose of garrisoning the island. William A Thorpe, the founder of the Thorpe business, was born on the island the same year. There was another outbreak of measles in 1843 and it was noted that none of those who survived the 1807 outbreak contracted the disease a second time. The first Baptist minister arrived from Cape Town in 1845. The same year, St Helena coffee was sold in London at 1d per pound, making it the most expensive and exclusive in the world. In 1846, St James' church was considerably repaired, a steeple replacing the old tower. The same year, huge waves, or "rollers", hit the island causing 13 ships anchored off Jamestown bay to be wrecked. The foundation stone for St Paul's country church, also known as "The Cathedral", was laid in 1850. Following instructions from London to achieve economies, Governor Thomas Gore Brown (1851–1856) further reduced the civil establishment. He also tackled the problems of overpopulation of Jamestown posed by the restrictions of the valley terrain by establishing a village at Rupert's Bay. A census in 1851 showed a total of 6,914 inhabitants living on the island. In 1859 the Diocese of St Helena was set up for St Helena, including Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha (initially also including the Falkland Islands, Rio de Janeiro and other towns along the east coast of South America), the first Bishop of St Helena arriving on the island that year. Islanders later complained that succeeding governors were mainly retired senior military officers with an undynamic approach to the job. St John's church was built in upper Jamestown in 1857, one motivation being to counter the levels of vice and prostitution at that end of the town.
The following year, the lands forming the sites of Napoleon's burial and of his home at Longwood House were vested in Napoleon III and his heirs and a French representative or consul has lived on the island ever since, the French flag now flying over these areas. The title deeds of Briars Pavilion, where Napoleon lived during his earliest period of exile, were much later given to the French Government in 1959.
St Helena coffee grown on the Bamboo Hedge Estate at Sandy Bay won a premier award at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851. Saul Solomon was buried at St Helena in 1853. The first postage stamp was issued for the island in 1856, the six-pence blue, marking the start of considerable philatelic interest in the island.
By the 1860s it was apparent that wood sourced from some condemned slave ships (possibly a Brazilian ship) from the 1840s were infested by termites ("white ants"). Eating their way through house timbers (also documents) the termites caused the collapse of a number of buildings and considerable economic damage over several decades. Extensive reconstruction made use of iron rails and termite-proof timbers. The termite problem persists to the present day. The cornerstone for St Matthew's church at Hutt's Gate was laid in 1861.
The withdrawal of the British naval station in 1864 and closure of the Liberated African Station ten years later (several hundred Africans were deported to Lagos and other places on the West African coast) resulted in a further deterioration in the economy. A small earthquake was recorded the same year. The gaol in Rupert's Bay was destroyed and the Castle and Supreme Court were reconstructed in 1867. Cinchona plants were introduced in 1868 by Charles Elliot (1863–1870) with a view to exporting quinine but the experiment was abandoned by his successor Governor C. G. E. Patey (1870–1873), who also embarked on a programme of reducing the civil establishment. The latter action led to another phase of emigration from the island. An experiment in 1874 to produce flax from Phomium Tenax (New Zealand flax) failed (the cultivation of flax recommenced in 1907 and eventually became the island's largest export). In 1871, the Royal Engineers constructed Jacob's Ladder up the steep side of the valley from Jamestown to Knoll Mount Fort, with 700 steps, one step being covered over in later repairs. A census in 1881 showed 5,059 inhabitants lived on the island. Jonathan, claimed to be the world's oldest tortoise, is thought to have arrived on the island in 1882.
An outbreak of measles in 1886 resulted in 113 cases and 8 deaths. Jamestown was lighted for the first time in 1888, the initial cost being borne by the inhabitants. Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, son of the Zulu king Cetshwayo, was exiled at St Helena between 1890 and 1897. Diphtheria broke out in 1887 and also in 1893 which, with an additional outbreak of whooping cough, led to the death of 31 children under 10. In 1890 a great fall of rock killed nine people in Jamestown, a fountain being erected in Main Street in their memory. A census in 1891 showed 4,116 inhabitants lived on the island. A submarine cable en route to Britain from Cape Town was landed in November 1899 and extended to Ascension by December and was operated by the Eastern Telegraph Company. For the next two years over six thousand Boer prisoners were imprisoned at Deadwood and Broadbottom. The population reached its all-time record of 9,850 in 1901. Although a number of prisoners died, being buried at Knollcombes, the islanders and Boers developed a relationship of mutual respect and trust, a few Boers choosing to remain on the island when the war ended in 1902. A severe outbreak of influenza in 1900 led to the death of 3.3% of the population, although it affected neither the Boer prisoners nor the troops guarding them. An outbreak of whooping cough in 1903 infected most children on the island, although only one died as a result.
The departure of the Boers and later removal of the remaining garrison in 1906 (with the disbandment of the St Helena Volunteers, this was the first time the island was left without a garrison) both impacted on the island economy, which was only slightly offset by growing philatelic sales. The successful reestablishment of the flax industry in 1907 did much to counter these problems, generating considerable income during the war years. Lace making was encouraged as an island-industry during the pre-war period, initiated by Emily Jackson in 1890 and a lace-making school was opened in 1908. Two men, known as the Prosperous Bay Murderers, were hanged in 1905. A paper published in 2017 has proved that reports of a fish-canning factory opening and closing in 1909 because of an unusual shortage of fish are incorrect. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27189 |
Geography of Saint Helena
Saint Helena is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, about midway between South America and Africa. St Helena has a land area of 122 square kilometres and is part of the territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which includes Ascension Island and the island group of Tristan da Cunha.
The climate of Saint Helena island can be described as tropical, marine and mild, tempered by the Benguela Current and trade winds which blow almost continuously. Similarly, the climate of Tristan da Cunha is marine, mild and also tempered by trade winds, although the climate is temperate in nature. Ascension Island is warmer and wetter than St Helena.
Saint Helena has a rugged, volcanic terrain, with small scattered plateaus and plains, with the largest area of level ground on the island being Prosperous Bay Plain in the eastern arid area. The other islands of the group have a volcanic origin. The highest point on the island is Diana's Peak at 818 metres (2,684 ft), though Queen Mary's Peak on Tristan da Cunha is the highest in the British territory at 2,062 m.
A natural hazard on Tristan da Cunha is active volcanism, though this is not the case on St Helena itself.
St. Helena exists because of the St. Helena hotspot which began to produce basaltic lava about 145 million years ago when it was near the constructive plate margin of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The movement of the African Plate away from the hotspot has left the chain of the St. Helena seamounts, which may connect with the Cameroon Volcanic Line. St. Helena, the most south westerly point on the chain, is close to the plate margin, but the last volcanic eruptions occurred about 7 million years ago.
The first investigations of St. Helena geology were made when Charles Darwin visited the island on the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle in July 1836. He "used the observations on St Helena to formulate an intermediate hypothesis (published in 1844 in his book "Geological Observations on the volcanic islands and parts of South America visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. "Beagle") - volcanoes rise by slow, gradual and episodic events".
The Barn is a capping of younger lavas upon weaker rocks. The Barn features cliffs on the side that faces the sea. It overlooks the pyroclasts and weak flows of Turk's Cap Valley to the south.
Taking their names from the story of Lot in the Book of Genesis, "Lot" and "Lot's Wife" are two solitary pillars of rock topping two valleys near Sandy Bay. The pillars are phonolitic intrusions, which are more resistant to erosion than surrounding volcanic features which have, in time, eroded away.
Saint Helena possesses fish as a main natural resource. Land use in the island group is divided between arable land (with 12.9% of the area given to this) and other uses, which occupy the remaining 87.1%.
In terms of maritime claims, St Helena has an exclusive fishing zone of 200 nautical miles, and a territorial sea of twelve nautical miles.
Just off the coast of St Helena island itself are numerous small islands. Starting from the north and running clockwise, these are: Shore Island, George Island, Rough Rock Island, Flat Rock, The Buoys, Sandy Bay Island, Black Horse Island, White Bird Island, Frightus Island, Jar Rock, Castle Point Rock, Robert Rock, Salt Rock, Speery Island, Flat Rock, The Needle, Lower and Upper Black Rock, Bird Island, Black Rock, Thompson's Valley Island, Peaked Island, Egg Island, Lady's Chair, Lighter Rock, Long Ledge, and Red Rock.
Saint Helena harbours at least 40 species of plants unknown anywhere else in the world, and Ascension is a breeding ground for sea turtles and sooty terns.
The island of St Helena is divided into 8 districts, which are used for electoral and administrative purposes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27190 |
Demographics of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
This article is about the demographics of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory in the south Atlantic Ocean.
The citizens of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha hold British Overseas Territories citizenship. On 21 May 2002 they were granted access to full British citizenship by the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 and there is a special Saint Helena passport issued to them.
Saint Helena is the most populous part of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. The language spoken in Saint Helena is English.
The island has a small population of a few thousand inhabitants, mainly descended from Africans, Mixed race African and Europeans, British settlers, East India Company employees and indentured labourers from the South Asian sub-Continent, East Indies, Madagascar and China.
The people of Saint Helena are "Saint Helenians" (though locally they are known as "Saints"); the demonym being "Saint Helenian".
A census in February 2016 recorded a population of 4,534 on the island. This compares with a figure of 4,257 recorded in 2008 and a figure of 5,157 recorded in 1998. The fall between 1998 and 2008 can be explained mostly by emigration, especially since 2002 when the islanders were granted full British citizenship. The main diasporas are to the United Kingdom, South Africa and more recently to the Falkland Islands, as well as on Ascension Island. The population density, based on the 2016 figure, is 37.3 persons per km2, or 95.3 per sq mile.
The island of Saint Helena is administratively divided into eight districts, each with a community centre. The districts also serve as statistical subdivisions. The island is a single electoral area, sending twelve representatives to the Legislative Council.
The following demographic statistics are from the "CIA World Factbook", unless otherwise indicated.
"NB: the following [CIA] figures represent the whole territory, including Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha."
By 2010 estimates, per one thousand population: the birth rate is 10.95 births, and the death rate is 6.91 deaths. In the same year, it was estimated that the rate of population growth was 0.404%.
The median age for 2010 is 38.2 years. The following tables describe age structure and human sex ratio, as estimated for 2010.
Births and deaths
The total fertility rate for 2010 is estimated at 1.56 children born per woman.
According to the CIA World Factbook, 50% of the population of Saint Helena Island are African Saint Helenians, while Chinese Saint Helenians and White Saint Helenians make up 25% each. However, the possibility of clear-cut categorical divisions between ethnicities on present day St Helena, as reflected by these statistics, is disputed. Most Saint Helenians today are multiracial, similar to the Cape Coloureds.
Ascension has no civilian population, while Tristan da Cunha has a white population descended primarily from the British Isles or from the Falkland Islands.
The majority of St. Helenians are Anglican. Other religions in St. Helena include ("in alphabetic order"): the Bahá'í Faith, the Baptist church, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and Seventh-day Adventism.
According to the statistics in the 2014 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Saint Helena has the highest proportion of Jehovah's Witnesses of any country or territory in the world: one person in thirty-five, using an estimated population of 4,000 for St Helena and a count of 118 members.
In Tristan da Cunha, Christianity is the main religion, with the largest denominations being Anglican and Roman Catholic.
Where being literate is defined as being of age 20 or over and able to read and write, 97% percent of the total population is literate, according to estimates from 1987. 97% of males and 98% of females of St. Helena are literate under this definition by the same estimates.
By 2010 estimates, life expectancy at birth for the total population is 78.6 years (for males it is 75.68; for females it is 81.67). The infant mortality rate is 16.98 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Ascension Island has no native inhabitants officially. A transient population of approximately 1,000 live on the Island, made up mainly of members of the American and British militaries, supporting civilian contractors who serve on the joint Anglo-American airbase, and members of their families (a few of whom were born on the island).
Tristan da Cunha has a population of about three hundred inhabitants of mainly mixed-British, -African, and -Italian descent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27191 |
Economy of Saint Helena
The economy of Saint Helena is based on export income from coffee, tourism, fishing, and sales of alcoholic liqueurs. Unemployment is very low in Saint Helena; the February 2016 Census stated that 76 people declared that they were unemployed (with 10 claiming unemployment benefit) compared to an economically active population of 2,539 and a total population of 4,534. Saint Helena is one of two countries which depend on financial assistance from the United Kingdom, which amounted to about £22.5 million in 2016/17. This supplements the £12.6 million raised from local tax revenues.
The international airport has been open for private jets and Medivac services since 2016. A scheduled commercial air service began in October 2017. With a total investment of £285m the airport is the largest single investment ever made in the island. Until 2016, the only way to reach the island was by boat. The last working Royal Mail Ship made its final voyage serving St Helena in 2018..
Saint Helena's gross domestic product (GDP) for the 2014/15 financial year was £33.5 million and gross national product (GNP) was £32.3 million, GDP per capita was £7,392 and GNP per capita was £7,133.
The major private sector employers of the islands are Solomons and Co and Thorpes, both providing services in almost all sectors.
Saint Helena possesses fisheries, agriculture (including coffee), construction, retail, and accommodation and food service industries.
In 2016, Saint Helena had a workforce of 2,539. Many St Helenians take up jobs in Ascension Island, the Falklands and the UK.
75% of St Helena's power currently comes from 6 diesel generators, but the island is working towards a 100% renewable energy target. There are currently 12 wind turbines, which generate approximately 20% of the island's needs and several photovoltaic arrays which provide the balance. The rifle range solar farm in Half Tree Hollow currently has the largest output of the solar systems with 500 kWh.
The main agricultural products of Saint Helena are: coffee, fish (predominately tuna), potatoes, vegetables; timber.
The 2014–15 customs data shows the following exports:
Food and other goods are imported from Cape Town, South Africa and the UK (via Ascension). Shipping is run by AW Ship Management Ltd. Packages can be sent via Richard James International or by Royal Mail (by Royal Mail anything under 2kg will go by air). Wharf services are provided by Solomons.
The local currency is the Saint Helena pound, which is at a par with the British Pound. The government issues its own coins and banknotes. British pounds are accepted in Saint Helena.
Banking services on Saint Helena are provided by the Bank of St. Helena, which delivers a retail banking service to individuals and business in, and trading with, Saint Helena.
There is no ATM on island, so cash must be withdrawn from the Bank of Saint Helena cashiers in Jamestown (Monday-Saturday) or at Customs at the wharf (Thursday-Friday). Trials of local debit cards by the bank of Saint Helena began in 2016.
In 1957 the price of land on the island was thought to be between £10 and £15 an acre. Eggs were 3 shillings a dozen and bread was 6d for a 1 1/2lb loaf. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27193 |
Transport on Saint Helena
This article deals with traffic in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, that is all forms of traffic in the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
The island of Saint Helena has a road network, consisting of of paved and of unpaved road. Most roads are single-lane, and uphill traffic has a right of way. A general speed limit of applies to the entire island. On Saint Helena there is a public bus network that currently (as of January 2015) serves five routes, but has been expanded since September 2015 and since March 2016 and numerous new routes in October 2017.
The M/V "Helena" serves the island from Cape Town on a monthly basis.
Saint Helena has a feeder and a harbour:
With the opening of Saint Helena Airport, scheduled flights have been operated since 14 October 2017. The new airport is served weekly from Johannesburg (South Africa) via Windhoek (Namibia).
In 1829, the Saint Helena Railway Company opened a horse-drawn railway from Jamestown to Half Tree Hollow, which was also known as Ladder Hill Railway. The main purpose was to transport goods from the port of Jamestown to the higher houses. The service was discontinued in 1871.
Another rail network was built for the seawater desalination plant in Rupert's Valley. Details of the track are not known.
On Ascension there is a road network of , which is continuously paved. The public bus transport network has four stops (as of 2014).
Ascension has a feeder in the island's capital Georgetown. The port was modernized in 2011 with a new crane, among other things.
With Wideawake Airfield, Ascension has had an airport since 1943. This will be used primarily for military purposes, but since October 2017 it will also be served by scheduled services from Saint Helena.
Tristan da Cunha has a road network of , half of which is paved or half unpaved. The island has probably the smallest public bus network in the world. The fleet of minibuses is available to pensioners free of charge.
The shipping traffic is of outstanding importance for Tristan da Cunha, which has no airfield. All goods and travellers can only reach the island by sea. Tristan da Cunha is approached irregularly from Cape Town by MFV Geo Searcher, MFV Edinburgh, M/V Baltic Trader, S. A. Agulhas II.
Tristan da Cunha has with the Calshot Harbour a port in Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. The port was comprehensively renovated at the beginning of 2017. It is 2 meters deep and takes only smaller boats. All larger ships have to stay offshore and both passengers and cargo have to be transferred to small boats.
Tristan da Cunha has no airport on the island. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27195 |
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis (), officially known as the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, is an island country in the West Indies. Located in the Leeward Islands chain of the Lesser Antilles, it is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere, in both area and population. The country is a Commonwealth realm, with Elizabeth II as Queen and head of state.
The capital city is Basseterre on the larger island of Saint Kitts and on the smaller island, Nevis, the capital city is Charlestown. The smaller island of Nevis lies approximately to the southeast across a shallow channel called The Narrows.
The British dependency of Anguilla was historically also a part of this union, which was then known collectively as Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla. However, Anguilla chose to secede from the union and remains a British overseas territory. To the north-northwest lie the islands of Sint Eustatius, Saba, Saint Barthélemy, Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten and Anguilla. To the east and northeast are Antigua and Barbuda, and to the southeast is the small uninhabited island of Redonda (part of Antigua and Barbuda) and the island of Montserrat.
Saint Kitts and Nevis were among the first islands in the Caribbean to be colonized by Europeans. Saint Kitts was home to the first British and French colonies in the Caribbean, and thus has also been titled "The Mother Colony of the West Indies". It is also the most recent British territory in the Caribbean to become independent, gaining independence in 1983.
Saint Kitts was named "Liamuiga", which roughly translates as "fertile land", by the Kalinago who originally inhabited the island. The name is preserved via St. Kitts's tallest peak, Mount Liamuiga. Nevis's pre-Columbian name was "Oualie", meaning "land of beautiful waters".
It is thought that Christopher Columbus, the first European to see the islands in 1493, named the larger island "San Cristóbal", after Saint Christopher, his patron saint and the patron hallow of travellers. New studies suggest that Columbus named the island "Sant Yago" (Saint James), and that the name "San Cristóbal" was in fact given by Columbus to the island now known as Saba, northwest. It seems that "San Cristóbal" came to be applied to the island of St. Kitts only as of the result of a mapping error. No matter the origin of the name, the island was well documented as "San Cristóbal" by the 17th century. The first English colonists kept the English translation of this name, and dubbed it "St. Christopher's Island". In the 17th century, a common nickname for Christopher was Kit(t), hence the island came to be informally referred to as "Saint Kitt's Island", later further shortened to "Saint Kitts".
Columbus gave Nevis the name "San Martín". The current name "Nevis" is derived from a Spanish name "Nuestra Señora de las Nieves", meaning 'Our Lady of the Snows'. It is not known who chose this name for the island, but it is a reference to the story of a 4th-century Catholic miracle: a summertime snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. It is thought that the white clouds which usually wreathe the top of Nevis Peak reminded someone of the story of a miraculous snowfall in a hot climate. The island of Nevis, upon first British settlement, was referred to as "Dulcina", a name meaning 'sweet one' in Spanish. Eventually, the original Spanish name was restored and used in the shortened form, "Nevis".
Today the Constitution refers to the state as both "Saint Kitts and Nevis" and "Saint Christopher and Nevis", but the former is the one most commonly used.
The name of the first inhabitants, pre-Arawakan peoples who settled the islands perhaps as early as 3000 years ago, is not known. They were followed by the Arawak peoples, or Taíno, about 1000 BC. The warlike Island Caribs invaded about 800 AD.
Christopher Columbus was the first European to sight the islands in 1493. The first settlers were the English in 1623, led by Thomas Warner, who established a settlement at Old Road Town on the west coast of St Kitts after achieving an agreement with the Carib chief Ouboutou Tegremante. The French later also settled on St Kitts in 1625 under Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. As a result, both parties agreed to partition the island into French and English sectors. From 1628 onward the English also began settling on Nevis.
The French and English, intent on self-enrichment through exploitation of the island's natural resources, soon encountered resistance, with the native Caribs (Kalinago) waging war throughout the first three years of the settlements' existence. The Europeans thus resolved to rid themselves of this problem once and for all. To facilitate this objective, an ideological campaign was waged by colonial chroniclers, dating back to the Spanish, as they produced literature which systematically denied Kalinago humanity (a literary tradition carried through the late-seventeenth century by such authors as Jean-Baptiste du Tertre and Pere Labat). In 1626 the Anglo-French settlers joined forces to massacre the Kalinago at a place that became known as Bloody Point, allegedly to pre-empt an imminent Carib plan to expel or kill all European settlers. With the native population thus pacified, the English and French began to establish large sugar plantations which were worked by vast numbers of imported African slaves. This system created enormous wealth for the planter-colonists whilst also drastically changing the islands' demographics as black slaves soon came to outnumber Europeans by some margin.
A Spanish expedition of 1629 sent to enforce Spanish claims destroyed the English and French colonies and deported the settlers back to their respective countries. As part of the war settlement in 1630, the Spanish permitted the re-establishment of the English and French colonies. Spain later formally recognised Britain's claim to St Kitts with the Treaty of Madrid (1670), in return for British cooperation in the fight against piracy.
As Spanish power went into decline, Saint Kitts became the premier base for English and French expansion into the wider Caribbean. From St. Kitts the British settled the islands of Antigua, Montserrat, Anguilla and Tortola, and the French settled Martinique, the Guadeloupe archipelago and Saint Barthélemy. During the late-17th century France and England fought for control over St Kitts and Nevis, fighting wars in 1667, 1689–90 and 1701–13. The French renounced their claim to the islands with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The islands' economy, already shattered by years of war, was further devastated by natural disasters: in 1690 an earthquake destroyed Jamestown, capital of Nevis, forcing the construction of a new capital at Charlestown; further damage was caused by a hurricane in 1707.
The colony had recovered by the turn of the 18th century, and by the close of the 1700s St. Kitts had become the richest British Crown Colony per capita in the Caribbean as result of its slave-based sugar industry. The 18th century also saw Nevis, formerly the richer of the two islands, being eclipsed by St Kitts in economic importance.
As Britain became embroiled in war with its American colonies, the French decided to use the opportunity to re-capture St Kitts in 1782, however St Kitts was given back and recognised as British territory in the Treaty of Paris (1783).
The African slave trade was terminated within the British Empire in 1807, and slavery outlawed completely in 1834. A four-year "apprenticeship" period followed for each slave, in which they worked for their former owners for wages. On Nevis 8,815 slaves were freed in this way, while St. Kitts had 19,780 freed.
Saint Kitts and Nevis, along with Anguilla, were federated in 1882. In the first few decades of the 20th century economic hardship and lack of opportunities led to the growth of a labour movement; the Great Depression led sugar workers to go on strike in 1935. The 1940s saw the founding of the St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Labour Party (later renamed the Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party, or SKNLP) under Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw. Bradshaw later became Chief Minister and then Premier of the colony from 1966-1978; he sought to gradually bring the sugar-based economy under greater state control. The more conservative-leaning People's Action Movement party (PAM) was founded in 1965.
After a brief period as part of the West Indies Federation (1958–62), the islands became an associated state with full internal autonomy in 1967. Both Nevis and Anguilla were unhappy at St Kitts' domination of the federation, with Anguilla unilaterally declaring independence in 1967. In 1971 Britain resumed full control of Anguilla and it was formally separated in 1980. Attention then focused on Nevis, with the Nevis Reformation Party seeking to safeguard the smaller island's interests in any future independent state. Eventually it was agreed that the island would have a degree of autonomy with its own Premier and Assembly, as well as the constitutionally-protected right to unilaterally secede if a referendum on independence resulted in a two-thirds majority in favour. St Kitts and Nevis achieved full independence on 19 September 1983. Kennedy Simmonds of the PAM, Premier since 1980, duly became the country's first Prime Minister. St Kitts and Nevis opted to remain within the British Commonwealth, retaining Queen Elizabeth as Monarch, represented locally by a Governor-General.
Kennedy Simmonds went on to win elections in 1984, 1989 and 1993, before being unseated when the SKNLP returned to power in 1995 under Denzil Douglas.
In Nevis, growing discontent with their perceived marginalisation within the federation led to a referendum to separate from St. Kitts in 1998, which though resulting a 62% vote to secede, fell short of the required two-thirds majority to be legally enacted.
In late-September 1998, Hurricane Georges caused approximately $458,000,000 in damages and limited GDP growth for the year and beyond. Meanwhile, the sugar industry, in decline for years and propped up only by government subsidies, was closed completely in 2005.
The 2015 Saint Kitts and Nevis general election was won by Timothy Harris and his recently formed People's Labour Party, with backing from the PAM and the Nevis-based Concerned Citizens' Movement under the 'Team Unity' banner.
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a sovereign, democratic and federal state. The Queen of Saint Christopher and Nevis, Elizabeth II, is its head of state. The Queen is represented in the country by a Governor-General, who acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party of the House, and the cabinet conducts affairs of state. The country may also be described by the unofficial term, "Commonwealth realm", because it is a constitutional monarchy which shares the same monarch as fifteen other members of the Commonwealth of Nations.
St. Kitts and Nevis has a unicameral legislature, known as the National Assembly. It is composed of fourteen members: eleven elected Representatives (three from the island of Nevis) and three Senators who are appointed by the Governor-General. Two of the senators are appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister, and one on the advice of the leader of the opposition. Unlike in other countries senators do not constitute a separate Senate or upper house of parliament, but sit in the National Assembly alongside representatives. All members serve five-year terms. The Prime Minister and the Cabinet are responsible to the Parliament. Nevis also maintains its own semi-autonomous Assembly.
Saint Kitts and Nevis has no major international disputes. Saint Kitts and Nevis is a full and participating member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and the Organisation of American States (OAS).
St. Kitts & Nevis entered the OAS system on 16 September 1984.
At a CARICOM Meeting, representative of St. Kitts and Nevis, Kennedy Simmons signed The Double Taxation Relief (CARICOM) Treaty 1994 on 6 July 1994.
The representatives of seven CARICOM countries signed similar agreements at Sherbourne Conference Centre, St. Michael, Barbados. The countries whose representatives signed the treaties in Barbados were: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. This treaty covered taxes, residence, tax jurisdictions, capital gains, business profits, interest, dividends, royalties and other areas.
On 30 June 2014, St. Kitts and Nevis signed a Model 1 agreement with the United States of America in relation to Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). At 28 April 2016, the status of the agreement went to "In Force".
Saint Kitts and Nevis has a defence force of 300 personnel. It is mostly involved in policing and drug-trade interception.
Male homosexuality is illegal in St. Kitts and Nevis. In 2011, The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis said it has no mandate from the people to abolish the criminalisation of homosexuality among consenting adults.
The federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis is divided into fourteen parishes: nine divisions on Saint Kitts and five on Nevis.
The country consists of two main islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, separated at a distance of 2 miles (3 km) by The Narrows strait. Both are of volcanic origin, with large central peaks covered in tropical rainforest. The majority of the population live along the flatter coastal areas. St Kitts contains several mountain ranges (the North West Range, Central Range and South-West Range) in its centre, where the highest peak of the country, Mount Liamuiga can be found. Along the east coast can be found the Canada Hills and Conaree Hills. The land narrows considerably in the south-east, forming a much flatter peninsula which contains the largest body of water, the Great Salt Pond. To the southeast, in The Narrows, lies the small isle of Booby Island. There are numerous rivers descending from the mountains of both islands, which provide fresh water to the local population. Nevis, the smaller of the two main islands and roughly circular in shape, is dominated by Nevis Peak .
The national bird is the brown pelican. There are 176 species of bird.
By the Köppen climate classification, St. Kitts has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen "Aw") and Nevis has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen "Am"). Mean monthly temperatures in Basseterre varies little from to . Yearly rainfall is approximately , although it has varied from to in the period 1901–2015.
The population of Saint Kitts and Nevis is around 53,000 (July 2019 est.) and has remained relatively constant for many years. At the end of the nineteenth century there were 42,600 residents, the number slowly rising to a little over 50,000 by the mid-twentieth century. Between 1960 and 1990, the population dropped from 50,000 to 40,000, before rising again to its current level. Approximately three-quarters of the population live on Saint Kitts, with 15,500 of these living in the capital, Basseterre. Other large settlements include Cayon (population 3,000) and Sandy Point Town (3,000), both on Saint Kitts, and Gingerland (2,500) and Charlestown (1,900), both on Nevis.
The population is primarily Afro-Caribbean (92.5%), with significant minorities of European (2.1%) and Indian (1.5%) descent (2001 estimate).
, there were inhabitants; their average life expectancy is 76.9 years. Emigration has historically been very high, so high that the total estimated population in 2007 was little changed from that in 1961.
Emigration from St. Kitts and Nevis to the United States:
Most inhabitants (82%) are Christians, mainly Anglicans and other Protestants denominations, with a smaller population of Catholics. Roman Catholics are pastorally served by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint John's–Basseterre, while the Anglicans by the Diocese of the North East Caribbean and Aruba.
English is the sole official language. Saint Kitts Creole is also widely spoken.
Saint Kitts and Nevis is known for a number of musical celebrations including Carnival (18 December to 3 January on Saint Kitts). The last week in June features the St Kitts Music Festival, while the week-long Culturama on Nevis lasts from the end of July into early August.
Additional festivals on the island of Saint Kitts include Inner City Fest, in February in Molineaux; Green Valley Festival, usually around Whit Monday in village of Cayon; Easterama, around Easter in village of Sandy Point; Fest-Tab, in July or August in the village of Tabernacle; and La festival de Capisterre, around Independence Day in Saint Kitts and Nevis (19 September), in the Capisterre region. These celebrations typically feature parades, street dances and salsa, jazz, soca, calypso and steelpan music.
The 1985 film "" was filmed in Saint Kitts.
Cricket is common in Saint Kitts and Nevis. Top players can be selected for the West Indies cricket team. The late Runako Morton was from Nevis. Saint Kitts and Nevis was the smallest country to host 2007 Cricket World Cup matches.
Rugby and netball are also common in Saint Kitts and Nevis as well.
The St. Kitts and Nevis national football team, also known as the "Sugar Boyz", has experienced some international success in recent years, progressing to the semi-final round of qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in the CONCACAF region. Led by Glence Glasgow, they defeated the US Virgin Islands and Barbados before they were outmatched by Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Despite not representing the country, Marcus Rashford is of descent.
The St. Kitts and Nevis Billiard Federation, SKNBF, is the governing body for cue sports across the two islands. The SKNBF is a member of the Caribbean Billiards Union (CBU) with the SKNBF President Ste Williams holding the post of CBU Vice-President.
Kim Collins is the country's foremost track and field athlete. He has won gold medals in the 100 metres at both the World Championships in Athletics and Commonwealth Games, and at the 2000 Sydney Olympics he was the country's first athlete to reach an Olympic final. He and three other athletes represented St. Kitts and Nevis at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The four by one hundred metre relay team won a bronze medal in the 2011 world championships.
American writer and former figure skater and triathlete Kathryn Bertine was granted dual citizenship in an attempt to make the 2008 Summer Olympics representing St. Kitts and Nevis in women's cycling. Her story was chronicled online at ESPN.com as a part of its E-Ticket feature entitled "So You Wanna Be An Olympian?" She ultimately failed to earn the necessary points for Olympic qualification.
St. Kitts and Nevis had two athletes ride in the time trial at the 2010 UCI Road World Championships: Reginald Douglas and James Weekes.
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a twin-island federation whose economy is characterised by its dominant tourism, agriculture, and light manufacturing industries. Sugar was the primary export from the 1940s on, but rising production costs, low world market prices, and the government's efforts to reduce dependence on it have led to a growing diversification of the agricultural sector. In 2005, the government decided to close down the state-owned sugar company, which had experienced losses and was a significant contributor to the fiscal deficit.
St. Kitts and Nevis is heavily dependent upon tourism to drive its economy, a sector which has expanded significantly since the 1970s. In 2009 there were 587,479 arrivals to Saint Kitts compared to 379,473 in 2007, an increase of just under 40% in a two-year period, however the tourist sector decreased during the Global financial crisis and has only recently returned to pre-crash levels. In recent years the government has sought to diversify the economy via agriculture, tourism, export-oriented manufacturing, and offshore banking.
In July 2015, St Kitts & Nevis and the Republic of Ireland signed a tax agreement to "promote international co-operation in tax matters through exchange of information." The agreement was developed by the OECD Global Forum Working Group on Effective Exchange of Information, which consisted of representatives from OECD member countries and 11 other countries in the Caribbean and other parts of the world.
Saint Kitts and Nevis has two international airports. The larger one is Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport on the island of Saint Kitts with service outside to the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. The other airport, Vance W. Amory International Airport, is located on the island of Nevis and has flights to other parts of the Caribbean.
The St. Kitts Scenic Railway is the last remaining running railroad in the Lesser Antilles.
St. Kitts allows foreigners to obtain the status of St. Kitts citizen by means of a government sponsored investment programme called Citizenship-by-Investment. Established in 1984, St. Kitts' citizenship programme is the oldest prevailing economic citizenship programme of this kind in the world. However, while the programme is the oldest in the world, it only catapulted in 2006 when Henley & Partners, a global citizenship advisory firm, became involved in the restructuring of the programme to incorporate donations to the country's sugar industry.
Citizenship-by-Investment Programmes have been criticised by some researchers due to the risks of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. According to the official website of St. Kitts' Citizenship-by-Investment Programme they offer multiple benefits: "When you acquire citizenship under the St. Kitts & Nevis citizenship programme, you and your family enjoy full citizenship for life, which can be passed on to future generations by descent. As citizens of St. Kitts & Nevis, you and your family are issued with passports which allow visa-free travel to more than 140 countries and territories worldwide, including all of the EU. Of course you have the right to take up residence in St. Kitts & Nevis as well as in most of the CARICOM member countries at any time and for any length of time".
Each candidate must go through several legal steps and make a qualifying investment into the country and should complete certain legal requirements to qualify for citizenship under the investment programme. There is a minimum investment that has to be made by the applicant, in either an approved real estate or in the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (a public charity), to qualify for the economic citizenship of St. Kitts and Nevis.
According to Henley & Partners, the requirements are as follows:
According to Imperial & Legal, from 1 April 2018 St Kitts and Nevis government implemented a new investment option – Contribution to Sustainable Growth Fund (SGF). To qualify for citizenship of St Kitts & Nevis, applicants who choose to invest in SGF will need to make a one-off non-refundable contribution of $150,000 plus due diligence fees.
There are eight publicly administered high and secondary level schools in St Kitts and Nevis, and several private secondary schools. Education is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27198 |
History of Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis have one of the longest written histories in the Caribbean, both islands being among Spain's and England's first colonies in the archipelago. Despite being only two miles apart and quite diminutive in size, Saint Kitts and Nevis were widely recognized as being separate entities with distinct identities until they were forcibly united in the late 19th century.
The first natives to live on the islands, as early as 3,000 years ago, were called Ciboney. However, the lack of pottery makes their origin and timeline uncertain. They were followed by the Arawak peoples, or Taino in 800 AD.
The warlike Island Caribs followed and had expanded north of St. Kitts by the time of the Spanish conquest. Peak native populations occurred between 500 and 600 AD.
The first Europeans to see and name the islands were the Spanish under Christopher Columbus, who sighted the islands on 11 and 13 November 1493 during his second voyage. He named Saint Kitts San Jorge (Saint George) and Nevis San Martin (sighted on Saint Martin's Day). By 1540, Nieves was used by the Spanish, an abbreviation of Santa Maria de las Nieves, a reference to its cloud cover resembling snow.
Sir Francis Drake mentions visiting Saint Christophers Island in 1585 during Christmas.
The next European encounter occurred in June 1603, when Bartholomew Gilbert gathered Lignum vitae on Nevis before stopping at St. Kitts. In 1607, Captain John Smith stopped at Nevis for five days on his way to founding the first successful settlement in Virginia. Smith documented the many hot springs in Nevis, whose waters had remarkable curative abilities against skin ailments and bad health. Robert Harcourt stopped at Nevis in 1608.
In 1620, Ralph Merifield and Sir Thomas Warner received from King James I, a Royal Patent to colonize the Leeward Islands, but with overall authority through James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle. Merifield and Warner formed the company Merwars Hope, which was renamed Society of Adventurers, which merged into the Royal African Company in 1664. Warner arrived on St. Kitts on 28 January 1623 with 15 settlers and came to terms with the Carib Chief Ouboutou Tegremante. Three Frenchmen were already on the island, either Huguenot refugees, pirates, or castaways. The Hurricane of September 1623 wiped out their tobacco and vegetable crop, yet the colony survived and grew. "Hopewell" arrived in 1624, and included Warner's friend Colonel John Jaeffreson, who built Wingfield Manor. This Jaeffreson may have been an ancestor of Thomas Jefferson's.
In 1625, a French captain, Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, arrived on St. Kitts aboard his 14-gun brigantine and a crew of 40. He had escaped a three-hour battle with a 35-gun Spanish warship near the Cayman Islands. In 1627, Warner and d'Esnambuc split the island in four quarters, with the English controlling the middle half and the French the end quarters. Cardinal Richelieu formed the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe in 1626, and 40 slaves were purchased from Senegal. By 1635, the number of slaves on St. Kitts had grown to 500–600, and by 1665 the French West India Company replaced the Compagnie.
As the European population on Saint Kitts continued to increase, Chief Tegremond grew hostile to the foreigners in 1626, and plotted their elimination with the help of other Island Caribs. However, a native woman named Barbe informed Warner and d'Esnambuc of the plot and they decided to take action. The Europeans acted by getting the Indians intoxicated at a party before returning to their village, where 120 were killed in their sleep. The following day, at a site now called Bloody Point, with a ravine known as Bloody River, over 2,000 Caribs were massacred. By 1640, the remaining Caribs not enslaved on St. Kitts, Nevis, and Antigua, were removed to Dominica.
In 1628, Warner allowed Anthony Hilton to settle Nevis, along with 80 others from St. Kitts. Hilton had recently escaped murder by his indentured servant, and decided to sell his St. Kitts' plantation. Hilton's 80 were joined by 100 other settlers, originally bound for Barbuda.
The 1629 English colonization was led by George Donne. Both powers then proceeded to colonise neighbouring islands from their bases. The English settled Nevis (1628), Antigua (1632), Montserrat (1632) and later Anguilla (1650) and Tortola (1672). The French colonised Martinique (1635), the Guadeloupe archipelago (1635), St Martin (1648), St Barths (1648), and Saint Croix (1650).
Saint Kitts and Nevis suffered heavily from a Spanish raid in 1629, led by Fadrique de Toledo, 1st Marquis of Villanueva de Valdueza. All settlements were destroyed, nine hostages taken back to Spain, and 600 men taken to work the mines in Spanish America. Four ships were supposed to carry the rest back to England, but they returned to the islands soon after the Spanish departed. This was the only Spanish attempt to keep the English and French out of the Leeward Islands.
During the Battle of the Fig Tree in 1635, the French forcefully removed English settlers who had encroached into the French portion of St. Kitts. The French used 250 armed slaves in the conflict.
The islands' earliest cash crop was tobacco, along with ginger and indigo dye. However, production from the Caribbean and North American colonies deflated the price resulting in an 18-month moratorium on St. Kitts tobacco farming in 1639. This prompted the production of sugar from sugar cane on St. Kitts in 1643, and on Nevis in 1648. Windmills were built to crush the canes and extract the juice. The planters grew prosperous and even rich, where Nevis became the richest British colony in the western hemisphere by 1652. By 1776, St. Kitts was the richest British colony per capita. Though indentured servants were common amongst the islands, fewer than half survived their servitude, and field work required African slaves. There were twice the number of slaves to Europeans on St. Kitts by the end of the 17th century. In 1675, the population on Nevis was about 8,000, half black. By 1780, the Nevis population had grown to 10,000, 90% black. The slaves had very harsh living and working conditions, only lasting eight to twelve years in the fields, and by the 18th century, two-fifths died within a year of arrival. About 22% died on the Middle Passage.
With the death of d'Esnambuc in 1635, Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy became Lieutenant General of the Isles of America and Captain-General of St. Christopher on 20 February 1639. The King of France had sold the French portion of the island to the Order of Saint John. Dissatisfied with the independence of de Poincy, the King of France sent Noel de Patrocles de Thoisy to replace him. However, De Thoisy was repulsed, captured and sent back to France, along with his allies the Capuchin monks. De Poincy started construction of his Château de la Montagne in 1642, where he resided until his death in 1650. He was succeeded by Governor de Sales.
In 1652, Prince Rupert's squadron visited Nevis and exchanged fire with the Pelican Point Fort, following the Royalist defeat in the English Civil War.
During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the relationship between the French and English settlers soured, as their home countries warred. On 21 April 1666, French Governor Charles de Sales gathered 800 troops and 150–200 slaves at Palmetto Point. As the French advanced towards Sandy Point, where English Governor William Watts waited, the French were ambushed by 400 English troops and de Sales was killed. Claude de Roux de Saint-Laurent took over command as the French counter-attacked, forcing the English to retreat. On 22 April, during the Battle of Sandy Point, 1,400 English troops under the command of Governor Watts, which included 260 of Colonel Morgan's buccaneers, failed to stop 350 French. Governor Watts was killed, and the English spiked their guns at Fort Charles before fleeing to Old Road Town. Many of the English then fled to Nevis as the French took control of St. Kitts. The French then tried to take Nevis, but were turned back by the English at Pinney's Beach. English reinforcements to Nevis failed to arrive when Willoughby's fleet sank in the 15 August 1666 hurricane. "Armes d'Angleterre" set out from Basseterre in April 1667 with Joseph-Antoine de La Barre aboard. The French ship encountered HMS "Winchester", the start of an English blockade, and engaged in a long running battle before sinking her and eventually returning to St. Kitts. Finally, the English turned back an attempted invasion of Nevis in May 1667 during the Battle of Nevis. However, the Treaty of Breda restored the status quo.
The 1670 Treaty of Madrid meant the recognition of English colonies in the Caribbean by Spain in return for the curtailment of pirate attacks. England established the Admiralty Court in Nevis as a consequence. Those found guilty of piracy were hanged at Gallows Bay.
In 1689, during the War of the Grand Alliance, French Governor de Salnave sent troops to plunder the English side, with Irish assistance, while Count de Blanc's fleet arrived in Basseterre with 1,200 troops. The French sieged English Governor Thomas Hill's troops at Fort Charles, forcing their surrender on 15 August 1689. The English were once again sent to Nevis while the Irish took over their plantations. On 24 June 1690, Leeward Islands Governor Sir Christopher Codrington and Sir Timothy Thornhill, operating from Nevis, landed an English force of 3,000 men on St. Kitts. Operating from Timothy's Beach and Frigate Bay, they march into Basseterre and then sieged the French at Fort Charles. The French surrendered on 16 July and were deported to Santo Domingo. The French had used cannon on Brimstone Hill in their 1689 siege, and in 1690 the British began construction on Brimstone Hill Fortress. The Treaty of Rijswijk in 1697 restored the status quo. An interesting side note is that Capt. William Kidd's privateer "Blessed William" assisted Codrington during this war.
In 1690, a massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed the city of Jamestown, then the capital of Nevis. So much damage was done to it that the city was completely abandoned. It is reputed that the whole city sank into the sea, but since then, the land has moved over at least to the west. That means that anything left of Jamestown would now be underground, near where Fort Ashby was built in 1701. The capital was moved south to the town of Charlestown.
Saint Kitts and Nevis were to face more devastation during the War of the Spanish Succession, though the local impact of that conflict started with the French Governor of St. Christopher, Count Jean-Baptiste de Gennes, surrendering the island without a fight to Sir Christopher Codrington, governor of the English Leewards, and Colonel Walter Hamilton in 1702. The French inhabitants of St. Kitts were peacefully removed to other islands. The French retaliated in 1705 with a five-day bombardment of Nevis by Admiral Count Louis-Henri de Chavagnac before he proceeded to St. Kitts. There the French pillaged the English quarter after landing on Frigate Bay, carrying off 600–700 slaves. Then on Good Friday 1706, the French under the command of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville attacked Nevis, capturing Fort Charles then looting and burning Charlestown. Once again, 3,400 slaves were taken, though several more escaped to Maroon Hill and formed a slave army, which effectively resisted a French attack. Before departing Nevis, the French left Nevis in ruins, including its sugar works. The 1707 hurricane did further damage to Nevis. It would be 80 years before sugar production on Nevis reached the level achieved in 1704. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, in which the French ceded their portion of St Kitts to the British.
By 1720, the population of St. Kitts exceeded that of Nevis for the first time. In 1724, the population of Saint Kitts consisted of 4000 whites and 11,500 blacks, while Nevis had 1,100 whites and 4,400 blacks. By 1774, the population on St. Kitts was 1,900 white and 23,462 black, while Nevis had 1,000 whites and 10,000 blacks.
Upon gaining control of the whole island in 1713, the British soon moved the island's capital to the town of Basseterre in 1727, and St Kitts quickly took off as a leader in sugar production in the Caribbean. Whilst conditions on St Kitts improved, Nevis was seeing a decline. The years of monocrop cultivation, as well as heavy amounts of soil erosion due to the high slope grade on the island, caused its sugar production to continuously decrease.
Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, was born in Nevis; he spent his childhood there and on St. Croix, then belonging to Denmark, and now one of the United States Virgin Islands.
James Ramsay (abolitionist) was ordained a priest at Saint John Capisterre Parish in 1762. He continued his abolitionist activities and concern for the welfare of slaves until he left the island in 1781.
John Huggins built the first Caribbean resort hotel in 1778. The Bath Hotel was constructed over the site of one of the island's famous hot springs, Bath Spring. The island thus became the first place in the Americas to officially practice tourism. Nevis's popularity as a destination grew, and it continued to be in the favour of the British upper classes, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Nelson, and Prince William Henry, until it closed in the 1870s. The hotel opened briefly from 1910 to the 1930s, after refurbishment by the Gillespie Brothers. It housed troops in World War II, and the Police Department and Magistrate's Court from 1995 to 1999.
By 1776, Saint Kitts had become the richest British colony in the Caribbean, per capita. Attacks by the French occurred at the end of the throughout the 18th century, including the Siege of Brimstone Hill and the Battle of Saint Kitts in 1782. The consolidation of British rule was recognized finally under the Treaty of Versailles in 1783.
On 11 March 1787, Captain Nelson was married to Frances Woolward Nisbet, niece of John Herbert, President of the Nevis Council. They were married at Montpelier Plantation, with Prince William Henry acting as best man.
In 1799, USS "Constellation" engaged the French commerce raider "L'Insurgent" off Nevis during the Quasi-War. The American vessel won a first victory for the United States Navy, bringing the captured French commerce raider back to St. Kitts.
In 1804, the French Admiral Édouard Thomas Burgues de Missiessy and General La Grange forced Nevis and St. Kitts to pay ransoms of 4,000 and 18,000 pounds respectively. This was followed by Jérôme Bonaparte's raid in 1806.
In 1806, the Leeward Islands Caribee government was split into two groups, with Antigua, Barbuda, Redonda and Montserrat in one group, and St Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands in the other. The islands in the new grouping however, were able to keep their great degrees of autonomy. The grouping then split entirely in 1816.
Lord Combermere bought Russell's Rest Plantation following the defeat of France in the Battle of Waterloo. Combermere Village and School are named after him.
The Roman Catholic religion was practiced by the French, and the Church of England by the English, yet a Jewish synagogue existed on Nevis since 1684. The Moravian Church was established on St. Kitts in 1777, and numbered 2,500 by 1790. Bishop Thomas Coke paid his first of three visits to Nevis and St. Kitts in 1788, establishing the Methodist Church on the island. Membership grew to 1,800 on Nevis and 1,400 on St. Kitts by 1789.
In 1824, the Cottle Church was established on Nevis, welcoming slaves and masters alike.
The African slave trade was terminated within the British Empire in 1807, and slavery outlawed in 1834. A four-year "apprenticeship" period followed for each slave, in which they worked for their former owners for wages. On Nevis 8,815 slaves were freed in this way, while St. Kitts had 19,780 freed.
The 1835 hurricane, followed by the drought of 1836–1838 and the fire of 1837, devastated Nevis. Sugar prices continued their decline due to production in other parts of the world where costs were cheaper, so that by 1842, Nevis saw a decline in its population as workers fled the island, if unwilling to stay and make a living sharecropping in Nevis' increasingly less fertile soil. St. Kitts' soil was not so depleted. Then several earthquakes struck in 1843, followed by a cholera epidemic in 1853–54, killing more than 800 on Nevis and 3920 on St. Kitts.
In 1872, St. Kitts was connected to the international telegraph system. However, the connection did not extend to Nevis until 1925.
The Federation of the Leeward Islands Colony of 1871 meant the end of elected Assemblies, but were instead appointed. In 1883, the governments of St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla were combined into the St. Kitts Assembly. Of the ten seats in the Assembly, Nevis had two while Anguilla had one.
Subsidized beet sugar production put wage pressures on the islands, which resulted in the Portuguese Riots of 1896. It took marines from to restore order. By 1900 there were 61 estates on Nevis utilizing the sharecropping system, while St. Kitts only had 2.
The 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane left 27 dead on Nevis and 2 on St. Kitts. The Nevis hospital was destroyed and 8,000 left homeless.
The St. Kitts Sugar Producers Association built a central factory for sugar refining and a railway for transportation in 1912. The London Electric Theatre opened on St. Kitts in 1917. A telephone system was built on St. Kitts in 1896 and included Nevis by 1913. Nevis' first automobile arrived in 1912, a Ford Model T.
Theodore Roosevelt and wife visited St. Kitts in 1916.
Cotton production supplemented sugar during World War I, but declined in 1922 after the boll weevil appeared. The Great Depression meant the government became the largest landowner on Nevis as estates were abandoned or were requisitioned for failure to pay taxes. From 1900 to 1929, the population on St. Kitts declined by 43%, while on Nevis it declined by 9%.
In 1951, the islands were granted the right to vote, with the first election held in 1952.
Sugar production continued to dominate the lives of the islanders. The dominance by estate owners of the island's only and extremely limited natural resource, the land, and the single-minded application of that resource to one industry precluded the development of a stable peasant class. Instead, the system produced a large class of wage labourers generally resentful of foreign influence. The nature of the sugar industry itself—the production of a nonstaple and essentially nonnutritive commodity for a widely fluctuating world market—only served to deepen this hostility and to motivate Kittitian labourers to seek greater control over their working lives and their political situation. The collapse of sugar prices brought on by the Great Depression precipitated the birth of the organized labour movement in St Kitts and Nevis. The Workers League, organized by Thomas Manchester of Sandy Point in 1932, tapped the popular frustration that fueled the labor riots of 1935–36. Rechristened the St. Kitts and Nevis Trades and Labour Union in 1940 and under the new leadership of Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw, the union established a political arm, the St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party, which put Bradshaw in the Legislative Council in 1946. The Labour Party would go on to dominate political life in the twin-island state for more than thirty years.
Electricity first came to Nevis in 1954.
The islands remained in the Leeward Islands Federation until they joined the failed West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962, in which Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla was a separate state. Robert Bradshaw was the Minister of Finance for the short-lived country.
In 1967, the islands became an Associated State of Britain.
In the same year Anguilla had a major secession movement supported by St Kitts' political opposition party, The People's Action Movement (PAM). Both forces, working together, invaded the island from an Anguillian base in an attempted coup d'état. Anguilla was able to successfully break away from the union in 1971.
In 1970 there was a serious maritime incident, the "Christena" disaster, the sinking of an overloaded ferry boat, with much loss of life.
During Bradshaw's long tenure, his government slowly moved into a statist approach to economic development in 1972. All sugar lands were bought by the government, as well as the nationalization of the sugar factory in 1976.
Opposition to Bradshaw's rule began to build, especially by the families and supporters of former estate owners, who founded the People's Action Movement party in 1964, after frustration over a failed demonstration against a raise in electricity rates. Opposition was especially great in Nevis, who felt that their island was being neglected and unfairly deprived of revenue, investment and services by its larger neighbour. Bradshaw mainly ignored Nevis' complaints, but Nevisian disenchantment with the Labour Party proved a key factor in the party's eventual fall from power.
In 1978 Bradshaw died of prostate cancer. He was succeeded by his former deputy, Paul Southwell, but in 1979, Southwell himself died (under mysterious circumstances) in St.Lucia. Accompanying Interim Premier Caleb Azariah Paul Southwell, was Lee Llewellyn Moore the Attorney General, and next in seniority of the St.Kitts Labour Party. The Political organization eventually fell into a crisis of leadership, but Lee Moore was selected. Regardless, many Labour Supporters had their suspicions about Southwell's death, and many chose to vote "PAM" the following year in the General Elections.
Taking advantage of the Labour Party's confusion, the PAM party was very successful in the 1980 elections, winning three seats on St Kitts, compared to the Labour Party's four. The Nevis Reformation Party, under the leadership of Simeon Daniel, won two of the three seats on Nevis. PAM and NRP then formed a coalition government, naming Kennedy Simmonds, a medical doctor and one of the founders of the PAM, premier (Simmonds had won Bradshaw's former seat in a 1979 by-election). The change in government reduced the demand for Nevis' secession. In 1983, the federation was granted independence from Britain, with a constitution that granted Nevis a large degree of autonomy as well as the guaranteed right of secession. To take advantage of this landmark, early elections were called in 1984, in which the NRP captured all three seats on Nevis, and the PAM party capturing six seats on St Kitts, compared to the Labour Party's two, despite overall the Labour Party winning the nationwide popular vote. The new coalition government now had a strong 9 to 2 mandate in parliament.
Economic improvement for St Kitts followed, with the PAM party shifting focus from the sugar industry to tourism. However, much of the island's poorest people, mainly the sugar workers, were neglected. Opposition to PAM began to build from this, as well as on accusations of corruption. In the 1993 elections, both PAM and Labour took four seats each, whilst on Nevis, a new party, the Concerned Citizens Movement, took two seats, beating the NRP's one. The stalemate on St Kitts proved unresolvable when the CCM in Nevis refused to form a coalition with PAM. Rioting soon followed on the islands, which was finally resolved in a special set of elections held in 1995, in which the Labour Party overwhelmingly defeated the PAM party, winning seven seats compared to PAM's one. Dr. Denzil Douglas became the new prime minister of the federation, and in 2015 Timothy Harris became the prime minister.
On 21 September 1998, Hurricane Georges severely damaged the islands, leaving nearly $500 million of damage to property. Georges was the worst hurricane to hit the region in the 20th century.
In 2005, St Kitts saw the closure of its sugar industry, after 365 years in the monoculture. This was explained as due to the industry's huge losses, as well as to market threats by the European Union, which had plans to cut sugar prices greatly in the near future. Since that time tourism has been the main focus of the economy.
Historic St. Kitts | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27199 |
Geography of Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a twin island country with a total landmass of just . The island of St. Kitts, the larger of the two, is in size and is located at latitude 17.30 N, and longitude 62.80 W. Nevis is and located at latitude 17.10 N, longitude 62.35 W, approximately 3 km south-east of St. Kitts. The islands are about one-third of the way from Puerto Rico to Trinidad and Tobago. The islands are volcanic and mountainous.
The island of St. Kitts is composed almost exclusively of volcanic rocks of andesite or dacite mineralogy. Its geology is similar to that of other volcanic islands in the Lesser Antillean Archipelago. The islands are the summits of a submerged mountain range which forms the eastern boundary of what is known as the Caribbean Tectonic Plate. St. Kitts is oriented northwest–southeast, about 80 km long and 16 km wide. The entire island archipelago is geologically young, having begun to form probably less than 50 million years ago, during the Miocene era. Volcanic activity occurred along the ridges of this arc during the Miocene era and has continued since.
Nevis is a volcanic island that began its formation in mid-Pliocene times (approximately 3.45 million years ago). However, the island comprises a number of discrete eruptive centers that range in age from mid-Pliocene to Pleistocene, these prevent any single model of the island's geological evolution. The geology of Nevis can be subdivided into four informal units: Volcanic of the eruptive centers, volcanigenic rocks - pyroclastics and lahars, fluviatile and lacustrine deposits, and raised beaches.
Map references:
Central America and the Caribbean
Area:
"total:"
261 km² (Saint Kitts 168 km²; Nevis 93 km²)
"land:"
261 km²
"water:"
0 km²
Area - comparative:
two thirds the size of the island of Barbados
Coastline:
135 km
Maritime claims:
"continental shelf:"
200 nautical miles (370 km) or to the edge of the continental margin
"territorial sea:"
12 nautical miles (22 km)
"contiguous zone:"
24 nautical miles (44 km)
"exclusive economic zone:"
200 nautical miles (370 km)
Climate:
tropical tempered by constant sea breezes; little seasonal temperature variation; rainy season (May to November)
Extreme points:
Northernmost point: Dieppe Bay Town, Saint Kitts
Southernmost point: Devil's Cave, Saint John Figtree Parish, Nevis
Westernmost point: Western cape of Saint Kitts, Saint Anne Sandy Point Parish
Easternmost point: Eastern cape of Nevis, Saint James Windward Parish
lowest point:
Caribbean Sea 0 m
highest point:
Mount Liamuiga 1,156 m
Natural resources:
arable land
Land use:
"arable land:"
19.44%
"permanent crops:"
2.78%
"other:"
77.78% (2005)
Natural hazards:
hurricanes (July to October)
Environment - international agreements:
"party to:"
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Whaling | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27200 |
Politics of Saint Kitts and Nevis
The politics of Saint Kitts and Nevis takes place in the framework of a federal parliamentary democracy. Saint Kitts and Nevis is an independent Commonwealth realm with Elizabeth II as its head of state, viceregally represented by a Governor-General. He acts on the advice of the prime minister, who is the majority party leader in the National Assembly, and who, with a cabinet, conducts affairs of state.
St Kitts and Nevis has a single National Assembly responsible for making laws, and comprising 14 or 15 members depending upon circumstances. 11 of these are directly elected "representatives" whilst three are "senators" appointed by the governor-general (two on the advice of the prime minister and the third on the advice of the leader of the opposition). If the attorney general isn't appointed as a senator then he automatically gets a seat as one, increasing the number of senators to four. Of the 11 elected members, eight represent constituencies in St Kitts and the remaining three represent Nevis seats.
The prime minister is appointed from the representatives by the governor-general, who has a constitutional duty to select someone who is likely to command the support of the majority of the representatives. In practice this would normally mean the leader of the majority party or coalition. If there is no suitable candidate, then the governor-general can dissolve the assembly and trigger a general election. Other ministers are also appointed by the governor-general, on the advice of the prime minister (and so effectively by the prime minister). The prime minister can be removed from office by the assembly, or by the governor-general if he feels that the prime minister no longer enjoys the support of the majority of representatives. The assembly is elected every five years unless the governor-general dissolves it before the end of this period, which he may do on the advice of the prime minister.
St Kitts and Nevis has enjoyed a long history of free and fair elections, although the outcome of elections in 1993 was strongly protested by the opposition and the Regional Security System (RSS) was briefly deployed to restore order. The elections in 1995 were contested by the two major parties, the ruling People's Action Movement (PAM) and the St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party. Labour won seven of the 11 seats, with Dr Denzil Douglas becoming prime minister. In the March 2000 elections, Denzil Douglas and the Labour Party were returned to power, winning eight of the 11 seats in the House. The Nevis-based Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) won two seats and the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) won one seat. The PAM party was unable to obtain a seat.
Under the constitution, Nevis has considerable autonomy and has an island assembly, a premier, and a deputy governor-general. Under certain specified conditions, it may secede from the federation. In accordance with its rights under the Constitution, in 1996 the Nevis Island Administration under the Concerned Citizens' Movement (CCM) of Premier Vance Amory initiated steps towards secession from the Federation, the most recent being a referendum in 1998 that failed to secure the required two-thirds majority for secession. The March 2000 election results placed Vance Armory, as head of the CCM, the leader of the country's opposition party. In the September 7, 2001 elections in Nevis for the Nevis Island Administration, the CCM won four of the five seats available, while the NRP won one. In 2003, the Nevis Island Administration again proposed secession and initiated formal constitutional procedures to hold a referendum on the issue, which was held in early 2004. While opposing secession, the Government acknowledged the constitutional rights of Nevisians to determine their future independence. Constitutional safeguards include freedom of speech, press, worship, movement, and association. The most recent elections in Nevis took place on July 10, 2006. Amory's CCM was defeated by the NRP of Joseph Parry, winning only two out of the five elective seats. Parry was sworn in as the third Premier of Nevis a day later.
Its judicial system is modelled on British practice and procedure and its jurisprudence on English common law. The Royal St Kitts and Nevis Police Force has about 370 members.
As head of state, Queen Elizabeth II is viceregally represented by a Governor-General who acts on the advice of the prime minister. Following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or leader of a majority coalition is usually appointed prime minister by the governor-general. All other ministerial appointments, including that of deputy prime minister, are made by the governor-general, but acting upon the advice of the prime minister.
Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (based on Saint Lucia); one judge of the Supreme Court resides in Saint Kitts.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London is the highest appelate court.
The country is divided in 14 parishes: Christ Church Nichola Town, Saint Anne Sandy Point, Saint George Basseterre, Saint George Gingerland, Saint James Windward, Saint John Capisterre, Saint John Figtree, Saint Mary Cayon, Saint Paul Capisterre, Saint Paul Charlestown, Saint Peter Basseterre, Saint Thomas Lowland, Saint Thomas Middle Island, Trinity Palmetto Point.
ACP, Caricom, CDB, Commonwealth of Nations ECLAC, FAO, G-77, IBRD, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, Interpol, IOC, NAM OAS, OECS, OPANAL, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WCL, WHO, WIPO, WTrO | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27202 |
Transport in Saint Kitts and Nevis
Transport within the Caribbean islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis (one country, a two-island federation) includes normal road traffic, public buses, taxis, ferries, airports, and one unusual railway.
Basseterre is the hub for all major roads on the island of St. Kitts. Charlestown is the equivalent hub for Nevis. Driving is on the left.
The speed limit in settled areas is 25 mph, with special caution to be taken around school zones. In rural areas the speed limit is 40 mph.
The grand total of roadways on St. Kitts and Nevis is 320 km. In 1999 it was estimated that 136 km were paved, and 184 km were unpaved.
The public buses are privately owned, but government-licensed, vans. They sometimes have a decorative name on the front, and they all have a "green" license plate where the number starts with the letter "H" or "HA".
A bus may be flagged down anywhere along its route (not just at bus stop shelters), and the bus will also stop anywhere along its route (on request) to let off a passenger.
All bus fees (in Eastern Caribbean or EC dollars) are $2.50 for a trip of 5 miles or under, $3.00 for a trip of 5 to 10 miles, and $3.75 for a trip over 10 miles. ($1 US = $2.7 EC)
Destinations off of the main route are often possible on request, at the discretion of the driver, on payment of a small extra charge.
There are 5 main bus routes on St. Kitts:
On Nevis, buses run both ways along the main ring-road around the island. All buses start off, and eventually finish up, in the capital of Nevis, Charlestown. Buses that will be traveling north out of Charlestown wait to leave from the southwest end of D. R. Walwyn Plaza. Buses traveling south from Charlestown wait to leave from the northern end of Memorial Square. At the termination points you can board a bus and wait for it to fill up before it leaves. If you are not sure you are climbing into the right bus, ask the driver if he goes to your destination.
Taxis are privately owned, but government licensed, vans. These vans usually have a name, and they all have "yellow" license plates where the number starts with the letter "T" or "TA".
The main taxi stand on St. Kitts is in Basseterre, on The Circus, phone number 466 6999, and there is a taxi stand at the airport too.
The main taxi stand on Nevis is in Charlestown, on the west side of D.R. Walwyn Plaza, and there is also a taxi stand at the airport.
A taxi can traverse any accessible area on the islands, including even dirt roads and trails, if the driver agrees. It is a good idea to agree on a price in advance, and be clear about which currency the price is quoted in ($ EC or $ US.)
Basseterre is the location of all official harboring services on Saint Kitts, though Coast Guard stations exist at Sandy Point Town and Dieppe Bay Town. The Deep Water Harbour at Basseterre is capable of both hosting and berthing of cruise ships or the handling of cargos. It is located to the extreme East of Basseterre Bay.
Port Zante, in the center of Basseterre Bay, is for use of docking cruise ships only. The Port can accommodate the largest cruise ships in the world. It also has a marina facility.
The bay is also home to the popular ferry connection between Basseterre, St. Kitts and Charlestown, Nevis. There are several trips daily. On rare occasions there is a special ferry day trip from Basseterre to Oranjestad, St Eustatius and back again.
A relatively new (started in 2007) car ferry, which can take up to 35 cars and also takes pedestrian passengers, is called the "Sea Bridge" ferry, and is in operation between the two islands. This ferry traverses the narrow, 2-mile wide straight named 'The Narrows' between the two islands in 25 minutes, from Major's Bay in St. Kitts (at the tip of the southeastern peninsula), to Cades Bay in Nevis. Cars can also be carried by the "Sea Hustler" ferry, which operates out of Basseterre.
Charlestown is the harbor for the government ferries which run between Charlestown and Basseterre on St. Kitts . There is a deep water port on the southern coast of Nevis for cargo ships.
The "Sea Bridge" ferry, which takes cars (and also pedestrians), docks in the northwest part of Nevis at Cades Bay, and runs between there and Majors Bay on St. Kitts. The Sea Bridge ferry runs six times a day in each direction . For pedestrians it is worth noting that there are no facilities of any kind at Majors Bay (no houses, no businesses, etc.), only a small wooden gazebo as shelter from sun or rain, and so, if you have not already arranged to be met at Majors Bay by car or taxi, you will have to enjoy Majors Bay for a couple of hours in its more or less wild state before taking the ferry back to Nevis.
The Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport (IATA airport code SKB/TKPK) serves the city of Basseterre, and by extension the island of Saint Kitts. The airport is located in the south of the parish of Saint Peter Basseterre on the north-eastern periphery of the city of Basseterre. The 8001-foot runway airport has direct flights to London, New York and Miami, and seasonal flights to Charlotte, NC, and Philadelphia, PA, in addition to other major cities in the US and Canada during the tourist season.
The Vance W. Amory International Airport (IATA airport code NEV/TKPN) serves the island of Nevis. The airport runway is 4002 feet in length. Many flights connect from here to other Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico.
St. Kitts has 58 km of narrow gauge railway, which centers in the capital, Basseterre, and circles the island. The railway line was originally built between 1912 and 1926 to transport sugar cane to the central sugar factory in Basseterre. The last load of sugar cane was delivered to the now-defunct factory in 2005, but since 2003 the railway has offered a circle tour of the island aboard specially designed open-air, double-decker coaches primarily for tourists. The "St. Kitts Scenic Railway" train currently runs from Sandy Point to Basseterre, traveling east. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27205 |
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia (, ; ) is a sovereign island country in the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. The island was previously called Iyonola, the name given to the island by the native Amerindians and later, Hewanorra, the name given by the native Caribs. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of and reported a population of 165,595 in the 2010 census. Its capital is Castries.
The French were the first Europeans to settle on the island. They signed a treaty with the native Island Caribs in 1660. England took control of the island from 1663 to 1667. In ensuing years, it was at war with France fourteen times, and the rule of the island changed frequently (it was ruled seven times each by the French and British). In 1814, the British took definitive control of the island. Because it switched so often between British and French control, Saint Lucia was also known as the "Helen of the West Indies" after the Greek mythological character, Helen of Troy.
Representative government came about in 1840 (universal suffrage was established in 1953). From 1958 to 1962, the island was a member of the West Indies Federation. On 22 February 1979, Saint Lucia became an independent state and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Saint Lucia is a mixed jurisdiction, meaning that it has a legal system based in part on both the civil law and English common law. The Civil Code of St. Lucia of 1867 was based on the Quebec Civil Code of 1866, as supplemented by English common law-style legislation. It is also a member of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
One of the Windward Islands, "Saint Lucia" was named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse (AD 283 – 304). It is one of two countries in the world named after a woman (Ireland is named after the Celtic goddess of fertility Eire) and the only country named after a historical woman. St. Helena, another island, is also named for an historical woman—the mother of Emperor Constantine—but St. Helena is a Dependent Territory of the United Kingdom and is not a sovereign nation. Legend states French sailors were shipwrecked at St. Lucia on 13 December, the feast day of St. Lucy, naming the island in honor of "Sainte Lucie."
The first proven inhabitants were the Arawaks, though there may have been other native peoples prior to this. The Arawak are believed to have come from northern South America sometime around 200–400 AD, as there are numerous archaeological sites on the island where specimens of their well-developed pottery have been found. There is evidence to suggest that the Arawak called the island "Iouanalao", meaning 'Land of the Iguanas', due to the island's high number of iguanas.
The more aggressive Caribs arrived around 800 AD, and seized control from the Arawaks by killing their men and assimilating the women into their own society. They called the island "Hewanarau", and later "Hewanorra" (Ioüanalao, or "there where iguanas are found").
Christopher Columbus may have sighted the island during his fourth voyage in 1502, since he made landfall on Martinique, yet he does not mention the island in his log. Juan de la Cosa noted the island on his map of 1500, calling it El Falcon, and another island to the south Las Agujas. A Spanish cédula from 1511 mentions the island within the Spanish domain, and a globe in the Vatican made in 1520, shows the island as Sancta Lucia.
In the late 1550s, the French pirate François le Clerc (known as "Jambe de Bois", due to his wooden leg) set up a camp on Pigeon Island, from where he attacked passing Spanish ships. In 1605, an English vessel called the "Oliphe Blossome" was blown off-course on its way to Guyana, and the 67 colonists started a settlement on Saint Lucia, after initially being welcomed by the Carib chief Anthonie. By 26 September 1605 only 19 survived following continued attacks by the Carib chief Augraumart, so the settlers fled the island.
In 1664, Thomas Warner (son of Sir Thomas Warner, the governor of St Kitts) claimed Saint Lucia for England. He brought 1,000 men to defend it from the French, but after two years, only 89 survived with the rest dying mostly due to disease. In 1666, the French West India Company resumed control of the island, which in 1674 was made an official French crown colony as a dependency of Martinique.
Both the British and the French found the island attractive after the slave-based sugar industry developed, and during the 18th century the island changed ownership or was declared neutral territory a dozen times, although the French settlements remained and the island was a de facto French colony well into the eighteenth century.
In 1722, George I of Great Britain granted both Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent to The 2nd Duke of Montagu. He in turn appointed Nathaniel Uring, a merchant sea captain and adventurer, as deputy-governor. Uring went to the islands with a group of seven ships, and established settlement at Petit Carenage. Unable to get enough support from British warships, he and the new colonists were quickly run off by the French.
During the Seven Years' War, Britain occupied Saint Lucia for a year. Britain handed the island back to the French at the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Like the English and Dutch on other islands, the French began to develop the land for the cultivation of sugar cane as a commodity crop on large plantations in 1765.
In January 1791, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly sent four "commissaires" to St Lucia to spread their revolutionary philosophy. By August 1791, slaves began to abandon their estates and Governor de Gimat fled. In December 1792, Lt. Jean-Baptiste Raymond de Lacrosse arrived with revolutionary pamphlets, and the impoverished whites and free people of color began to arm themselves as "patriots". On 1 February 1793, France declared war on England and Holland, and General Nicolas Xavier de Ricard took over as Governor. The National Convention abolished enslavement on 4 February 1794, but St. Lucia fell to a British invasion led by Vice Admiral John Jervis on 1 April 1794. Morne Fortune became "Fort Charlotte". Soon, a patriot army of resistance, "L'Armee Française dans les Bois", began to fight back. Thus started the First Brigand War.
A short time later the British invaded the island as a part of the recently broken out war with France. On 21 February 1795 and a group of locals under the nominal control of Victor Hugues defeated a battalion of British troops at Vieux Fort and Rabot. In 1796, Castries was burned as part of the conflict. General John Moore retook Fort Charlotte in 1796 with the 27th Inniskilling Fusiliers after two days of bitter fighting. As an honour, the Fusiliers' regimental colour was displayed on the flagstaff of the captured fortress at Morne Fortune for an hour before being replaced by the Union Jack. Moore would then participate in British efforts to repress the slave rebels until falling ill of yellow fever, upon which he returned to Britain before 1798.
In 1803, the British regained control of the island. Many of the rebels escaped into the thick rainforest where they evaded capture and established maroon communities.
The slavery on the island was continued for a short time, but anti-slavery sentiment was rising in Britain. The British stopped the import of slaves by anyone, white or coloured, when they abolished the slave trade in 1807.
France and Great Britain continued to contest Saint Lucia until the British secured it in 1814, as part of the Treaty of Paris ending the Napoleonic Wars. Thereafter, Saint Lucia was considered part of the British Windward Islands colony.
The institution of slavery was abolished on the island in 1836, as it was throughout the British Empire. After abolition, all former slaves had to serve a four-year "apprenticeship," to accustom them to the idea of freedom. During this period, they worked for their former masters for at least three-quarters of the work week. Full freedom was duly granted by the British in 1838. By that time, people of African ethnicity greatly outnumbered those of ethnic European background. Some people of Carib descent also comprised a minority on the island.
Castries' harbour was protected by a system of 60 surrounding forts. Along the top of Morne Fortune there are six military sites, building work by the French started in 1768, and the British completed the work by 1890. They include Fort Charlotte (Old Morne Fortress), the Apostle's Battery (1888–1890), The Powder Magazine built by the French in the 1750s, Provost's Redoubt (1792) built as a lookout point, and the Combermere barracks.
The best preserved installation is a battery at La Toc Point, completed in 1888 it was not abandoned till 1905. This fort in particular was built by the British to repel any attack from the United States on the then valuable coaling harbour of Castries.
The Second World War visited the island directly during the Battle of the Caribbean, when a German U-boat attacked and sank two British ships in Castries harbour on 9 March 1942.
In the mid-twentieth century, Saint Lucia joined the West Indies Federation (1958–1962) when the colony was dissolved. In 1967, Saint Lucia became one of the six members of the West Indies Associated States, with internal self-government. In 1979, it gained full independence under Sir John Compton of the conservative United Workers party (UWP). The new country chose to remain within the British Commonwealth and to retain Queen Elizabeth as Monarch, represented locally by a Governor-General.
Compton's initial term as Prime Minister lasted only a few months, as he was defeated by the left-leaning Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) under Allan Louisy in the 1979 Saint Lucian general election. The SLP sought to improve ties with socialist countries in the region such as Cuba, though the economy was severely affected by Hurricane Allen in 1980. Louisy was replaced as Prime Minister by Winston Cenac in 1981. The SLP government faced a series of strikes and Cenac agreed to stand down, with Michael Pilgrim of the Progressive Labour Party briefly serving as Acting Prime Minister until the 1982 Saint Lucian general election. This election was won by the UWP under John Compton, who proceeded to rule the country uninterrupted until 1996; he was succeeded by Vaughan Lewis, who ruled for just over a year before losing the 1997 Saint Lucian general election to the SLP under Kenny Anthony. During this era the UWP adopted a generally pro-Western, pro-business outlook, seeking to diversify the economy away from over-reliance on bananas and boosting the tourism sector. Compton was also a keen advocate of regional integration.
Kenny remained in power until 2006 when the UWP, again led by Compton, won control of parliament. Compton pledged to boost the economy and tackle the rising crime rate. Police attempts to curb crime were criticised in 2015 when it emerged that several suspects had been unlawfully shot by police and the circumstances of their deaths covered up. In May 2007, after Compton suffered a series of small strokes, Finance and External Affairs Minister Stephenson King became acting prime minister and succeeded Compton as Prime Minister when the latter died in September 2007. In November 2011, Kenny Anthony was re-elected as prime minister for a third time. In the June 2016 election the United Worker's Party (UWP) assumed power again, with Allen Chastanet becoming prime minister.
The volcanic island of Saint Lucia is more mountainous than most Caribbean islands, with the highest point being Mount Gimie, at above sea level. Two other mountains, the Pitons, form the island's most famous landmark. They are located between Soufrière and Choiseul on the western side of the island. Saint Lucia is the only island in the world that contains a drive-in volcano. Forests cover about 77% of the land area.
There are a number of small islands off the coast, the largest of which are the Maria Islands in the south-east.
The capital city of Saint Lucia is Castries (population 60,263) where 32.4% of the population lives. Other major towns include Gros Islet, Soufrière, and Vieux Fort. The population tends to be concentrated around the coast, with the interior more sparsely populated, due to the presence of dense forests.
The local climate is tropical, specifically a tropical rainforest climate under the Köppen climate classification, moderated by northeast trade winds, with a dry season from 1 December to 31 May, and a wet season from 1 June to 30 November (referred to by locals as the hurricane season).
Average daytime temperatures are around , and average nighttime temperatures are around . Since it is fairly close to the equator, the temperature does not fluctuate much between winter and summer. Average annual rainfall ranges from on the coast to in the mountain rainforests.
The geology of St. Lucia can be described as composing three main areas. The oldest, 16–18 Ma, volcanic rocks are exposed from Castries northward and consist of eroded basalt and andesite centres. The middle, central highlands, portion of the island consists of dissected andesite centres, 10.4 to 1 Mya, while the lower southwest portion of the island contains recent activity from the Soufriere Volcanic Centre (SVC). This SVC, centered about the Qualibou depression, contains pyroclastic flow deposits, lava flows, domes, block and ash flow deposits, and explosion craters. This depression's perimeter includes the town of Soufriere, Mount Tabac, Mt. Gimie, Morne Bonin, and Gros Piton. At in diameter, though the western portion is open towards the Grenada basin, the depression formed as recently as 100 kya. The depression is noted for its geothermal activity, especially at Sulphur Springs and Soufrière Estates, a phreatic eruption in 1776, and recent seismic activity (2000–2001).
Eroded andesitic stratovolcanoes to the north east of the depression include Mt. Gimie, Piton St Esprit, and Mt. Grand Magazin, all greater than 1 Ma in age. Andesitic and dacite pyroclastic flows from these volcanoes are found at Morne Tabac dome (532 ka), Morne Bonin dome (273 kya), and Bellevue (264 kya). Avalanche deposits from the formation of the Qualibou depression are found offshore, and in the massive blocks of Rabot, Pleisance, and Coubaril. The dacitic domes of Petit Piton (109 kya) and Gros Piton (71 kya) were then extruded onto the depression floor accompanied by the Anse John (104 kya) and La Pointe (59.8 kya) pyroclastic flows. Later, pyroclastic flows include pumice-rich Belfond and Anse Noir (20 kya). Finally, the dacitic domes of Terre Blanche (15.3 kya) and Belfond (13.6 kya) formed within the depression.
Saint Lucia is a Commonwealth realm. Elizabeth II is Queen of Saint Lucia, represented on the island by a governor-general. The prime minister is normally the head of the party commanding the support of the majority of the members of the House of Assembly, which has 17 seats. The other chamber of Parliament, the Senate, has eleven appointed members.
Saint Lucia is a two-party parliamentary democracy. Three political parties participated in the 6 June 2016 General Election. The United Workers Party, led by Allen Chastanet, won eleven of the seventeen seats.
Saint Lucia maintains friendly relations with the major powers active in the Caribbean, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Saint Lucia has no current international disputes.
Saint Lucia is a full and participating member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and La Francophonie. Saint Lucia is a Commonwealth Realm.
Saint Lucia became the 152nd member of the United Nations on 9 December 1979. As of January 2018, Cosmos Richardson, who presented his credentials on 22 February 2017, was Saint Lucia's representative to the United Nations.
The Charter of the OAS was signed in Bogota in 1948 and was amended by several protocols which were named after the city and the year in which the protocol was signed, such as Managua in 1993 forming part of the name of the protocol.
Saint Lucia entered the OAS system on 22 February 1979.
At a CARICOM Meeting, the representative of St. Lucia, John Compton signed The Double Taxation Relief (CARICOM) Treaty 1994 on 6 July 1994.
The representatives of seven CARICOM countries signed similar agreements at Sherbourne Conference Centre, St. Michael, Barbados. The countries whose representatives signed the treaties in Barbados were Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.
This treaty covered taxes, residence, tax jurisdictions, capital gains, business profits, interest, dividends, royalties and other areas.
On 30 June 2014, Saint Lucia signed a Model 1 agreement with the United States of America in relation to Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). As of 1 September 2016, the status of the agreement is listed as "in force".
Preceding the 2014 FATCA agreement is one which was entered into on 30 January 1987 between the United States of America and Saint Lucia according to Paragraph 2 of the Model 1 agreement, the purpose of which was to exchange tax Information.
Saint Lucia has no regular military force. A Special Service Unit and the Coast Guard are both under the command of the Royal Saint Lucia Police.
In 2018, Saint Lucia signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The districts of the island, established by the French colonial government and continued by the British, are:
An additional area is the Forest Reserve Area Quarter (78.3 km²).
The United Nations categorizes Saint Lucia as a Small Island Developing State, a designation similar to a developing country with a few substantial differences due to Saint Lucia's island nature. The services sector accounted for 82.8% of GDP, followed by industry and agriculture at 14.2% and 2.9%, respectively.
An educated workforce and improvements in roads, communications, water supply, sewerage, and port facilities have attracted foreign investment in tourism and in petroleum storage and transshipment. However, with the US, Canada, and Europe in recession, tourism declined by double digits in early 2009. The recent change in the European Union import preference regime and the increased competition from Latin American bananas have made economic diversification increasingly important in Saint Lucia.
Saint Lucia has been able to attract foreign business and investment, especially in its offshore banking and tourism industries, which is Saint Lucia's main source of revenue. The manufacturing sector is the most diverse in the Eastern Caribbean area, and the government is trying to revitalise the banana industry. Despite negative growth in 2011, economic fundamentals remain solid, and GDP growth should recover in the future.
Inflation has been relatively low, averaging 5.5 percent between 2006 and 2008. Saint Lucia's currency is the East Caribbean Dollar (EC$), a regional currency shared among members of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECU). The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCL) issues the EC$, manages monetary policy, and regulates and supervises commercial banking activities in member countries. In 2003, the government began a comprehensive restructuring of the economy, including elimination of price controls and privatization of the state banana company.
Tourism is vital to Saint Lucia's economy. Its economic importance is expected to continue to increase as the market for bananas have become more competitive. Tourism tends to be more substantial during the dry season (January to April), often referred to as the tourist season. Saint Lucia tends to be popular due to its tropical weather and scenery and its numerous beaches and resorts.
Other tourist attractions include a drive-in volcano, Sulphur Springs (in Soufrière), zip lining in beautiful Sault Falls, Dennery, the Botanical Gardens, the Majestic twin Peaks "The Pitons", a world heritage site, the rain forests, several options of boat trips, Frigate Island Nature Reserve (Operated by the St. Lucia National Trust), Dennery, and Pigeon Island National Park, which is home to Fort Rodney, an old British military base.
The majority of tourists visit Saint Lucia as part of a cruise. Most of their time tends to be spent in Castries, although Soufriere, Marigot Bay, Rodney Bay and Gros Islet are popular locations to visit.
The current Minister of Tourism is Dominic Fedee, he has been in his role since 2016.
Saint Lucia reported a population of 165,595 in the 2010 national census. In , the United Nations Population Division estimated Saint Lucia's population at . The country's population is evenly divided between urban and rural areas, with more than a third living in the capital, Castries.
Despite a high emigration rate, the population is growing rapidly at about 1.2% per year. Migration from Saint Lucia is primarily to Anglophone countries, with the United Kingdom having almost 10,000 Saint Lucian-born citizens, and over 30,000 of Saint Lucian heritage. The second most popular destination for Saint Lucian émigrés is the United States, where a combined (foreign and national-born Saint Lucians) almost 14,000 reside. Canada is home to a few thousand Saint Lucians.
Saint Lucia's population is predominantly of African and mixed African-European-Carib descent, with a small Indo-Caribbean minority (3%). Members of other or unspecified ethnic groups, account for about 2% of the population.
The official language is English. Saint Lucian French Creole (Kwéyòl), which is colloquially referred to as "Patois" ("Patwa"), is spoken by 95% of the population. This Antillean Creole is used in literature and music, and is gaining official acknowledgement. As it developed during the early period of French colonisation, the creole is derived chiefly from French and West African languages, with some vocabulary from the Island Carib language and other sources. Antillean Creole is also spoken in Dominica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and (to a lesser extent) St. Vincent and Grenada; it also resembles the creoles spoken in French Guiana, Haiti, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Saint Lucia is a member of "La Francophonie".
About 61.5% of the population is Roman Catholic. Another 25.5% belong to Protestant denominations, (includes Seventh Day Adventist 10.4%, Pentecostal 8.9%, Baptist 2.2%, Anglican 1.6%, Church of God 1.5%, other Protestant 0.9%). Evangelicals comprise 2.3% of the population and 1.1% are Jehovah's Witnesses. In addition, about 1.9% of the population adheres to the Rastafari movement. Other religions include Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Judaism, and Buddhism.
"See Health in Saint Lucia"
In 2017, Saint Lucia recorded 60 homicides, the highest in the country's history.
The culture of Saint Lucia has been influenced by African, East Indian, French, and English heritage. One of the secondary languages is Saint Lucian French Creole or Kwéyòl, spoken by almost all of the population.
Saint Lucia boasts the second highest ratio of Nobel laureates produced with respect to the total population of any sovereign country in the world. Two winners have come from Saint Lucia: Sir Arthur Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979, and the poet Derek Walcott received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.
Saint Lucian cultural festivals include La Rose and La Marguerite, the first representing a native Saint Lucian fraternal society known as the Order of the Rose that is fashioned in the mould of Rosicrucianism, and the second representing its traditional rival, the native Saint Lucian equivalent of Freemasonry known as the Order of the Marguerite. References to their origins as versions of pre-existing external secret societies can be seen in a mural painted by Dunstan St Omer, depicting the holy trinity of Osiris, Horus, and Isis.
The biggest festival of the year is the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival. Held in early May at multiple venues throughout the island, it draws visitors and musicians from around the world. The grand finale or main stage is held at the Pigeon Island which is located to the North of the Island.
Traditionally in common with other Caribbean countries, Saint Lucia held a carnival before Lent. In 1999, the government moved Carnival to mid-July to avoid competing with the much larger Trinidad and Tobago carnival and so as to attract more overseas visitors.
In May 2009, Saint Lucians commemorated the 150th Anniversary of West Indian Heritage on the island.
The Windward Islands cricket team includes players from Saint Lucia and plays in the West Indies regional tournament. Daren Sammy became the first Saint Lucian to represent the West Indies on his debut in 2007, and since 2010 has captained the side. In an international career spanning 2003 to 2008, and including 41 ODIs and one Test, Nadine George MBE became the first woman to score a Test century for the team. Sammy and George were recognised by the Saint Lucian government as Sportsman of the Year and Sportswoman of the Year respectively for 2004.
For sailing enthusiasts, the annual Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) race begins in the Canary Islands and ends in Saint Lucia. The year 2015 marked the ARC's 30th year of existence. Every November, the race attracts over 200 boats and 1,200 people to sail across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
In 2019 a modern state of the art horse racing facility will open. One of the main contributors will be The China Horse Club, operators of race tracks in Asia.
Together with Caribbean music genres such as Calypso, Soca, Dancehall, Reggae, Compas, Zouk, and Salsa, Saint Lucia has a strong indigenous folk music tradition. Each May since 1991, Saint Lucia has hosted an internationally renowned Jazz Festival. In 2013, the festival was re-branded The Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival which encompassed culture, visual art, alternative music, education, fashion, and food.
Dancing in Saint Lucia is inspired by Caribbean culture and enjoys an active following. A popular folk dance is the "Kwadril".
Caribbean Cinemas operates in Saint Lucia. The cinema is located at Choc Estate in Castries.There is also an ATM, Domino's Pizza outlet, & a cafe near the Cinema.
Much of the scenery for the film "Dr. Dolittle" was shot in Saint Lucia in 1967. "Water" was shot on the island, as were parts of "Firepower".
The Education Act provides for free and compulsory education in Saint Lucia from the ages of 5 to 15. Public spending on education was at 5.8% among the 2002–2005 GDP.
Saint Lucia has a community college (Sir Arthur Lewis Community College), one university campus operated by the University of the West Indies Open Campus, and a few medical schools – American International Medical University, International American University − College of Medicine, Destiny University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and the oldest of which is Spartan Health Sciences University.
Monroe College, a private for-profit college and graduate school based in New York City, established a campus in Saint Lucia in 2007. Formerly based at Barnard Hill in Castries, the campus is now located at Vide Bouteille, Castries. The college was founded in 1933 and also has campuses in the Bronx and New Rochelle, with an extension site in Manhattan. The college is named after James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States. Monroe College is regionally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Saint Lucia's national dish is green figs and saltfish.
The island's cuisine is a unique blend of West African , European (mainly British and French) and East Indian cuisine; this creates dynamic meal dishes such as macaroni pie, Stew chicken, rice and peas, fish broth or fish water, and soups packed full with fresh locally produced vegetables. Typical essential foodstuffs are potatoes, onions, celery, thyme, coconut milk, the very hot scotch bonnet peppers, flour, and cornmeal. All mainstream meat and poultry are eaten in St. Lucia; meat and seafood are normally stewed and browned to create a rich gravy sometimes served over ground provisions or rice. The island is also home to the famous fried dough, known by many as a bake or Johnny Cake. These bakes can be served with different sides, such as saltfish which is either sautéed or lightly fried along with red, green peppers, onions, and seasoned well. This is the most common way for bake to be prepared, though it can also be served with meats such as stewed chicken or beef.
One popular Saint Lucian dessert is the pastry called a turnover. The pastry is made with sweetened coconut that is boiled with spices, some sugar, and whatever is satisfying. It is boiled until cooked to a light or dark brown colour; then the mixture is separated into various size portions placed on a rolled out piece of dough. The dough size may vary too depending on how much is desired, and lastly, it is baked in the oven until the colour of the turnover is nicely browned.
Due to Saint Lucia's Indo-Caribbean population, curry is very popular; however due to the blend of cooking styles, curry dishes have a distinct Caribbean twist. Roti is typically served as a fast food meal: the bread itself is very flat (sometimes very thin) and is wrapped around curried vegetables such as chickpeas and potato, seafood such as shrimp and conch, or meats such as chicken, beef, goat, and liver.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people living in Saint Lucia face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT members of the population. Saint Lucia prohibits male-on-male sexual activity, punishing those found guilty with 10 years in jail. Saint Lucia was also the only UN member in the Americas to formally oppose the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity.
A species of lizard, "Anolis luciae", is named for and is endemic to Saint Lucia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27208 |
History of Saint Lucia
The History of St Lucia refers to the history of this Caribbean island-state.
According to some, Saint Lucia was first inhabited sometime between 1000 and 500 BC by the Ciboney people, but there is not a lot of evidence of their presence on the island. The first proven inhabitants were the peaceful Arawaks, believed to have come from northern South America around 200-400 AD, as there are numerous archaeological sites on the island where specimens of the Arawaks' well-developed pottery have been found. There is evidence to suggest that these first inhabitants called the island "Iouanalao", which meant 'Land of the Iguanas', due to the island's high number of iguanas.
The more aggressive Caribs arrived around 800 AD, and seized control from the Arawaks by killing their men and assimilating the women into their own society. They called the island "Hewanarau", and later "Hewanorra" (Ioüanalao, or "there where iguanas are found"). This is the origin of the name of the Hewanorra International Airport in Vieux Fort. The Caribs had a complex society, with hereditary kings and shamans. Their war canoes could hold more than 100 men and were fast enough to catch a sailing ship. They were later feared by the invading Europeans for their ferocity in battle.
Christopher Columbus may have sighted the island during his fourth voyage in 1502, since he made landfall on Martinique, yet he does not mention the island in his log. Juan de la Cosa noted the island on his map of 1500, calling it "El Falcon", and another island to the south "Las Agujas". A Spanish Cedula from 1511 mentions the island within the Spanish domain, and a globe in the Vatican made in 1520, shows the island as "Sancta Lucia". A 1529 Spanish map shows "S. Luzia".
In the late 1550s the French pirate François le Clerc (known as "Jambe de Bois", due to his wooden leg) set up a camp on Pigeon Island, from where he attacked passing Spanish ships.
In 1605, an English vessel called the "Oliphe Blossome" was blown off-course on its way to Guyana, and the 67 colonists started a settlement on Saint Lucia, after initially being welcomed by the Carib chief Anthonie. By 26 Sept. 1605, only 19 survived, after continued attacks by the Carib chief Augraumart, so they fled the island.
English documents claim colonists from Bermuda settled the island in 1635, while a French letter of patent claims settlement on 8 March 1635 by a Monsieur Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, who was succeeded by his nephew Monsieur du Parquet. Thomas Warner sent Capt. Judlee with 300-400 Englishmen to establish a settlement at Praslin Bay but they were attacked over three weeks by Caribs, until the few remaining fled on 12 Oct. 1640. King Louis XIII of France ceded the island to the French West India Company in 1642. In 1650, Capt. du Parquet and Monsieur Houel bought the island, sending de Rousselan and 40 Frenchmen to establish a fort on the La Toc or Tapion headland. The French drove off an attempted English invasion in 1659, but allowed the Dutch to build a redoubt near Vieux Fort Bay in 1654. On 6 April 1663, the Caribs sold St. Lucia to Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, English governor of the Caribbean. He invaded the island with 1100 Englishmen and 600 Amerindians in 5 ships-of-war and 17 pirogues forcing the 14 French defenders to flee.
However, the English colony succumbed to disease. The French took over again, but the English came back in June 1664 and retained possession until 20 Oct. 1665 when diplomacy gave the island back to the French. The English invaded again in 1665, but disease, famine and the Caribs forced their fleeing in Jan. 1666. The Treaty of Breda (1667) gave control of the island back to the French. The English raided the island in 1686, but relinquished all claims in a 1687 treaty and the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick.
Both the British, with their headquarters in Barbados, and the French, centered on Martinique, found Saint Lucia attractive after the slave-based sugar industry developed in 1763, and during the 18th century the island changed ownership or was declared neutral territory a dozen times, although the French settlements remained and the island was a de facto a French colony well into the 18th century.
In 1722, the George I of Great Britain granted both Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent to John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu. He in turn appointed Nathaniel Uring, a merchant sea captain and adventurer, as deputy-governor. Uring went to the islands with a group of seven ships, and established settlement at Petit Carenage. Unable to get enough support from British warships, he and the new colonists were quickly run off by the French.
The 1730 census showed 463 occupants of the island, which included just 125 whites, 37 Caribs, 175 slaves, and the rest free blacks or mixed race. The French took control of the island in 1744, and by 1745, the island had a population of 3455, including 2573 slaves.
During the Seven Years' War Britain occupied Saint Lucia in 1762, but gave the island back at the Treaty of Paris on 10 February 1763. Britain occupied the island again in 1778 after the Grand Battle of Cul de Sac during the American Revolutionary War. British Admiral George Rodney then built Fort Rodney from 1779 to 1782.
By 1779, the island's population had increased to 19,230, which included 16,003 slaves working 44 sugar plantations. Yet, the Great Hurricane of 1780 killed about 800. By the time the island was restored to French rule in 1784, as a consequence of the Peace of Paris (1783), 300 plantations had been abandoned and some thousand maroons lived in the interior.
In Jan. 1791, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly sent four "Commissaries" to St. Lucia to spread the revolution philosophy. By August, slaves began to abandon their estates and Governor de Gimat fled. In Dec. 1792, Lt. Jean-Baptiste Raymond de Lacrosse arrived with revolutionary pamphlets, and the poor whites and free people of color began to arm themselves as "patriots". On 1 Feb. 1793, France declared war on England and Holland, and General Nicolas Xavier de Ricard took over as Governor. The National Convention abolished enslavement on 4 Feb. 1794, but St. Lucia fell to a British invasion led by Vice Admiral John Jervis on 1 April 1794. Morne Fortune became "Fort Charlotte". Soon, a patriot army of resistance, "L'Armee Francaise dans les Bois", began to fight back. Thus started the First Brigand War.
A short time later, the British invaded in response to the concerns of the wealthy plantation owners, who wanted to keep sugar production going. On 21 February 1795, a group of rebels, led by Victor Hugues, defeated a battalion of British troops. For the next four months, a group of recently freed slaves known as the Brigands forced out not only the British army, but every white slave-owner from the island (coloured slave owners were left alone, as in Haiti). The English were eventually defeated on June 19, and fled from the island. The Royalist planters fled with them, leaving the remaining Saint Lucians to enjoy “l’Année de la Liberté”, “a year of freedom from slavery…”. Gaspard Goyrand, a Frenchman who was Saint Lucia's Commissary later became Governor of Saint Lucia, and proclaimed the abolition of slavery. Goyrand brought the aristocratic planters to trial. Several lost their heads on the guillotine, which had been brought to Saint Lucia with the troops. He then proceeded to re-organize the island.
The British continued to harbor hopes of recapturing the island and in April 1796 Sir Ralph Abercrombie and his troops attempted to do so. Castries was burned as part of the conflict, and after approximately one month of bitter fighting the French surrendered at Morne Fortune on 25 May. General Moore was elevated to the position of Governor of Saint Lucia by Abercrombie and was left with 5,000 troops to complete the task of subduing the entire island.
British Brig. Gen. John Moore was appointed Military Governor on 25 May 1796, and engaged in the Second Brigand War. Some "Brigands" began to surrender in 1797, when promised they would not be returned to slavery. Final freedom and the end to hostilities came with Emancipation in 1838.
The 1802 Treaty of Amiens restored the island to French control, and Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery. The British regained the island in June 1803, when Commodore Samuel Hood defeated French Governor Brig. Gen. Antoine Noguès. The island was officially ceded to Britain in 1814.
Also in 1838, Saint Lucia was incorporated into the British Windward Islands administration, headquartered in Barbados. This lasted until 1885, when the capital was moved to Grenada.
During the Battle of the Caribbean, a German U-boat attacked and sank two British ships in Castries harbor on 9 March 1942.
Increasing self-government has marked St Lucia's 20th-century history. A 1924 constitution gave the island its first form of representative government, with a minority of elected members in the previously all-nominated legislative council. Universal adult suffrage was introduced in 1951, and elected members became a majority of the council. Ministerial government was introduced in 1956, and in 1958 St. Lucia joined the short-lived West Indies Federation, a semi-autonomous dependency of the United Kingdom. When the federation collapsed in 1962, following Jamaica's withdrawal, a smaller federation was briefly attempted. After the second failure, the United Kingdom and the six windward and leeward islands—Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis and Anguilla, and St. Lucia—developed a novel form of cooperation called associated statehood.
By 1957, bananas exceed sugar as the major export crop.
As an associated state of the United Kingdom from 1967 to 1979, St. Lucia had full responsibility for internal self-government but left its external affairs and defense responsibilities to the United Kingdom. This interim arrangement ended on February 22, 1979, when St. Lucia achieved full independence. St. Lucia continues to recognize Queen Elizabeth II as titular head of state and is an active member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The island continues to cooperate with its neighbors through the Caribbean community and common market (CARICOM), the East Caribbean Common Market (ECCM), and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27209 |
Geography of Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is one of many small land masses composing the insular group known as the Windward Islands. Unlike large limestone areas such as Florida, Cuba, and the Yucatan Peninsula, or the Bahamas, which is a small island group composed of coral and sand, St. Lucia is a typical Windward Island formation of volcanic rock that came into existence long after much of the region had already been formed.
St. Lucia's physical features are notable. Dominated by high peaks and rain forests in the interior, the island is known for the twin peaks of Gros Piton and Petit Piton on the southwestern coast, its soft sandy beaches, and its magnificent natural harbors. Mount Gimie, the highest peak, is located in the central mountain range and rises to above sea level, a contrast that is also evident in the abrupt climatic transition from coastal to inland areas. The steep terrain also accentuates the many rivers that flow from central St. Lucia to the Caribbean. Fertile land holdings, which support banana farming, are scattered throughout the island.
St. Lucia has a tropical, humid climate moderated by northeast trade winds that allow for pleasant year-round conditions. Mean annual temperatures range from to at sea level and drop to an average of in the mountain peaks. The abundant annual rainfall accumulates to approximately , with most precipitation occurring during the June to December wet season. Hurricanes are the most severe climatic disturbance in this area and have been known to cause extensive damage. Although St. Lucia has historically been spared from serious hurricane destruction, Hurricane Allen decimated the agricultural sector and claimed nine lives in 1980. More recently, in 2010, Hurricane Tomas claimed seven lives and also caused extensive agricultural damage, particularly to the island's burgeoning cocoa crop.
Coordinates:
Saint Lucia is in the Caribbean, an island between the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean, north of Saint Vincent and north-west of Barbados. The capital city of Saint Lucia is Castries, where about one third of the population lives. Major towns include Gros Islet, Soufrière and Vieux Fort.
Saint Lucia is in the tropical zone, although its climate is moderated by northeast trade winds. Since it is fairly close to the equator, and the surrounding sea surface temperature only fluctuates 3°C (25-28°C) the coastal air temperature does not fluctuate much between winter and summer. The dry season is from December to June, and the rainy season is from June to November. Average daytime temperatures are around , and average night time temperatures are around . Average annual rainfall ranges from on the coast to in the mountain rainforests.
Volcanic and mountainous with some broad, fertile valleys.
Forests, sandy beaches minerals (pumice), mineral springs, geothermal potential.
St Lucia has a number of small islands located around its coast; for a full list see "List of Caribbean islands#Saint Lucia"
The island of Saint Lucia is divided into 11 quarters:
Hurricanes and volcanic activity.
The island was severely affected by Hurricane Allen in 1980 and Hurricane Tomas in 2010, causing agricultural damage and a drop in visitor arrivals, but Saint Lucia has generally had fewer hurricanes than many other Caribbean islands, due to its southerly location. Hurricanes and volcanoes would both damage the coral.
Deforestation; soil erosion, particularly in the northern region.
"party to:"
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Whaling, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27210 |
Demographics of Saint Lucia
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Saint Lucia, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
According to the 2018 population census Saint Lucia has a population of 179,667.
The estimated population of is ().
The population is evenly divided between urban and rural areas, although the capital, Castries, contains more than one-third of the population.
Structure of the population (01.07.2009) (Estimates) :
Saint Lucia's population is predominantly African/black (141,216 in 2010; 85.3% of the total population) or of mixed African-European descent (17,965; 10.8%). 2.2% of the population is East Indian (3,575 residents in 2010) and 0.6% white (991).
Saint Lucia also has a small Amerindian (Carib) population. During the past decades the Amerindian (Carib) increased from 366 at the 1991 census (0.3% of the population), 803 at the 2001 census (0.5% of the population) to 951 in 2010 (0.6% of the population.
The remaining 0.5% of the population includes Chinese (0.1%) and people from the Middle East (0.1%).
The official language is English. Saint Lucian Creole French (Kwéyòl), which is colloquially referred to as "Patois" ("Patwa"), is spoken by 95% of the population. This Antillean Creole is used in literature and music, and is gaining official acknowledgement. As it developed during the early period of French colonisation, the Creole is derived chiefly from French and West African languages, with some vocabulary from Carib and other sources. Saint Lucia is a member of "La Francophonie".
According to the 2010 census, 90.2% percent of the population of Saint Lucia is considered Christian, 2.3% has a non-Christian religion and 5.9% has no religion or did not state a religion (1.4%).
Roughly two thirds of Christians are Roman Catholics (61.5% of the total population), a reflection of early French influence on the island, and 25.5% are Protestant. The Seventh-day Adventists constitute the largest Protestant group, with 10.4% of the population. Pentecostals are the second largest group (8.9%). The next largest group are Evangelicals (2.3% of the population), followed by Baptists (2.2%). Other Christians include Anglicanism (3.4%) and Jehovah's Witnesses (1.1%),
The number of non-Christians is small. These religious groups include the Rastafarian Movement (1.9% of the population), Hinduism (0.3%) and Muslims (0.1%). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27211 |
Economy of Saint Lucia
Once a single-crop agricultural economy, Saint Lucia has shifted to a tourism & banking serviced-based economy. Tourism, the island's biggest industry, main source of jobs & income and foreign-exchange, accounts for 65% of GDP. Agriculture, which was once the biggest industry, now contributes to less than 3% of GDP, but still accounts for 20% of jobs. The banana industry is now on a decline due to strong competition from low-cost Latin American producers and reduced European trade preferences, but the government has helped revitalize the industry, with 13,734 tonnes exported in 2018. Agricultural crops grown for export are bananas, mangoes and avocados. The island is considered to have the most diverse and well-developed manufacturing industry in the Eastern Caribbean.
Saint Lucia has been able to attract many foreign businesses and invest
The island's banana output was heavily impacted in 2007 by the passage of Hurricane Dean. In 2006 the Governor stated:
Agriculture is the second largest industry in Saint Lucia. In 2010, agriculture only contributed 3.1% to Saint Lucia's GDP, but still accounts for a significant number of jobs - some 20% of the population. As of the 2007 census, there were 10,000 agricultural holdings covering an area of 30,204 acres, an average of 3.2 acres per agricultural holding.
About 18% of the land is used for agricultural practices. Most farms consist of less than 5 acres of land. The main agricultural products grown in Saint Lucia are bananas, coconuts, cocoa beans, mangoes, avocados, vegetables, citrus fruits, and root crops such as yams and sweet potatoes. Most of these agricultural products are grown for local consumption, but bananas and coconuts are mainly grown for export, with some amounts of vegetables. Bananas occupy about 14,826 acres of the agricultural land while coconuts occupy 12,400 acres.
Saint Lucia has a small livestock sector which is dominated by poultry and pork. The island is self-sufficient in egg production and is trying to become self-sufficient in poultry and pork production. The Ministry of Agriculture is encouraging farmers to raise sheep and goats to reduce the island's importation of frozen meats, and has helped by providing support to farmers, importing bloodlines of livestock to increase the productivity of animals, and providing subsidies on animal feed.
Help is also being given to revitalize the local dairy and beef industries through the introduction of efficient cattle breeds, training of farmers to care properly for livestock, and establishing funds for the construction of dairy units and abattoirs.
The island currently attracts over 900,000 visitors annually. St Lucia has been able to attract foreign businesses and investment, especially in its offshore banking and tourism industries. Tourism is St Lucia's main source of jobs and income, accounting for 65 percent of GDP, and the island's main source of foreign exchange earnings. The northern end of St Lucia is tourism's most urbanized area, with a fair number of hotels, and resorts located along beaches, or, with seaside views. This is also home to many of the island's large all-inclusive resorts.
The level of island households living at or below the poverty level increased from 18.7 to 21.4 percent from 1995 to 2005. (As of 2006) another 16.2 percent of the island's population are vulnerable to economic shocks that could easily push them below the poverty line. One rural district had 44.9 percent of households living below the poverty line (2005).
In order to broaden the island's economic base, the government added small computer-driven information technology and financial services as development objectives.
St. Lucia's leading revenue producers—agriculture, tourism, and small-scale manufacturing—benefited from a focus on infrastructure improvements in roads, communications, water supply, sewerage, and port facilities. Foreign investors also have been attracted by the infrastructure improvements as well as by the educated and skilled work force and relatively stable political conditions. The largest investment is in a petroleum storage and transshipment terminal built by Hess Oil. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) funded an airport expansion project.
Until the events of 11 September 2001, the tourism sector had made significant gains, experiencing a boom despite some untimely and destructive hurricanes. Stay-over visitors and cruise arrivals declined in 2001 and several hotels declared bankruptcy, including the Hyatt. The development of the tourism sector remains a priority, and the government is committed to providing a favourable investment environment. Incentives are available for building and upgrading tourism facilities. There has been liberal use of public funds to improve the physical infrastructure of the island, and the government has made efforts to attract cultural and sporting events and develop historical sites.
St. Lucia's economy depends primarily on revenue from tourism and banana production, with some contribution from small-scale manufacturing. All sectors of the economy have benefited from infrastructure improvements in roads, communications, water supply, sewerage, and port facilities. These improvements, combined with a stable political environment and educated work force, have attracted foreign investors in several different sectors. Although St. Lucia enjoys a steady flow of investment in tourism, the single most significant foreign investment is Hess Oil's large petroleum storage and transshipment terminal. In addition, the Caribbean Development Bank funded an extensive airport expansion project.
Although banana revenues have helped fund the country's development since the 1960s, the industry is now in a terminal decline, due to reduced European Union trade preferences and competition from lower-cost Latin American banana producers. The country is encouraging farmers to plant crops such as cocoa, mangoes, and avocados to diversify its agricultural production and provide jobs for displaced banana workers.
Tourism recovered in 2004, following the post-11 September 2001 recession, and continued to grow in 2005, making up more than 48% of St. Lucia's GDP. The hotel and restaurant industry grew by 6.3% during 2005. Stay-over arrivals increased by 6.5%, and the United States remained the most important market, accounting for 35.4% of these arrivals. Yacht passengers rose by 21.9%. Redeployment of cruise ships, remedial berth construction, and high fuel costs prevented higher growth rates. However, several investors have planned new tourism projects for the island, including a large hotel and resort in the southern part of the island. The global recession has caused a reduction in tourist revenue and foreign investment, significantly slowing growth rates.
St. Lucia's currency is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar (EC$), a regional currency shared among members of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) issues the EC$, manages monetary policy, and regulates and supervises commercial banking activities in its member countries. The ECCB has kept the EC$ pegged at EC$2.7=U.S. $1.
St. Lucia is a beneficiary of the U.S. Caribbean Basin Initiative and is a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). The country hosts the executive secretariat of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
St. Lucia is a member of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) issues a common currency (the East Caribbean dollar) for all members of the ECCU. The ECCB also manages monetary policy and regulates and supervises commercial banking activities in its member countries.
St. Lucia is a beneficiary of the U.S. Caribbean Basin Initiative and is a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
St. Lucia is the headquarters of the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications (ESTEL) authority, which is developing the regulations to liberalize the telecommunications sector in the region by 2004.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $1,667 billion (2016 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 3.5% (2012 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $12,952 (2016 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:
Population below poverty line: NA%
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
"lowest 10%:"
NA%
"highest 10%:"
NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices): -0.934% (2016 est.)
Labour force: 50,300 (2011)
Labour force - by occupation:
Unemployment rate: 15% (2013 est.)
Pay:
best is $350 a week
Budget:
"revenues:"
$141.2 million
"expenditures:"
$146.7 million, including capital expenditures of $25.1 million (2000 estimate)
Industries:
clothing, assembly of electronic components, beverages, corrugated cardboard boxes, tourism, lime processing, coconut processing
Industrial production growth rate:
Electricity - production: 281 GWh (2003)
Electricity - production by source:
"fossil fuel:"
100%
"hydro:"
0%
"nuclear:"
0%
"other:"
0% (1998)
Electricity - consumption: 102 KWh (1998)
Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (1998)
Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (1998)
Agriculture - products:
bananas, coconuts, vegetables, citrus, root crops, cocoa
Exports: $82 million (2004)
Exports - commodities:
bananas 41%, clothing, cocoa, vegetables, fruits, coconut oil
Exports - partners:
France 25%, United States 18.3%, United Kingdom 14.5%, Brazil 6.8% (2005)
Imports:
$410 million (2004)
Imports - commodities:
food 23%, manufactured goods 21%, machinery and transportation equipment 19%, chemicals, fuels
Imports - partners:
United States 23.8%, Trinidad and Tobago 16%, Netherlands 11.1%, Venezuela 6.3%, Finland 6.2%, United Kingdom 5.7%, France 4.7% (2005)
Debt - external:
Economic aid - recipient: $51.8 million (1995)
Currency: 1 East Caribbean dollar (EC$) = 100 cents
Exchange rates: East Caribbean dollars (EC$) per US$1 – 2.7000 (fixed rate since 1976)
Fiscal year: 1 April – 31 March | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27213 |
Telecommunications in Saint Lucia
Communications in Saint Lucia
Telephones - main lines in use:
90,000
Telephones - mobile cellular:
100,000
Telephone system:
Saint Lucia is part of the North American Numbering Plan; its area code is 758.
Radio broadcast stations:
AM 2, FM 7 (plus 3 repeaters), shortwave 0 (1998), includes VQH-AM 660
Radios:
111,000 (1997)
Television broadcast stations:
3 (of which two are commercial stations and one is a community antenna television or CATV channel) (1997)
Televisions:
100,000 (2005)
Saint Lucia's country code top-level domain is .lc. Prior to the 21st century internet was available only by satellite. As of 2000, there were 5 Internet service providers serving the country. 90% of the city population has an internet connection but rural villages are only rarely connected. The internet is growing rapidly across the country however. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27214 |
Transport in Saint Lucia
Transport in Saint Lucia includes transportation to and from Saint Lucia, which is a sovereign island country located in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It also includes transportation from one part of the island to another.
Saint Lucia is served by two airports. Larger jets arrive at Hewanorra International Airport located in Vieux Fort, 40 miles South of Castries (which is the island's capital and largest city). Smaller inter-island planes land at George F.L. Charles Airport, just outside of Castries. Many major airlines serve Saint Lucia. Several smaller airlines fly to George F.L. Charles via neighbouring islands.
Cruise ships enter the main seaport at Castries, and dock at one of the facilities there. Fast and modern catamaran can be booked for travel to and from the islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Dominica. Yachts dock at various facilities in Castries, Marigot Bay, or Rodney Bay.
Saint Lucia's mini buses offer inexpensive transportation and run until approximately 10 pm (longer on Friday nights when the weekly "jump up" takes place at Gros Islet). All buses are registered with a green 'M' licence plate and labelled with a yellow sticker on the front of the vehicle, signifying their route.
Taxis are widely available at the airports and city centers. Fares are not metered, but rather fixed for each destination. Taxi drivers can confirm the cost and currency (EC$ or US$) of the fare before each trip is made. Taxi licence plates are red or blue, and begin with the letters TX.
Truckers are an integral part of the business of shipping especially heavy-duty truckers moving containerised cargo. Over the years this sector of business has grown significantly with a number of major companies competing for the business. Despite this competitive spirit they have been practical and wise enough to see the benefits of forming a Truckers Association, which was established some five years ago but is currently dormant.
Some of the issues being faced are the costs for operating the business are going up - including fuel, tyres, parts, labour, etc.
Among the issues are of concern, some of which require better recognition and involvement from the Transport Board are:
● Truck Driver Certification/ Licensing. At the current time there is no specific training tobqualify individuals to drive heavy duty vehicles in Saint Lucia. This could be rectified by establishing a driving school to certify truck drivers. "Right now, anyone can buy a truck and hire someone, with or without a truck driver's license, to join the trade and get into the trucking business. That's not right or fair." says Gregory Monplaisir, owner of Monplaisir Trucking.
● Road Repairs. Discussions with relevant departments regarding road repairs should take container trucks into consideration. Roads are being repaired and realigned, but in some cases they have now become too small for our larger trucks, forcing them to have to drive in the middle of the road, at great inconvenience to others, but necessary in the interest of customers' cargo, and the safety of drivers and pedestrians alike. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27215 |
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint Pierre and Miquelon, officially the Overseas Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (, ), is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France, situated in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the only part of New France that remains under French control, with an area of and a population of 6,008 at the March 2016 census.
The islands are situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near the entrance of Fortune Bay, which extends into the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. They are from the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland and from Brest, the nearest city in Metropolitan France.
is French for Saint Peter, the patron saint of fishermen.
The present name of was first noted in the form of "Micquelle" in the French Basque sailor Martin de Hoyarçabal's navigational pilot for Newfoundland. It has been claimed that the name "Miquelon" is a Basque form of Michael; "Mikel" and "Mikels" are usually named "Mikelon" in the Basque Country. Therefore, from "Mikelon" it may have been written in the French way with a "q" instead of a "k".
The Basque Country is divided between Spain and France, and most Basques live south of the border, so Miquelon may have been influenced by the Spanish name , an augmentative form of Miguel meaning "big Michael". The adjoined island's name of "Langlade" is said to be an adaptation of (Englishman's Island).
Archaeological evidence indicates that native peoples, such as the Beothuk, visited St Pierre and Miquelon; however, it is not thought that they settled on the islands permanently.
The Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes is thought to be have been the first European to have landed on the islands; he visited them on 21 October 1520 and named the St. Pierre island group the 'Eleven Thousand Virgins', as the day marked the feast day of St. Ursula and her virgin companions. They were made a French possession in 1536 by Jacques Cartier on behalf of the King of France. Though already frequented by Mi'kmaq people and Basque and Breton fishermen, the islands were not permanently settled until the end of the 17th century: four permanent inhabitants were counted in 1670, and 22 in 1691.
In 1670, during Jean Talon's tenure as Intendant of New France, a French officer annexed the islands when he found a dozen French fishermen camped there. The British Royal Navy soon began to harass the French settlers, pillaging their camps and ships. By the early 1700s, the islands were again uninhabited, and were ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713. The British renamed St Pierre to 'St Peter', and small numbers of British and American settlers began arriving.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which put an end to the Seven Years' War, France ceded all its North American possessions, but Saint-Pierre and Miquelon were returned to France. France also maintained fishing rights on the coasts of Newfoundland (French Shore).
With France being allied with the Americans during the American Revolutionary War, Britain invaded and razed the colony in 1778, sending the entire population of 2,000 back to France. In 1793 the British landed in Saint-Pierre and, the following year, expelled the French population, and tried to install British settlers. The British colony was in turn sacked by French troops in 1796. The Treaty of Amiens of 1802 returned the islands to France, but Britain reoccupied them when hostilities recommenced the next year.
The Treaty of Paris (1814) gave the islands back to France, though Britain occupied them yet again during the Hundred Days War. France then reclaimed the now uninhabited islands in which all structures and buildings had been destroyed or fallen into disrepair. The islands were resettled in 1816. The settlers were mostly Basques, Bretons and Normans, who were joined by various other peoples, particularly from the nearby island of Newfoundland. Only around the middle of the century did increased fishing bring a certain prosperity to the little colony.
In 1903 the colony toyed with the idea of joining the United States, but in the end nothing came of the idea. During the early 1910s the colony suffered severely as a result of unprofitable fisheries, and large numbers of its people emigrated to Nova Scotia and Quebec. The draft imposed on all male inhabitants of conscript age after the beginning of World War I crippled the fisheries, which could not be processed by the older men or the women and children. About 400 men from the colony served in the French military during World War I, 25% of whom died. The increase in the adoption of steam trawlers in the fisheries also contributed to the reduction in employment opportunities.
Smuggling had always been an important economic activity in the islands, but it became especially prominent in the 1920s with the institution of prohibition in the United States. In 1931 the archipelago was reported to have imported of whisky from Canada in 12 months, most of it to be smuggled into the United States. The end of prohibition in 1933 plunged the islands once more into economic depression.
During World War II, despite opposition from Canada, Britain, and the United States, Charles de Gaulle seized the archipelago from Vichy France, to which the local government had pledged its allegiance. In a referendum on December 26, 1941, the population endorsed the takeover by Free France by a vote of 63 for Free France with 3 ballots voided. After the 1958 French constitutional referendum, Saint Pierre and Miquelon was given the option of becoming fully integrated with France, becoming a self-governing state within the French Community, or preserving the status of overseas territory; it decided to remain a territory.
Since March 2003, Saint Pierre and Miquelon has been an overseas collectivity with a special status. The archipelago became an overseas territory in 1946, then an overseas department in 1976, before acquiring the status of territorial collectivity in 1985. The archipelago has two communes: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon-Langlade. A third commune, Isle-aux-Marins, existed until 1945, when it was absorbed by the municipality of Saint-Pierre. The inhabitants possess French citizenship and suffrage. Saint Pierre and Miquelon sends a senator and a deputy to the National Assembly of France in Paris and enjoys a degree of autonomy concerning taxes, customs, and excise.
France appoints the Prefect of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, who represents the national government in the territory. The Prefect is in charge of national interests, law enforcement, public order, and, under the conditions set by the statute of 1985, administrative control. Since January 2018, the current Prefect is Thierry Devimeux.
The local legislative body, the Territorial Council (), has 19 members: four councillors from Miquelon-Langlade and 15 from Saint-Pierre. The President of the Territorial Council is the head of a delegation of "France in the name of Saint Pierre and Miquelon" for international events such as the annual meetings of NAFO and ICCAT.
France is responsible for the defence of the islands. The has maintained a patrol boat, the , on the islands since 1997.
Law enforcement in Saint Pierre and Miquelon is the responsibility of a branch of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. There are two police stations in the archipelago.
France claimed a exclusive economic zone for Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and in August 1983 the naval ship "Lieutenant de vaisseau Le Hénaff" and the seismic ship "Lucien Beaufort" were sent to explore for oil in the disputed zone. In addition to the potential oil reserves, cod fishing rights on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland were at stake in the dispute. In the late 1980s, indications of declining fish stocks began to raise serious concern over the depletion of the fishery. In 1992, an arbitration panel awarded the islands an exclusive economic zone of to settle a longstanding territorial dispute with Canada, although it represents only 25% of what France had sought.
The 1992 decision fixed the maritime boundaries between Canada and the islands, but did not demarcate the continental shelf.
Located off the western end of the Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula, the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is composed of eight islands, totalling , of which only two are inhabited. The islands are bare and rocky, with steep coasts, and only a thin layer of peat to soften the hard landscape. The islands are geologically part of the northeastern end of the Appalachian Mountains along with Newfoundland.
, whose area is smaller, , is the most populous and the commercial and administrative center of the archipelago. Saint-Pierre Airport has been in operation since 1999 and is capable of accommodating long-haul flights from France.
, the largest island, is in fact composed of two islands; Miquelon Island (also called , ) is connected to Langlade Island (, ) by the "" (also known as the ), a long sandy tombolo. A storm had severed them in the 18th century, separating the two islands for several decades, before currents reconstructed the isthmus. , the highest point in the territory at 240m, is located on Grande Miquelon. The waters between Langlade and Saint-Pierre were called "the Mouth of Hell" () until about 1900, as more than 600 shipwrecks have been recorded in that point since 1800. In the north of Miquelon Island is the village of Miquelon-Langlade (710 inhabitants), while Langlade Island was almost deserted (only one inhabitant in the 1999 census).
A third, formerly inhabited island, , known as until 1931 and located a short distance from the port of Saint-Pierre, has been uninhabited since 1963. The other main islands are , and .
Seabirds are the most common fauna. Seals and other wildlife can be found in the Grand Barachois Lagoon of Miquelon. Every spring, whales migrating to Greenland are visible off the coasts of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. Trilobite fossils have been found on Langlade. The stone pillars off the island coasts called "L'anse aux Soldats" eroded away and disappeared in the 1970s. The rocky islands are barren, except for scrubby yews and junipers and thin volcanic soil. The forest cover of the hills, except in parts of Langlade, had been removed for fuel long ago.
In spite being located at a similar latitude to the Bay of Biscay, the archipelago is characterized by a cold borderline humid continental/subarctic climate, under the influence of polar air masses and the cold Labrador Current. The mild winters for being a subarctic climate also means it has influences of subpolar oceanic climate, thus being at the confluence of three climatic types. The February mean is just below the isotherm for that classification. Due to just three months being above 10 °C (50 °F) in mean temperatures and winter lows being so mild, Saint Pierre and Miquelon has a Köppen Climate Classification of "Dfc", if bordering on "Cfc" due to the mildness of the winter and either "Dfb" or "Cfb" due to the closeness of the fourth-and fifth-warmest months to having mean temperatures at or above 10 °C (50 °F).
Typical maritime seasonal lag is also strong with September being warmer than June and March being colder than December. The average temperature is , with a temperature range of between the warmest ( in August) and coldest months ( in February). Precipitation is abundant ( per year) and regular (146 days per year), falling as snow and rain. Because of its location at the confluence of the cold waters of the Labrador Current and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the archipelago is also crossed a hundred days a year by fog banks, mainly in June and July.
Two other climatic elements are remarkable: the extremely variable winds and haze during the spring to early summer.
The inhabitants have traditionally earned their livelihood by fishing and by servicing the fishing fleets operating off the coast of Newfoundland. The climate and the small amount of available land militate against activities such as farming and livestock raising (weather conditions are severe, confining the growing season to a few weeks, and the soil contains significant peat and clay and is largely infertile). Since 1992 the economy has been in steep decline, following the depletion of fish stocks due to overfishing, the limitation of fishing areas and the ban imposed on all cod fishing by the Canadian Government.
The rise in unemployment has been countered by state financial aid for the retraining of businesses and individuals. The construction of the airport in 1999 helped sustain activity in the construction industry and public works. Fish farming, crab fishing and agriculture are being developed to diversify the local economy. The future of Saint Pierre and Miquelon rests on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture. Explorations are under way to exploit deposits of oil and gas. Tourism relies on the proximity to Canada, while commerce and crafts make up the bulk of the business sector.
The labour market is characterised by high seasonality, due to climatic hazards. Traditionally, the inhabitants suspended all outdoor activities (construction, agriculture, etc.)
between December and April. In 1999 the unemployment rate was 12.8%, and a third of the employed worked in the public sector. The employment situation was worsened by the complete cessation of deep-sea fishing, the traditional occupation of the islanders, as the unemployment rate in 1990 was lower at 9.5%. The unemployment for 2010 shows a decrease from 2009, from 7.7% to 7.1%. Exports are very low (5.1% of GDP) while imports are significant (49.1% of GDP). About 70% of the islands' supplies are imported from Canada or from other parts of France via Nova Scotia.
The euro functions as the official currency of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. The Canadian dollar is also widely accepted and used, but change is usually given in euros. The "Institut d'émission des départements d'outre-mer" (IEDOM), the French public institution responsible for issuing currency in the overseas territories that use the euro on behalf of the Bank of France, has had an agency in Saint Pierre since 1978. The islands have issued their own stamps from 1885 to the present, except for a period between 1 April 1978 and 3 February 1986 when French stamps not specific to Saint Pierre and Miquelon were used.
The total population of the islands at the January 2016 census was 6,008, of which 5,412 lived in Saint-Pierre and 596 in Miquelon-Langlade. At the time of the 1999 census 76% of the population was born on the archipelago, while 16.1% were born in metropolitan France, a sharp increase from the 10.2% in 1990. In the same census, less than 1% of the population reported being a foreign national.
The archipelago has a high emigration rate, especially among young adults, who often leave for their studies without returning afterwards. Even at the time of the great prosperity of the cod fishery, the population growth had always been constrained by the geographic remoteness, harsh climate and infertile soils.
While some ruins show a presence of indigenous American people on the archipelago, it is unlikely that there were year-round settlements beyond occasional fishing and hunting expeditions. The current population is the result of inflows of settlers from the French ports, mostly Normans, Basques, Bretons and Saintongeais, and also from the historic area of Acadia in Canada (Gaspé Peninsula, parts of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton) as well as Francophones who settled on the Port au Port Peninsula on Newfoundland.
The inhabitants speak French; their customs and traditions are similar to the ones found in metropolitan France. The French spoken on the archipelago is closer to Metropolitan French than to Canadian French but maintains a number of unique features. Basque, formerly spoken in private settings by people of Basque ancestry, had disappeared from the islands by the late 1950s.
The population is overwhelmingly Christian, with the majority being Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of Iles Saint-Pierre and Miquelon used to manage the local church until it was merged into the French diocese of La Rochelle and Saintes in 2018.
Every summer there is a Basque Festival, which has demonstrations of "harrijasotzaile" (stone heaving), "aizkolari" (lumberjack skills), and Basque pelota. The local cuisine is mostly based on seafood such as lobster, snow crab, mussels, and especially cod.
Ice hockey is very popular in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, with local teams often competing in Newfoundland-based leagues. Several players from the islands have played on French and Canadian teams and even participated on France men's national ice hockey team in the Olympics.
Street names are not commonly used on the islands. Directions and locations are commonly given using nicknames and the names of nearby residents.
The only time the guillotine was used in North America was on Saint-Pierre in the late 19th century. Joseph Néel was convicted of killing Mr Coupard on Île aux Chiens on 30 December 1888, and subsequently executed by guillotine on 24 August 1889. The device had to be shipped from Martinique and it did not arrive in working order. It was very difficult to get anyone to perform the execution; finally a recent immigrant was coaxed into doing the job. This event was the inspiration for the 2000 film "The Widow of Saint-Pierre". The guillotine is now in a museum in Saint-Pierre.
For many years there was no direct air link between Saint Pierre and mainland France. Although the 1999 opening of the Saint-Pierre Airport was intended to overcome this problem, a direct air link was not established until Air Saint-Pierre announced it would conduct direct seasonal flights from Paris in the summer of 2018. Until then, all flights from and to Saint-Pierre passed through Canada. Air Saint-Pierre's ATR 42 aircraft flies seasonally from the Canadian airports of Sydney and Stephenville, and year-round from Halifax, Montreal, and St John's. A smaller airport on Miquelon provides inter-island flights.
Ferry services operated by SPM Ferries connect St Pierre with Miquelon and the Newfoundland town of Fortune. In the summer, additional services operate between St Pierre and Langlade and between Miquelon and Fortune. The ferries are capable of carrying up to 18 vehicles. However, continuing delays in building suitable port facilities in Fortune mean only foot passengers are transported between Fortune and St Pierre or Fortune and Miquelon.
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon have four radio stations; all stations operate on the FM band, with the last stations converted from the AM band in 2004. Three of the stations are on Saint-Pierre, two of which are owned by Outre-Mer 1ère, along with one 1ère station on Miquelon. At night, these stations broadcast France-Inter. The other station (Radio Atlantique) is an affiliate of Radio France Internationale. The nation is linked to North America and Europe by satellite communications for telephone and television service.
The department of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is served by three television stations: Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon 1ère (call letters FQN) on Channel 8, with a repeater on Channel 31, and France Ô on Channel 6. While Saint-Pierre and Miquelon use the French SECAM-K1 standard for television broadcasts, the local telecommunications provider (SPM Telecom) carries many North American television stations and cable channels, converted from North America's NTSC standard. In addition, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon 1ère is carried on Shaw Direct satellite and most digital cable services in Canada, converted to NTSC.
SPM Telecom is also the department's main Internet Service Provider, with its internet service being named "Cheznoo" (a play on Chez-Nous, French for "Our Place"). SPM Telecom also offers cellular phone and mobile phone service (for phones that adhere to the GSM standard). SPM Telecom uses the GSM 900 MHz band, which is different from the GSM 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands used in the rest of North America.
The islands are treated as a separate country-level entity among radio amateurs, identifiable with ITU prefix "FP". Visiting radio amateurs, mainly from the US, activate Saint-Pierre and Miquelon every year on amateur radio frequencies. The islands are well known among radio amateurs, who collect contacts with these stations for Islands on the Air and DX Century Club awards; the geographic location of Saint Pierre and Miquelon gives a very good takeoff for shortwave communication all over the world.
The archipelago has four primary schools (Saint Odile, Henriette Bonin, Feu Rouge, les Quatre-Temps), one middle school (Collège de Miquelon/College Saint-Christophe) with an annex in Miquelon, one state (government) high school (Lycée-collège d’Etat Emile Letournel) and one vocational high school.
The students who wish to further their studies after high school are granted access to scholarships to study overseas. Many students go to metropolitan France, although some go to Canada (mainly in Quebec and New Brunswick).
Saint Pierre's institute for higher learning is the Institut Frecker, which is associated with Memorial University of Newfoundland. Since 2000 Frecker had been operated by the Government of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, with support of the federal government of Canada and the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon's health care system is entirely public and free. In 1994 France and Canada signed an agreement allowing the residents of the archipelago to be treated in St. John's. In 2015 St-Pierre and Miquelon indicated that they would start looking for a new healthcare provider as recent rate increases by Eastern Health in Newfoundland were too expensive (increasing to $3.3 million in 2014 from $2.5 million in 2010). Currently Halifax, Nova Scotia and Moncton, New Brunswick have been mooted as possible locations. Since 1985 Hôpital François Dunan provides basic care and emergency care for residents of both islands. The island's first hospital was military in 1904 and became a civilian facility in 1905. L’Hôpital-Hospice-Orphelinat opened in 1937.
There are four fire stations in St Pierre and Miquelon:
While most apparatus are older second–hand units from North America, St Pierre acquired an aerial ladder from France in 2016. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27218 |
Geography of Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a French overseas collectivity in the Western Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere. It consists of an island archipelago, off the coast of Newfoundland, near North America. The collectivity shares a maritime boundary with Canada.
Saint Pierre and Miquelon is situated south of Newfoundland in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in the North Atlantic Ocean. Its distance north–south from Newfoundland is . The islands are even closer to the long Burin Peninsula, which is situated just to the east. In addition, Green Island, which belongs to Newfoundland, is located about halfway between the southern part of Miquelon-Langlade and Newfoundland at , only from both Langlade and St. Pierre.
Saint Pierre and Miquelon is an archipelago of eight islands, Saint-Pierre (25 km²) and Miquelon-Langlade (216 km²) being the major ones. Collectively the area of the islands is 242 km², which is about the size of Brooklyn in New York City. The total coastline is 120 km. The territory also include the surrounding fishing areas in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The island of Saint-Pierre is surrounded to the south-east by smaller dependencies, Petit Colombier, Île aux Marins, Île aux Pigeons and Île aux Vainqueurs, and Grand Colombier to the north. These islands have all been inhabited at one time or another. The settlement of Saint Pierre on Saint Pierre Island is the largest settlement in Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
St. Pierre is separated from Miquelon-Langlade by a strait with very fierce currents. Fishermen call this section of ocean "The Mouth of Hell". The waters around these islands are very treacherous, and there have been over 600 shipwrecks along the coasts of the islands. The terrain is also described as mostly barren rock.
The island(s) of Miquelon-Langlade consists of three formerly separate islands Miquelon (110 km²), Langlade (91 km²) and Le Cap.
In the 18th century, an isthmus of sand called La Dune was formed naturally between Miquelon and Langlade. The isthmus was reinforced by hand with sand and Quaternary deposits to what is now a sand dune. Along the isthmus, there are over 500 wrecked ships.
What was originally the "island" Miquelon is now also called "Grande Miquelon" while "Petite Miquelon" refers to Langlade. The settlement of Miquelon lies at the junction of the northwest corner of Miquelon Island and Le Cap.
The climate is very damp and windy and winters are harsh and long. The spring and early summer are foggy and cool. Late summer and early fall are sunny. Winds pick up during spring and autumn
Seals and other wildlife can be found in the Grand Barachois lagoon of Miquelon. Every spring, whales migrating to Greenland are visible off the coasts of Miquelon and St Pierre.
Trilobite fossils have been found on Langlade. There were a number of stone pillars off the island coasts called "L'anse aux Soldats" that have been eroded away and disappeared in the 1970s.
Maritime claims:
"exclusive economic zone:"
"territorial sea:"
Elevation extremes:
"lowest point:"
Atlantic Ocean 0 m
"highest point:"
Morne de la Grande Montagne 240 m
Natural resources:
fish, deepwater ports
Land use:
"arable land:"
13%
"permanent crops:"
0%
"permanent pastures:"
0%
"forests and woodland:"
4%
"other:"
83% (1993 est.)
Natural hazards:
persistent fog throughout the year can be a maritime hazard
Environment - current issues:
The fishing beds have been overfished, and may or may not recover.
Geography - note:
vegetation scanty | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27220 |
Demographics of Saint Pierre and Miquelon
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Structure of the population (2006-01-19, census):
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27221 |
Economy of Saint Pierre and Miquelon
The economy of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, due to the islands' location, has been dependent on fishing and servicing fishing fleets operating off the coast of Newfoundland. The economy has been declining, however, due to disputes with Canada over fishing quotas and a decline in the number of ships stopping at the islands. In 1992 an arbitration panel awarded the islands an exclusive economic zone of to settle a longstanding territorial dispute with Canada, although it represents only 25 percent of what France had sought. The islands are heavily subsidized by France, which benefits the standard of living. The government hopes an expansion of tourism will boost economic prospects, and test drilling for oil may pave the way development of the energy sector. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27223 |
Telecommunications in Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Telecommunications in Saint Pierre and Miquelon include telephone, radio, television, and internet usage.
Telephones - main lines in use:
4,800 (2002)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
0 (1994)
Telephone system:
"domestic:"
NA
"international:"
radiotelephone communication with most countries in the world; 1 earth station in French domestic satellite system
The Country calling code for Saint Pierre and Miquelon is 508.
Radio broadcast stations:
AM 0 (stopped broadcasting in 2004), FM 4, shortwave 0 (1998)
Out of the four radio stations in St. Pierre et Miquelon, three are on St. Pierre itself and one on Miquelon. Three of these stations belong to RFO - two on St. Pierre and one on Miquelon. In addition to broadcasting local and RFO programmes, these RFO stations broadcast the France-Inter radio service at night. The fourth radio station, Radio Atlantique, mostly relays Radio France Internationale.
Radios:
4,000 (1997)
Before digital terrestrial television, Réseau France Outre-mer (RFO) broadcast two TV channels, Télé St. Pierre et Miquelon and Tempo, using the SECAM-K1 colour system as designed for French overseas territories. In 2010, the national digital terrestrial television system began broadcasting its service to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, RFO having previously been merged into France Télévisions in 2005.
The local cable system, operated by SPM Telecom, also offers an array of broadcast and specialty channels from Canada and the US in SECAM, converted from NTSC.
Televisions:
4,000 (1997)
Internet service providers (ISPs):
Country code (Top level domain): .pm | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27224 |
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